Omega Dog by Tim Stevens

dropped off the fire escape.
    He reached her in four strides, grabbing her arm. She yelped and slapped at him with her other hand, trying to wrench her arm free.
    He held the Beretta down at his side, pointing away from her.
    ‘Try to stay calm,’ he said, in the low voice he’d used to defuse heated situations countless times before, both as a Marine and when he was a cop.
    From the way the woman flinched, Venn realized he must have spoken more loudly than he’d intended. Then he recognized the ringing in his ears, from the gunfire and the explosion of the car’s fuel tank.
    ‘Like I said before, I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. ‘Come on. We’re not out of danger.’
    She kept trying to pull away. Venn marched her forward, down the street. People were rushing in the opposite direction, along the sidewalk and the street itself, toward the source of all the heat and noise, their phones already out to capture the footage they’d try to sell to the networks, or just post up on YouTube.
    The woman staggered, and Venn caught her round the waist just before she slumped to the ground. He stared down at face. She was conscious, but her eyes looked vacant.
    ‘Try and stay on your feet,’ he said. ‘Try and keep moving.’
    They lurched on, looking like some grotesque parody of a drunken couple supporting one another after a hectic night out.
    Their progress was too slow, Venn decided. Looking around, he saw what he wanted.
    He steered Colby toward the curb. She appeared to think he wanted them to cross the road, and she stepped off the curb unsteadily.
    Instead, Venn took his hand out of the pocket of his leather coat where he’d been holding the Beretta. He reversed the gun so that the grip protruded from the top of his hand.
    With two sharp blows he smashed the window of the car he’d chosen, a dark-blue Ford Taurus. The alarm began whooping immediately, harsh even above the general hubbub. Despite her dulled state, the girl gasped at the sudden noise.
    Venn dragged the door open and shoved her inside. He moved swiftly round to the driver’s door, got in and tore the plastic panel from beneath the dashboard. Within seconds, the alarm stopped.
    It took him another twenty seconds to hotwire the ignition. The Ford rumbled into life.
    Venn glanced about him. People were running everywhere, their emotions whipped up by the scream of sirens that seemed to be descending from every direction. Nobody seemed to have noticed Venn busting into the car. Or if they had, they’d thought nothing of it, a disaster-scenario mentality beginning to set in where looting was considered commonplace.
    Just as he was pulling away, he saw two familiar faces appearing in the rearview mirror, bobbing above the crowd that surged in the opposite direction. A woman’s and a man’s.
    It was the two cops, the ones Colby had been riding with in the car.
    Had they spotted him? Venn didn’t know, and didn’t care to stick around and find out.
    He gunned the engine.

Chapter 23
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    V enn knew he’d have to return to the city before long.
    Right now, though, all he wanted to do was get the hell out.
    He drove hard, staying just within the speed limit so as not to attract attention, but swerving sharply whenever they approached what might turn out to be an obstruction of some kind. And there were surprisingly many of them, at after 3 AM on a Wednesday morning. Delivery trucks wheezing their way to markets and stores. Late partygoers finally heading home. Refuse trucks.
    Beside him, the woman sat staring dully straight ahead of her. Every now and again Venn glanced across at her. Her eyes were open, but she might as well have been asleep, for all she reacted to their surroundings.
    Venn didn’t know the city all that well yet. He hadn’t made a point of exploring it, and most of his experience of it was limited to the vicinity of Greenwich Village where he lived and mostly hung out.
    But he knew the exits, the freeways