“I didn’t hurt them,” Diana said, clawing at Lou’s fist.
“Liar,” Piper said.
“I swear,” Diana said. “I just wanted you to come. I told you I could—”
Lou shifted her grip on the gun, before opening the power box, revealing a network of circuitry.
“What are you—”
One swipe and the lights went out. Someone pulled a trigger and a bullet bit into a wall, spraying plaster across the room.
“Christ!” Diana screamed. “Don’t shoot!”
Then Piper felt hands on her, and the familiar shift of the world rearranging itself to Lou’s will.
When it reformed, she was in King’s apartment. There was the oversized red sofa. There were the worn records leaning slanted against each other, smelling like the old man’s weed. Party lights from the fourth of July still hung on the balcony.
King, Mel, and Dani were all on the floor, trying to right themselves. But they were alone. They were safe.
“I’ve got scissors in that drawer,” King called out, nodding toward the kitchen. “No, not that one. The one on the end.”
Lou opened and slammed drawers until she produced a pair of blue-handled scissors. She snipped their zip ties one at a time.
Mel was up and out of the apartment. “Lady? Lady!”
The door slammed shut behind her.
When Piper’s hands broke free, relief hit her like a wave. In the next instant she had Dani in her arms, holding her, rocking her.
“It’s okay,” Piper said, pushing back her sweat-soaked bangs. “It’s over, it’s over. Lou is going to kill that stupid—”
King spoke as if Piper hadn’t. “She took us but didn’t hurt us—why? What point is she trying to make?”
“Because she’s crazy,” Piper said. “And you’re going to kill her, right?”
“I’ve never killed a woman before.”
“Yeah, well, first time for everything.” Piper wished she could read that look on Lou’s face. She didn’t understand it. Lou was a killer. She killed the people who threatened her friends—why wouldn’t she just finish Diana already?
“Is she going to be okay?” Lou asked, pushing her wet hair back from her face. Her left arm remained immobile at her side.
“She’ll be fine,” Piper said, still rocking the woman in her arms. Dani was finally starting to quiet, but her shaking was worse. “When you kill Diana.”
Then Lady was there. She bounded into the apartment and nosed her way between Dani and Piper.
“Hey!” Piper said.
But Dani took to the dog like a bird to air. She wrapped her arms around Lady’s neck and sobbed. Piper decided not to take this personally.
“Go,” King said, nodding toward Lou. “Find out what this is about and end it.”
Lou stepped back into King’s dark bedroom and was gone.
* * *
Diana flipped on the lights. She turned a full circle in the empty room, not understanding what she was seeing.
“Are they out there?” she called.
Spencer stood in the doorway, his gun shaking in his hand. “No one came this way.”
“Give me that before you hurt yourself.” Diana tugged the gun out of his hand.
She pulled open the closet door and ran her hands along the walls. “No. No.”
“She disappeared,” Blair said plainly. “And she took them with her.”
“People don’t disappear.”
“She did.”
Diana didn’t like the fear in Blair’s voice. It made her uneasy. The pop of a gunshot made them both turn.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Something crashed to the floor hard enough to make the house shake. A window blasted open and brassy bluegrass galloped into the room.
In the doorway, Spencer turned.
“No!” Diana stepped around him and into the path of Lou’s aim. But this time, Diana had her own gun lifted.
“I’m sorry,” she spat, seeing the cold, empty stare that greeted her. “Okay? I’m sorry. I took your friends to get your attention. I wanted to show you that I wasn’t some incapable loser. I have resources. I can run an operation. And I want your help. That’s it. I didn’t hurt them. And I think I made my point.”
Lou didn’t move. Her expression remained unchanged.
Diana’s heart knocked in her throat. She swallowed against it. What can I say? What would I say to myself?
Blair’s breath came in pants beside her.
She thinks I’m about to be shot, Diana noted distantly.
Before she could say anything, Lou whispered, “Why me?”
Diana hadn’t been expecting this question. Why not you?
She thought Lou understood her own power.
“Who else?” Diana said. “Seriously, who else can do what you do?”
Lou lowered her gun.
Diana tried to seal the deal. “I hate bad guys. You hate bad guys. And my guy is the worst. He’s not just a pedophile, he runs a billion-dollar child pornography business underground.”
Diana dared to take a step toward her.
“I read about your parents, about your dad,” she ventured. Lou’s eyes seemed to darken, fill up with black. Diana took a breath and pressed on. “You know how I feel, Louie. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t—I need this. I need you.”
She looked down for dramatic effect.
Then she flicked her eyes up, hoping to see some change in Lou’s expression. “You’ll enjoy hunting him. I promise.”
Blair shifted nervously in her periphery, but Diana held her smile. It wasn’t easy in the face of that cold stare. She’d never seen anything like it. It was wind blowing across the tundra, as if Lou was made of snow and ice herself.
At last Lou lowered the gun, but the cold fire didn’t leave her eyes. “Tell me about him.”
20
Dani shook on the apartment floor. Her matted hair was stuck to her face. She looked feverish, red-cheeked, eyes glassy. They’d covered her in King’s comforter, stripped from his bed. But her teeth still chattered as if it were the dead of winter.
