Out of Control Read online

  I frown at him. He has me there. But still, there’s the fact he’s a stranger and I have a feeling that whatever kind of favour he’s going to ask me it’s not going to be legal.

  ‘You get to walk out of here. I don’t. I’m not going to make bail,’ he says.

  I ponder this for a second. ‘How do you know,’ I finally say, ‘that I’ve not just been charged with a triple homicide?’

  His eyes – a bewildering dark green – light up with amusement. He holds up his bound wrists and then nods at my free hands. ‘And besides,’ he says, ‘you don’t really fit the profile. You’re wearing a snazzy NYPD sweater. They don’t usually hand those out to murder suspects.’

  I hold his gaze for a few seconds. His eyes burn into mine – pleading. ‘Listen, all I’m asking is that when you walk out of here you call someone for me,’ he says.

  ‘Why on earth would I do that?’ I ask, incredulous.

  He considers me for a beat then sits back in his seat. ‘Because you look like you got heart.’

  I stare at him blankly. Heart? What’s that supposed to mean? ‘You get one call, remember?’ I say.

  ‘I need that for someone else,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Too bad,’ I answer with a shrug.

  ‘Please,’ he begs, and I catch the waver in his voice and realise this is hard for him to ask. That flare in his eyes – it’s pride, not anger. ‘I don’t want my mom to worry,’ he says.

  That gets my attention. ‘Your mother? You want me to call your mother?’ I ask, somewhat sceptically.

  He looks at me abashed, colour running into his cheeks. ‘I just . . . I want her to know that I’m OK. And that I’m sorry,’ he adds.

  I flinch back in my seat. Sorry? Isn’t that as much an admission of guilt as waving a bloodied knife in my face? He scowls at me instantly, seeing my reaction.

  ‘How do I know that you’re not just getting me to call one of your friends to pass on some kind of message?’ I ask. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

  The scowl vanishes. His expression turns deadly serious. ‘I give you my word. I just want you to call my mom.’

  I study him. He looks genuine. I’d go so far as to say desperate in fact. But he’s a stranger. And as a rule I don’t break rules. If you discount climbing on to roofs. Not even for friends. I learned the hard way. I glance over my shoulder at the far door which Detective Owens disappeared through, hoping he’ll reappear and give me a get-out clause.

  ‘If you do this for me,’ the boy says, leaning forwards, his hands clasped together, ‘I will pay you back.’

  ‘When?’ I fire back. ‘In twenty-five years?’

  He winces and sits up tall in his seat, and I immediately regret my sarcasm. I take a deep breath. Would it really hurt to do this? But before I can decide, the boy is out of his seat. He throws a quick glance around the room and then he’s standing in front of me, pressing something into my hand. ‘Please,’ he says, staring down at me, his expression begging.

  I am too startled to do anything but stare up at him.

  ‘OK,’ I say quietly, kicking myself mentally as soon as the word is past my lips.

  He drops my hand and gives me a grateful nod, the relief rolling off him in a wave that makes his whole body sag.

  ‘Moreno!’

  The boy is back in his seat, wearing a smoothly innocent expression, by the time the cop lumbers over to us. ‘He bothering you?’ he asks me.

  I shake my head, my fingers closing around the small scrap of paper in my palm.

  ‘Leave the pretty lady alone,’ the cop says with a growl. He unsnaps one of the boy’s cuffs and locks it instead around the leg of the desk, which is bolted to the floor. ‘And stay put,’ he tells him gruffly.

  4

  The cop walks past me and the piece of paper scalds my palm. There’s a waste paper basket right by my foot. I could easily toss it in and turn my back on the boy. I know I should do this. But for some reason, possibly to do with the fact he looked so relieved when I said I’d do it, I don’t. Instead, I slip the scrap of paper into the front pocket of the sweater I’m wearing and then I stand up. I tell myself I am going to find Detective Owens before this boy tries to get me to do anything else for him. But really, it’s because I can feel his gaze burning the back of my neck and it’s making me feel tense, like I’m sitting on an anthill.

