Catch Me

Chapter 13

AT 4:31 P.M., I began phase one of operations. First up, dress code. I went with black jeans, black turtleneck, thick-tread running shoes, and a black wool coat, all courtesy of the local Salvation Army store.

I looked like a cat burglar, or a New Yorker, depending on your frame of reference.

I loved the shoes and tried to get over it. Phase four of operations involved pitching the entire ensemble into a public Dumpster. Not that the police couldn’t find or wouldn’t find the items, but there was nothing to prove these particular secondhand clothing articles were mine. A precaution built into a precaution built into a precaution.

So far, it had worked for me.

Exiting the house, I wore a bright turquoise scarf and matching hat and oversized mittens. I’d read somewhere that one of the keys to any disguise was distinguishing accessories-later, witnesses would associate me with the aqua scarf or shocking gloves, meaning I couldn’t be the black-clad perpetrator. Obviously, I was wearing turquoise at the time!

I had my messenger bag slung over my shoulder, stuffed with wadded newspaper to give it the appearance of bulk. Later, the newspaper would be tossed and replaced with my overbright scarf, hat, and mittens. For now, the bulk of the leather bag disguised another telltale bulge-my Taurus. 22 holstered at my waist on a belt specially designed by my firearms coach, J. T. Dillon, to hold twenty-seven extra rounds of ammo.

I would see him for the last time tomorrow. I had a feeling he knew a little bit about tonight, too. But he didn’t pry and I didn’t inform. Instead, our conversation two weeks ago had gone something like this:

“If I needed to, say, establish a new identity…for example, get my hands on a complete set of top-of-the-line papers, would you know who I might contact to make such arrangements?”

J.T., loading his. 45. “Seems like I get asked that question a lot.”

“Beats girls asking what’s your sign.”

J.T., finally looking up at me. Me, doing my best not to squirm beneath that gaze. Before J.T. took on a serial killer, shot up half of Massachusetts, and eventually found a wife, he was a marine, Force Recon. Mostly, he reminded me of an old gunslinger, possessing the salt-and-pepper hair, leathery brown face, and deeply lined eyes of a man who’d spent most of his life peering into the horizon and was never surprised by what he saw there.

“Nothing’s cheap,” he said.

“I got a rainy day fund. Hey, it’s raining.”

“My wife likes you,” he said, as if that settled the matter for him. Maybe it did. I’d met his wife only once before. She’d studied me for half a second, then walked over and wrapped me into a tight embrace. I got the feeling Tess was as tough as her husband, and that if I ever took them up on their offer of dinner, we’d have a lot to say.

J.T. provided a name. Told me to wait twenty-four hours, so he could vouch for me. He must’ve, because when I made the call two days later, the crisp-voiced woman on the other end seemed to be expecting me. She asked questions. I provided answers. And three days ago, for the bargain basement price of one thousand dollars, I picked up three sets of brand-new, top-of-the-line fake papers: three birth certificates, three Social Security cards, one driver’s license.

Everything a terrified woman might need to stay on the run for the rest of her life.

I wasn’t sure I could imagine that, to tell you the truth. It’s funny, but boxing and shooting and running had awakened something inside me. Turns out, I had a violent streak. It’d only taken me twenty-eight years to figure that out, but these days, I was doing my best to make up for lost time.

Exiting the back door of my landlord’s house, I was grateful to come around and discover the front porch clear, no sign of Tulip. Tonight was a solo mission for sure.

I hunched deeper into my coat, chin tucked to collar to fight the biting cold, and set off for Harvard Square. Ten-minute walk to the T stop. Eight minutes waiting for the train, then off and moving again.

Rush hour, the subways crammed full. I stood in the middle, just another nameless commuter, hand gripping the metal support pole, legs swaying in rhythm with the railcars, inhaling the subterranean scents of sweat and urine and wet wool coats.

I hummed softly under my breath, my only concession to my growing nervousness.

Seventy-five hours left to live.

What would you do?

SKY WAS PITCH-BLACK when I returned to upper earth, pushing my way through the creaky turnstile, hiking up the steps to another darker, quieter section of Boston. Street lamps did their best to combat the relentless winter night, but they’d been positioned too far apart, casting the icy sidewalk into large enough pools of shadow to make a lone female think twice. I shed the turquoise scarf, hat, and mittens, shoving all deep into my pack. Then I flipped my messenger bag backwards, pouch bouncing against my rear. No need to disguise my hip holster anymore. In this neighborhood, everyone was probably packing, and blending in was my best shot at survival.

