Janice Sherlock came with an easy smile. An eternal optimist who always preferred to look at the bright side of matters, few were the times when the corners of her lips weren’t turned up. Her ability to exude confidence and warmth charmed her to most anyone she met, which meant she had plenty of enemies, she just refused to consider them such.

Her parents, Bill and Nadine, were proud of their daughter and her outlook on life, though her father was a bit concerned that it might lead to some naivety on her part. They had given her everything they felt was reasonable, made sure she was well equipped for life, and then cautiously stepped back to allow her to live it as she saw fit. They certainly didn’t approve of all her choices. Some of the people she called friends were questionable. Her tattoos caused them to bite their tongues most every time they saw her. What bothered them most, though, was the place she had chosen to live: Thirstwood Glenn.

Thirstwood Glenn was one of those apartment complexes where rents were cheap and the people who haphazardly paid them were troubled. A strong mix of minorities, from Hispanic and Asian mixes to rough-looking Eastern Europeans, filled most the units. Vehicles parked in the barely-painted spaces were typically old, their stereos being the most valuable thing on or in them. Cars with flat tires never seemed to get them fixed. Oil slicks ran from under cars toward insufficient drains. Sidewalks were cracked and crumbling. Police patrolled through the area in pairs. The complex had a bad reputation that was more than well deserved.

With each visit, which was regularly scheduled to occur mid-morning so as to attract the least amount of attention, Bill offered to set Janice up in a new place, a condo downtown, a small house near the university, a duplex on the North side. Almost anything would be better, and safer, than where she was now. Janice had barely lived there three months and already the front window had been replaced twice due to stray bullets coming through. Janice hadn’t been home either time, but her parents naturally worried what might have happened had she been there. Yet, no matter what Bill offered, Janice would smile, kiss him on the cheek, and say, “Thank you, Daddy, but I really love where I’m living. I just can’t imagine moving right now.”

The statement bothered Nadine and absolutely flummoxed Bill. “I worry about you ever second you are in that apartment,” he would tell his daughter. “It’s not like you’re something that can ever be replaced. You are invaluable. Should anything happen to you, even the slightest scratch …” He would pause and Janice would interrupt.

“Daddy, nothing is going to happen to me,” Janice would say. “I know that sounds naive, and from anyone else it probably would be, but this is a necessary part of who I am going to be as an adult. Two years here, no more. I promise.”

From where he sat, two years seemed like an eternity to Bill. Each night, he would set his cell phone right next to his pillow, ready to run and get her at the first sign of trouble. He wouldn’t wait until anything actually happened. All she had to do was call and tell him she was scared and he would be there, no questions asked. She would never have to go back. Furniture and clothing could all be replaced, but his little girl was irreplaceable.

Had Bill known what was going on in the complex at this exact moment, he most assuredly would have insisted that Janice leave with him. He didn’t know, though, and at first Janice didn’t either. She was just getting out of the shower, her hair dripping water as she toweled off. Rain had moved in overnight, casting its gray pall over the city. So, Janice had laid out a bright orange sweater to wear for the day, one that she hoped would be cheerful to those who she would see.

Cheerful as she was, Janice knew that most people who came into the dentist office where she worked would not be especially happy. No one really liked seeing the dentist anyway, and being out in the weather on a day like this tended to make those bad moods worse. Janice considered it her personal campaign to give everyone who walked through the door at least one reason to smile before they left. To most everyone’s surprise, she tended to be quite successful in that task.

With such thoughts on her mind, it took a few minutes before she noticed the red and blue lights reflecting off the buildings outside. Police action in the complex wasn’t the least bit unusual. This time of day, it would most likely be someone’s drunk husband just managing to find his way home, or a frustrated mother trying to rid herself of a good-for-nothing baby daddy. She wouldn’t have given the matter a second thought had it not been for the police tape strung across the parking lot, blocking in her car. She would need them to move that so she could get to work. Still she wasn’t worried.

Janice glanced over at the clock. 6:45 AM. She still had almost an hour before she would need to leave. Padding across the floor wearing nothing but panties, she preferred being as naked as possible until the very last minute. Her reasoning was simple: clothes that were worn were clothes likely to become stained before she left the house. As jovial as Janice was, she also tended to be a bit clumsy, especially with liquid. As a child, that had meant needing to choose two outfits each morning, because almost certainly the first one she put on wouldn’t be the one she would wear to school. As an adult living on her own, Janice found that staying naked was much easier and infinitely more comfortable.

