Pink Walls

Day Two [Part III]

"Are you ready to behave, Danny?"

The knife glided through the air in a smooth arc to bury itself into the man's shoulder. Before he could cry out, I had already bounded up the steps and slammed his head into the wall behind him with a muted thud that vibrated my arm all the way to the elbow.

He and his cigarette crumbled to my feet the moment I let go. I crushed the smouldering death stick beneath my boot and I let out a long breath that condensed to fog right in front of me.

I reached down to retrieve the knife, taking care not to aggravate the wound it had caused as I did. I wiped its sides on the man's coat before slipping it between my fingers, glad that I had managed to take him by surprise. The cold had made him slow and lazy, and it had saved me a lot of energy.

Stepping over his body, I leaned towards the window, not surprised to see Daniel tied to a chair and bleeding from... everywhere.

I did wince when the woman in front of him reared back her arm and slapped him so hard that his head snapped to the side so forcefully that I almost heard the crack despite the loudness of the wind.

"Where is it?" I read her lips. "Where did you hide it?"

Daniel spat a thick glob of blood on her boot then grinned wide, charmingly as though his gums weren't bleeding. "You'll have to kill me before I tell you, darling."

"You…" She whipped out a dirk from her belt and pressed it to his throat, the muscles in her own neck tensing. "Don't tempt me, cub."

I knew that I should have been more concerned about the kid, but my eyes were glued to the knife and the woman's pale skin. Again, Daniel had tangled himself with someone who wasn't a Carmosino, meaning that other people wanted him dead. A lot of them.

Which also means that I'm royally screwed.

I knocked on the frosted glass twice then dropped to a crouch when the woman turned in my direction. I focused on the frigid winter air as it slowly filled my lungs and concentrated on her footsteps as they got closer and closer.

I needed to disarm her quickly, without alerting whoever else was in the room. And I needed to do it without accidentally snapping her pretty neck.

I tightened my fingers around my knife, considering briefly whether it was humane to use the same blade for two different people.

It probably wasn't, but I didn't have time to worry about that.

As I exhaled, the window was lifted open with a noisy screech.

I shot to my feet as the woman looked out, crushing her head beneath the top of the window frame, her throat pinned by my shoulder.

I felt her gag against my collar bone—felt her surprise as she realized that she could no longer breath.

I stabbed the knife into the arm holding the dirk, not giving her the chance to swing it at me. Now, I had gotten Daniel's attention. He looked at me with wide, panicked eyes as I pulled the woman out of the apartment by the neck, thankful to the wind for covering up her pitiful attempts to scream.

She glared at me when I kicked the dirk off the fire escape and pulled her to her feet, but I didn't even flinch when she attempted to knee me in the groin.

I let go of her immediately. She stumbled back and held her arms up. "You just made the most terrible mistake of your life," she hissed.

I held up the knife that was still stained with her blood then raised an eyebrow. "I don't think so."