Turned out, even snow was ugly in housing projects. The mountains where I used to live, Harvard Square where I now lived, blanketed in yards of white fluffy Norman Rockwell snow. Not here. In this section of town, snow became just another form of litter. Gray, sandy, riddled with yellow pools of dog piss and bristling with discarded straws, Big Gulp lids, cigarette butts. You didn’t look at this kind of snow and think of Christmas lights, cheerful hearth fires, or mugs of hot cocoa. You walked by these piles and figured even Mother Nature was an unforgiving bitch.

I set off, following a map I’d committed to memory to find an address I’d never written down. Another precaution rolled into a precaution.

Sidewalks weren’t empty. In an inner city neighborhood, they never are. I walked by groups of hulking black teens, baseball caps worn backwards, down coats four sizes too large, chests gleaming with gold chains. Some were laughing, some were smoking. Some were already pushing and shoving, maybe in jest, maybe not.

They all looked up. Started. White chick, on their streets.

I smiled at them. I put my finger to my lips. I exhaled softly, Shhhh.

And just like that, they quieted, stepped away.

I think it had to do with the look in my eyes. One each of them recognized, most likely contemplated every single morning when standing in front of his mirror.

You want to know what it feels like to having nothing left to lose?

Liberating.

Intoxicating.

Dangerous.

6:02 P.M., I acquired my target.

Seventy-four hours left to live.

What would you do?

TOMIKA MET ME IN THE FOYER. She had the kids bundled up so thickly only their eyes, brilliant white, appeared against their dark faces. Michael, the older boy, had a red backpack. Mica, the four-year-old girl, clutched a blanket and a teddy bear. Tomika carried the rest, two black duffel bags slung over each shoulder. Eight years of marriage, twenty-six years of living, condensed into two midsized travel bags.

I faltered. My foot, coming over the threshold, missed. I stumbled, caught myself in the doorway.

Then I did something curious even for me. I exhaled, so I could watch my breath form a misty trail in the ice-cold night.

That satisfied me. Made me feel that the scene was exactly right.

“Has he called?” I asked softly.

“Five minutes ago.”

I glanced at my watch, set a mental deadline. “Let’s go.” I held out my arm, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for nine-year-old Michael to loop his hand through it. I smiled down at him. He gazed solemn-eyed back up at me, and again, the scene felt right.

Tomika had called dispatch for the first time six months ago. Usual story. Drunk, angry husband, tearing up the place. Usual results. Police showed up, talked her husband down; she refused to press charges.

But six weeks ago, Michael called the hotline. Their mother had gone out, leaving him and his little sister alone with their father. Now they were huddled in the closet, trying not to be seen or heard because other men were over and had gotten to arguing and one had pulled a gun and Michael had grabbed his little sister and jammed them both into the back of their parents’ closet and he didn’t know what else to do.

I did what comm officers do. I asked questions, I got answers, I dispatched several officers to the scene, and I kept Michael on the line. Forty-five minutes that call lasted. We sang silly songs. Exchanged knock-knock jokes. Michael and Mica even taught me some ghetto slang to improve my street cred.

By the time the first of my officers had arrived, the men were gone, and Stan grew pissed off at having a patrol man on his doorstep. Officer Mackereth, Tom, had been on duty that night. He’d done good. Never mentioned Michael or Mica, two frightened kids huddled with a phone in the closet. Just said he’d responded to reports of an argument in the neighborhood. Had Stan seen or heard anything?

After that, Michael started calling more often. Sometimes just to talk. Because nights were long in his house, and who cared about monsters under the bed when the real thing was passed out drunk on the family room sofa? He worried about his mom. He was terrified for his sister.

After the last recorded call, three weeks ago, Social Services had paid the family a visit. As Michael explained to me days later, Stan rounded up the family and sat them before the caseworker. They were to answer all questions openly and honestly. While Stan stood there and glared at them.

The moment the social worker left, Stan got out a hammer. He broke all of Tomika’s fingers, then four of Michael’s, then two of little Mica’s. No one, he informed them, would be dialing the phone ever again. Or next time, he wouldn’t be getting out a hammer-he’d get out an ax.

It had taken Michael twenty-four hours to work up the courage to dial 911 with his pinkies. Then he’d had to wait another two days for it to be my turn on graveyard shift. If anyone ever listened to that recorded call, it would sound like a little boy, playing with the phone, looking for his mother’s number. It would sound like an exasperated dispatch officer finally rattling off a number to appease the child.