The living room was the largest room in the apartment, positioned so that it was impossible to move from one room to the next without passing through it. On her way to the kitchen, Janice picked up the television remote from the glass coffee table and turned the TV on so she could catch up on local news. She was only mildly surprised to find the station doing a live remote from just outside her apartment complex. This wasn’t the first time. What bothered her was the banner running at the bottom of the screen: “THIRD COED MURDERED IN APARTMENTS.” That was enough to make her stomach turn. She hadn’t expected things to turn bad so quickly. She wasn’t sure she was ready.

Valerija Dubravka had seen more terror and pain than she wanted throughout her life. Born Perici, Croatia in 1927, she had been the only one of her family not home when the Nazi SS came knocking. Her father and brother were killed on the spot. Her mother was taken to Dachau. Her younger sisters were sent to Sisak. None survived. Valerija escaped under the cover of darkness to Rovinj, stowed away on a merchant vessel to Venice, and then, with the help of the underground movement, traveled across Italy to France, and finally to Switzerland. Even among the Swiss, though, the roma were not welcome. That she was visibly pregnant at the time helped none. She gave birth to a stillborn son and nearly died herself from the bleeding.

Work as a housekeeper allowed her to eventually make her way to the United States in 1948, but even then she found little welcome among the people who took such pride in having liberated the world from the Nazis. She finally married a poor factory worked in 1953 and they had a daughter, Jilena. Valerija was satisfied with her life but for a while, but then, Christmas Eve 1957, a group of men, drunk from a holiday party, broke into their home and decided to have some fun. The biggest of the men headed straight for Valerija, unzipping his pants. When her husband moved to protect her, the giant man broke his neck and threw the poor man to the floor. One at a time, all four men had their turn at her, breaking both her arms and shattering her right knee. By the time they left, Valerija was not able to move. Bloodied and dirty, the men left her for dead.

No one had touched or even noticed the baby sleeping in the front room. But with the door left open, windows smashed and the fire out, the thin blanket was not enough to keep the child from freezing to death during the night. It was half-way through Christmas day before a neighbor noticed that the door was open and came to check. At first observation, Valerija had appeared as dead as the rest of her family. Only a faint gasp as she was being loaded into a coroner’s van saved her from being buried alive.

Valerija would spend the next four months in the hospital as doctors tried setting and re-setting her broken bones. Her arms finally healed sufficiently so that she could move them and hold things. Her leg, however, never fully recovered. She would forever walk with a painful limp to remind her of that horrible night.

Some people would say that Valerija’s natural instincts as roma kicked in at that point. She never returned to the little house where her husband and daughter had died. Instead, she traveled, occasionally taking odd jobs as a waitress or hotel housekeeper, but more often than not living off what she could make telling fortunes. Many said she had a gift, but she was convinced that it was just another curse on a horribly cursed life, because when she was able to tell of things yet to come, they were always bad.

Valerija became artful at disguising bad news to sound like good.. To an anxious mother whose only son was about to go to Vietnam, she would say, “Oh, he will do so well! I see him rising to the rank of major! You will be so proud!” That would be enough to ease the mother’s mind. She would pay Valerija handsomely and leave with a smile on her face. Valerija would then put a portion of the money aside to send flowers to the young man’s funeral, for she had not told the mother her son would be killed in action the day after getting that promotion.

So it had been for over fifty years when Janice walked through the front door of her tiny home. The neon sign in Valerija’s front window simply proclaimed “FORTUNE TELLER” so as to give her freedom to choose whatever method the old woman felt would be most appropriate. The decorations that gave the room an old-world feel were, of course, fake. No real roma she had ever known had decorated their wall with tapestry or been excessive with scented candles. Those were all just part of the show. With the first glimpse of Janice’s smile, Valerija knew that the young woman was going to change a lot of lives, for both better and worse. She would need every resource she had. There would be no slight of hand or trickery with this one.

Janice was intrigued with the old woman who seemed to know how Janice’s entire life would pan out, not in vaguely-worded mysteries, but with precise detail that Janice wrote in a fresh notebook. When the old woman seemed to grow tired or winded, which she did after several minutes, Janice would pay her and promise to return the next day. Diligently, for eight days, Janice came back until the old woman had given her details of a very long life, details mixed with both good and bad. By the third day, Janice was bringing small meals to the old woman, who ate them while they talked. Valerija was able to see up to Janice’s 58th birthday.