“What can we do for her?” Piper asked, pacing nervously. She wrung her hands.
“I’ll be back.” Mel rose from her crouch and left through the kitchen door.
King remained on the floor beside Dani, a mug of hot tea in one hand, a cup of water in the other. “You want something to drink?” he asked hopefully.
She didn’t even look at him.
Piper ran her hand down her face again. She’d never seen Dani like this before. Her fears and anxieties would rise up suddenly, sure. Sometimes when they were in a club or a bar, she would get this look on her face, and Piper knew it was time to get some air. Or she’d move a little closer on the sofa during a movie. The movement wouldn’t be tinged with sweetness or desire—there was a desperate need in it. And there were the dreams from which she woke up screaming.
But this…
She tried to remember the things she’d read about PTSD and what not to do.
“Baby,” Piper said, trying to get those dark eyes to look into hers. They wouldn’t. “Dani, listen.”
Dani continued to shake.
“You’ve gone through this before and you can get through this again. And we’re going to sit right here with you, me, King, and Mel, for as long as it takes.”
Lady whined.
“And Lady. We’re not going to leave you alone until it’s over. You’re safe. I promise.”
Dani looked up, meeting Piper’s eyes for the first time. But they were still unfocused.
Melandra appeared with a prescription bottle, orange with a white plastic cap. “Here.”
She opened the bottle and shook a round blue pill out onto her hand. “Dani, open up.”
“Are you just going to give her a Valium?” Piper asked. “Is this consensual?”
“If we take her to the hospital, they will sedate her with or without her permission. I don’t see how this is dif
ferent.”
Cursing inwardly, Piper held the water glass, flinching against the way Dani automatically drank it down.
Someone could take her onto the balcony and tell her to jump and she would. Piper didn’t like this checked-out version of Dani.
She’s somewhere else. She’s somewhere very, very far away.
Come back, baby.
“Did any of you try to contact Lou while Dennard had us?” King asked suddenly. He stretched his neck to one side but didn’t try to get up.
Piper loved him for that. She knew that sitting on the floor must be really hard for his old bones, but he stayed right beside Dani like he’d said he would.
“I did,” Piper said. “A million times.”
“Me too,” Melandra said.
“But she didn’t come right away,” King said. “You know what that means?”
No, Piper didn’t know what it meant. All of her attention was on Dani. She wondered how long it would take the Valium to kick in.
“She can’t hear us when she’s in La Loon,” he said.
“What is your point?” Piper said, chewing on her thumb.
“Lou has her limitations. Her shoulder was the first warning. Tonight was another.”
“It’s hard to forget she’s human sometimes,” Melandra admitted, pushing Dani’s hair back from her face so she could rub her forehead and neck with a warm cloth.
“But she is,” King said. “And she won’t always be able to step in and handle a situation. We need to get serious about our own security.”
The light returned to Dani’s eyes. She looked up and sighed. She stopped trembling.
“That’s better,” Melandra said, encouraging. “You like the hot cloth? I’ll make you another.”
Mel’s knees popped as she rose. At the sink, she rewarmed the rag with the running faucet.
“Let’s move her to the sofa so she can lay down,” King said. Piper lifted her torso and King grabbed her legs. They moved in tandem, placing her limp body on the red leather. King put a pillow under her head and repositioned the blanket.
Lady looked up at King imploringly.
“All right,” he said. “Just this once.”
Lady hopped up onto the sofa and draped herself over Dani. She laid her head on the girl’s stomach.
Mel placed the warm rag on Dani’s forehead. “Her breathing is better.”
“Yeah,” Piper said, noting the same. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She’ll be okay,” Mel assured her with a squeeze. “She just needs some time.”
“Are we going to talk about why you have a prescription for Valium?”
Mel gave a crooked smile. “Dani isn’t the only one who gets panicky.”
The pressure between Piper’s ears intensified. Lady’s ears flicked and her tail began to thump against the sofa.
Piper turned and found Lou emerging from King’s darkened bedroom. Her hair was still wet, her cheeks red. She had a gun in her right hand and Piper was pretty sure that was blood splattered on her face.
Mel made a small sound of surprise, her eyes roving Lou’s body. “I’ll make another rag.”
“Tell me that psycho is dead,” Piper said.
“Dennard’s alive.”
“Why?” Piper hissed.
“Shhh,” King said, raising his hand and waving at them. “She’s finally dropped off to sleep.”
Piper looked down at Dani, her dark hair framing her face. Her eyes were closed and her breathing a slow, steady rhythm.
Restraining her voice to a whisper, she said, “Why is she alive?”
“She wants to destroy a pedophile.”
“Who cares what she wants?” Piper raised her fingers and pressed them into her temple. “Do you have any idea what she put Dani through tonight?”
Lou’s brow creased. She looked the sleeping girl over. “She hurt her?”
“Not physically, but Dani had a freaking panic attack because some psycho kidnapped her, and you’re just going to give her a pass for that?”
“Back up,” King said. “Tell me about the guy she’s hunting.”