That it happened to be the dispatch officer’s own prepaid cell was just because, of course. What other numbers do you know off the top of your head?

Michael and I took our conversation off-line, where his mother, Tomika, joined the party. Then I liquidated my entire savings accounts, all forty-two hundred dollars, to buy a woman and her two children brand-new IDs, to cover first and last month’s rent plus security deposit on a new apartment, and to pay for the bus tickets that would get them all there.

Seventy-three hours and thirty minutes remaining.

What would you do?

I ESCORTED TOMIKA, MICHAEL, AND MICA to the bus stop. It would take three more exchanges to get them to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but Tomika had an old girlfriend there, who’d set her up with job. New names, new life, new opportunity.

Tomika was crying.

“I love him,” she said, then brushed her cheeks with hands thick with finger splints and white bandages.

“He’ll kill you.”

“I know.”

“He’ll kill your children.”

“I know.”

Michael had his arm around his little sister’s shoulders. His expression, as he stared at his mother, was resigned.

“Mommy?” Mica finally spoke up.

Tomika glanced down at her daughter, sobbed harder. “I swear I won’t go back. I’ll be strong. I’ll take care of us, baby. I promise, I’ll take care of us.”

Given the state of her splinted fingers, I helped her organize the new IDs in her purse. I opened her wallet, withdrew her old driver’s license, slipped in the new one, made with the help of one of her Facebook photos and J.T.’s friend. In thirty seconds Tomika Miller became Tonya Davis. I wrapped my turquoise scarf around her neck, slipped dark sunglasses over her eyes, and added a bright hat to cover her uptucked hair.

For Michael and Mica, we had something simpler in mind. Michael gained a wig, becoming the seven-year-old sister, while Mica’s ponytail was summarily cut off, turning her into a four-year-old younger brother.

Later, at the bus stop, should Stan Miller ask questions, no one would know of a lone woman with an older son and younger daughter boarding the bus. They’d only witnessed two women and two children who climbed on together, with an older girl and younger boy. I handled all the tickets again, so Tomika could keep her bandaged hands hidden inside her coat. Another question Stan might think to ask, but no one in the bus depot would have the answer.

At the last minute, I got back off the bus, mentioning I’d forgotten something, would catch up later.

Right before exiting, I leaned down and slipped a prepaid cell, recently purchased from Wal-Mart, into Michael’s pocket. It was programmed with a single number-my own. I whispered in his ear, “Call me. Anytime. I’ll be there, Michael. I’ll be there.”

Then I was off. Five minutes later the bus pulled away, Tomika Miller and her two kids getting a fresh start in life.

Until the first time it grew too tough, and Tomika gave in to the urge to call her husband. Or broke down and told her story to a friend who’d tell a friend who’d tell a friend who’d tell Stan Miller. Or Stan himself managed to track them down.

Maybe this time, Stan would bring that ax. Maybe this time, Michael would call me, begging, pleading, screaming desperately for help.

Maybe it would be after 8 P.M. on January 21.

And my phone would ring and ring and ring. Nobody left alive to answer.

I glanced at my watch. 7:42 P.M.

Seventy-two hours and fifteen minutes left to live.

What would you do?

I headed back to Tomika’s old address. I headed for Stan Miller.

THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW about myself until the last year: I am, or used to be, deeply, deeply terrified of fighting back. First time my boxing coach tried to get me to spar in the ring, I couldn’t do it. Shadowboxing, sure. Heavy bag work, no problem. Speed bag, fun. But to hit someone, actually pull back my arm, then snap my fist forward, rolling my shoulder, rotating at the waist, stepping into the full velocity of the punch, committing to my opponent’s gut, kidney, chin, nose, right eye. Couldn’t do it.

I danced around the ring. Dodged, ducked, V-stepped, sidestepped, elbow blocked, swatted, did anything but throw a punch.

All those years of going along. All those years of being a brave little girl, a good little girl. I couldn’t retaliate.

My mother had trained me too well.

At the end of the sixth session, in sheer frustration, my boxing coach, Dick, a retired three-time world champion, nailed me in the eye. It hurt. My cheekbone exploded. My eye welled with tears. I recoiled, stared at him incredulously, as if I couldn’t believe he’d done such a thing.

He jabbed me in the other eye. Then the gut, the shoulder, the chin. My coach started wailing on me.

And I took it. I hunched over, fists in front of my face, elbows glued to my rib cage, and let him beat me.

