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OKLAHOMA CITY, EARTH | 2006
Lena Richardson was seeing red. If Phillips wanted to accuse her of being dirty he should come out and say it. No more of this nice-guy bullshit. She wasn’t Fuller. She knew shit all about what Fuller had been doing. They might have been partners, but that was it. They’d never been friends.
And here Fuller was screwing her out of her biggest bust and possibly getting her arrested.
Fucker.
She’d been in interrogation all day and needed a drink and three full days of sleep. Her body ached and she regretted her choice of shoes. She didn’t normally wear heels, but she’d wanted to make an impression. Now she couldn’t remember what that impression was and her feet ached enough that she wanted to saw them off for a bit of relief.
Her car was parked at the end of the block and she only had a few dozen more feet to go before she made it to the sweet relief of her driver’s seat.
When the hairs on the back of her neck tingled, she wanted to ignore it. But her training wouldn’t let her get away with something so stupid. She reached for her gun before she remembered it had been confiscated while she was suspended. Any other time she would have had a non-government issue side arm with her, but not today.
Stupid shoes. Stupid Fuller.
Just because she didn’t have a gun didn’t mean she was defenseless, and whoever was coming up behind her was about to learn that.
Lena didn’t stop moving. She didn’t give away that she knew someone had her in their sights. Maybe the troublemaker wouldn’t come for her. Maybe she’d make it to her car before anything happened. The best way to get out of trouble was to not get into it in the first place. And this close to the office she was just as likely being tailed by an agent as by a criminal.
A puff of air on the back of her neck was her only warning. There’d been no footsteps to give her attacker away; she hadn’t seen anything. But Lena didn’t hesitate, twirling around, reaching out, and latching onto something to give her leverage.
But there was something wrong about the person behind her.
Were they a person?
She reached back and her hand met nothing but shadow. When she tried to hit again, it was like fighting the darkness itself.
She wasn’t going to stick around to figure out what was going on. Lena wheeled around and ran.
The darkness was faster. It engulfed her whole, and in seconds, she was out cold.
