Most Rikki-Tik by MariaLisa deMora

Author:MariaLisa deMora
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781946738318
Publisher: MLK Publishing
Published: 2019-03-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

“Hey.” Kirby recognized Dana’s voice from across the street and winced, then continued cinching his bag tight on the back of his bike. He was still pissed about how she’d left him this morning, making his brain turn over their conversation a dozen times to ensure she’d actually been there beside him. Not a dream, he’d had to remind himself over and over. Eyes fixed on his task, he offered a low wave and turned back to his final preparations. She called again, from closer. “Hey, Kirby.”

He glanced up to realize she’d darted out from the other sidewalk without checking and her back was to the oncoming traffic, which wasn’t slowing.

Fuck.

From flatfooted to racing towards her in less than a breath, he pushed hard to lengthen his strides, praying for even a second of grace.

He’d made snap decisions a thousand times on patrol, and his gut told him now the truck driver wouldn’t see her in time; the man’s head was bent over something occupying his attention inside the truck. Pouring a mug of coffee or texting the wife—it didn’t matter because he hadn’t seen Dana and wouldn’t see her until she was thrown against his windshield, blood smearing the glass before her body dropped back to the road. His memory might be fucked twenty ways from Sunday, but Kirby could see this moment in his head. Where things that could happen would happen, become set in stone the longer those probabilities weren’t nudged, and for now, he was the only one that could change the path of things.

Angling from the side so he could put a shoulder into her belly, then leap those last few feet, he flew and twisted in the air so he hit the pavement first, Dana’s slight weight bouncing against his chest, his body protecting her from impact. He heard the hit before he felt it, the booming echo traveling through his bones in a way that hurt. Then came a twisting of his foot, torquing it around in ways the human limb wasn’t intended to bend.

The squealing of the truck tires against the pavement was loud, sliding along accompanied by the blare of a cautionary air horn, the bitter scent of overheated brake pads scenting the air. Alongside that odor, Kirby pulled Dana’s light perfume into his lungs, felt her body stiff with what he prayed was shock and not injury.

Then his head hit the pavement and all bets were off, pure darkness dropping on him like a bomb, like the blast that had taken so many of his friends, and Kirby fought it like he’d never done, losing in an instant, but knowing he’d wanted to win more than anything he’d ever wanted before.

***

Hushed quiet enveloped him. Not a true silence of absence, but that which surrounds those gravely wounded. Antiseptic scents twined through the air, accompanied by something unlabeled but familiar, his brain’s version of tip-of-the-tongue frustration.

Kirby breathed, head exploding with pain on every inhale, as if the act pumped up a balloon occupying space in his brain.

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