Brave little girl. Good little girl.

Making my mother proud.

Dick gave up first. Walked away in disgust. Muttering at me for not fighting, muttering at himself for beating up a defenseless girl.

And that did it. I finally registered my own pain. I finally heard someone calling me a defenseless girl and I lost it.

I attacked my fifty-five-year-old, gristle-haired, battle-scarred boxing coach and I tried to kill him. I threw jabs, right hooks, uppercuts, left hooks, solid punches, endless kidney shots. I chased him around the ring, corner to corner, and I discovered inside myself something I’d never known was there-rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. And not the good old, I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m finally pissed off at my mother rage, but the better, harder, I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m finally pissed off at me rage. Because I’d taken it. Because I was a good girl and a brave girl and I went along. So help me God I went along and I went along, and I was never going along again.

At the end of the session, my coach had one black eye and one swollen nose. I had two black eyes and bruised ribs. And we were both exultant.

“That’s it!” he told me again and again, dripping blood all over the boxing ring. “I knew you could do it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Now, that’s boxing, Charlie. That’s committing to the punch!”

Turns out, I didn’t want to be Tomika Miller, running from shadows, constantly looking over her shoulder.

I wanted it to be January 21. I wanted to open that door. I wanted to look my killer in the eye.

And I wanted to beat the shit out of him, before plugging three to the chest. One for Randi. One for Jackie. And one for me.

I’d been a good girl once.

Now I didn’t plan on being a good girl ever again.

I ARRIVED BACK AT TOMIKA’S APARTMENT in the tenement housing unit at 8:26 P.M. I’d been told Stan’s shift as a security officer ended at seven. Usually, he had half a dozen drinks with the boys, then came home to terrorize his waiting family around nine.

Big guy. Six two, 280 pounds. Not fit. His security job involved sitting in a booth, checking ID at a major manufacturing plant. Basically, he made twelve bucks an hour to sit around and look intimidating. Which must have pissed him off, because then he returned home and threw his weight around.

According to Tomika, he was often packing and seemed to have an endless supply of firearms. Where they came from, she didn’t know and she didn’t ask. But he and his buddies liked to shoot beer cans off the rear fire escape at nights, and none of them had problems producing a weapon.

So I had roughly thirty minutes to prepare for a mountain of man who might or might not be packing multiple firearms.

My palms were sweating. My heart beat too hard in my chest.

I worked on breaking down my plan into short, manageable steps. First, quick buzz through the apartment, removing lightbulbs. Darkness was my friend, surprise my best advantage.

The instant Stan opened the door, he’d be back lit by the hall, a clear target. Best moment of opportunity would be those first two seconds, when he was caught unaware and completely haloed, while I’d be nothing but a faint shadow in the dark recesses of the living room.

My countdown to January 21 would continue. His would not.

Next step, hastily ransacking all kitchen and bedroom drawers. I found a. 22 and a tiny little ankle holster gun. I kept the ankle shooter, dropped the. 22 in the toilet. Then I discovered Stan’s tool kit and went to work. A precaution built into a precaution built into a precaution.

In the back bedroom, I left the window access to the rickety fire escape open-always good to have an additional egress, especially if neighbors responded to the sounds of gunfire by crowding the inner halls.

Nine oh one. Jittery. Not good. My own anxiety started to piss me off. Nerves? I’d been training and practicing for a fucking year. What good were nerves to me? So sorry, Mr. Killer of My Two Best Friends, but can we hold off on our confrontation for a minute, while I calm myself down? Want a drink? Want a Xanax?

Here, take two.

Fuck nerves.

I was a lean, mean killing machine.

God dammit.

Footsteps. Out in the hallway. Heavy and ringing. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heart rate spiked. My black turtleneck constricted around my throat, and at the last second, I had to take my shaking left hand off my Taurus to wipe my sweaty palm on the leg of my jeans.

I’d locked the front door. Everyone did in this building. Now I heard the jangle of keys. A rasp of metal teeth engaging the first lock, then the second. Front door flung open.

Two hundred and eighty pounds of Stan Miller loomed in the entryway.

“What’s for dinner, bitch?” Stan boomed across the darkened apartment.

He sounded cavalier, almost like he was in a good mood.

So I shot him.

I PULLED LEFT. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why. But I fucking pulled my shot left. Doorjamb exploded, Stan dropped like a rock and rolled toward the kitchen, screaming. I cursed a blue streak and, through my shock and rage, realized now I was in for it, not to mention that if my firearms instructor J.T. ever heard about this, he’d kill me anyway and spare me the miserable pain of the twenty-first.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!” Stan was yelling. “Where’s Tomika? What’d you do with Tomika?”

