Now he was pissed. Pissed and scared. Sent to a vacant lot in the dead of fucking night. Fuck that. Fuck Lenny Lowell. He could take his package and shove it up his ass.
Jace stood on his pedals and started to go.
The car lurched forward, engine roaring like a charging beast as it made straight for him.
For a split second it seemed Jace didn't—couldn't—move. Then he was going, legs pumping like pistons, the bike's tires slipping on the wet street. If he ran straightaway, the car would be on him like a cat on a mouse. He turned hard left instead. The bike's back end skated sideways on the slick pavement. He stuck a foot down to keep from falling, pulled the bike back under himself. Then he was charging the car.
Heart in his throat, he juked right, nearly too late, jumped the curb back into the vacant lot, shooting past the car—big, dark, domestic. He heard the grind of metal on pavement as the car went off the curb and bottomed out. Tires squealed on the wet street as it swung a wide, awkward, skidding turn.
Jace made for the alley as hard as he could go, praying it wouldn't dead-end. In the heart of downtown he was like a street rat that knew every sewer pipe, every Dumpster, every crack in a wall that could offer a shortcut, escape, shelter, hiding place. Here he was vulnerable, a rabbit caught in the open. Prey.
The car was coming after him. The predator. The headlights bucked up and down in the gloom as the car banged back up over the curb.
Jace had had cars come after him in traffic—kids screwing around, men with rage disorders pissed off that he had cut in front of them or skitched a ride up a hill or knocked a side mirror. Assholes trying to make a point, trying to give him a scare. He had never been set up. He had never been hunted.
If he could get to the end of the alley before the car turned down the alley and spotlit him, he had a fifty-fifty shot at ditching them. The end of the alley looked nine miles away.
And it was already too late.
The high beams slapped at his back like a paw reaching out to tag him. The car came, as loud as a train, sending trash cans scattering like bowling pins.
Shit shit shit.
His luck was running out faster than the alley was. He couldn't outrun the car. He couldn't turn and ditch the car. To his left: buildings shoulder to shoulder, backed with Dumpsters and boxes and discarded junk—an obstacle course. To his right: a chain-link fence crowned with razor wire. On his ass: the angel of death.
Jace reached back with one hand and jerked his U-lock out of his messenger bag. The bumper kissed his back tire. The bike jerked. He nearly came off, nearly fell onto the hood of the car. Moving as close as he could against the fence, Jace touched his brakes, dropped just behind the predator's bumper.
Jace swung the heavy U-lock left-handed into the windshield. A spiderweb of cracks exploded across the span of glass. The car swerved into him, drove him sideways into the fence. Jace hurled the lock at the car, turned, and grabbed hold of the chain-link fence with both hands, hanging on hard as the bike was yanked out from under him. The toe of his right shoe got hung up in the pedal clip and his body jerked wildly sideways as the car pushed the bike forward.
The fence bit into his fingers as the bike tried to drag him. It felt like his arms were being torn out of their sockets, that his foot was being wrenched off at the ankle—then suddenly he was free and falling.
He landed on his back on the cracked asphalt, rolled, and scrambled up onto his knees, his eyes on the car as his bike went under the back tire and died a terrible death.
His only transportation. His livelihood. Gone.
He was on his own. On foot. And one foot was missing a shoe. Pain burned through his wrenched ankle as Jace pushed himself to his feet and ran for the buildings before the car could come to a complete stop.
The voice of his survival instinct screamed through his brain. Go go go!!!
He was young, he was fast, he was highly motivated. He set his sights on a half wall blocking the space between two buildings. He would hit it running, vault over the side, and be gone. Bum ankle or no, he could damn well outrun the asshole driving that car.
But he couldn't outrun a bullet.
The shot hit the Dumpster a foot to Jace's left almost simultaneously as he heard the report.
Fuck!
He had to get over that wall. He had to get over it. Get over it and run like hell.
Footfalls were coming hard behind him.
The second shot went wide right and hit a Dumpster.
A man shouted, “Fuck!”
Too close. Too close.
Footfalls coming hard behind him.
Jace launched himself at the wall and was summarily yanked backward as his pursuer grabbed hold of the messenger bag he wore strapped across his back.
He fell back into the man, and momentum carried them both backward, their feet tangling. The predator's body cushioned the fall as they went down. Jace scrambled to get his feet under him, to wriggle away. Predator hung tight to the messenger bag.
“Fucking little shit!”
Jace swung an elbow back, connected hard with some part of the guy's face. A bone cracked nearly as loudly as the gunshot had, and for a split second the bastard's hold let loose and he cursed a blue streak. Jace ducked down and twisted out of the bag's strap and lunged again toward the wall.
Predator grabbed hold of the back of Jace's rain slicker with one hand and swung at him with the other. The Dollar Store rain poncho tore away like wet tissue. The butt of the gun glanced off the back of Jace's helmet. Stars burst bright before his eyes, but he kept moving.
Over the wall! Over the wall!
He hit it running, scrambled up and over, and tumbled ass over teakettle as he landed, rolling through mud and muck and garbage and water.
The canyon between the buildings was pitch black, the only light at the end of the tunnel the dim silver glow of a distant sodium vapor lamp. He ran toward it, never expecting to reach it, expecting to feel the thump and burn of a bullet passing through his back, tearing through his body, ripping apart organs and blood vessels. He would probably be dead before he hit the ground.
But still he ran.
The bullet didn't come.
He broke out of the alley, turned left, and raced along the fronts of the dark buildings, jumping shrubbery and low walls of tired landscaping. As he landed on the other side of a row of scrubby juniper bushes, the bad ankle buckled beneath him and he fell, gravel tearing at his hands as he tried to break the impact. He expected footfalls coming behind him, another shot aimed at his back, but no one was coming yet.
Panting, dizzy, Jace struggled once again to his feet and stumbled forward. At the next break between buildings, he ducked back into the cover of darkness to hide like a wounded animal. Halfway down the side of the building he stopped and fell against the rough concrete wall, wanting to puke, afraid the sound would draw his predator and get him killed.
Doubled over, he cupped his hands over his mouth and tried to slow his breathing. His heart felt like it would burst through his chest wall and flop out onto the ground, bouncing and twitching like a beached fish. His head was spinning. His brain felt like it was swirling around in a toilet bowl, ready to be sucked down the drain.
Oh God. Oh my God.
The God he didn't believe in.
Someone's trying to kill me.
Jesus H.
He was shaking violently, suddenly cold, suddenly aware of the winter rain pouring down on him, soaking his clothes. Pain throbbed and burned in his ankle. A sharper pain pierced his foot. He felt along the bottom of his wet sock and pulled out a sliver of broken glass. He sank down into a squat, hugged his arms around his legs as he leaned against the wall.