rest. I’ve got to stop.”
“You’ll rest soon enough,” Byrnes promised. She led them right around a corner where the maze of alleys finally emptied into a dark back street. Blocking their way was a lone police car.
“Oh my God,” Steele moaned.
“Take it easy, Michael,” Kim soothed. “Here,” she said, handing him the bag of drugs. “Take this and run.”
“But I can’t take this!” he wailed. “What if they catch me?”
“They won’t catch you,” Byrnes vowed. “Just get some of your boys together and go to the hideout. We’ll meet you there later.”
“But Kim . . . ,” the SAFE leader whined, glancing with trepidation at the patrol car.
“Don’t worry,” she demanded. “We’ll delay the cops. You just get going. Hurry!”
Steele raced off in a panic, his strength and fiery leadership in the bag of powder he clasped in his sweaty hand.
“I swear,” the redhead said, looking at him go. “He’s nothing without you, is he?”
“Never mind that now,” the other female said. “Let’s just keep this pig from following him.”
“You lead the way,” the redhead said. “He’ll be more interested in you anyway.”
“No, no,” Kim disagreed. “You do the talking. I’ll just stay in the back, looking available.
The redhead giggled. “Good idea. I’ll give him the old ‘who, us?’ routine.”
Kim nodded and they both started moving forward.
As they approached, the redhead could see the silhouette of a man behind the driver’s seat in the light from the street beyond. As they got closer, he slowly opened the door and stepped out. He came to the front of the car as they got close enough to see him. He was fairly young looking—with brown hair and a mustache.
“Hello, officer,” the redhead said, coming close.
“What are you two doing out here so late at night?” the cop asked, his voice flat.
“Who us?” the redhead asked. Kim came up behind her companion and hit her as hard as she could on the top of the head with a piece of asphalt.
There was a sharp, wet thunk that filled the alley followed by the soft thud of the redhead collapsing to the ground. Byrnes fell on her knees beside the body and continued slamming the rock into the girl’s skull.
“Damn dike,” she hissed as the jagged piece of black stone rose and fell in her hands, its surface oozing a liquid red. “Motherfucking lesbo. I’ll show you. I’ll teach you a thing or two.”
“Come on,” shouted the man. “We don’t have time for this. Where are the others?”
But Byrnes continued oblivious. The force of her blows was so strong that the asphalt chunk was beginning to turn to powder in her hands. She reared up, with a maddened look in her eyes, and searched the alley until she found a section of board. She smashed that into the girl until, in her fury, she broke it against the ground.
“That’s enough,” the cop said, grabbing her arms. “We can’t take the chance of being seen.”
“What’s the matter?” Byrnes spat back, breathing heavily. “Pissed you can’t rape her like all the others?”
“She’s part of the plan, remember?” he answered sarcastically. “We’ve got to get her into place before the rest of the force shows up.”
“Don’t worry,” Byrnes said, moving back from the corpse. “I know just where we can put her where it’s guaranteed she’ll be found by morning.”
C H A P T E R
E i g h t
S o much for logic. Harry had been expecting to hit the far wall of an alley, but the toilet wall brought him up short. He saw another window, too small for him to break through, perpendicular to the larger window on the outside wall. It was just his luck that the building was L-shaped and not just square.
Now he was standing, stunned, in a bathroom, while the raging remnants of the SAFE guards picked their way around fallen comrades, tables, chairs in an assault on the john. The first one there was one of the unluckiest. He was a swift Adonis type, who had a
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