Page 26 of Freeing Hawk
I wasn’t paying attention to the floor and tripped over something. The two men looked up.
“You should run,” one said.
“What?” The other asked.
“If you don’t run, we’ll die!” The first man barked.
They took off running.
“Shit.” I activated the handsfree and gave chase.
“Hawk,” Angel replied. “Talk to me.”
“I think I found something—bastard!”
“Um…”
“In section H!” I replied as I jumped over a barrel one of them pushed into my path. “Heading toward G!”
“Shit! I’m not close to you—anyone else?”
“I’m on my way!” Eris chimed in.
“I have eyes on you!” Tex told us. “I’ve clocked their faces.”
The two men split up, but I continued following the one I thought I knew. Tex announced he was keeping eyes on the other and sent Ghoul toward him.
The desperate man pulled down a rack of costumes to block my path but I simple ran around it, hopped over set of buckets, slid over the good of a car and continued. As I began getting tired, my irritation grew to rage. I glanced around as people screamed and scattered from our path. I shoved through more, ran up a set of stairs, pole-vaulted over a wall and used the man as a landing strip.
“Help!” He screamed. “Get her off me!”
“Shut the hell up!” I growled as I pulled out my cuffs. “Stop resisting!”
“She’s a cop!” The whispers began.
I ignored it all and dragged him to his feet. Eris caught up to me then and as we turned to take the man away, I recognized a scar on his neck. Kingston had met with this fool about a month before he went missing. The scar came from a bullet Kingston had fired at him.
If he had zigged when he should have zagged, we wouldn’t be having this moment at the moment.
Eris and I took him to a private space Nikau had set aside for us.
While Eris held him, I went through his pocket and pulled out his wallet, a convention pass, and some cash. I tossed the pass over my shoulder to Eris, shoved the money back into his pocket and went through the wallet.
“Carl Esposito.” I read his driver’s license. “Well Carl, I need you to tell me where Kingston is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I laughed softly as I stuck the license back and continued scanning through the rest of its contents. “Carl, you’re lying to me. I saw you meet with Kingston before he went missing. So, as far as I’m concerned, King is gone, and you have something to do with it. Now, you may not know how much King means to me. But if you keep lying, you’ll find out.”
I dropped the wallet on the ground and hunched down in front of him. “I’m going to ask you again. Where is King?”
“I don’t—”
I punched him in the gut, and he doubled over.
“Kingston Trejo!” I repeated. “Where is he?”
“And before you lie to her again,” Eris said. “I’m here with you, I’m pregnant and cranky as hell so if she kicks your ass, I’m not getting involved.”
