Disruptor by Sonya Clark

him out of
hiding. “So what do you say you put that gun down and come beat on
me like a real man?”
    Two more men crept up the stairs, so quiet
they were probably hoping to catch her unawares. They didn’t know
that with her hearing, that was unlikely to happen. Dani edged
closer to that end of the landing, rebar at the ready.
    The top step creaked. Dani rushed at the
attackers. She swung the rebar in one long graceful arc, up and
over to take out one guy with a blow to the head then down and back
up to hit the other one in the crotch. Both tumbled down the
stairs, either unconscious or simply unable to get back up.
    A door opened down the hall and someone sent
a hail of bullets her way. She dove down the stairs, running over
the uneven terrain of bodies in the floor. The shooter followed,
with yet another two coming up in front of her. She dropped to the
floor right as all three fired at her. The shooter from upstairs
went down, along with one from downstairs. She swiped the rebar at
the gun hand of the one left, knocking the pistol away and doing
damage to his hand.
    “Always in pairs,” she said as she rose. “You
guys are like women who go to the bathroom together.”
    “You’ll die for this, bitch,” he snarled.
    “Finally, one of you speaks English.” Dani
twirled the rebar like a baton. “And here I was, upset that I’d
never learned to say fuck you in Russian. Come on.” She
crooked a finger at him. “Come at me, bro.”
    He bellowed in rage and rushed at her. She
dropped to avoid a fist, then swept her leg out to trip him. He
fell, tumbling down a few stair steps. She got behind him, grabbed
a hank of his hair, and bashed his head into the wall
repeatedly.
    Dani braced herself against the banister.
Back up, or all the way down? How many had she killed? Seriously
injured? Not enough. They were traffickers – they all deserved to
die. Three days. Three days between being taken off the streets and
sold to the lab. Three days in hell, and she and Angel and Nicole
and Cassidy had barely made it out alive. Three days. It may not
have been the same crew, or even the same city, but they were the
same kind of evil, and all she wanted to do was make them pay.
    With interest.
    That bastard with the stun gun hadn’t made an
appearance yet. Maybe he was downstairs, waiting for the fight to
come to him. By some minor miracle, she still had the gun in the
small of her back. Quickly, she checked for more in the immediate
vicinity, scooping up four. She tucked them away in pockets then
twirled the rebar. Shouts came from the ground floor, slightly
panicked. Good. Panic was appropriate for them right now.
    A tiny noise sounded behind her. She turned
her head to see Mr. Talkative taking aim. Before he could pull the
trigger, she threw the rebar, planting it in his chest dead center.
He’d been a lousy conversationalist anyway.
    With a gun in each hand, Dani descended the
stairs.

Chapter
8

    No sign of her at the shelter. Worse, he
almost threw up when he got out of his car. A thick sheen of sweat
ran from his hairline into his eyes. After a quick look around,
during which he could barely see, Kevin returned to his car and
checked his phone. No calls, from her or anyone else. He wiped the
sweat from his forehead and tried to blink away the moisture from
his eyes. The world stayed smeary and streaky so he gave up. He
reached into the glove box for the spare glasses and contact case
he kept there then quickly switched out.
    He felt like a sitting duck, the car parked
not far from where he was attacked. Driving around was better than
staying so he started the car and left.
    Plenty was written about gang crime in the Point Sable Herald , the city’s last major daily paper, but
none of it contained really useful information. A lot of general
pronouncements, mostly, with an obvious lack of names, dates,
places, and other details. It was considered a South Side problem,
and therefore not of much interest to the majority of