Disruptor (20 page)

Masha – hopefully – whispered from behind
another makeshift door covering. Between her accent and the
slurring of her words, Dani couldn’t make out what the girl said.
Whatever it was, she didn’t sound happy to be there.

Whoever was in the room with Masha replied
with a slap. Dani reached behind her back for the baton. The
curtain opened and a man, barely more than a boy, stepped out. His
shirt hung open and his pants were unzipped and hanging low enough
to reveal his flaccid penis. Dani flicked the baton, the steel rod
telescoping out to hit him in the genitals. He went down with a
shriek.

It made for a hell of a way to announce her
presence. She was really going to have to work on her anger
management issues.

Two Dogtowners came out of a room at the end
of the hall. They spotted her immediately and shouted a warning.
Dani yanked the curtain down and ran to Masha’s side. The girl was
near hysterics, babbling in Russian, tears running down her
face.

Dani lifted her ski mask. “It’s okay. I’m
gonna get you out of here.” She tried to take Masha’s hand but the
girl scrambled into a corner. “Sveta sent me. Sveta.” Dani worked
to put as much reassurance in her expression as possible. “I can
take you to Sveta, and safety.”

“Sveta?” Masha wiped at her tears, mouth
trembling. “You…you know Sveta?”

Dani opened her mouth to answer but she was
cut off by a fist in her back. She lurched forward, catching
herself before she fell onto the filthy cot. A footstep to her left
scraped the floor and she swung the baton in that direction.
Another satisfying scream of pain let her know she’d hit her
target. She pivoted on one heel and kicked out with the other leg,
her boot connecting with a face. A stream of blood arced through
the air.

“Come on!” Dani grabbed Masha’s arm and
pulled her from the room. The girl was unsteady on her feet,
definitely traumatized and possibly doped to the gills. She’d be no
use in the fight that was just moments away. “Keep close to the
wall and watch out.”

Music boomed from the center of the building,
the bass notes echoing and bouncing off the high walls and
ceilings. Dani twirled the steel baton and stretched her neck from
side to side. Adrenaline buzzed like a drug in her veins, seasoned
with a lot of rage and more than a little bloodlust.

Try not to kill anybody
, she thought.
Unless you don’t have a choice
.

In ones and twos and even threes, they broke
away from their party and rushed at her. She moved without thought,
powered by instinct and training. Being sober helped almost as much
as the enhancements. Not that she didn’t take any hits – she’d ache
all over tomorrow. But right now, tonight, she was a creature of
righteous fury rather than flesh. She cut a swath through the
Dogtown crew like they were made of butter, pushing closer and
closer to the open loading dock. One eye on Masha most of the time,
occasionally having to drag the girl.

Some part of Dani knew she was slipping in
and out, not quite dissociating but almost. Splitting. In one
moment, fully aware of where she was and what she was doing. The
next, a black empty nothing. As long as she didn’t stop moving,
neither side of that split could take hold and drag her down. If
she kept moving, kept fighting, she could get the girl to
safety.

If she never stopped running, she might
outrun the echo of Molly’s screams.

Jagged shouts in a mix of English and Russian
broke through the haze. Dani bent her knees and swiveled, using the
baton to trip someone and following up with two quick blows. Masha
stood at the door to the loading dock, the wind tangling her hair.
A man stood next to her, his hand wrapped in a bruising grip around
the girl’s slim upper arm.

Don’t leave me.

Bessonov.

Don’t you leave me with him!

Masha’s face became Molly’s. A fist caught
Dani on the side of the head and she went down. Feet kicked at her.
She swept out the baton to trip as many of them as possible.

Don’t leave me
.

Somehow Dani got back up. Knife in hand, skin
wet with blood. She stared as a thick red drop fell from the point
of the blade. Her hand opened of its own volition, the knife
clattering to the ground.

“You are a fearsome ghost.”

She looked up to see Bessonov grinning. “I’m
not a ghost.”

“Then what are you?” So amused, like it was
the cleverest joke he’d heard all day.

Dani struggled to bring herself fully into
the moment, grabbing onto tiny details as fast as she could.

Stinks like cheap booze and pot.

