Witch Hunt(9)

I wasn’t a normal human. Not like these cops were, and not like the people they usually arrested were.
They weren’t ready for someone like me.
My hands tightened on the bars. My forearms flexed and the muscles bulged like steel cable under the skin. The scratches from wrist to elbow twisted and distorted. Magic surged in my veins.
Crunch.
I was holding the window in my hands. Pulled it free of the brick, steel frame and all. I dropped it to the bench and didn’t look behind me. I knew the cops were coming—that hadn’t been a quiet noise. I could hear them shouting, and I had about three seconds before someone freaked out and shot me in the back.
Hauling myself into the window frame, I wriggled my shoulders through. They almost got stuck, like a snake that had eaten a mouse too big for its maw. But once I had that part out, the rest of me was no problem. It was an easy drop to the ground outside.
I was in a parking lot. It was raining hard. There were police cruisers around—a lot of police cruisers. The fence was twice my height and topped with barbed wire.
It only took a second for a skull-shattering alarm to go off.
Jesus, my hangover wasn’t loving that.
Three long strides and I’d reached the fence. Dug my fingers into the chain-link, found a toehold, started climbing. Domingo would be proud to see how fast I moved.
At the joint where the fence formed a right angle, there were two posts right next to each other without barbed wire on top. Good handholds. Nothing sharp that could cut me open.
I leveraged myself over the top and dropped onto the street.
The alarm had gone off quickly, but the men who were following me were slow, sluggish humans, unprepared for a magically juiced witch on the run. I wondered what they thought of what they saw—how quickly I had crossed the parking lot and scaled the fence, how little the fall to the other side had fazed me. I wonder if they might have been thinking that something supernatural had been going on or if they just thought I was on speed or something.
Denial was a hell of a drug.
Either way, I was out of there in a heartbeat.






 
    Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure,   Magic
    
 


 

CHAPTER SIX

There was nothing free about being a man on the run. Hurtling through the streets, bolting down alleys to avoid cop cars, hiding behind Dumpsters that smelled like year-old milk—it was about as free as being in the holding cell with the tattooed gang members.
But eventually the sirens faded. I was alone by midnight.
For now, alone would have to be as good as free.
It was rainy and cold. Shelter was gonna be priority soon, but my picture was out there and I needed to be careful where my face showed up. That meant no hotels.
There were other places I could comfortably disappear. Helltown was probably a relatively safe place to hide from the LAPD, and if I was feeling real bold I could even head to the undercity. Because the demons down below would never fuck with an OPA agent, right?
Little bit of sarcastic humor there, in case you didn’t catch it.
But I didn’t go to Helltown. I’d been running without a plan so my feet had taken charge, directing me back to my apartment. It was the only place I could think to start.
Seeing my apartment building rise out of the darkness didn’t give me the relieved feeling it usually did. None of that “the day is over, now I can chill in front of my Firefly DVDs for the seventeenth time” warmth. I was detached. This wasn’t my place; it was the scene of a crime.
I sat in the bushes across the street for an hour, waiting to see if anyone was coming or going, but didn’t spot a single cop. I didn’t see any unmarked black SUVs, either—dead giveaway for the union    .
How many hours had it been since the police hit my front door? Sixteen? No way they’d cleared the scene that fast.
But I didn’t see anyone, and I couldn’t question the why. Once the OPA caught wind of my disappearance, they would be back to look for me, and getting caught at my apartment would be a fast and embarrassing end to my night as a fugitive.
I was up the fire escape about as fast as I’d gotten up the chain link fence. The ladder hadn’t been lowered, but I was still juiced on magic and a ten-foot jump was easy for me. Then it was just a matter of going up seven stories and finding my window. I tried to pull out the screen without making a sound.
It felt like I was sneaking back into Pops’s house after a night out with Domingo again, except I didn’t have my brother’s jokes to keep the mood light.
My apartment’s furnishings were colorless in the dark. I stopped by the window and listened for any sign of investigators lingering in my apartment. I could hear the guy upstairs working out, like he always did at one in the morning. No better time to lift weights and grunt loudly, right? At least I had the tact to save it for the afternoons.