Chapter 10 #2
He paused, his blue eyes searching her face. Something shifted in his expression. Recognition of the danger they’d stumbled into, acknowledgment that this case had grown beyond a simple homicide investigation.
He nodded once. “I will.”
Then he jogged to his car and started the engine before he’d fully closed the door. Tori watched his taillights disappear around the corner before she locked the dead bolt and engaged the security chain.
The house felt too quiet.
She scrolled through her contacts and tapped Luna’s name while heading to the master bathroom.
The phone rang twice before Luna answered. “Hey! How’d it go today?”
“Eh. Complicated.” Tori squeezed toothpaste onto her brush and wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear. “I heard about Forest. What’s it mean for you guys?”
“We’re all at the house again. Protective custody. Marshals posted outside, the whole nine yards.” Luna sounded almost cheerful about it.
“Ay, that’s heavy,” she said around her toothbrush. “How are you holding up?”
“Trinity’s handling it better this time. Summer’s treating it like an extended sleepover. Corbin’s like a dad on vacation forcing us to play cards. I almost lost my mind over Phase 10 earlier.”
The casual tone didn’t fool Tori. Luna was scared. They all were.
She spat minty foam into the sink and rinsed. “What about the gym? The Warrior kids?”
“House parents are still rotating shifts. And Harlee took leave from the ATF to run things. She’s handling security and keeping the Warrior program running.”
Tori stripped off her work clothes and pulled on running shorts and a sports bra. Tomorrow’s three-mile loop would be easier if she could crawl out of bed dressed.
“Harlee took leave?” A federal agent stepping away from her career to babysit teenagers. The scope of this threat crystallized cold and sharp as broken glass.
“Temporary reassignment, she calls it. But yeah.” Luna’s exhale crackled through the speaker. “Listen, I should go. Trinity’s making her famous burnt grilled cheese, and if I don’t supervise, we’ll be eating charcoal.”
“Give everyone my love.”
“Will do. And Tori? Be careful, okay?”
The line went dead. Tori set the phone on her dresser and surveyed her reflection. Everyone else was tucked safely behind federal protection or armed security. Luna had Corbin, Trinity, and Summer. Blade had Kiara. Even the Warrior kids had their house parents and Harlee standing guard.
The silence pressed against her eardrums. She’d always prided herself on independence, on not needing anyone’s protection or comfort. But watching Luna build her found family, seeing Blade’s face soften when he mentioned Kiara . . . Maybe she’d been lying to herself about what she wanted.
Maybe she wanted someone to come home to. Someone who’d notice if she didn’t make it through the front door.
She retrieved her Glock from the bathroom and placed it on the nightstand. At least she could read in peace. It was only seven thirty, but she crawled into bed and picked up her book. The words blurred after half a page. Her lids drifted shut.
Outside, a car door slammed, and she reached for the gun before recognizing her neighbor’s voice calling his dog.
She pulled the covers up over her head, alone in ways that felt heavier tonight.
Tori snapped awake. Her lungs screamed for air that wouldn’t come. A crushing weight pinned her to the mattress. A pillow pressed down like concrete, sealed off her nose and mouth. Her body understood before her mind caught up.
She was going to die.
Training kicked in. Not up. Sideways. Now.
She exploded into a BJJ shrimping escape, her hips bucking hard to the right as she twisted her torso and dragged her knees toward her chest. The attacker’s body shifted with her momentum, and she used his imbalance to roll them both off the bed in a tangle of sheets and limbs.
They crashed to the hardwood floor with a bone-jarring impact that rattled her teeth.
Her Glock clattered off the nightstand and skittered across the floor into the darkness near the bedroom door.
“Did you miss me?”
The voice slapped her fully awake. The stalker. Here. In her bedroom.
The fear that had flooded her system incinerated. A surge of pure, cold fury sharpened her vision to laser focus.
He blocked the doorway. A dark silhouette between her and escape. The gun lay somewhere near his feet, lost in the shadows.
Create space. Use the environment.
She scrambled backward on her hands and knees, dragging herself toward the primary bathroom. Her bare feet found purchase on the cool tile as she backed against the vanity, the glass shower door to her left, the toilet to her right.
He followed, moving with predatory confidence into the confined space. Moonlight from the bedroom window caught the dark fabric covering everything but his eyes, then the blade in his hand. A hunting knife with a serrated edge.
“Nowhere to run now.”
He lunged forward, the knife arcing toward her ribs. She executed a Krav Maga block, her left forearm slamming into his wrist to deflect the strike. The blade’s edge sliced a burning line across her skin, and warm blood immediately soaked through her sports bra.
The searing pain only fed her rage.
He drew back for another strike, and she moved. As he lunged again, she dropped low and swept his legs, sending him stumbling forward. She grabbed the back of his head with both hands and drove his face down into the hard porcelain toilet bowl, using his own momentum against him.
The impact made a wet, crunching sound.
Tori bolted from the bathroom, her feet slipping on the hardwood as she dove for her Glock. Her fingers closed around the grip just as she heard him crashing through the bedroom doorway behind her.
She rolled onto her back and fired.