  I manage two steps before a gunshot from somewhere in the building jolts me straight back into my seat. For a split second everyone in the room freezes, all heads turned towards the door. And then three, four, five more shots ring out in succession and the sound of screaming bursts through the walls; bloodcurdling screams, screams that are cut terrifyingly short by another round of gunfire, this time closer.

  The three cops in the room go running past me in a blur, all heading for the door. The first two pile out into the corridor, guns already in their hands, shouting commands to each other. The third – the one who just cuffed the boy to the desk – hovers in the doorway. He looks over his shoulder. ‘Stay here. Don’t move,’ he shouts at us, clearly forgetting that he just cuffed one of us to a desk, and then he takes an uncertain step out into the corridor, following his colleagues.

  He is blown instantly backwards, the force of the bullet throwing him several feet across the room. Gunfire detonates all around. But I don’t notice. I’m just staring at the body of the cop, lying on the floor not fifteen feet from me, his face no longer recognisable as a face, just a crater foaming with red, with shards of white poking out of it.

  Everything funnels in that moment; the world reducing to a shattering hum and the completely unreal image of this cop dead at my feet. And then, as if I’m the epicentre of a bomb, reality explodes around me, everything sharpening, noise and heat rushing back in as though filling a vacuum. I become aware of someone yelling at me.

  ‘Get these off !’

  I turn slowly. The air feels suddenly dense as tar, as though I’m wading through it. The boy is shouting at me. He’s standing up, straining against the cuff that holds him to the desk, the muscles in his neck are so taut they look like they’re about to burst through his skin, and for a moment that’s all I can focus on.

  ‘Keys! Grab the keys!’ he yells. He’s pointing with his free hand in the direction of the dead cop.

  For a few seconds I sit there unmoving. I cannot move. Then his shouts manage to break through my daze.

  ‘They’re in his pocket!’

  I tumble out of my chair to my knees and start crawling towards the body, ducking automatically as bullets roar over my head. The glass above the door explodes, shards flying like daggers. On the far side of the room a police radio crackles to life. A disembodied voice on the other end cries for help before a storm of static drowns it out.

  I reach the cop and my hand hovers in mid-air as I stare down at the mass of red and grey pulp where a head should be. Oh God, my body starts to shake, nausea rising in a solid block up my throat, hysteria gaining a foothold in my brain. I breathe through my mouth and force myself to focus. Which pocket?

  ‘Hurry!’

  The boy’s voice punches through the panic and my brain suddenly throws a switch. It stops computing. Somehow I stop seeing the blood and the gore. I no longer feel the sticky wet warmth beneath my bare knees. I stop noticing the bullets. All I can hear is the gallop of my pulse thundering in my ears and Felix in my head ordering me to stay calm.

  Without thinking, I shove my hand deep into the front pocket of the cop’s trousers and find the key. I tug it out and crawl as fast as I can back to the boy through the carpet of broken glass which now litters the ground between desks. The boy snatches the key from my outstretched hand and jams it into the tiny hole. The cuff springs apart, freeing him.

  Instantly, he throws himself on top of me. ‘Get down!’

  A bullet smacks itself into a filing cabinet just behind us as we tumble to the ground. His chest presses down on mine, my face is buried in his shoulder. Quickly he rolls off me and pushes
me towards a desk. I scoot underneath it, banging the side of my head on the sharp metal corner of a drawer unit. I let out a cry.

  ‘Shhh.’ His hand clamps over my mouth.

  I tug his arm away. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’ I whisper.

  Before he can answer me, the shooting stops and a silence falls that is even more terrifying than the gunfire. The boy and I both freeze, staring at each other unblinking, just a few millimetres between us. Together, enclosed in the tight space beneath the desk, we strain to listen, and over the radio static and the whir of the air conditioner overhead, I pick out faint cries coming from somewhere in the distance; the unnatural keening howl of a wounded animal.

  The boy shifts his weight. His back is pressed to one cabinet, his feet to the drawer unit. Carefully, he peers around the edge of the desk then ducks quickly back, breathing fast. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face.

  ‘Shit,’ he murmurs, resting his head back against the cabinet and closing his eyes.

