In the Company of Wolves (SWAT, #3)(2)

Her heart pounded as he moved closer, and she knew this had nothing to do with her cleaning the toilet or taking out the trash. Darren had wanted something else from her for a while, and tonight, he was apparently drunk enough to try to take it. That was never going to happen. She’d die first.

She edged closer to the window. “Stay the hell away from me, you pig!”

If she could get a lead on him, she could get out the window and onto the fire escape. He’d never catch her once she got outside. She was too fast, and he was too clumsy.

But he closed the distance between them faster than she’d ever seen him move, making her wonder just how drunk he really was. Before she could even take a breath to scream, he had his big hand around her throat and was shoving her against the wall. The back of her head bounced off the edge of the mirror frame, and she felt shards of loose glass dig into her back at the same time stars exploded in her vision.

Jayna was still fighting off a creeping wave of blackness when his lips came down on hers and he forced his tongue into her mouth. He tasted of cheap beer and cigarettes, and she bit down hard, jerking away. He bellowed like an angry bear and backhanded her. She fell over the broken remains of her mirror in a heap, pieces of the razor-sharp glass stabbing into her in a dozen different places.

She cried out, kicking at him with her tennis shoes as Darren roughly flipped her over on her back. He ignored her feeble kicks the same way he ignored her wild punches. She screamed then, as loud as she could—not because she thought someone might come to help, but simply because she wasn’t going to let this happen without a fight.

Jayna fought with everything she had, but he was so much stronger than she was. On top of that, her right arm throbbed like hell. It was all she could do to lift it. Worse, the more weight Darren piled on top of her, the deeper the shards of glass from the broken mirror dug into her back.

Crap. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

Ignoring the pain in her injured arm, she searched blindly on the floor for a piece of mirror she could use as a weapon. Her fingers closed around one, and she cried out as the sharp glass sliced into her hand. But the feel of her belt coming undone drove the sting away, and she swung her hand up, stabbing at anything she could reach.

Darren was so drunk and enraged he didn’t realize what was happening until she’d slashed his face so hard the glass crunched under her hand. Blood poured down his face and he bellowed like a wounded animal. But instead of throwing himself off her like she’d hoped, he brought back his fist to punch her.

Knowing a blow like that would end her fight, Jayna tightened her fingers around the piece of mirror and swung at the most vulnerable area she could reach—his neck. The long, jagged piece of glass only stopped when the part she’d been holding broke off in her grasp. The rest was buried in the right side of Darren’s fat neck four inches deep.

He let her go and reached for his neck. Jayna twisted sideways, kicking him in the chest, then crawled out from under him and scrambled to her feet. She staggered toward the window, stumbling when she heard Darren behind her. Oh God, he was still coming!

She grabbed the porcelain Wonder Woman lamp that had been sitting on her nightstand since her real dad had given it to her fifth on her birthday, spun around, and smashed Darren over the head. The lamp shattered, and Darren slumped to the floor with the pieces.

Jayna looked around. There was a lot of blood on the floor, both hers and Darren’s. But she was still standing, and he wasn’t.

A sound from the doorway startled her out of her daze, and she lifted her head to see her mom standing staring at her in horror.

“What did you do?” her mother demanded, running to Darren’s side and kneeling down beside him.

Jayna didn’t try to explain. Her mom wouldn’t listen or care. Darren was still breathing, but Jayna had no idea if he was going to stay that way. The cops might believe she’d been defending herself, or they might not. She’d never had much faith in cops. They weren’t interested in helping people like her.

This wasn’t something she could get out of by spending the night at a friend’s house either. She had to get away from there.

Jayna stepped around her mom, who was still blubbering and fussing over the unconscious Darren, and grabbed the charger for her phone. Then she scooped up the small amount of money she had in her sock drawer and headed for the window. Her mom didn’t even say anything to her as she climbed out.

Jayna stood on the fire escape, afraid she’d take a header down it if she didn’t. But she felt surprisingly steady considering what had just happened. Her hand was barely bleeding and her arm didn’t hurt nearly as bad as before.

Maybe it was shock, she mused as she climbed down the fire escape. Or maybe she was simply a whole hell of a lot tougher than she ever thought she could be.

“Damn right you’re tough,” she muttered, almost believing it as the pain in her arm and hand receded a little more with each step. “You don’t need anyone to make it on your own.”





Chapter 1


Dallas, Texas, Present Day

Eyes glued to his binoculars, Officer Eric Becker surveyed the dimly lit warehouse across from the rooftop he was positioned on. It was four o’clock in the morning, and the place was about as quiet as you could expect a major import/export warehouse located outside the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to be.