Page 218 of Deep Cover

18

Annie

He rushed at me.

I'd backed away from him, trying to give myself room. Time slowed, just a little, enough for me to remind myself I'd been in situations worse than this because I'd been up against entire gangs, and we'd been outnumbered, so even if there was a gang with me, there was still more than one on one.

I'd once been outed while undercover, had one of the girls walk in and point at me and say, "She's a narc," and everything stopped and everyone stared and then everyone converged – they had ways of finding out whether or not that was true that would have been as awful as what they did after – except there was a drive-by right then and those who survived were me and another narc who I didn't know was a narc and he didn't know I was. He was transferred and that didn't matter now.

What mattered was I'd faced worse and lived and I was going to face this and live. I wanted to know what Kie had done. I wanted to know if she'd done it or if some sympathetic guard—or medic? – had helped.

But mostly I wanted out. Out and away, out of France and home, wherever the fuck that happened to be.

Backing up, backing up, until my foot caught the edge of something, some protrusion into space where I didn't expect to encounter something

Then I was falling.

At the same time Vincent was lunging.

I rolled and he went flying, not tripping but out of control. He hit a wall and fell.

Damned straight razor in his hand again. Fuck, I hated blades but his wasn't even a surprise. Even as I thought that, peeling off the stupid too-small house shift, jog bra no one had ever collected underneath it.

I wrapped the shift around my blocking hand, around my forearm. It wasn't much but it would help.

The other hand I'd need to use to strike. To grab. To do my damnedest to get the blade away from him.

Before Vincent had a chance to get creative with it. Eyes, nipples, wrists – I didn't know which would be worse. If he just buried it in my throat or in my chest, or if he went slow.

I wasn't going to find out.

From outside the room, in the early morning, I kept hearing sounds. Guards, of course, on the premises, but not responding. Had he killed them? In the horrible moments between sleep and startling into wakefulness, I thought I'd heard gunshots.

He said Kie had killed herself.

Or did he?

Vincent scrambled to his feet.

There hadn't been enough time to go after him when he was down. He held the knife and rose more gracefully than I expected.

There hadn't been enough time to run while he was down because there was stuff in my way, knocked helter skelter while I was backing away from him and because there were guards in the house and I didn't know how corrupt they were, how loyal to Vincent, and what they'd do if they saw me running, given the screaming, given Kie, given his loss of anything resembling sanity.

And I didn't want him behind me. Not anymore than I'd wanted to barricade myself in the bathroom and hope he couldn't get through the door.

At the moment he got to his feet, I ran at him. He was just off kilter enough I had time to knock his right hand back and away, the blade in it rising up and up, but he didn't lose hold.

There were sounds again, voices shouting, sounding wrong, not the voices I was used to. I almost called out for help but Vincent lunged again, the knocked back hand now striking down at me, hard and fast. I put my arm up against it, the left arm with its helpless little house shift wrapped around it and I felt the blade slice through my skin with the hot pain of a cut and then snag just long enough to trouble him, catching on the cloth.

I came around with my right hand, forcing myself to ignore the blade for that one instant, knowing it was driving downward, that the strength and speed he'd used on that strike would keep it going before he could yank it back. Just for a second.

I doubled my fist and hit him three times in the throat before he could bring the blade back up to bear.

When he did, the B movie overhand strike he'd been attacking with meant his fist came up but the blade was still facing downward, useless until he could change his grip or slash sideways at me, or raise it again to strike,.

I wasn't giving him that opportunity.

"Annie! Annie Knox!"

---