A hot streak of pain shot up her leg.
She tried to pull away, but he shoved the blade in deeper. Using the scalpel to hold her in place and keep her from sliding backward, he drew himself closer.
No, no, you have to—
“Well.” With his free hand he flicked out a butterfly knife. “Let’s get started then.”
The slightest movement hurt viciously, so it wasn’t possible to twist away, but she had no choice. She knew that if he brought that second knife down, it would all be over.
She yanked hard, trying to pull her leg free from the scalpel, but the blade was in too deep. When she failed to free herself, Basque drew the butterfly knife back. “This might be a little uncomfortable at first. But by this time tomorrow, you won’t feel a thing.”
He swung his arm violently forward and stabbed the blade deep into her chest, directly into her right lung, then drew it out again.
Everything splintered apart inside of her. She gasped for air and did her best to concentrate on something, anything, to keep from passing out, but found it nearly impossible to catch her breath.
She knew enough about knife wounds to know that one this deep in her chest wasn’t going to give her much time.
The lung will collapse. The blood will fill it. Especially if you’re on the floor.
“I’m not going to lie to you.” His voice was calm and even, but his tongue snaked out of his mouth and tapped expectantly at the side of his lip. “What happens next isn’t going to feel very pleasant.”
He still held her in place securely with the scalpel, but as he leaned closer to gaze into her eyes, she brought her left leg up and scissored it down across his neck, trapping it between her thighs. She squeezed as hard as she could and tried to roll to break his neck, but he punched her near where he’d stabbed her and the pain devastated her, her grip evaporated, and he wrestled free.
However, her move had taken him by surprise and bought her enough time to twist away and roll toward the couch, the scalpel torquing painfully out of her leg as she did.
She climbed unevenly to her feet. Her injured leg felt weak and unsteady, but that wasn’t her biggest concern — it was the debilitating stab wound in her chest. She didn’t know how many seconds she had before she would pass out, but she guessed it wouldn’t be long at all.
She saw her phone on the kitchen counter. The battery beside it.
So, he’d found it after all.
They’re not coming. No one is coming.
Her chest wasn’t bleeding much externally, but every breath was a struggle. It would hurt too much to try jumping over her arms to bring her hands forward to fight him or defend herself.
But she could use her feet.
Basque was pushing himself to his hands and knees. The smear of emerging blood on his shirt told her where her bullet had hit him earlier.
All he has to do is wait for you to collapse. He doesn’t have to fight you, all he has to do is stop you from getting out the door. He’ll kill you, Lien-hua. And he will eat you.
After a fraction-of-a-second debate about whether to go for his gunshot wound or his head, she went for both and delivered a fierce double sidekick — one to his wounded side and one to his right temple, sending him crashing against the end table and overturning it next to the couch.
But she was weak, her balance was off, and she almost went down herself.
A deep dizziness began to envelop her.
Do not fall. If you go down it’s all over.
If you pass out, you die. It’s that simple.
She rushed for the front door and, hands still restrained behind her, turned her back to the doorknob to open it. As she did, Basque rose to his feet holding a Smith & Wesson Sigma that he seemed to produce from nowhere.
Door open, she swiveled backward into the hall as a bullet whizzed past her shoulder and blistered apart the wood across the hallway.
Do not pass out, Lien-hua. Do not fall down!
Her chest and thigh were screaming at her, but she ran as fast as she could for the stairs. Every step sent a fresh burst of pain through her leg, through her chest, but Basque must have made it to the hallway, because another bullet ricocheted off the wall beside her.
She arrived at the stairwell and saw that, fortunately, she was only on the second level. The exit door lay just one flight below her.
Awkwardly, she stumbled down the steps, lost her footing at the bottom, and went reeling against the wall. She coughed up a mouthful of foamy blood.
Behind her she could hear Basque pursuing her, his quick but uneven gait nearing the top of the stairs.
She lunged for the exit door, threw her hip against the pressure bar to open it, and found herself in an alley layered in deep, oppressive shadows.
She staggered toward the street.
Go, Lien-hua. Keep going. You can make it!
A car was rounding the corner in front of her.
Swarms of dark dots crossed her vision and she knew she was about to pass out. The driver wasn’t slowing down. She couldn’t use her hands to signal to him, and she was too weak to cry out for help.
If he passed her by she would collapse and it would be over. Basque would get her.
There was nothing left to do.
Except one thing.
She rushed toward the car, positioned herself directly in front of it, faced the driver, and time seemed to slow to a crawl.
She saw the reflected glimmer of the streetlights slide across the car’s roof.
Heard the squeal of brakes.
Felt the impact that sent her sliding up violently across the hood.
Then time caught up with itself and her shoulder smashed against the windshield, the world went whipping around her in a blur of colors and sounds and bright, consuming pain, and she rolled off the hood and slammed heavily onto the asphalt.
She was vaguely aware of a man approaching her and leaning over her.
And she was aware of spitting out blood and gasping. “Down the alley, second floor, room 212. Tell the police it’s…” She tried to say “Basque,” but nothing came out. The world became a vast, hungry darkness that swallowed everything around her.
And then Special Agent Lien-hua Jiang was aware of nothing at all.
4
I got the call when I was at home on my computer doing some research for my Monday-morning lecture at the Academy.
Lien-hua had been attacked, stabbed in the chest, hit by a car.
Even as I asked the question, I knew it was an absurd one: “Is she okay?”
Of course she wasn’t okay, but the words came out just like they do for so many people when they’re reeling from news that’s too devastating to process.
There was a pause that went on too long, then the officer on the other end of the line said quietly, “From what we know she’s in pretty rough shape, Agent Bowers. She’s in surgery now.”
Ice twisted around my heart.
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
“How long has she been in surgery?”
“From what I hear, a little over two hours.”
“What!”
“She didn’t have any ID on her, so they couldn’t identify her right away. There was a 911 call earlier that dispatch identified as coming from her phone. Eventually, that, taken with the inscription on her engagement ring, led us to you.”
I snatched my keys off the kitchen counter. “Where is she? Which hospital?”