Devil's Bargain

And then, very faintly, the muffled whisper of a child’s sob.

She froze, listening, trying to locate the source, but the place was an echo chamber, a terrifying trap of a place, and she just knew that she was looking the wrong way, that he was behind her, creeping up…

She spun, unable to resist the feeling, and brought the gun up. Saw a shape move and nearly fired before she saw a gleam of highlights on long, dark hair and knew she’d nearly shot Lucia.

Lucia put a finger to her lips, half in shadow, and motioned Jazz to the right. She disappeared into the left-hand shadows.

Jazz had only gone three steps when she heard a man’s curse, a child’s full-throated scream and the patter of feet, all coming from off to the left on the other side of the parked car. Something lunged out of the dark, small and ferocious; Jazz reached out, got a handful of sweater and swung the kid around into her arms. She picked her up and backed up fast. She felt the girl’s breath hot against her face, tears dripping onto her skin, got a mouthful of curly brown hair and jerked her head out of the way to try to see what was going on.

Just in time to see a muzzle flash. Not a shotgun, a handgun.

She heard a body hit the floor and metal clatter.

Lucia. Lucia was down.

Get the kid out. Get the kid out first.

Jazz ran backward, gasping for breath, keeping her gun trained on the spot where the muzzle flash had briefly lit up the shadows, nearly tripped over a pipe, and managed to somehow get her balance back without falling full-length. At the door, she set the girl down and crouched next to her.

“What’s your name, honey?” she asked. She spared one second to glance into her face, into honey-colored eyes and a heart-shaped face, ta

“Marla,” the girl said. “He—he tried to hurt me.”

“I know, Marla, but he’s not going to do it again. Now, you see that big black truck at the end of the alley? My friend Ma

Marla nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. Jazz reached up and wiped some away, managed a fast smile, and pushed her gently out the door.

“Run,” she said.

The kid pelted for the SUV.

Jazz was just turning back to the darkness when she heard a man’s voice whisper, “You can’t do this. Nobody can stop me. They told me, nobody can stop me.”

And then her chest exploded in pain.

She fell back, unable to breathe, waves of red-hot agony sliding over her, trying to pull her down into the dark, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything.

He came out of the dark, a dull shadow, gray, colorless. Too small a man to be making so much of a difference in the world.

She couldn’t breathe.

He raised the gun, sighted on her, then shook his head and whipped it up, taking aim at Marla, who was ru

I told her to run. I told her to do that. She remembered Simms saying, Everything you do matters.

She couldn’t fucking breathe. Her whole body felt numbed, destroyed by the impact in her chest.

Kevlar. He shot you in the vest. You’re fine, you’re just fine.

Something was very wrong.

Her heart.

She couldn’t feel her heartbeat.

Everything was going dark.

She saw a blinding flash of blue-white light, like a spotlight. An intense glare bright enough to make her want to close her eyes, but she had no control over that anymore, no control over anything, and there was so much silence inside of her.

Simms. Simms was staring at her, and he was saying, Everything you do matters, Jasmine.

She couldn’t breathe.

The light got brighter. Brighter. Overwhelming and burning, like lightning, like lightning racing along her nerves.

Listen.

Everything you do…

A single hard jerk in her chest. A thud.

Everything you do, Jasmine…

Her heart beat a second time. A third. She raised the gun. She didn’t even know how she managed it, because she couldn’t feel her arm, couldn’t feel anything but disorientation and pain and fear, but then her gun was up and she was looking into the face of a killer as his eyes widened.

Everything you do matters.

I know that, she told Simms.

And she fired.

Chapter 10

“O w,” Jazz whispered. “Don’t make me laugh, okay? It hurts to laugh.”

Borden, his arm swathed in approximately a mummy’s worth of bandages, smiled at her and shook his head. “No, I’m completely serious. You and Mooch are all moved in. Ma

“Not you?”

“I’m guessing especially not me.”

Jazz, propped up on two pillows, squinted at the morning sunlight and pulled her hospital gown away from her neck to take a look at the spectacular bruising. It looked better than it had yesterday, the blacks turning a sickly dark blue-green, the reds fading. But still.

Colorful.

“Ma

He didn’t smile at that one. He leaned forward and captured her hand in his, rubbed a thumb over the scraped and bruised knuckles, and said, “If you’d done that, at least three more people would be dead right now. Including me and Marla.” Marla had dropped by earlier with her mother, a very pregnant, very scared lady who’d still been prone to dissolve into tears over the near tragedy.

The cops who’d been by had been, if not tearfully grateful, at least cautiously pleased by the whole thing, and more than willing to accept the explanation she’d come up with as to how she, Ma

Not even Laskins, who’d called to gruffly inform her that the Society would be picking up the medical bills. Again.

“Hey,” Borden said, and leaned forward. “Rest. You look wiped out.” He pressed a warm kiss to her forehead, moved to her lips and brushed them very lightly with his own, and she felt a surge of lightning heat that had nothing to do with the painkillers pumping through her system. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey. Counselor.”

He paused in the act of retrieving his jacket from the chair. He looked nearly back to normal. The cut on his forehead had been sutured, and his color was good. There’d be plastic surgery coming, for the ski

Better than she was, with the memory of his scream on the phone.

“You never told me how they got you.”

“I went outside,” he said. “I was going to get us coffee.”

“There’s coffee in the break room. You know that.”

He shrugged slightly. With his good arm. “I wanted to get you Starbucks. Kind of a joke.”

The smile melted her like butter. She watched him go, smiling, and shut her eyes to savor the warmth of the sunlight slanting over her face.

Naturally, the room didn’t stay quiet long. She heard the door swing open again, and cracked an eyelid. Lucia was moving slowly, but she was moving on her own, and dressed in street clothes instead of backless gowns. A distinct improvement, though it was, Jazz thought, the very first time she’d ever seen Lucia without full battle-dress makeup.

She looked young and very, very vulnerable. There was a livid purple bruise on her cheek where she’d hit the concrete in the shed after taking a bullet in her flak vest.

“Hey,” she said, and leaned against the wall as if she was either too cool or too exhausted to make it across the room to the visitor’s chair Borden had last occupied. “How are you feeling?”