Page 5 of Rookie Days

Unfortunately, the man also realized that he’d been made, and he quickly melted into the crowd.

“With me,” Quinn ordered, and she moved fast.

Ellie was keen for a chase. Tall, lean, and strong, she had a runner’s body and trained for both speed and endurance. Even if that had not been the case, the knowledge of what these guys had been up to would give her wings. As she took the lead, shekept her eyes fixed on Gonzales’s moving back. The man had a good lead on her and Quinn at this point, but he was still overly optimistic if he thought that he could shake them off. She saw him turn onto Jefferson Avenue, barely avoid a collision with an off-duty cab as he raced across three lanes of busy nighttime traffic, and dive into a narrow side street.

“Take the other side!” Quinn shouted.

Ellie managed to keep up a lung-bursting sprint for another block, only slowing down to a guarded walk when she entered the alleyway. Catching her breath, weapon drawn, she kept her eyes peeled for any sign of the fugitive.

“I’m in,” she informed Quinn over the radio.

The back street must be a good six-hundred yards in length, and she was convinced that Gonzales had yet to reach the other side.Her side.Ellie stuck her tongue out over her top lip in an unconscious gesture of total concentration. Now he would be sandwiched in between her and Quinn.Bad place for a bad guy to find himself...She scanned the space in front, made narrower by overflowing trash containers, badly lit by a couple of broken and flickering orange street lights. She had to blink away snow flakes clinging to her eyelashes. It was coming down hard now, reducing visibility even further.

“Any sign of him?” Quinn inquired.

“Not yet. I’m headed down toward you.”

“Ten four, rookie. Backup’s on the way.”

Sudden movement on the left made Ellie suck in her breath and focus sharply in that direction, but it was only a false alert. A huge brown rat came out from under a pile of trash, stared as if she had no right to intrude on his territory, and scurried off behind wooden delivery pallets propped against the wall. Steam billowed out from a line of air events on the side of the building opposite, blending in with the falling snow and fog, and making it even harder to see anything.

“Where the hell’s he gone?” Quinn muttered.

Ellie glanced up at a fire escape ladder dangling just out of reach above her head. Not likely he’d climbed that way.

“He’s close, I can feel it,” she replied.

She took one more step into an area of deeper shadows. Did not see her target spring up from behind her, but the rush of air as he attacked was enough of an alert. Close, indeed… She ducked instinctively and just managed to escape the slash of his blade.

“Contact!”

It was all she had time to say to warn Quinn. Gonzales was already in flight and charging. He crashed into her like an army tank, took her to the ground with him. Pain lanced through her forearm. Blinding, like she had never felt before. Ellie gasped. Her hand went numb. She dropped her weapon.Fuck, fuck, fuck!Foaming at the mouth, he straddled her body and raised his fist to punch her in the face. She caught a flash of the knuckle duster, sure to scar her worse than Castro if he caught her. Again, she was able to shift just enough to avoid a lethal strike. He swore.

“Fucking cunt!”

But she saw triumph in his slitty black eyes as he grabbed her by the throat. He was a big guy. At least six feet, around two hundred and fifty pounds. On top of her, pinning her down, he probably assumed he could finish her off and leg it down the street. This was counting without Ellie’s fighting skills and fury. Just when he thought that he had her, she pushed his hand off and delivered a vicious head-butt. The crash made her see stars, but hearing the crunch of exploding cartilage in his nose was well worth it. She followed up by smashing a hard fist into his mouth, and took advantage of his moment of disorientation to slide out from under him and flip him over.

“Who’s the fucking bitch now?” she snarled.

“I’ll make you pay for this,” he wheezed through a mouth full of blood. “Make you suck my dick on video for all the world to—”

Ellie did not hear the rest of it. As far as she was concerned, this was as good as an admission of guilt, and something inside her went dead quiet and very cold. She drew back her fist and punched him in the face. Once. Twice. And again.

“Ellie!”

She did not hear Quinn shout to her. Did not notice her scrambling over a pile of junk and almost falling in her haste to get to her.

“Detective James!”

Ellie had Gonzales on his back now, and she was in control. All she had to do was turn him over and cuff him. Job done. Mission complete. The fact that he had tried to kill her did not come into play. He would get what he had coming through due process. She was a cop and she went by the book, always. But without warning, something took her over. And once she started to hit, she could not stop.

“You fucking bastard.”

She smashed her knuckles over his busted nose and found that it felt good. Again.Again!Blood splattered over her but she did not see. She knocked a front tooth out, a gleaming gold one.You piece of shit. This is for the kids. It’s for Carter. And for Laura!Ellie lost herself. The past and present blurred into one fuzzy, violent moment. Tears ran down her face as she punched him but she was not aware of that either. Under her, Jorge Gonzales had gone limp. And even so, it took two strong hands to drag her off her unconscious victim and make her stop.

“Detective James! Stop!” Quinn yelled in her face and shook her hard to bring her back to her senses. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Heart pounding, struggling for breath, Ellie stared into her furious and bewildered eyes.

---