“Please, don’t kill me,” Deb pleaded. “I won’t help the police. I barely even saw anyone’s face. I won’t help them at all. I swear.”

The blonde flipped the gun in the air and caught it by the barrel. Then she swung the weapon down on Deb like a hammer. Deb screamed and raised her arms, but the blonde continued to pound her arms and face with the weapon.

Gabi saw blood splattering over the floor. The arc and motion of the blonde’s arm seemed relaxed, slow, and rhythmic, as if she were taking her time with each blow, savoring it in a strange way, like a child skipping stones across a lake and trying to achieve a higher number of skips with each throw.

Deb was still sobbing and shrieking, but Gabi knew she wouldn’t be able to survive much more.

Maybe the cop had another weapon or a radio she could use to call for help?

On her elbows and forearms, she dragged herself toward the fallen officer. He was still slumped in a desk chair, his body slowly sliding toward the floor. She ignored the obscene angle of his head and neck.

Deb’s screams became gurgled grunts and moans.

Gabi felt his ankles first, but there was no gun. Of course not, she thought, he was a sketch artist, not someone who expected to be in a lot of gun battles. Pulling herself up onto her left knee, she felt around on his utility belt. There were some extra magazines, a set of handcuffs, a key ring, a loop that may have been for a night stick, a few other small pouches that were probably of little use to her—latex gloves or something of that nature—but she did feel two items of importance: the cop’s radio and a Taser with a pistol grip.

Another thwack from behind her, and the sound of liquid splattering across tile. Deb wasn’t making noise any longer, so she was either unconscious or dead.

The items Gabi found left her with a split-second decision to make. If she called for help on the radio, the blonde would hear her and immediately turn back to attack again. Even if she was able to get her message out and help came, she’d likely be dead by the time they arrived.

Her mind made up, she pulled the Taser from the dead officer’s belt, spun herself around, and dropped her butt to the floor.

The blonde turned from her bloody assault. Her catlike eyes locking onto Gabi and the weapon in her hand. Blood splatter soaked the blonde’s face, and she resembled a crazed animal full of bloodlust, like a wolverine Gabi had once seen attacking the barriers at a zoo.

The blonde charged forward. Gabi aimed the small weapon as best she could and squeezed the trigger.

The Taser bucked slightly as the barbs and wires rocketed out of the end of the weapon, heading straight for the blonde’s chest.

But then the blonde’s forward momentum caused Gabi’s shot to sail wide. She had been aiming for where the blonde was, not where she would be. Another step and her attacker was in range. The blonde kicked the Taser out of Gabi’s hands and drove her fist into the center of Gabi’s face.