Headlights outside, a black SUV parked near
the barrel fire.

Music still on.

Dogtowners backed up like they’re gonna
watch a show. Like they know Bessonov and maybe they’re afraid of
him.

Every part of her body hurt. Good. It would
help keep her aware. She took two steps forward and slipped her
hand into her pocket. “Let her go.” She fumbled to send a text to
Kevin, trying to keep the movement of her fingers
inconspicuous.

Bessonov chuckled. “You know I won’t. She’s
an investment.”

“She’s a person.” The baton was gone, lost
somewhere in the melee. The blood-covered knife on the floor behind
her. All she had left was the pepper spray in her back pocket.

The Russian laughed. “She is property.”

How could someone so evil have such a normal
laugh? Everything about him seemed banal. Utterly unremarkable.
Maybe violence was how he left his mark on the world.

Dani pushed down a swell of nausea. “You’re
nothing but a lowlife thug, owned by the same people.”

The grin disappeared, the lines of his face
hardening into a mask of hatred. “You killed friends of mine.”

She tried not to flinch. “I’ll kill you too,
if I have to. Now let her go. Last chance.”

“Tell you what. One bitch is as good as
another. You take her place, I let her go.”

If she could take him down fast, she wouldn’t
have to worry about him having a stun gun or any other weapons.
Fast, hard, broken bones but still breathing. She could do it.

“I’ll do it.” She raised her hands in
surrender and eased closer. “Just let her go.”

Bessonov shrugged. “Okay.” He pulled a gun
from behind his back and shot Masha in the head. Blood sprayed in
thick spatters and her body dropped with a thud.

Dani screamed as she lunged at Bessonov. A
kick sent the gun flying and bent his hand back at the wrist far
enough to make him stumble. She pressed the advantage, raining
blows on any and every part of him she could connect her fists and
feet to. His nose crumpled with a sickening crunch from another
kick. He fell backward onto the pavement of the loading dock. She
dropped her knees onto his chest and used her weight to hold him
down while she hit him. Over and over. Until her knuckles were
numb. Until it was impossible to tell her blood from his. Until the
flashes of black lasted just a few seconds longer, and then a few
more.

Until her head split open, cleaved in two by
electricity overloading her neural interface. She screamed her
throat raw, scrambling to get away from the stun gun he’d produced
during one of those moments she’d spent lost in the black. Bessonov
chased her, albeit slowly, and hit her with the stun gun again. Her
muscles contracted and locked and refused to work.

Another jolt, then another. He paid her back
for every kick and punch, with interest. Her night vision flared a
painfully bright green then winked out. She screamed again and
managed to flip herself over by sheer force of will. Bessonov
grabbed her shoulder and pinned her down, then held the stun gun
against the middle of her back.

The electric shock screwed up her cochlear
implant, causing painful spikes of shrill feedback. The interface
crashed, creating stabbing sensations in her head. If she didn’t
get away from him, she was going to have a stroke. She patted the
ground around her in a vain search for something to use for a
weapon. Nothing.

Bessonov turned her over. He slapped her,
cursing in Russian. “I was going to kill you myself, but I think
I’ll let my friends here take care of you. It’ll take longer.
There’s a lot of them.”

Something dug into her backside and she
remembered the pepper spray in her back pocket. She inched her
fingers underneath her body and worked the cylinder free.

“Just fucking die, you piece of shit.”
Weakly, she raised the pepper spray as high as she could and fired
the liquid into his face. It caught him in the eyes, his stupid
mouth hanging open, and all the open cuts and scrapes she’d given
him. She mashed the button down until he ran away, covering his
face and screaming.

Dani rolled to her side and began the arduous
process of getting to her feet. Some of the Dogtown crew stepped
out of the shadows. She could tell from their faces, no matter how
they really felt about Bessonov, they weren’t going to let her walk
out of their territory alive. She had no more fight left in her.
She looked down at Masha’s body, only it wasn’t just Masha she
saw.

Flickering headlights and the predatory growl
of a stupid fast car pulled her attention from the ground. Shouts
as people ran and dove out of the way. The car came to a hard stop
ten feet from Dani. She forced herself forward and practically fell
into the vehicle.

