Justin

Time seemed to slow for a second after Wendy pulled the trigger. Everything went into slow motion. Jhondie had been standing next to Winston. Then she was catching him as he was falling backwards, an arterial spray fountaining up from his neck. Steiner falling to the floor, pulling his wife down with him. And then Wendy moving the gun towards me. She didn't get a chance to get a second shot off at one of us. I had been through enough in the last two days and I wasn't about to put up with more. Maybe she was used to people panicking when they got shot at and became easy targets. In any case, the expression on her face was almost comical when, instead of trying to run, I jumped at her.

I sidestepped and leapt forward, catching her wrist and shoving the gun upwards, her second shot going harmlessly into the ceiling instead of me. She fell back into the doorjamb, the gun falling and skidding across the floor. She sneered at me, moving into an attack stance when a third shot rang out, shattering the glass beside her. Startled, we both looked up to see Mrs. Steiner with the gun, leveling it at Wendy.

If the woman had ever handled a gun before, she might have been able to fire another shot off before Wendy could take off and thus ended the whole thing right then and there. But she hadn't and didn't and Wendy took off like a bat out of hell down the hall. I glanced back at Jhondie. She had tried to stop the flow of blood, but there were some things that even she wasn't capable of doing. Our eyes met, and I knew she was pissed. If there was one thing she hated, it was to be outmaneuvered, and Wendy had done it quite well on her.

Without speaking, both of us took off down the hall, racing towards wherever Wendy had run off too. Elevators. That seemed like the best bet. The hallway split and went into a square pattern the met back up on the other side where the elevators were. Jhondie and I split up, one of us sure to get her then. I hoped it would be me. It was going to be much less messy if I was there before Jhondie.

At least I thought it was going to be. I rounded the corner and the shot rang out. A searing heat flared on my upper arm, burning pain spreading up my shoulder and down to my wrist. My left side was thrown back, knocking me into the wall. Wendy stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut. Things grayed for a second, and then I felt hands grabbing at me. Jhondie. She was paper white and I thought for a second that she must have been the one to get shot.

"I'm okay," I said as she yanked at my jacket, practically ripping it off to see the damage.

"You are when I say you are," she snapped back. From how bad it hurt and how red my sleeve was getting, I was almost scared to look myself. A long thin streak had bitten deeply into my upper arm. Not deadly, but enough to scare the hell out of me. Jhondie ripped the sleeve out of my jacket and made a bandage out of it, tying it tight to stop up the flow of blood. She wasn't talking and worse, she wasn't cursing Wendy for all she was worth. Very, very bad signs.

"Jhon," I said warningly, "we'll get her later. Don't be stupid and get seen doing anything."

She stood and went to the elevator doors, still holding my jacket. Her fingers dug into the crease where the doors came together and yanked them apart seemingly without effort. She turned back to me, her eyes narrowed with rage. "Don't worry about witnesses," she said coldly, wrapping my jacket around her hand. Then she jumped into the opening, grabbing the cable and sliding down the cord rapidly.

I knew that I should have been furious for her to do that, and to be willing to go after Wendy for the sake of killing her, but for some reason, I just couldn't make myself feel anger. Actually, as I went to the stairs and started running down them, trying to ignore the throbbing in my arm, I was hoping I would get there too late to stop her from doing it.

Jhondie

She tried to kill Justin. Right there, in front of me, not once but twice. The bitch tried to kill my boyfriend. Wrong answer. I would have been willing to just stop her and make sure the cops got her for Justin's uncle. I would have just slapped her around a little for Winston. But she had to shoot Justin didn't she. Time to die.

The elevator had already stopped when I hit the roof of it. We had only been on the third floor of the building. No matter. She wasn't getting away from me. There wasn't a human being alive that could outrun me, and she wasn't going to be around long enough to say anything to anyone about the little transgenic with a serious attitude problem. I shoved the ceiling access panel aside and dropped down to the floor of the elevator, sliding through the doors just as they were closing.

She was already halfway across the lobby, running for the front doors. A coppery scent was in the air, and I took a quick glance over to the guard station. One of them was slumped over the desk, a pool of blood congealing below him. No wonder we didn't get a call that there was a guest at the front desk. Maybe she heard me come out of the elevator or maybe it just knew that she was being followed, but she whipped around, her .38 raised. When she saw it was just me, a cold smile spread across her mouth. Then she fired.

It had been a long time since I felt like I did right then. Every detail in the room was clear and precise in my head. Every line and color and scent was etched deeply, coming together with absolute clarity. The back of my mind was automatically processing angles and routes and all of the little details, but the rest of me was seeing things not as a person, but as a hunter with the scent of prey in her nose. When she fired, it didn't faze me. The automatic processes made me dodge the bullet easily as I walked towards her steadily, secure in my power and knowing that the little toy in her hand was no match for what had been built into me.

The smile fell off of her face, shattering like a glass hitting a tile floor when I dodged the first bullet without missing a stride. And the second one. She started backing away, the shock on her face on the verge of comical. "Aww, what's the matter?" I mocked, coming ever closer to her. "Let me guess, you're the big bad killer bitch until the real thing shows up, huh?"

The gun slowly lowered, her blue eyes huge now, filling with understanding and terror. "Oh my God," she gasped. "You're one of them!"

