Page 89 of Devil's Bargain

She couldn’t fuckingbreathe.Her whole body felt numbed, destroyed by the impact in her chest.

Kevlar.He shot you in the vest. You’re fine, you’re just fine.

Something was very wrong.

Her heart.

She couldn’t feel her heartbeat.

Everything was going dark.

She saw a blinding flash of blue-white light, like a spotlight. An intense glare bright enough to make her want to close her eyes, but she had no control over that anymore, no control over anything, and there was so much silence inside of her.

Simms. Simms was staring at her, and he was saying,Everything you do matters,Jasmine.

She couldn’t breathe.

The light got brighter. Brighter. Overwhelming and burning, like lightning, like lightning racing along her nerves.

Listen.

Everything you do…

A single hard jerk in her chest. A thud.

Everything you do, Jasmine…

Her heart beat a second time. A third. She raised the gun. She didn’t even know how she managed it, because she couldn’t feel her arm, couldn’t feel anything but disorientation and pain and fear, but then her gun was up and she was looking into the face of a killer as his eyes widened.

Everything you do matters.

I know that, she told Simms.

And she fired.

Chapter 10

“Ow,” Jazz whispered. “Don’t make me laugh, okay? It hurts to laugh.”

Borden, his arm swathed in approximately a mummy’s worth of bandages, smiled at her and shook his head. “No, I’m completely serious. You and Mooch are all moved in. Manny said he’d give you the alarm code the next time he drops by, because he can’t trust it to anybody else.”

“Not you?”

“I’m guessing especially not me.”

Jazz, propped up on two pillows, squinted at the morning sunlight and pulled her hospital gown away from her neck to take a look at the spectacular bruising. It looked better than it had yesterday, the blacks turning a sickly dark blue-green, the reds fading. But still.

Colorful.

“Manny for a roommate,” she said sadly. “My life is really not turning out the way I’d hoped, Counselor. I think I might have been better off drinking my future away at Sol’s.”

He didn’t smile at that one. He leaned forward and captured her hand in his, rubbed a thumb over the scraped and bruised knuckles, and said, “If you’d done that, at least three more people would be dead right now. Including me and Marla.” Marla had dropped by earlier with her mother, a very pregnant, very scared lady who’d still been prone to dissolve into tears over the near tragedy.

The cops who’d been by had been, if not tearfully grateful, at least cautiously pleased by the whole thing, and more than willing to accept the explanation she’d come up with as to how she, Manny and Lucia had come to intercept the killer. She figured there would be more questions, but nobody seemed too unhappy with her just now.

Not even Laskins, who’d called to gruffly inform her that the Society would be picking up the medical bills. Again.

“Hey,” Borden said, and leaned forward. “Rest. You look wiped out.” He pressed a warm kiss to her forehead, moved to her lips and brushed them very lightly with his own, and she felt a surge of lightning heat that had nothing to do with the painkillers pumping through her system. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

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