I didn’t answer, pushed my way by them before they could hound me further, and jogged across the highway, wishing I could talk to Justine. She has the rare ability to slice apart emotions like pain or confusion and expose the underlying fear or meaning. Ordinarily, navel gazing is not something I’m fond of. That night I felt in desperate need of a session.
But I had not heard from her or Cruz all day. I was at my car, about to call Mo-bot to see if either of them had checked in, when my cell phone rang.
“We’ve been contacted, Jack,” said Dave Sanders. “They’re letting the children go.”
Chapter 47
IN THE DIM light after midnight Justine crouched in the corner of the holding cell, watching a woman named Carla. Early thirties, Carla was big, muscular, and heavily tattooed. She’d looked high when she was put in the cell not fifteen minutes before, and had taken an instant dislike to Justine. At the moment, Carla was stalking Justine, carrying the handle of a broken and sharpened plastic spoon as if it were a dagger.
After she’d joined Private, Jack had insisted that Justine take a course in basic self-defense. She’d chosen aikido, a Japanese art, and had pursued it until she felt confident enough to quit and take up Crossfit to build her strength. But had it been enough?
Justine adopted a triangle pose, held up her hands, prepared to fight.
In Spanish, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
Carla said nothing, just grinned, showing a missing upper-right incisor.
“What is your name, American?” called Rosa, the only other woman in the cell. Smaller, ratty, she watched with a worried expression.
Before Justine could answer, Carla said in English, “Her name Bitch.”
Then the big woman lunged and slashed at Justine with the knife, just missing her belly.
“Guard!” Rosa screamed.
Carla grinned again, licked her lips through the gap in her teeth.
“Now you know I mean it,” she said to Justine, and lunged again.
Justine was quicker this time. She swept her right hand in a circle, chopping at the wrist of Carla’s knife hand. The move deflected the blade down and away from her belly. It also knocked the big woman slightly off-balance. Justine encouraged that momentum, pivoted, and slammed Carla into the cement wall.
“Uhhhn,” Carla said, wobbled, but then spun and slashed at Justine.
The blade caught fabric and then skin above Justine’s left breast. She began to bleed.
Carla slashed again, cutting Justine’s forearm.
My God! Was she going to die here in this stinking cell?
All those aikido classes, all those Crossfit workouts, all those times when she’d wanted to give up or puke came back to her, made her remember to fight. When Carla moved to cut at her again, Justine’s right foot shot out, connected with the woman’s shin.
Carla grimaced in pain, tried to stab Justine. But Justine hammered down on the forearm behind Carla’s knife hand, hit muscles and nerves, causing the woman’s grip to evaporate.
The knife fell. Both women dove for it. Justine e
lbowed the woman in the face, snatched it up, and stepped away. “You must have had a tough childhood,” she said to the stunned woman, who was slowly getting back to her feet. “But that’s no excuse for bad—”
Carla shrieked like a lunatic and charged Justine, put her shoulder into Justine’s chest, almost knocking her off her feet. They slammed into the bars facing the hallway. Justine did the only thing she could think of and stabbed the woman in the thick muscles of her upper back.
Instead of crumpling, Carla went berserk. She head-butted Justine under the chin. Justine saw stars and felt herself weaken.
Carla grabbed Justine’s neck with both hands and started choking her.
Fight, little sister!
Justine rammed her bloody forearm against the big woman’s throat. Nothing. She reached over, grabbed the handle of the makeshift knife sticking out of Carla’s back, and worked it like a gearshift. Carla’s face turned demonic then, her strength grew exponentially, and Justine knew she would not be able to hold the woman off.
Chapter 48