I sneered. "Did Manticore forget to tell you about their dirty little secrets?" I said in that same mocking tone. "I guess since you were so hyped on getting your hands on transgenic technology, they wouldn't want to tell you about the escapees that are free for the taking. Of course, getting your hands on one of us isn't exactly an easy task. But you're not going to ever have to worry about that." I guess she didn't like what she heard there, because she broke off the banter and turned for the front door, running at full speed. I almost laughed. What the hell was she thinking?

I darted after her, catching up to her easily on the front sidewalk. I grabbed her by the neck and shoved, throwing her forward onto the pavement. She flipped over, crawling backwards, still trying to escape. I rolled my eyes. How pitiful can you get? One second she was all confident, killing people like she knew what she was doing, and now here she was, reduced to quivering terror. If you are going to be an assassin, then have the courage to be one to the end, and not run and whimper when something better comes along. Lydecker never taught that lesson, but we gleaned it from between the lines. Be a soldier to the end. Just because I ducked out of the good little soldier program early didn't mean I forgot the lessons. I just chose for myself when I was going to use them. And now was looking very good.

A light breeze was blowing, bringing the scents of the city to my nose. Maybe I was just in a very keyed up state, but I could smell so much more than normal. And one scent caught my attention well. The analyzer in the back of my mind processed it easily, with direction and distance built right in. Well, well, well.I wondered how often I just hadn't known before. Didn't matter. Enjoy the show. I had other things to take care of.

"Go on," I said coldly, "get up." She unsteadily got to her feet, anger starting to come in her eyes a bit. Being killed she could stand, but I didn't think she liked me playing with her. Killing her would be so easy to do. One hand. I could snap her neck with one hand. So why hadn't I? Zack had accused me before of liking to play with things before I pounced. He was the first one to comment that I was the most vicious one of the group because of that. Why wasn't Wendy dead? Was I still playing? Or.was it possible I had changed more than I thought?

Justin

Hearing two more gunshots was all the encouragement I needed to ignore the pain and sprint down the last few flights of stairs. I knew Jhondie was fast, but I had never seen her try to dodge bullets before. Maybe she could, maybe she couldn't, but I really hoped that it wasn't being put to the test. I flew through the lobby doors, looking around sharply. Empty. Dead guards at the front desk. The gunshots were to them? Person-like shadows outside. Seemed like the place to be.

I ran across the lobby and out the front doors. Wendy and Jhondie were standing face to face about ten feet apart. I stopped. What the hell? Wendy was still armed, but she wasn't trying to use it. She must have just learned a lot about Jhondie in the last few minutes. But Jhondie wasn't attacking either. From the mood she had been in when she left me, I would have thought that Wendy would be a bloody pulp by then.

But then I really looked at Jhondie. The way she was standing. Her hands were in tight fists and her jaw was clinching and relaxing. She wanted to attack. That was what was wrong. She wanted to tear into Wendy. In that moment I could see the killer animal warring with her essential humanity, both fighting to become the dominant aspect of her personality. I wasn't sure how I knew, but I could tell that it wasn't the animal that was winning.

Wendy looked at me and then back at Jhondie. Her gun jerked up, a triumphant smile as she thought she had a hostage to save her life. At that final threat to me, Jhondie's hesitation vanished in a blink. Her arms came up, wrists snapping together above her shoulder to form a cross- shaped pattern, and the answering gunshot was immediate.

Wendy's eyes got huge for a second, a single thread of blood trickling down from the small hole in her forehead. Then she collapsed to the ground, the back of her head partially missing in a gout of blood and gray matter that had splattered onto the sidewalk behind her. Jhondie did a sharp about- face, not looking at me, but waiting. I should have guessed. Zack was there in a few seconds.

Maybe it was just blood loss, but I would have sworn that Zack didn't look as pissed as I would have thought he should be. If I didn't know better, I would think he was almost proud of Jhondie. "What the hell are you doing here?" he snarled at her, the illusion of a flicker of pride broken. He glanced at me blackly, making me wonder who his next victim was going to be.

"She knew about Manticore," Jhondie replied just as coldly. "They're trying to get biosynth technology for sale. I would call that an enemy force, wouldn't you? And a gunshot is less.questionable than a broken neck."

Before Zack could say anything, the distant sound of sirens reached us. Both of them looked up in alarm. They were a couple of fugitives and there was a dead body. Only one thing to do. "Give me the gun," I said quickly. Jhondie looked at me, confused.

"Nobody knows you're here, right?" I said. "So don't be here. Give me the gun, and I say I did it."

"Justin."Jhondie tried to protest, but I cut her off.

"Dammit, there's no time," I snapped insistently. "I'm bleeding and I'm rich. When I say it was self-defense, they'll believe it. Just go."

"What about them?" She was afraid to leave me, and I understood that, but her being here was far worse.

"Steiner's a lawyer," I replied with a crooked smile. "He'll say what I tell him to say. He thinks you're an LA punk. I'll tell him you weren't supposed to leave the city and that's why he can't say anything. He never saw you do anything a normal person couldn't do."

Zack gave me an appraising look and then handed me the gun. "Make sure you clean off the prints and put yours on there." He grabbed Jhondie's arm. "We have to go now," he said firmly, his tone carrying the command.

She hesitated for a second. "Please," I mouthed, wanting her out of danger more than covering my own butt. She pulled away from Zack for a second, kissing me quickly.

"I love you," she whispered, and then let Zack take control again. I went back inside to talk to Steiner and a few minutes later blue and red flashing lights were illuminating the side of the building.