“Past is past.…”
She took off the rest of her clothes and filled the tub. She was hiding the truth, yes, but there were reasons. That should make her feel better, but reason was just a word.
Like family was a word.
Or faith or law or justice.
She slipped into the tub because hot water seemed to help. It warmed her through and made her weightless. Water was good like that, but it was water’s nature to rise and fall and rise again; that was its purpose, so that when she closed her eyes, the world fell away, and she felt it again: the basement around her, like fingers on her throat.
*
The man was choking her, one arm locked around her neck, his hand tight on her wrist, smashing her gun hand into the wall. Channing was a doll on the floor, screaming as the gun struck concrete three times, four times, then skittered into the dark.
Elizabeth felt the gun go, tried to turn.
Who was he?
Who the fuck…?
She could tell he was massive and unwashed, but that was it. He was an arm around her neck, a scrape of whiskers as he squeezed harder and blackness crowded in. She kicked down, looking for the instep, the shin. She flung her head back, but the contact was small and weak.
“Shh…”
Breath found her ear, but she was fading. No blood getting through. Eyes tight.
She clawed at his arms, and in the dark there was movement. The second man, broad and hunched. Channing saw him, too, her heels scrabbling in the grime, her back finding the wall.
Channing …
No sound came out. Elizabeth saw her own hand outstretched, the fingers doubling as her vision blurred.
Channing …
The second man snaked big fingers into the girl’s hair, dragged her across the floor and into the dimness of another room.
Where was the gun?
Elizabeth was forced to her knees, saw high-top sneakers and grimy jeans, the place her fingers smeared mold on the floor. His weight settled on her back, pushing her forward, pushing her down. Whiskers ground into her neck, and the same breath licked her ear.
“Shhhh…”
It was longer that time.
Then fading.
Then blackness.
*
In judo, it was called a blood choke or a carotid restraint or a sleeper hold. Cops called it a lateral vascular neck restraint. The name didn’t matter. The purpose and function did. Simultaneous compression of the carotid and the jugular could render an adult unconscious in seconds. Do it right, and it didn’t take much strength. Do it wrong and it fails or somebody ends up dead. It’s not like the movies. You have to know what you’re doing to do it right.
Titus Monroe knew what he was doing.
Elizabeth played it over for the millionth time: how it started and ended, the minutes in between. Channing was off the mattress, and they were backing out of the room, the girl’s hand hot and wet and twisted into Elizabeth’s own. Elizabeth kept her gun trained deeper into the basement. She would shoot if necessary, but the door was empty, the basement quiet behind them. They managed three steps before the girl stumbled and went down, but that was okay. Elizabeth’s gun was up, and the last hall was ten feet away. There were some closed doors, some stairs; but they were going to make it.
Elizabeth never heard the door open behind her, never heard him at all; she felt the rush of his arm around her neck, his fingers on her wrist. She felt him and fought and failed, went down into the black, and woke wired to a mattress with her clothes stripped off and her mouth clamped shut. His tongue moved on her ear, her neck; and she fought like an animal would fight, screamed behind his sweaty hand as a red candle burned and his fingers moved across her skin. He was going to rape her, maybe kill her. But even as she fought, she felt as if she were falling, his rough touch fading, the candlelight winking twice, then gone. She heard a voice that was her own, but younger.
Not again, not again …
The fall could have taken her all the way down, so deep she would not have come back the same or even close. He was going to pound her into the dark and leave her there.…
Elizabeth settled deeper in the tub, cold and hot and shaking. She’d lost herself when it mattered most. Thirteen years of cop and she’d broken like a plaster mask.
It took Channing to save her.
The girl.
Who was only eighteen.
*
He was a million pounds of sweat and hair, of muscle and fat and thick, hard fingers.
“Fine bitch…”
His skin slid on hers, but there was little breath in her lungs. She breathed out; he pushed down.
“Fine, sweet, hot fucking bitch…”
*