This dismal threadbare stretch of her life was over! Thank God because it had nearly been the death of her. She stepped forward into the room and a hand closed over her mouth hard.
She screamed against the hand and tried to pull free of its owner, but in a sickening clarity of peripheral vision she saw a hypodermic needle descend toward her neck and jab into it painfully. There was an instant burning sensation and her unknown assailant pushed her roughly to the floor.
What was happening? Had she been drugged? Her chest began to constrict painfully and she clutched at it. Through the pain her eyes fixed on her assailant. He wasn't even looking at her, but instead was watching his wristwatch.
Rape must not be on his agenda then. Her pained gaze drifted from him to the half open door across the hall. Her eyes found the wide-open, but sightless eyes of Mrs. Reed, who lay dead on the floor of her apartment.
It was hard to breathe let alone talk, but she choked out, "Oh God!"
She'd been poisoned! She was dying! Who would look after Kevin? She didn't want to die! Kevin needed her!
Her killer looked up from his watch and then at her dispassionately before he stooped down to pick her up. Dimly Anna recognized the dirty walls of the hall going by.
She couldn't breathe!
Her body was jerking and all conscious thought was fading fast. She saw yellow. Bill! Bill would help her!
She got one glance at the yellow taxi before being slung into the passenger side of a sedan. Bill's face was bloody and he was slumped over the wheel either unconscious or dead. Bill couldn't help her and Tyre wasn't here. Everyone was gone. Kevin was her last desperate thought. Who would pick him up from daycare?
I saw the man dump Anna into the car and I hurtled across the street smashing him into the front hood of the car.
He thrust back and bumped me back a few feet. He turned my way with a feral look, even as a knife seemed to materialize in his hand. He was a trained killer, but then so was I. I closed with him as a knife slid into my own hand from up my sleeve.
We were a flurry of motion and desperate hard fought action. He scored first with a bloody swipe across my forearm, but I had been baiting him and my incoming fist smashed him backward and into the car and as I stepped forward I rammed my blade into his groin, poised next to a main artery. He cried out in pain and savagely I grasped him by the hair and brought his head up.