“Beyond that, I have no vision,” the old woman said. “I do not feel you will die then, by any means. No, I think you will live many, many years beyond that birthday. My gift simply does not extend past that point.”

“Then beyond that,” Janice had said, “I will have to simply be ready for an even greater adventure, for I will not know what to expect next, will I?”

Valerija saw Janice’s eternal smile as a reflection of a pure heart, one for whom doing good was the only option. “You have much to do in preparation, dear,” she instructed the girl. “You must work hard, and you must not let anyone know why. You cannot interfere with someone else’s fate without altering your own.”

“I understand,” Janice said. “I think I can keep a few secrets. I’ve been keeping them from my father for a long time, anyway. I have practice”

Valerija closed her eyes for a few seconds. “Yes, about your father, he, most of all, must not know about the things you are about to face. He would most certainly try to stop you, and if he were to do so, the results would be tragic far beyond their current scope.”

“He has always understood the need to let me do what I know I must,” Janice said. “Still, I won’t tell him what he does not absolutely need to know.” She smiled again, and it seemed as though a special warmth had filled the room.

Janice started a pot of coffee while listening to the news report.

“Officials haven’t yet released a name, but are saying that the victim is a female, 22-year-old student at City College.  We don’t know at this point if the young woman had a roommate. Police say the front door had been bashed in and that the apartment shows signs of a considerable struggle. According to officials on the scene here, the victim was cut multiple times, possibly with a glass bottle, before being shot twice …”

Janice walked to her bedroom and retrieved her notebook from between the mattress and box spring. She opened to the third page and found the information she expected. Things were happening exactly the way Valerija had told her. Ready or not, Janice would have to act now, today, or else many more lives, possibly even her own, could be lost. There were still a couple more items that had yet to happen, but they would happen soon. She had to be ready when they did.

As the hot coffee began to drip into the pot, Janice went to the hall closet and pulled a set of drop cloths she had saved from when she had painted the apartment. She was pleased that, as she unfolded the cloths, they released the smell of paint and turpentine. This would give anyone coming in the sense that Janice was in the process of painting. She carefully covered the furniture in the living room, as well as all the carpet. The chances for blood splattering would be high. Not only did she not want a huge clean-up chore, she didn’t want to give her father any ammunition when he tried to make her move, and Valerija was certain he would try.

Next, she walked around all the windows and made sure the blinds were down and the curtains drawn tight. Some of the things she might have to do over the next several minutes were of questionable legality, especially since she, technically, had previous knowledge of what was about to occur. Janice didn’t need witnesses. She only needed the end result.

Finally, as the last bits of coffee fell into the carafe, she went to her bedroom closet and picked three wooden cases from the top shelf. The top one held a Glock22, a popular and effective hand gun. Janice still remembered the day she had walked into the gun shop and bought it. The owner of the gun shop had taken her to a gun range set up in the back of the store and showed her how to use it, then handed it to her and set a target. To the shop owner’s amazement, not only did every shot hit the target, but they were all within the lethal range on the body. He showed her how to reload the 17-round clip and she fired again, this time clustering the shots even closer. The shop owner declared her a natural marksman. Janice just smiled.

Now, Janice took the Glock and secured it with a single piece of duct tape under the protruding counter separating the kitchen from the living room. She set the weapon far enough back it could not be seen by anyone who was not on the floor, but it would still be easy enough to retrieve with a single motion. No one knew that she had practiced this move continually from the moment she moved in.

The second box contained a smaller FN Herstal FNP-9, a simple 9mm handgun she could easily conceal in, and retrieve from, her purse without arousing suspicion. From her closet, Janice also chose a relatively small clutch that would look as though it had been carelessly tossed down after a night out. She put the gun in first, then carefully added a compact, lipstick, and small wallet. Just enough to make the bag look real, but not anything that prevent her from having rapid access to the gun when she needed it.

Finally, was her Walther P99QA. Imported by special order from Germany, the gun shop owner had questioned her need for a third handgun, given the strength of the first two. Janice flashed her smile and convinced the man that the quick action on the Walther would give her added flexibility in tight quarters, should someone attempt to carjack her or some other small-spaced mischief. Upon the gun’s arrival, Janice had once again demonstrated her high level of proficiency with the weapon, making it clear that, at least when it came to hand guns, this friendly little girl was not someone to be regarded as simple or naive. She knew what she was doing.