Kevin said, “Where’s the girl?”

Dani shook her head. “Go.” She huddled in the
seat, close to passing out.

Mercifully, Kevin said nothing. Just drove,
and when he could he rested one hand on her shoulder. The gentle
touch was better than anything he could have said.

The streetlights blurred and ran together.
Her neural interface continued its attempt to jackhammer her brain
into mush. Every inch of her body burned with pain. Blood flowed
from her nose in two thin, steady lines. She tilted her head back
and closed her eyes to try to shut it all out. It even worked a
little, mostly because Molly’s face – young and scared and begging
not to be left behind – eclipsed everything.

Kevin placed his sketchpad and pencil on the
floor then flexed his stiff hand. The clock on the nightstand said
twenty minutes to four, in the morning. She’d been down for over
twenty-four hours. He’d slept some fitfully in the middle of the
day. Mostly he’d watched over her, arguing with himself about
whether or not to break his promise and call a doctor. Once she
stopped tossing and turning so much and fell into a deeper sleep,
he’d relaxed somewhat and started sketching. Every image of her
face was shadowed with bruises. Just looking at her red and
tattered knuckles made his own hands hurt. He hadn’t meant to draw
her hands but when she lay with them on top of the covers, he’d
stared until he had to exorcise the image by drawing it. So much
power there, and so much damage.

Dani stirred in her sleep, whispering the
same name that had slipped out a few times earlier. He abandoned
his chair by the window and eased onto the edge of the bed.
Smoothed her hair from her brow then adjusted the duvet. Her
breathing quickened and her legs moved restlessly under the covers.
Whatever bad dream she was having, he decided to wake her up now
before it turned into a full blown nightmare. He shook her gently
and spoke her name.

She sat up so fast he had to scoot out of the
way or they would have knocked heads. She stared at him, unseeing,
for a long moment, then sat back against the pillows. “Everything
hurts.”

He grabbed a water bottle from the
nightstand. “Drink a little. It’ll help.” Once she took the bottle
he reached for the first aid kit on the floor and found the bottle
of leftover prescription pain pills he’d shared with her earlier.
“It’s been long enough, you can take another one of these.”

She drank half the bottle before answering.
“I don’t want it.”

He placed a single pill in his palm and held
it out. Didn’t say a word. Just looked at her.

She relented. “Okay, fine.” Pill swallowed,
she drank the rest of the water in silence.

He moved to sit next to her. “There’s nothing
in the news about it.”

“Why would there be? Unless her body turns
up.”

“What happened?” She’d been far too out of it
to talk after he’d picked her up.

“The Russian’s name is Ilya Bessonov.” She
screwed the cap back on the plastic bottle. “He was there. He shot
her.”

Kevin drew in a ragged breath. He’d figured
the girl was dead. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“How did you wind up in such bad shape?”

She shrugged, the movement followed by a
wince. “I had to go through a lot of bad guys to get her through
the building. Bessonov was at the loading bay door.”

Where he’d picked her up. “What happened to
him?”

“I tried my damnedest to beat the hell out of
him. He had his stun gun, so it didn’t…it didn’t go my way. I
managed to nail him pretty good with the pepper spray, though.” She
climbed out of bed, moving like an old boxer after way too many
knockouts.

“You sound pretty nonchalant about the whole
thing.”

“So? You think I should sound some other
way?” She stretched her arms over her head, the hem of her tank top
riding up to show a slice of skin above her sleep shorts. The right
side was mottled with bruising. “It didn’t work out, and now I’m
done.”

Kevin pushed his glasses up and bit back a
sarcastic response. “It was a terrible night, I know. That doesn’t
mean you give up.”

Dani walked slowly toward the bathroom. “It
was a rough night for me. Masha’s the one who had the terrible
night. Is my ID in yet?”

Jesus, she was really fucked up. It was one
thing to be so defensive, try to put up a front about how she felt,
but leaving town? The bad thing was, her ID was in, sitting in an
envelope downstairs on his desk. It had been delivered that
morning. He didn’t want her to leave, didn’t think she really
wanted to give up on finding that last girl, but he didn’t want to
lie to Dani, either.