Instinct, Jason Hough [acx book reading TXT] 📗

“Are you alone up there, hon?” Conaty asks.

Hon? Go fuck yourself. I swallow, glancing behind me. “Kyle’s here,” I say, forcing as much tentative worry into my voice as I can.

“Get him to the window. Both of you place your hands on the glass.”

“He’s hurt,” I say. “He can’t stand.”

“I don’t believe you, dear.”

“It’s the truth.”

“We’ll see about that. Greg Gorman, show these two men the way to that apartment. Bring Mary and her companion down here. And no talking, please.”

Greg had been ready to shoot, and there’s a fraction of a second where I imagine him opening fire on the thugs instead, finally revealing that his condition, like mine, had all been a ruse. He lowers the weapon to his side, though, and immediately starts to jog across the street toward the stairwell next to O’Doherty’s, disappearing from view. The two men from the helicopter follow him, eyes on me until they vanish from sight below.

Seconds later I can hear them coming up the stairwell, boots pounding. Six flights of steps between the entrance and Kyle’s door.

I wait until they hit the halfway point, then I turn and run.

Conaty roars something, shrieking like a banshee, but I’m too focused on my path to hear the words. Some variation of “kill her,” I assume.

The footsteps on the stairs go from a steady run to a stampede.

I race through Kyle’s bedroom door, through the kitchenette, and across his living room, vaulting the coffee table. Magazines and a remote control scatter in my wake. There’s a big window behind the couch. I throw it open and stare out at the greenbelt, the forest, and in the distance the peaks of Two-Shits, barely visible against the starry night sky.

I slither out onto the fire escape and start down. The steps clang so loudly I’m sure they can be heard for miles. But it doesn’t matter now. The time for hiding is over.

Part of me expects the fire escape to lead me right into the clutches of the enemy. Either the stone-cold killers who arrived with Conaty, or the obedient slaves of the Broken Nose Gang and those who drank the tainted beer at the pub.

No one’s there, though. My oversize shoes hit the ground, and I’m off. I tear past the back of Blackwood’s shop, firing a glance that way, half expecting to see him waiting there in his long black duster, eager to help despite my insistence that he hide. But the door to his store is closed, the place quiet. Good. At least he might survive this.

A gunshot rips through the night. Behind and above me. The round cracks off the pavement to my right, only a few feet away. I swerve left, into deeper shadow, my shoulder scraping against the side of the building there. Ahead are two large Dumpsters, with black plastic bags piled up beside one. Instead of going around, I press myself against the wall and stop, catching my breath, listening.

There’s activity all around. The footfalls of someone clanging down Kyle’s fire escape. Others coming from both right and left, ground level. Pinching in from each side of the alley. They’ll have me trapped here, soon.

A smell hits me, then, weirdly overpowering despite the imminent threat I face. It’s the smell of flowers. Cloying and old, but not unpleasant.

This is the rear of the flower shop. All the leftover bouquets from the Rogers funeral. The event, I suppose, where this all started.

Or where it went wrong, I guess. For Doc and his friends. If Johnny Rogers hadn’t died, perhaps the rest of the strange behavior around here might have passed unnoticed. For a while, anyway. Just the quirky behavior of a fucked-up little town. But Johnny’s death made it real. Doc, Ang, and the rest of them had blood on their hands after that. The boy’s untimely demise meant investigation, which is likely why Greg was one of their first targets for the newer version. And me as well, come to think of it, once Doc realized I was poking around in the Rogers’ house and looking into the death of the hiker, too. That’s why they sent Rhod when they did.

The footsteps close in.

I pull the Luger from my belt and slide its bizarre, hinged loading mechanism back, then forward, putting a round into the chamber. With my thumb I flick the safety off, aim, and crack off two rounds in rapid succession into the trees.

The footsteps around me skid to a stop, people scrambling for cover.

In the chaos of shouts and hasty retreat, I turn and shoulder into the back door of the flower shop. The door buckles but remains stubbornly closed. I step back and kick it in, then race inside as flashlights begin to sweep toward the now-open doorway. More shouts behind me, all coming at once.

“Follow her!”

“Go around!”

“Mary! I can’t stop! I’m sorry!”

Conaty’s chant blares from the SUV somewhere outside, but it’s not a recording anymore. She’s still live, improvising now, her voice tinged with desperation. Kill Mary. Don’t talk. Obey Doctor Ryan.

I sprint through the store, able to see only from the mixture of flashlight beams that swing and sweep across the front and back of the flower shop. The smell in here is wonderful and dense. Despite myself I inhale deeply as I pump my fists and knees, powering straight ahead.

The front door is a wood frame with a big single pane of glass in between, the shop name and its hours printed on the other side, writ backward for me. All I can read is the sign hanging from a suction cup at eye level. OPEN, it says, the CLOSED side facing out.

I bring my arms up in front of my face and leap at the last second, crashing through the glass, the sign slapping against my forehead.

My feet land on the sidewalk beyond. Shards of glass tinkle against the concrete, spreading out before me like a spray of stars. I turn my landing into a roll, going