“Killed her!” I called back at him. “That’ll teach you not to pay your debts.”

(I was making this up. Precaution built into a precaution, right? Always gotta have plan B, and if I couldn’t kill Stan, plan B was to lead him to think that his family was dead. A man like Stan had to owe somebody something somewhere. It just figured.)

“You’re a girl,” Stan said. And just like that, he stood up in his kitchen. Apparently, being attacked by a girl didn’t scare him nearly so much.

So I shot him again.

This time, I hit his shoulder. He howled, dropped again.

I felt better about things.

Until good ol’ Stan popped back up and fired off four rounds in my general direction. This time, I dove for cover, cursing myself all over again. First two seconds. Battles are won or lost in the first two seconds. He’d been standing right there, lit up beautifully, 280 pounds of target. How the hell had I missed 280 pounds of target?

Dammit!

“Gonna hurt you,” Stan bellowed now. “Gonna find you, gonna hurt you. With a knife. Bad.”

I crawled behind the overstuffed recliner, leading with my gun, and peered out, trying to penetrate the gloom of the kitchen. Couldn’t see a thing.

Shit.

I took a second to get my bearings. Stan seemed to be doing the same, the apartment falling eerily silent. I strained my ears for sounds from the rest of the building. Neighbors yelling about gunshots, or banging the ceiling to say quiet the noise. Police sirens already screeching down the street.

Nothing.

Maybe 9 P.M. was too early for most residents of this building to be home yet. Or maybe, in a building where men routinely spent their evenings shooting beer cans off the fire escape, nobody noticed gunfire anymore.

I did. My ears were ringing, my heart pounding, my hands a shaking mess of adrenaline and fear. Even my stomach felt funny. Hollowed out, queasy, and butterfly-y. Shock, probably. Terror. Rage.

I tried homing in on the rage. Fear would get me killed. Anger was the only hope I had left.

“Who are you?” Stan boomed again. “I don’t owe nobody nothin’, so who the fuck are you?”

I didn’t answer, but traced the sound of his voice toward the hall to the left of the kitchen. I could just make him out, his gray sweatshirt a faint glow on the dimly lit floor. He’d shimmied out into open space. Probably to sneak around on me, but also to keep himself from getting cornered. The tiny kitchenette was no good to either of us; too small and cramped. Family room was better. Rear bedroom, with its open window leading to the fifth-story fire escape, best yet.

But for me to get to the bedroom, Stan had to get out of the hallway. Fine.

I shot him again.

For a big guy, Stan moved pretty fast. Sprang out of his crouch and leapt through the doorway into the kids’ room. Couldn’t tell if I’d got him or not, and didn’t wait to see. I bolted down the short hallway into the back bedroom, as he opened fire behind me. Carpet exploded at my feet. Sheetrock rained down from overhead.

He was an even worse shot than I was. Course, spending the past few hours in a bar probably didn’t help his aim, thank goodness for me.

I took four zigzagging steps and staggered into the rear bedroom. Another ringing shot, and I was hurling myself over the windowsill, wincing as I flopped awkwardly onto the metal fire escape. I could feel the rickety deck sway upon impact. Couldn’t stop. I’d be trapped on the tiny fenced-in balcony, and he’d come for me, like shooting fish in a barrel.

I didn’t think anymore, I moved. Crabbing around, trying desperately to find the top rung of the descending metal ladder in the dark. I banged my head against another set of metal rungs, the ones heading up, staggered back, and a meaty fist clamped onto my shoulder.

Stan thrust his massive head and shoulders through the window and held tight.

“Gotcha! Gonna make you hurt, girl. Gonna get my ax, gonna get my hammer, gonna get my knife. Gonna make you pay.”

Which was a funny thing for him to say, given that I was the one holding a gun. One small twist, and I had the barrel of my. 22 pressed against his temple.

Stan stilled. His eyes rounded. His mouth formed the proverbial O and he sucked in a breath, as I dug the barrel of my gun harder against his fat head. Big ol’ Stan had made a mistake. He’d grabbed me with his left hand, and given the width of his massive shoulders wedged through the narrow window frame, his right hand, the one holding his own gun, was trapped uselessly in the bedroom. He’d need to release me and bring his left shoulder back inside the apartment, in order to get his right arm through again.

