The smile that spread across X’s face changed him from a run-of-the-mill lunatic into a cold-blooded killer. “You just bought yourself a world of trouble.”
She took another backward step, preferring her odds with his friends. They laughed but gave her space. Wolves around a wounded prey, they smelled blood and were eager for more. Except she wasn’t prey. She wasn’t a sheep.
She looked up at him, using her will to survive to steady her nerves. “You kill a police officer, they will hunt you down.” This much, she knew was true.
“I ain’t gonna kill you.” X moved his blade back and forth in slow figure eights, like a magician trying to hypnotize a volunteer. “You’ll just wish you were dead.”
The push from behind sent her stumbling headfirst into X’s embrace, a grip that held a knife. She scrambled desperately to right herself before she reached him.
The blade passed over her shoulder and down, this time slicing through her sports bra. She refused to register the hit. Fisting a hand over his shirtfront, she brought her knee up as fast and hard as she could.
She pushed herself away from him as he doubled over in pain, knife slashing out wildly. The momentum sent her sprawling. The air went out of her in a hard push. Her eyes filled with dust and began to tear even as she tried to get to her knees.
She didn’t know which of them heard it first. Engines gunning through the night, and then the bounce of headlights through the trees as vehicles tore up the gravel road toward them.
*
The blip on the GPS had stopped moving five minutes ago, just about the time Scott’s spit dried up.
He was in southern Montgomery County, in a parkland, if one could call the wooded stretch between the main road and the embankment of the Potomac River a park.
As he swung around a curve in the unpaved road, the woods opened up into a broad stretch of grass. His headlights lit up a van. Beyond it, in the vehicle’s headlights, he saw a figure slumped on the ground with the letters MCPD on her back. Three men surrounded her, one holding a knife.
Scott sprang from the truck, leaving the door open, weapon drawn. “DEA! Drop your weapons! And get down on your knees!”
“Fuck this!” One man broke and ran back toward the van. The second man hesitated only a few seconds more before heading off in the darkness toward the trees. Neither of them interested Scott. He concentrated on X.
X grabbed Cole by the back of her shirt and pulled her up against his chest. He held a knife, oily with blood, to her throat.
Scott could see she was bleeding from her nose and mouth, and there was blood on her shirtfront. He swallowed down his emotion. None of that was important until the scene was secured. He steadied his gun as he moved slowly forward. He might get only one shot off. “Let her go, X. You got what you wanted. I’m here.”
“Shit. You want me to do her first then deal with you? I’ll do it. I will do it.”
“I’m not going to give up my gun. You know why. You were Blue, too, Officer Harney.”
“Fuck you! I was SOG. And now Pagan. You weren’t ever one of us.”
Scott glanced back as the van spun out behind him. If he were going to be run over— No, flashing police lights were spinning through the trees. Sirens erupted, splitting the silence.
X swung Cole around, fisted one edge of her shirt and brought his knife up to within inches of her face. “Ever wonder why they call me X?”
The deep guttural barking of an enraged canine coming at him full force jerked his gaze from her face.
Cole ducked, screaming, “Hugo! Fass! Schnell!”
The force of Hugo’s attack knocked both of them off their feet. She heard X cry out as Hugo’s powerful jaws closed over his arm. She grabbed for his knife hand but he threw her off. And then the awful sound of Hugo yelping in pain.
The knife. Cole scrambled to her feet as Scott reached her. “Oh God. Hugo!”
X had regained his feet and sprinted toward his bike.
Scott lifted his weapon but Hugo had regained his footing and was tearing after the biker. He didn’t doubt Hugo’s ability to close the distance.
He looked down at Cole. “How badly are you hurt?”
She shook her head though her hand was clamped over her arm. “Help Hugo.”
“Stay here.” Scott took off on foot after man and dog.
X swung a leg over his bike and rolled the throttle. As he began to move Scott cursed. But Hugo moved into overdrive.
As X came around, intending to head for cover in the trees, Hugo launched his heavy black body at the driver. The weight and momentum dropped the bike.
Scott heard a scream as the bike came down on X’s leg and then another as Hugo clamped down on his arm, growling and tugging and swinging as he held on for all he was worth.
When he reached them Scott stepped on X’s knife hand and pointed his gun at his head. “Don’t give me a reason.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“He’s going to be fine. The knife just scraped along his ribs. His heavy coat probably confused his attacker. He missed the gut.”