Page 19 of Lone Spy (Starstruck Thrillers #2)

I pause—still on my hands and knees, the blood-stained white sheet of the gurney crinkling under me.

The coppery tang seems brighter without the siren.

It's splashed on the walls. Crusts in the wrinkled skin of my knuckles.

There are stripes across my chest, the dark brushstrokes drying with the rest of the grime and sweat coating my skin.

It doesn't disgust me.

I want more.

My fingers itch to end Martin. To make it so he can't come for me again. Can't come for anyone.

My vision fills with his defenseless form. I could stand over him, one booted foot on each side, dig my fingers into his hair. Use it to expose his throat and run this blade across it, finish what I started.

The ambulance is slowing. I don't have time. And killing an unconscious person? Is that who I want to be?

Yes.

A voice, quiet but sure, whispers from the darkest part of me.

The part that kept me company when my grandmother locked me in the closet.

The part that woke up from a drugged sleep when Jack was poised to rape me.

The part of me that beat him with that golden statue until his brains littered the carpet.

The wild in me wants to bathe in my enemy’s blood.

Fuck. I need to go.

I reach the doors. The latch is obvious, and I yank it up; the right side comes loose. I shove it away. It flies to the side and then clicks into place—leaving an opening to the outside world. I inhale deeply, taking in the fetid air of the narrow alley we are driving down.

The ambulance hits a pothole. Filthy water splashes up, spattering my already ruined boots. We pass a row of dumpsters hunkered under yellow security lights.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was seventeen. Working as a model but craving to be on the silver screen. I spent a lot of time at castings. While in the waiting room for one I met a ruggedly handsome stunt man named Dane. He was a decade older and drove a Camaro.

Dane took me to dingy, fun bars that didn't care about my age.

We made out in his car. And he told me about his work.

"The key to leaping from a speeding train is to stay relaxed.

" His deft fingers slid up my calf, hooking under my knee.

"You want to move where your body needs to move.

Stay loose." Dane tugged, pulling my thigh around his hip.

Hot breath whispered against my neck. "And always be ready to tuck and roll if you lose your footing. "

He'd probably warn against leaping from a moving ambulance with a deadly weapon gripped in your fist. I drop the scalpel. It bounces and glints on the rough pavement before disappearing into the darkness.

The ambulance is slowing. If I wait for it to stop, I might miss my chance to escape. If I jump now I could break a leg and be at the driver's mercy.

I turn and lower myself backwards out of the ambulance. My right foot hits the pavement, the impact reverberating up my body. Stay loose. Stay loose.

My left foot finds purchase. I'm running in the same direction as the ambulance, but, even so, my weight shifts too far forward. My arms pinwheel. I'm staring down at the gritty, wet pavement. Inhaling, I will myself to find balance. I won't fall now. No. Not now.

My feet keep going, catching up with my momentum.

I skitter to a stop. Turning around, my gaze finds the mouth of the alley where it intersects with a busier street.

Bright headlights attract me like a child to a nightlight.

Hope springs that I will find refuge there, but that wild part of me knows there is no safety in the light.

Lungs burning, arms and legs pumping, I race toward the trafficked street, away from the slowing ambulance. I'm not feral yet.

I’m half way there when I hear: ”Hey!" I glance back. A man dressed as an EMT is standing at the back of the now stopped ambulance, his orange jacket's reflective stripes shimmering in the light spilling out of the bright interior. "Stop!"

I refocus ahead of me, leaping over another water-filled pothole, landing on a crunch of glass. The whistle of a bullet zings past me. Shit! Another one—this one so close I feel its heat at my ear.

Diving to the side, I dip between two dumpsters. Shit. Shit. Shit. All this move accomplished is to trap myself in reeking shadows. A rat’s furry body scuttles out from under the chest-height metal box, running over my booted foot, sending a shiver of disgust up my body.

I'm going to die here, and rats are going to eat my body.

Fuck no.

I take in a deep breath of the rancid air, my eyes scanning for a weapon. The ground is littered with broken glass, bits of refuse all turned dingy gray by the environment.

A chain connects the dumpsters to each other. The padlock lies broken—half under one of the wheels. I crouch to grab the chain’s grimy links. Pounding footfalls grow louder. He knows I'm trapped.

The metal scrapes against the ground, the sound ricocheting between the dumpsters bracketing me. The chain is about two feet long and heavy enough to catch my breath as I heft it.

The rev of a motorcycle engine breaks from the trafficked street, zooming down the alley. What the?

A sharp crack of a pistol. The startled cry of a man. A body hits the ground. The motorcycle engine roars closer. I grip the chain, swinging it by my side gently, building up momentum, each pass going higher, harder.

A headlight illuminates the slice of alleyway I can see from my vantage point. The engine settles. A silver motorcycle—something fast and dangerous—rumbles to a stop in front of me. The driver, a tall, broad man wearing a leather jacket and worn jeans, puts a long leg down, balancing the bike.

His helmeted head faces me. Tinted glass shields his identity. But I recognize the man's lethal grace. "Get on." Temperance's voice rumbles across the space between us.