Battles are won in the first two seconds, or in the final two minutes.

The fire escape swayed unsteadily, making me feel as if I were surfing on air. I smiled at Stan. I exhaled and watched my frosty breath mist in the cold night.

The scene felt exactly right.

Shoot. Pull the trigger. For Tomika and Michael and Mica.

For Stan’s hammer and his family’s fingers and their long, terrified nights.

I wanted to. I needed to.

For that little boy in Colorado, whom I still couldn’t forget. For all the crying kids, all the terrified women who called 911, except they had problems too big for any dispatch operator or patrol officer to help.

Pull the trigger.

Baby. Crying down the hall. I could hear her again, so close, so clear. Baby, in my mother’s house, crying down the hall.

Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.

Sugar and spice and broken glass, I should’ve told the nurse. If only I’d told the nurse. Why hadn’t I told that nice nurse?

PULL THE TRIGGER!

Pull the fucking trigger!

But I couldn’t do it. I stared at Stan Miller, peered into the whites of his eyes, pressed my nickel-plated semiauto deeper and deeper into his temple…and I couldn’t do it. My hand shook too badly.

I pulled back my arm and pistol-whipped him instead.

Stan howled. Let go. Stumbled back through the window.

I bolted. Down the ancient fire escape, rusty metal rungs shaking, whole structure swaying from my rat-a-tat impact, as I half slid, half jumped from metal decking down to metal decking, desperate to hit the street five stories below.

Stan was gonna get his right arm out now. Stan was gonna hunt me down. And Stan would shoot a woman in cold blood.

I felt the fire escape groan again. Heard, more than saw, Stan squirm and heave and twist his considerable homicidal bulk onto the narrow fifth-story decking.

Faster, faster. Not much time now. Gotta move, move, move.

As the fire escape heaved, sighed, gave an ominous creak.

“Gonna get you, girl,” Stan bellowed from above. “Big Stan gonna run you down. What’d ya do to my family? Where’s my Tomika? Tell me now, girl. Talk, or I’ll shoot out your damn bitch brains.”

The first metal bolt attaching the fifth-story decking to the crumbling brick building went ping. Then the second, third, fourth.

Go, go, go I urged myself. No time to lose. Jack, racing the giant down the beanstalk. Run!

The whole fire escape swayed above me. Making the sharp corner two flights below, I knew the moment Stan figured out what was happening, because he dropped his gun. It went sailing by me, just missing my head. Stan didn’t need his pistol anymore. He’d grabbed for the railing instead.

Except that wouldn’t help him any. I knew, because I was the one who’d ratcheted loose all the bolts attaching the rickety fifth-story fire escape to the ancient bricks of the dilapidated building.

A precaution built into a precaution built into a precaution.

I’m only a hundred and five pounds. Too small to fight a giant like Stan. But lighter and faster to beat him down a collapsing fire escape.

The wobbly metal ladder was shaking beneath my feet now. Above me, I heard a terrible screech as the fifth story decking swung out into midair, then felt it, like a giant chain, start ripping the corresponding layers of decks and ladders from the side of the cheaply constructed housing unit. Ping. Ping. Ping.

Stan screamed.

Metal groaned. People inside the building began to yell at the unexpected commotion, while the ladder beneath my own feet suddenly lurched down and away. One story above street level. Wasn’t gonna make it.

I jumped, dropped, and rolled. To the side, away from the collapsing metal structure thundering down and across the street.

More screaming. More yelling. More groaning.

Stan Miller plunged five stories to the frozen pavement below.

Then the screaming stopped. Gritty sand and dirty snow ballooned up, settled back down.

I staggered to my feet, cleared my eyes, registered a pain in my ankle. Now was not the time. People pouring out. Residents of the unit who’d been immune to gunfire and screaming, but not this. No one, no how, had seen anything like this. They gathered on the street, yapping, dialing cell phones, shaking their heads, and then, when they spotted Stan’s hulking body, skewered on multiple shorn metal rungs, the first woman screeched in horror, before several more joined her.

I stared at the carnage, the twisted heap of wreckage, the blood pooling on the front of Stan’s shirt.

Then, I ran.

I didn’t look back. Not for the screaming women. Not for the growing cries, not for the startled exclamation from the lone kid who spotted my escape.

I ran and I ran and I ran, my body shaking uncontrollably.

Round the block, I paused long enough to grab my messenger bag from beneath a snowy bush. Then I was off and running again.

9:56 P.M.

Seventy hours left to live.

What would you have done?