Page 60 of So Lethal

They moved through the facility, clearing three similar bunk rooms. Faith's ears rang with the clipped tones of "clear" every fifteen seconds or so.

As they neared the center of the facility, Faith worried that they might be wrong and Harrison wasn’t here after all. She felt fear probing at the edge of her mind and pushed it away. Just focus.

They reached the end of the hallway and opened the other door. As soon as they did, a high-pitched ringing assaulted Faith’s ears.

This was far more powerful than the tinnitus she’d felt in the hotel. She gasped and collapsed to her knees. For a terrifying moment, she wondered if her body had betrayed her and taken her out of the fight.

Then she saw Turk on the ground, along with the other officers. Harrison had used a very powerful attack of amplified sound to drop them.

Then she saw him, a silhouette standing near the middle of the room. She got to her feet, pushing through the pain and rushed after him.

His eyes widened, and Faith saw a youthful face with clear blue eyes and fine blonde hair. His file said he was thirty-two, but he looked ten years younger than that.

She leveled her weapon at him and tried to say, “David Harrison, you’re under arrest!”

She made it through “under” when he rushed her, moving with exceptional speed. He knocked the flashlight from her hand and grabbed her gun. Faith called for Turk, but when Turk tried weakly to get to his feet, he fell over again.

Nausea filled Faith, and she wasn't sure if he had hit her or if she was finally unable to resist the wave of sound slicing through her ears. Either way, she weakened enough that he was able to wrestle the gun from her. She grabbed it again, then forced him backward off of his feet.

As she fell, she saw that she was falling not toward the ground but into a yawning pit, the floor of which was at least twenty feet below They landed hard, and Faith gasped as the wind was driven from her lungs. She heard the clattering of her gun as it skittered fell through a grating and disappeared into the darkness below. .

Then Harrison reappeared. His face was twisted into a snarl, but he made no sound as he kicked her into a black pit at the center of the platform they were in.

She fell again. She managed to tuck herself into a ball, but the landing still drove the last of her strength away. She crawled away, hands and knees shaking, fighting desperately to stay awake.

The darkness was nearly complete down here. She turned toward the only light available, the soft circle of gray that filtered down from windows at least forty feet above her and twenty-five feet away on either side.

That allowed her just enough time to see Harrison bring his boot down toward her neck. She rolled over, and the boot slammed forcefully onto the ground. The echo reverberated powerfully in the enclosed space, and Faith realized that the sonic attack had stopped, or at least wasn’t affecting her down here.

She rolled to her feet, but a fist buried itself in her liver, and she dropped again. She forced herself upward, hands raised to protect herself, but Harrison had disappeared into the darkness.

She stilled, breathing softly and listening. She heard Harrison’s soft breathing, but she couldn’t see where it was coming from. She knew that sometimes people with hearing loss experienced a slight improvement in their other senses. She desperately hoped that wasn’t the case for Harrison.

A footstep echoed, then a shuffling noise. A slight change in air pressure told Faith he was running for her. She ducked, but she had misjudged the attack. Instead of avoiding a punch, she ducked right into a knee. Had her hands not been in front of her head, the blow would have knocked her out cold.

As it was, it still drove her onto her back and bruised her arms badly enough that they would be useless to her. She kicked out blindly and felt a rush of satisfaction when her foot collided with flesh. A groan escaped Harrison’s mouth, oddly pitched and too loud.

He might not even be aware that he’d made noise. She could use that to her advantage.

If she could hit him again, that was.

Something hit her temple with the force of a bowling ball. She managed to remain conscious, but her arms dropped, the connection between mind and muscle temporarily discombobulated.

She gasped and moaned as she staggered backwards, trying to lift her trembling arms back up to her face. She caught movement to her right, and with a cry of effort, spun around and kicked her heel in a half-moon. It collided solidly with someone, and Faith heard another cry.

She followed the cry and attacked again, sending a flurry of punches at her unseen target. Harrison blocked most of them, but a few landed, and one connected solidly enough with his jaw that he grunted again.

He grabbed her shoulder and tripped her, sending her to the floor. She didn’t have nearly as far to fall this time, but she was bruised and badly shaken from the first two. As soon as she hit the deck, she began to shake again.

She forced herself quickly to her feet and saw a slightly darker shadow move through the darkness. She threw a hard boxing combination, but Harrison evaded each punch. After the final jab, he spun her around by her shoulders and kicked the back of her left knee.

She went down, but not far. A tourniquet wrapped around her neck and cinched tight.

Faith's mouth flew open. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Already, she felt pressure in her eyes and sinuses as Harrison cut off circulation to her brain. She dropped her weight and shoved her hips back, trying to throw him over her shoulder, but he held his arms out and kept her at a distance so she couldn't affect his balance. She jumped upright and tried to headbutt him, but he kicked her knee out again, so she hit his chest instead.

She drove upward again, colliding hard with his jaw. He flinched backward, but when she threw her arm in between his and tried to break the hold by driving her elbow down onto his bicep, he twisted his hips, lifting her off of the ground and throwing her hard to the floor face first.

He planted a knee in between her shoulder blades and pressed down while lifting his hands and drawing the ligature even tighter. Her eyes bulged and rolled back in her head. Spots formed in her vision, and no amount of struggling made a damned bit of difference.

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