“Goes by Winter. He runs a child pornography ring on the internet. She doesn’t know he’s a man, but she assumes.”
King shrugged. “I’ve never heard of a woman running child pornography rings, but maybe. Is it just him?”
“No, he finds and recruits abusers through the internet and pays them to live stream the attacks.”
“Why live stream? Why not pictures and video?”
“Harder to trace. No agency can track it. Once the feed is terminated, it’s gone.”
“Sounds smart.” King rubbed the back of his neck. “I prefer my criminals stupid.”
“I want to get the children first.”
King snorted in disbelief. “There are thousands of kids being raped every day. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but you’re not going to be able to move them all in a night.”
Lou’s eyes darkened. “I’ll start with the ones Winter broadcasts. Then I’ll take out the abusers and move the kids.”
Piper put her hands on her hips. “Okay, fine. There’s a worthy cause here and we can help. But then what?”
“Then I’ll kill Winter,” Lou said.
“And then?” Piper pressed.
When Lou didn’t seem to understand, King said, “She wants you to kill Dennard.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Piper squeezed the bridge of her nose. Because she kidnapped us. Because she slapped me. Because I took one look at that woman and realized how crazy and how dangerous she is. And if we don’t shake her she’s going to hurt us, really hurt us.
Did Lou really have no sense of self-preservation? Couldn’t she tell when there was someone in the room that you didn’t screw with?
Maybe not, if you usually are that person.
Piper exhaled. “Because she’s not our friend, Louie! She’s not a good guy.”
“She wants to destroy a pedophile. Why should I stop her?”
“Easy now,” King said, raising his hands. “Everyone take a breath. Piper…”
Piper’s jaw was clenching and unclenching, but she managed to roll her eyes up to meet King’s.
He leveled her with a soft look. “What happened to Dani scared us, but she’s going to be okay. And so are we.”
Piper shook her head. “We can’t be buddy-buddy with this woman. We can’t have another psychopath hanging around. One is enough.”
She hadn’t meant to say that. She was angry, and tired, and Dani’s condition had scared her. It’d scared the hell out of her.
Piper looked at Lou. She saw nothing. No recognition. No reaction to her words. Her heart plummeted into her stomach.
“No psychopaths,” Lou said coldly. “Got it.”
And disappeared.
21
Lou wasn’t entirely sure where she was going when she stepped from the dark of King’s apartment into nothing. She welcomed the compression, the escape.
She shouldn’t have been surprised it was Konstantine’s apartment that formed around her, his living room with its uneven clay-tiled floor and a large desk set off to one side. An archway showcased the open kitchen.
His desk lamp was on and he was typing away at his laptop with a steaming mug of something within arm’s reach.
He looked up and frowned. “You have blood on your face.”
“Do I?” she asked. She could smell his shampoo and cologne from where she stood. His hair was still wet from a shower.
His frown deepened. “Is it yours?”
She wiped her face. “I don’t think so.”
Something in him relaxed. “The others?”
“Everyone’s alive.”
Here his lips twitched with a smile. “The blood on your face says otherwise.”
“King, Piper, Melandra, and Dani are alive,” she amended. She shrugged out of her leather coat, but had a hard time doing it.
He hissed when he saw her ba
re shoulder. “That is swollen. Badly.”
“It hurts,” she admitted.
He raised an eyebrow, rising from his seat and crossing to her. He inspected it without touching it. His frown only deepened. “It must be nearly unbearable for you to say that. It looks really bad. Come on.”
He led her up the stairs to his bedroom above. He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. On a hook, he hung a fresh towel.
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” she said.
“We’ve already established this.” He gave her a forced smile. “Can you indulge me?”
She stepped out of her pants easily enough, but when it came to pulling the shirt over her head, she found her arm wouldn’t move.
Konstantine was frowning again. “Did this happen in the fight with Diana?”
“It was already…irritated.”
“How?”
She didn’t want to talk about Jiri, about the hunt in Prague. She only rolled her eyes up to his, daring him to press her on it.
He didn’t. “You must have compounded the injury. I have something you can take, after your shower, if you want it.”
“Something legal?”
He laughed. “Yes.”
She gave a slight nod.
“May I cut this?” he asked, pulling scissors from the vanity.
Lou didn’t care. The shirt was already ruined with the blood caked into its fibers. So she let him cut it from her body so that her arm didn’t have to move. Then she stepped into the steaming stream and closed the glass door behind her.
Konstantine gathered up her clothes and disappeared. She was left with only her thoughts.
Traitorously, they ran on a loop.
Piper’s angry face. Dani, sweaty and panting on King’s sofa. Even Lady’s look of admonishment. Who knew a dog could scold with her eyes?
Lou felt like she’d done something wrong. And she couldn’t recall the last time she’d had this feeling. When her aunt Lucy was sick, dying, maybe. There’d been a hint of this feeling, of not okay, that had permeated everything then as well.
But that look in Piper’s eyes.
Piper. Yelling at her.
Had Piper ever yelled at her before? No. Piper was a cheerful person. Lou had seen her cry a few times, usually when it came to her drug-addicted mother, but those unhappy feelings had never been directed at Lou before.
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