"It is the flash that appears; the thunderbolt will follow." —Voltaire
***
MIKHA
"I'll run in and see if Jhoanna has anything while you're checking on—"
Justin's words end on a grunt, and I turn around, confused as to why he just stopped talking. When I see him on the hard court, a little blood running from his mouth as he lies there unconscious, I grab for my gun too late.
Something hard slams into my head, and I fall forward, disoriented and dizzy, as I crash into the unforgiving pavement below me. My stomach pitches, and my head gains thirty pounds as I try to black out, fighting hard to stay conscious.
A blur of a man's silhouette steps into my vision, the moonlight not favoring me enough to show me his face. At least not until he kneels down and smiles at me.
Deputy Josh Cullen.
"You guys just can't learn to leave well enough alone, now can you?" he taunts, grabbing my gun from my hip.
Weakly, I try to fight for it, but my hands aren't cooperating, and the world is still spinning around me. It feels like gravity has waged a war against my body, pinning me down.
As I struggle up to my hands and knees, Cullen laughs, kicking me in the stomach, sending me spiraling down on my back as my stomach heaves.
I shake my head as his laughter echoes back and forth in my mind, sounding like it's coming from everywhere at once.
"Big bad Supervisory Special Agent Lim. You don't look so threatening to me. Even the sheriff was worried about you."
The distinct sound of my gun being cocked registers, echoing from all over like his laughter. But before the gunshot can come, I hear a sharp intake of air and a pained yelp escape from him.
The gun falls, rattling somewhere in the distance, and my blurry eyes look up to see Cullen's head snapping back as a figure clad in all black becomes a blurring fury of motion.
My head is too groggy, making the scene nothing but a distorted movie in front of me. The black-clad figure spins, shooting a foot out to the deputy's chest. Cullen cries out, crashing to the ground. And the figure comes down on top of him, raining punches on his face.
Even the hands are clad in all black, so I can barely see what they're doing.
Until he pulls out a knife, holding it at his side.
He leans forward, and I watch as his head comes down next to Cullen's. Cullen cries out as the knife plunges into his side. And I see as the figure leans back up, staring down at him as he thrusts the knife inside Cullen's chest while straddling him.
He twists the knife as Cullen screams, and I hear almost a delicate, feminine laughter floating through the air.
The knife stays in Cullen's chest as the figure stands, and Cullen gurgles on blood, trying to speak. I sway on my side, trying to push back up before he can come for me.
But I see him bent over. He's small. Very small. And as my vision clears just barely, I notice the small set of shoulders and very small frame.
Small. Small. Small.
That word just keeps replaying as the figure leans down and dips its finger into Cullen's blood that is rushing from his chest. I can't see what the figure is doing in its crouched position, but when it stands, it grabs the knife from Cullen's chest, and then it throws it right into his groin.
One last pained sound escapes Cullen, and the unsub grabs the knife before walking away, disappearing from my sight.
I limply grab for my phone, struggling to form a grip around it when I finally find it. It falls to the ground, tumbling from my uncooperative fingers. My eyes close and open for who knows how long, before suddenly there's a familiar face in front of me.
"Mikha! She's over here!" I hear her calling out, cupping my face.
"Run," I whisper. "Run."
Her face is barely visible through the blur, but I can smell her, feel her, and know it's her by the way she touches me.
"I'm not going anywhere," Aiah says, checking something on my head.
"Here!" she shouts again to some echo in the distance.
"Mikha!" Jhoanna's voice is barely recognizable through the veil of white noise surrounding me. "Get an ambulance out here now."
"Justin!" someone shouts, but Aiah never leaves my side.
My head is in her lap, and she's barking out orders, asking me questions too fast for me to answer them.
My eyes finally close as she shouts my name one last time.
Too many thoughts are going through my mind as I play the scene on repeat, trying to piece it all together.
It's not a man who just saved my life.
It wasn't a beast at all.
It was a woman.
***