He worked his way north, paralleling the coffee shops and convenience stores of the Drive. When he reached Turk’s Coffee Shop, he found Felicia squatting on her knees against the patio railing. Trying to get up.
She’d be trampled if she stayed there.
In one quick motion, he reached down, snagged her wrist and hauled her to her feet, out of the path of the frenzied mob. She teetered momentarily, but managed to stand.
‘You okay?’ he asked her.
She looked back vacantly, blood running down the left side of her chin. Then mumbled, ‘Go after him.’
Striker held her up on her feet, moved her to the safety of the coffee-shop entrance and got her to lean on the wall. With her safely out of the way, he then grabbed on to the drainpipe and climbed on top of the steel gate that separated the coffee-shop patio from the sidewalk. He scanned the mob.
It took ten seconds to find them.
Shen Sun was forcing the girls across the field, deeper into Grandview Park.
Striker jumped down. He told Felicia to stay put, then dove through the crowd. When he reached the other side of the Drive, he hopped onto the stage and raced across it. He leaped off the other side, entered the park, and spotted Shen Sun slamming shut the rear door of a white commercial van.
‘Shen Sun Soone!’ he bellowed.
He raised his pistol, took quick aim, and lost the gunman when a swarm of teenagers fled in front of him. Gun in hand, he raced through the park. He was barely halfway across when the van’s tail-lights flashed red. Threequarters across when the van pulled out of the parking spot and sped north on Cotton Drive.
‘Stop!’ he screamed. ‘STOP!’
Cotton Drive was a dead-end road. It connected with William Street and turned west, away from Britannia High School. Away from the Drive.
Striker angled his run across the park towards the school. He reached the common area just in time to see the white van speed west on William Street, turn north at the next block, and like a drowning person, slip just out of view.
Striker snagged his BlackBerry from its pouch and dialled 911 while running. When the operator answered, he blurted out his badge and rank and told them his daughter had just been kidnapped by Shen Sun Soone. He gave the location, a description of the van, and the last known direction of travel. With his lungs burning, he reached Odlum Street.
The van was nowhere to be seen.
He sprinted down to Napier.
Nothing.
Down to Parker.
Nothing.
Then all the way down to Venables Street, running till his legs ached and he felt he would collapse.
And still nothing.
Finally, he stopped. Let his hands fall to his sides. The only thing he felt was the heavy pulse of blood thudding through his temples. Gone. Courtney was gone. Taken by the madman just as God had taken Amanda.
He had failed her.
Ninety-Five
Courtney felt the van tilt as it turned hard somewhere on the road. The unexpected motion made her stumble and almost fall onto her side. Instead she hung on desperately to the inside edge of the rear door of the van, and tried to clear her head of her drunkenness and terror.
The movement made her head spin, and she vomited in the darkness. But that was okay. She felt better from it.
And maybe it would help her sober up a little.
There was no light in the back of the van, and only the whimpering sounds of Raine, who was somewhere deeper towards the back of the compartment. She felt around the walls and ceiling for a switch, found one, flicked it, and a small light came on.
The first thing Courtney saw was Raine. The girl was sprawled out on the cold floor of the van, on her stomach, head tilted to the side, in between the boxes of meat. Her lips were split, and blood trailed down her chin, onto the white surface of the van floor.
‘You okay?’ Courtney asked.
Nothing.
‘Raine, you okay?’
The girl just laid there, a look of shock on her face.
‘He has a gun,’ she finally said.
Courtney remembered it well. She’d seen the gunman slam it into Felicia’s head before turning it on them. It was a pistol; she knew that much. But what type or calibre, she had no idea. It was a big gun, and he would kill them with it.
The gunman had taken her cell, so she looked to Raine. ‘You got your phone?’
‘I dropped it… in the crowd somewhere.’ Raine started to cry.
Courtney made her way over to the girl. All around them were boxes. Courtney opened the nearest one. It was full of steaks: thick, frozen slabs of meat. She grabbed the frozen slabs and started tucking them into Raine’s costume.
Raine gasped with shock as Courtney shoved package after package down her top, sliding them down to her stomach and lower back area, then adding more. Courtney had no idea if the frozen meat was strong enough to stop a bullet, but it couldn’t hurt. When she had Raine completely layered with frozen meat beneath her costume, she looked down at herself.
Grabbing a few packages of frozen steak, she shoved them down the front and back of her costume, padding the waist as best she could. It was so cold, it froze her skin, and she felt nauseous from the booze and fear.
The van tilted hard again, to the left, and she tumbled into Raine. The girl let out a sharp cry, as if the contact had finally woken her. She looked up at Courtney.
‘It’s the same guy from the school,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘The one who killed all the others.’
‘I know.’
‘He’s going to kill us, too.’
Courtney saw the fear and desperation on Raine’s face, which mirrored her own emotions. And she said nothing, because there were no words of comfort. She simply put her arm around Raine and felt the van turn and tilt at every corner, as they were driven further and further away to an unknown location.
Ninety-Six
Striker had no idea how many minutes had passed by the time he’d made it back to Commercial Drive. His head felt clouded; his senses distorted. Already there were police cars everywhere. One cop guarded the dead van driver who had been dumped on the west side of Grandview Park. Another cop took custody of a deceased girl Shen Sun had shot near the front of the stage. And one was parked in front of Turk’s Coffee Shop, where a paramedic was patching up Felicia.
Striker hurried up the Drive, red and blue flashes of police lights reflecting off the lingering smoke. The strip was now deserted. As he neared Felicia’s side, she pushed past the paramedic and stumbled up to him. She stopped at an arm’s length, a question in her eyes.