  ‘Wh—’ I begin, but stop when I hear the sly creak of the door being pushed open. A boot crunches on glass. The boy’s eyes flash open and lock on mine, holding me in place, silencing the scream that has risen up my throat and is threatening to tear free. My legs begin to shake from holding still in a crouching position. The boy’s right hand squeezes my knee hard – another warning, his eyes wide and burning fiercely into mine, telling me: Do not move.

  Something topples off a desk on the far side of the room and, over the boy’s shoulder, through a gap between two filing cabinets, I glimpse the back of a man’s leg. Whose? Is it a cop? Where is everyone else? What happened to the cops who ran out into the corridor?

  No. I shut off the thought, not wanting to go there.

  The man in the room is standing stock-still with his back to us. What is he doing? I can’t see. He’s facing the wall – the chalkboard with all the homicide cases listed on it. The seconds seem to extend into whole hours, days, centuries, and I’m holding my breath and the boy’s hand is still squeezing my knee and my heart is bursting, literally bursting, as though too much blood is pumping through it. My leg muscles are on fire and, without warning, my foot slips. Not far. But it bumps the edge of the desk. The man spins instantly in our direction. The air rushes from my lungs and the boy shifts beside me, a single word that I don’t catch, falling from his lips like a dying man’s prayer.

  The man starts to head in our direction, is almost on us, when someone somewhere else in the building shouts something that’s instantly swallowed in a storm of gunfire and the man rushes out into the corridor.

  The boy darts his head out and then he’s out from under the desk and reaching for me.

  ‘Move!’ he says, pulling me to my feet.

  I glance around, holding on to the desk for balance. The room seems to spin and dip as though it’s a fairground ride.

  ‘We gotta go now!’ the boy says, dragging me towards the door.

  I dig my heels in, my grip tightening on the corner of the desk. The boy yanks on my arm, ‘Come on!’

  I shake my head at him. ‘This way,’ I say, pulling my hand free from his and heading for a glazed door at the other end of the room; the way Detective Owens went. The boy glances once over his shoulder towards the corridor and then hurries after me. I weave between the desks, feeling adrenaline finally cranking through my system, erasing all other thoughts from my mind except for one: RUN!

  5

  The door opens into another room similar to the homicide department; there are rows of empty desks and chairs, blinking computers, even a ringing phone. But there’s no one in sight.

  A door into another corridor hangs ominously ajar. The building seems to echo with silence. I glance around. What do we do? Hide? Find a way out? But this is a police station. It’s designed to keep people in. There are no windows. I try an unmarked door. It’s locked. I hear movement on the other side. People hiding? Shit.

  The boy is already at the doorway to the corridor, peering out.

  ‘It’s clear,’ he whispers over his shoulder.

  I run to his side. The corridor is deserted. He’s right. It is empty. Except for the bodies. I count them. One. Two. Three. All cops in uniform. All of them dead. The nearest is barely two steps away from where we stand, lying face down in a pool of blood. I stare at the spreading slick of it. And then suddenly, I’m moving. I’m not sure how. Until I realise the boy is pushing me ahead of him, towards a fire door at the end of the corridor.

  ‘Hold up.’

  I turn. He’s crouching down beside one of the bodies. I hesitate, glancing over my shoulder at the fire door and then back down the corridor. There’s no time for this. I run back to him. ‘What?’ I hiss. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ My feet dance on the sticky linoleum.

  His hands are working fast, fumbling at the cop’s waist. I bend down, grab hold of the boy by his hood and try to haul him to his feet, but then I see what he’s doing. He’s trying to work the cop’s gun free from his hand.

  ‘Help me,’ he says through gritted teeth.

  I stare at the dead man’s knuckles, drenched in his own blood, and take a faltering step backwards. The boy manages without my help, unclasping the gun from the cop’s cold-fingered grip. He gets to his feet, breathing heavily, his face set, and together we turn and slam through the fire escape. The boy spins and catches the door with his hand before it can slam, and eases it shut. We’re in a stairwell. Up or down? I look at the boy and without a word we both dart to the right, heading down. We’re on the ground floor, but it seems like the basement will offer more exits than the second floor will. We take the steps three at a time, crashing into the walls. The boy is right behind me, urging me forward, his hands against my shoulder blades.