The third gun she carefully taped to the back of the bathroom door. This one was most critical. This was the gun that would end everything. Janice taped an extra magazine to the bottom of the toilet tank. She shuddered a little thinking that she would still be in this small room after discharging the first 15 rounds. Were she firing at a still target, all the preparation wouldn’t be necessary. He wasn’t going to stand still for her, though, and getting a clear shot was never going to be easy. She already knew that. She just had to be prepared.

Janice poured herself a cup of coffee and waited. Perhaps a more modest girl would have at least put on a bra, but Janice reasoned it would be far easier to just hop in the shower and rinse off when it was all over. Besides, there was every reason to believe that her breasts might serve as a distraction. They certainly had performed that function numerous times under other circumstances. Perhaps they could actually help her this time.

Turning her attention back toward the television, Janice heard the reporter tell viewers that police were now considering the possibility that the perpetrator was still inside the apartment. Janice already knew this to be a fact. She even knew from which window he would eventually escape. Part of her wanted to warn police, to let them know that they were being set up. Two fine men were about to die in the line of duty. Yet, Valerija had been adamant that her choice was two, or 18. No one would understand how she was preventing such carnage by keeping her mouth shut. All she could do was wait.

At least the coffee tasted good. Janice tried not fall entranced by the news cast. She needed to stay focused on what was really happening, not what was being reported. Real time mattered. She would have to keep her ears peeled so she could hear what no one would see until it was too late. Large armored vehicles carrying the city’s SWAT team rumbled past her apartment. Janice walked into her bedroom and picked up her cell phone just before it rang.

“Yes, Daddy, I know what’s going on,” she said in her usual, cheerful voice. “It’s all the way over on the other side of the complex from me,” she lied. “I’ll be able to get out and get to work on time, no problem.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come get you?” Bill asked. He had watched as much of the television coverage as he could stand before calling her. Every paternal instinct told him to hop in the car and protect his daughter. Bill knew that such a breach of trust would only alienate the girl, however. He had made that mistake once before. Janice had always had a unique ability to take care of herself. He would have to trust her, but he didn’t have to like it.

“I’m sure, Daddy,” Janice said. “How ’bout I call you when I’m safely at work, okay? I promise.”

Bill looked at his watch and, once more, bit his tongue. He knew Janice didn’t have to leave for work for another 30 minutes. A lot could happen in that thirty minutes. “Okay, dear,” he finally agreed, “but please, just as soon as you get there, okay? And sooner if you’re running late for any reason.”

Janice giggled. Her father was so predictable. “Okay, Daddy. I’d tell you to not worry, but I know you’re going to anyway. I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m going to live to be an old lady with a lot of loud and obnoxious grandchildren.”

That was enough to make her father laugh, which was exactly what Janice had wanted. He wouldn’t be mad at her if she could make him smile. “I’ll talk with you later, dear,” he said. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Daddy,” Janice replied. “Talk to you in a bit.”

Janice disconnected the phone and listened to the ruckus going on outside. There it was, orders to consume the apartment. She fought back the urge to yell. Two seconds later, she heard the first explosion. Then, with a force that had her reaching for the walls, the second. The television went fuzzy and cable service went out across the complex. “That’s sure to piss off a few people,” Janice said out loud.

Taking her coffee cup with her, Janice walked back toward the kitchen and waited.

Everything from this point forward was scripted almost exactly. She didn’t know how the dialogue would go, of course, but Valerija had been very precise, a fact janice was just now beginning to fully appreciate.

The two explosions had sent everyone, including the television crews, running for cover. Police were surprised, confused and hurt. Six were down, and, they didn’t know it yet, but two were dead. The apartment building was in flames. Those who could think the fastest were working frantically to get everyone out that they could. In all the chaos and confusion, no one noticed the young man slipping under the police tape, away from the apartments.

Glass, brick and metal were strewn everywhere. Within seconds, sirens began to wail as units were dispatched to handle the fire. Police assumed their assailant had to have been killed in the blast. Certainly no one who was in that apartment was still alive. Officials relaxed a bit. Police put their attention toward tending to their own wounded while fire officials worked on saving the remaining apartments.

William Sunday Jefferson was supposed to have been a preacher. At least, that was his parent’s hope when they named their little boy. Even if he converted at this very moment, it would be quite a tale he would have to tell. Defiant from the very start, the little boy ran away from home for the first time when he was seven, telling his parents and police that he refused to live with people who believed a book of lies. His mother thought he was possessed by the devil. His father thought he needed the devil beaten out of him, and proceeded to try. Neither prayer nor paddling had the desired effect.

