Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
And there it was: a baggie with a purple substance inside, the edge just tucked under the leg of the dead man with his back to her.
She leaned inside the tent, reaching for it, her fingers clasping the edge and beginning to pull it from under the man’s jean-clad calf, when he very suddenly turned. Lennon sucked in a breath of horror and jerked away. The unexpected movement, when she was already leaning over, caused her to lose her balance, and she plunged inside the tent, twisting away from the man she’d believed to be nothing more than a corpse even as he began to sit up and reach for her, eyes wild.
She barely heard the bus roar by down the street as she screamed, but only for a moment, as the man grabbed her before she could use her hands to brace her fall.
It all happened so fast.
His hands came around her throat, cutting off her scream as she tried desperately to reach her gun in the holster at her hip even while kicking and punching and fighting the man who had a death grip on her neck. The man was yelling something, his putrid breath in Lennon’s face, eyes bugged out. But Lennon couldn’t make out his words over the bus’s air suspension releasing as it stopped out on the street, just beyond where she was currently fighting for her life.
Adrenaline shot through her system, her inner alarm bells clashing and clanging. Her eyes felt like they were popping from their sockets as her lungs emptied, her vision going both bright and hazy. Her attacker let go with one hand, and she was able to draw in a trickle of air before he punched her in the face, once and then again, her head jerking backward against the hand still wrapped around her neck.
And then suddenly there was a hand on her back, and she was being hauled away from the man. But he didn’t let go, and so both of them came flying out of the tent, the man landing on Lennon on the sidewalk. The last bit of oxygen in her lungs puffed from her lips in a tiny bubble of air, and the world blinked out for a brief moment before light and sound once again flooded her senses.
She sucked in a giant breath, shaking and rolling away from the man who she realized was no longer on her, no longer crushing her neck in his palms. She heard someone grunting and the smack of fists on flesh, and she turned and pulled herself up, crab walking back and then leaping up and going for her gun.
Ambrose was straddling the man, who was still trying to fight, his arms and legs flailing as Ambrose punched him repeatedly in the face. Lennon removed her gun and aimed it at the man on the ground. “Stop fighting give up you’re under arrest.” God, what was she saying? Her voice was shaking so badly that her words were all strung together and barely intelligible.
Feet pounded on the sidewalk, and the two officers who’d been standing on the corner skidded to a stop, pointing their guns at the man just as he went limp.
Ambrose sat back, his shoulders rising and falling as he, too, caught his breath. He got off the man in one fluid movement, coming to his feet as the two officers moved in, cuffing the homeless man who once again appeared to be deceased but almost certainly was not.
“Are you okay?” Ambrose asked, his gaze moving over her body, down to her tennis-shoe-clad feet and back up again. “Lennon? Let’s go sit down. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
He put his hand on her wrist, and her gaze went there, the gun in her hands moving all over the place. He was right. She was shaking like a leaf. And if she’d have tried to shoot the man, she’d almost certainly have missed. Instead of attempting to reholster it, she allowed Ambrose to take it from her gently, and then she turned, taking the few steps to a concrete planter nearby that held a tree that was only branches, and sank down onto the edge.
The officers had turned the man over, and one of them was speaking into his radio. But Lennon couldn’t even begin to make sense of the words. The inside of her head sounded like she was in the eye of a raging storm.
Warm hands spread over her knees, and she looked down to see Ambrose squatted in front of her. “You’re all right,” he said. “You’re going to start shaking very badly now. You might feel dizzy. You’re fine. It’s normal, and it will pass.”
She gave a jerky nod. It was all she could do. Sirens were drawing closer; in a minute the cavalry would be here. “H-how are y-you here?” she asked, trying to move her locked jaw as best as she could and barely succeeding.