A body slams into me from the side. We hit concrete. My ribs scream. I drive my fist into a face, feel teeth cut my knuckles, roll hard and come up reaching for the gun I dropped.
Engines roar.
The van.
No.
I run through smoke blind, shoulder hitting a parked car, alarm shrieking alive around me.
“Lady!”
For one second the smoke thins.
I see her.
At the open side door of the van, two men dragging her in. Her curls wild. One earring gone. Blood at her lip. Fury on her face.
Not broken.
Never broken.
Her eyes lock on mine.
“Shady!”
I fire.
The bullet hits the van’s rear window and spiderwebs the glass.
Too late.
The door slams.
The van tears toward the exit, tires screaming. The sedan follows, dragging sparks from a busted rim. I chase on foot because instinct doesn’t care what’s possible. I run until the garage ramp spits sunlight in my face and the street opens in a roar of traffic.
The van cuts hard into Miami morning and disappears behind a bus painted with some smiling woman selling perfume.
Gone.
For half a second, the city goes silent.
Then everything crashes back.
Car horns. Sirens starting somewhere far off. A woman screaming from the sidewalk. My phone ringing on the garage floor behind me.
Blood runs down my side and drips off my fingers.
I turn slowly.
Cherry is on her knees near the elevator, sobbing with both hands over her mouth. The man with the broken wrist isunconscious. The Mutherfuker with the ruined knee is trying to crawl.
I walk to him.
He sees my face and stops moving.
Smart.
I crouch, grab his patch, and drag him close enough to smell the fear sweating out of him.