Billy ran away again when he was 9, jumping into the seat of an idling police car while it sat in front of a convenience store. The child had watched the officer rush into the restroom and figured that it would be several minutes before he would notice the car was gone. He was right. By the time the officer returned and noticed his squad car gone, Billy had managed to maneuver himself within a block of the bus station. He was within minutes of leaving for Georgia when an alert station attendant realized there was no parent or other adult with the child and called police. The beatings came harder and more often. The prayers grew louder. Billy was not allowed outside the house unaccompanied. His only destinations were church and home.

Multiple people tried to get through to Billy on any level possible. Teachers tried to reach him intellectually. They could tell he was bright. He had a sharp memory and could retain long lists of numbers in his head for weeks at a time. He noticed little details and could solve complex math problems before anyone explained them. Yet, he refused to do the work assigned and spent most of the school day in detention, usually for threatening to beat the shit out of another child.

Church was worse. There, Billy openly mocked his Sunday School teachers and tormented his fellow classmates, especially the girls. He was adept and rigging ball point pens so they would explode, sending ink all over everyone’s best Sunday clothes. While the rest of the congregation sang hymns, Billy would wale at the top of his lungs, drowning out those around him. His mother would intentionally sit on the back row so they could make a hasty exit when Billy became totally incorrigible, which managed to happen every Sunday just before the sermon.

Billy ran away once more when he was 11, but this time his parents refused to take him back, telling the court that they were no longer able to do anything with him, giving up custody to the state. Social services immediately put Billy through a series of foster homes, none of which would keep him more than a couple of weeks. Three wouldn’t even keep him over night. No matter where he went, Billy delighted in causing as much torment and pain to those around him as he possibly could. He wanted one thing: to be free, on his own, without anyone telling him what to do.

He was 14 when knocked over his first convenience store, using a broken beer bottle he had found in an alley. He took $82, two cartons of cigarettes, and slit the clerk’s throat before leaving. The slice wasn’t fatal. When police quickly caught up with him, he couldn’t even explain why he had done so. The clerk had cooperated with everything Billy asked him to do. The move was just automatic, as though Billy were programmed and couldn’t have done anything different.

Violence would continue to be part of his modus operandi (MO). At 16, he was 6′ 9″ tall and preferred to go by the name Street. He looked older than he was, which gave him the ability to hang with older gangs, gangs who had access to drugs and alcohol. It didn’t take long for Street to become addicted to both, and there was nothing he would let stand in his way of procuring either. He quickly earned a reputation as a cold, vicious, fighter who couldn’t be trusted to look out for anyone other than himself. Before long, there wasn’t a gang in town who would take him. He was too unruly. Even gangs had their laws and their hierarchies. Street refused to acknowledge either, and found himself alone.

By the time he turned 18, most of Street’s body was covered in tattoos and other body modifications. He shaved his head to show off the little remaining bare skin he had left. Street was especially proud of the two bullet wounds, one in his abdomen, the other in his left leg. Both had come from police guns. Street always bragged that he was too big for the cops to take him down permanently, and that one day they would all pay for their disrespect. By his reckoning, that day had come.

The girls were of little consequence. All were drug addicts so strung out that none of them would have made it to another semester anyway. Street considered that he was doing them a favor by ending their lives quickly, rather than allowing them to suffer the slow deaths they were creating for themselves. Experience and observation had given him a clear concept of police procedure. They wouldn’t consider the murders connected until he had committed the third one. That’s when they would bring out the dogs and the SWAT team; that’s when there would be the most of them on site. That’s when they would be the most confident. That’s when they would become the easiest target.

Janice heard the knocking on the apartments downstairs, then the one across the hallway from hers. The metal doors and door frames did not make it impossible to force entry, but they made it difficult and loud. Loud wasn’t something Street wanted at the moment. So, he kept knocking.

Janice knew she didn’t have to answer. She could have stayed quiet and Street would have gone on to the next set of apartments. But then, her problem would have become someone else’s problem, and the next person wouldn’t be as equipped or ready to deal with him as she was. She really had no choice but to answer. “Who is it,” she called from across the room.

“Police are ordering an evacuation!” Street lied. “Everyone needs to leave the premises immediately!”

“I can’t leave! I’m not ready,” Janice told him.

Street was getting anxious. The more he tried talking through the door, the greater the chances someone else would hear him, and that someone could be a cop. “Let me in and I’ll help you,” he said.

