First to Die - Kate Slayer Page 0,1

opportunity to take a fresh chunk of meat out of someone's flesh. One of our units was ripping through the city with full lights and sirens and I could hear the next one trailing behind, howling louder as they raced up Main Street. Another siren. "You've got to be kidding me?" I said out loud, shaking my head at Max.

I stumbled my way to the window, opened the shutter, and saw clusters of lights flashing and spinning in the eastern night sky. Trees dipped and twisted in rhythm to the wind, fatigued and braking as they resisted the force. Long, skinny fingers rapped on my sheltered walls and raised my awareness of an unsettling presence.

The intruder was unexpected and swift. The instant flood of adrenaline spiked my heartbeat and I could feel its force grip my throat. My cell rang again. I knew who was calling before I looked at the display and it would be too familiar to ignore. Two a.m. is not a time to socialize unless I was pondering my next victim to arouse, so I would have company in my sleep deprived state of misery. I grabbed my cell off the coffee table and cleared the rasp from my throat. "Hello."

"Samantha?" Detective Jason Bradford shouted.

"Jason?" My voice echoed back to me from a tunnel.

"Sam, can you hear me? 201 Court." Jason's voice crackled through the distorted connection before I could respond.

"We've got another one." His voice reached out its claws and circled my neck.

The call was dropped, which was common practice for not having a signal from the cell tower when you needed it. Like trying to find a cop. We found ourselves hanging out windows in distorted positions, waving our phones to the sky and pointing them toward the metal gods standing beyond our limits. I pressed send on my cell and it went to his voicemail. "Jason, call me back." My tone escalated to a demand. I’d heard what he said. I didn't want to believe it. I needed to hear it again.

The harsh tone of his voice startled me. "Shit." I raised my voice above the thunder in protest. I could picture the veins swelling at the top of his head. I started to shuffle around the beaten-down path. "Stop talking to yourself," I said, interrupting my last go around. I felt dizzy and watched as the room spun like a kaleidoscope filled with confetti, moving around in impossible patterns. The next siren played a haunting melody and lured me back to the dogged streets that gnawed on my soul.

Riverview looked nice from the outside. Your typical midwest city, with cracked walls and buckled pavement. An official historical site surrounded by a bustling city that faded into urban sprawl, dotted with mini estates and peppered with the right amount of spice to make your mouth water. Two hours southwest of Chicago, if you were breaking the law. Postcard pretty until you flipped it over and saw what was written on the backside. Small town charm with big city flare. It was all wrong. It reminded me of oil and water, constantly swirling around and never forming a solid mix.

It was breathtaking until you accidentally turned down the wrong street or stumbled into the Junkyard. Unless you knew the terrain, the contrast was an instant culture shock. The streets had a way of turning dark when you least expected it and that's when all the problems start. I was homegrown. I knew the streets too well. The streets that I wanted to forget for one night.

I tried to stop the vivid flashbacks from creeping up on me, but I was too tired to fight it. I had no choice but to give in. I wasn't crazy. At least, I thought I wasn't. I had a problem with a few triggers. Oh, yeah, I have them and I am well aware of them. It doesn't take much. Most of the time, I was well-adept at handling the constant replays fluttering in the background, but once in a while they would slip through when I had my guard down like an old grainy black and white film on a movie screen, tossing ghostly faces at me. Frame by frame forcing me to watch. "Embrace them, deal with them, try to replace them with something good and move on." I don't care what anybody says. It doesn't work. At least, not for me.

It normally would only take me a few minutes to be appropriately dressed and at