  When we hit the bottom, he pushes me aside, reaching for the door handle first.

  ‘Get behind me,’ he says, holding the gun to his chest.

  I glance at the gun in his hand and am about to argue with him but he’s already throwing open the door so I duck behind him, my hands balling his sweatshirt, my face pressed to his shoulder blade.

  The door smashes against the concrete wall on the other side. It’s an underground car park, filled with police cars and unmarked vehicles. The boy steps through, with me tripping on his heels. We scan the space simultaneously. To the right of the door is a small booth. I hear the boy’s intake of air, a sudden sharp gasp, before I register the body on the floor – another cop, this one sitting propped up against the wall with his legs splayed and a ragged black red hole where his left eye used to be – but I don’t even have time to process it before we hear footsteps thundering down the stairs behind us.

  The boy leaps over the dead cop’s legs towards the booth, but I just stay standing there, staring at the body, as the footsteps ring out closer and closer.

  My mind is yelling at me to move, to keep running, but the sound of those footsteps, the sight of all that blood, gloss black against the concrete, holds me in place like a hypnotist’s trick.

  And then the boy is suddenly standing in front of me, waving a set of keys in my face. He takes my arm and starts dragging me across the parking lot, and my legs feel heavy and too slow but it doesn’t matter because he’s running hard enough for both of us, propelling me forward. I hear a beep and a car’s lights flash on the other side of the lot. The boy changes course, veering wildly around a pillar, heading towards it.

  We’re three cars away when we hear someone burst through the doorway. We both duck, scurrying between a pillar and a car. We edge silently around it until we’re hidden behind the back of a van. Have we been seen? No one is shooting at us.

  For a second I think that maybe it’s a policeman chasing us, that it’s someone coming to tell us everything’s safe now, that we don’t need to run, but my instinct says otherwise. My instinct says that unless we get out of this underground car park in the next thirty seconds, we’re dead.

  The boy scoots along until he’s at the e
dge of the van and then darts a look down the row. Let’s go, he mouths to me, and I follow him, keeping low, my heart crowding my chest. We make it to the car. The boy nods to the passenger side and I nod back at him in understanding, then start inching along towards the door as he slips silently around to the other side.

  My hand slides under the door handle and I try to ease it up silently, but there’s a muffled click and a second later a bullet whizzes right past my face and smashes into the pillar beside me. Through the high-pitched whine that fills my ears I hear the boy yelling at me. I throw open the door as another bullet smacks into the front fender of the car.

  The wheels are already spinning as I dive inside, and the boy straightaway tears out of the parking space without even waiting for me to shut the door. It swings open and I try to grab for it even as he throws us around another corner, and I see the man then, see the gun raised and pointing straight at me, see the black hole that the bullet comes spinning out of, and I hear the smack as it hits the wing mirror. The car door slams shut as we tear around another corner.

  ‘Get down, stay down!’ the boy shouts and I do. I cradle my head in my arms and duck low.

  The engine screams as we fly up a ramp. I’m aware of the boy’s hand, gripping the gearstick, close to my face, moving it fluidly, punching it up and down the gears. He lets go at one point and grabs the handbrake, jerking it up violently and we spin two-seventy degrees, the wheels screeching, before he hits the gas and I fly backwards against the seat and then forward, smashing into the dash. A second later we bump over something and go careering around a corner before slowing abruptly to a normal speed.

  ‘Buckle up,’ the boy says, looking over at me.

  6

  I straighten up, glancing at the street as I reach with shaking hands for my seatbelt. The boy cruises for several blocks, making a few sharp turns. His eyes stay glued to the rear-view mirror the whole time. I twist around to see if we’re being followed but the streets are eerily deserted. There are a few garbage trucks and some early-morning commuters, but that’s all. The sky is saturated purple and grey. The lights of the stores we pass are bright and glittering. I realise it’s been raining heavily, though now the storm has passed. The sidewalks shine like new.