Shooting through the door sounded like a good idea to Janice. If this were the movies, that would have worked, too. She could have just shot him through the door and that would be the end of it. This were real life, though, and that was a metal door. Sure, the bullet would make it through, but there was no way to know in what direction it would be traveling when it came out the other side. Trying to shoot through the door was too careless. “I can’t let you in,” she said. She needed to make him wait as long as possible, so he would be thoroughly desperate.

“Why not?” Street practically screamed. “Ma’am you have got to get out of that apartment immediately! Didn’t you see what just happened across the street? The same thing could happen here! You need to get out!”

Janice stood close to the door and spoke just loud enough for Street to hear. “We both know that’s not going to happen, don’t we? You’re out of bomb making material.”

Street felt a cold shiver run down his spine for the first time in his life. He had a witness. She knew. Therefore, she had to be eliminated. Now. Frantically, he started kicking at the door. “Let me in, you bitch!” he screamed. “You left me in right now!”

Janice listened to the timing of his kicks. There was a definite pattern that was easy to follow. She waited until right before his foot was about to connect with the door again and opened it quickly. The force of his momentum sent Street sprawling onto the floor. Janice quickly shut the door and set the bolt. she had work to do. She didn’t need any help and she wasn’t going to let him escape.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Street asked, totally confused by what had just happened. He looked up at the nearly naked young woman peering down over him and grinned. “Oh, you’re wanting a piece of my action in your pants, aren’t you?”

Janice kicked him, hard, right in the groin. Street screamed in pain. “Wrong. This is the point where you figure out that you’ve really fucked up. The best move you can make now is to beg for forgiveness.” Janice’s voice was stern and rough. There was no sign of the sweet, charming girl that everyone knew. “Be aware, I’m not God, so I’m not under any obligations to grant your request.”

Street attempted to laugh, though any movement was painful. He had to get past this. He couldn’t let some girl take him down. He waited a moment, just long enough to catch his breath, then, when he was sure he could do so without fumbling, he reached for the gun hidden inside his jacket.

Janice anticipated his move and pulled the Glock from under the counter. “Mine’s bigger,” she said, looking disdainfully at the small, .22 caliber pistol Street was holding, “and chances are pretty good I’m the better shot.”

With more than a few gang fights behind him, Street knew better than to argue. Now was the time to negotiate. “Yeah, uh  … listen, I wasn’t really going to hurt you, I mean …”

“Right, just like you didn’t mean to kill those girls, or the two cops who just lost their lives. By the way, they had families,” Janice chided. Her aim was steady and firm. She could talk and still make sure pulling the trigger meant a bullet through Street’s head.

Street noticed. “Okay, I’m not a nice guy,” he conceded, “but that doesn’t mean this situation has to get messy. I was just looking for a place to chill until the heat’s off, then I’m gone. Really.”

“You don’t think they’ll check every apartment looking for you?” Janice asked.

“They think I’m dead,” Street said, grinning. “I’m the furthest thing from their mind right now.”

“Then they won’t notice if I just go ahead and kill you, will they?” Janice took a menacing step forward.

Street began moving back, trying to get his feet under him. He was growing angry that a girl would have the drop on him like this. He was tougher. He was bigger. “Look, I’ll put down the gun,” he said, setting the gun on the counter.

Janice knew the trick. If she went for his gun, that would put her off balance just long enough for him to attack. She didn’t bite. “Sure, put it down, then start stepping toward the door,” she said, keeping the Glock trained on Street’s forehead.

Frustrated, Street put the gun down and started walking toward the door. He waited until he was even with her, then ducked under the gun and lunged, grabbing Janice around the ribs and squeezing as they both fell to the floor. He hear her Glock hit the carpet behind them and smiled. He put his hand on her throat as he pushed up. “You know, those are really nice tits you have there.”

Again, he had underestimated Janice. Despite Street being on top of her, there was still enough room for the girl to quickly bring her leg up and over his head, using it to knock him into the side of the counter, hard. He screamed in pain as she jumped up and ran around the counter for the couch. She pulled the Herstal from her purse and fired as Street stood up. He was moving faster than she expected, though, and the shot caught him in the shoulder. Still, that was enough to send him back to the floor.

Across the parking lot, angry, grieving police officers and medical personnel were tending to their fallen comrades. Emotions were high as the reality of the carnage set in. Rookie officer Davis Nash was lost. His training partner, Rudy Martin, had been the first officer in, and the first to die. His captain had ordered Davis to stay by his squad car, out of the way. So, when a gun shot rang out from a nearby apartment building, Davis was the only one who noticed.

[to be continued]