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  24. SHOCK

  This is when I first meet Michael ‘Hip’ Hudson.

  He’s an EMT, a skinny black guy with a smile on his face.

  He’s as pleasant as you’d expect someone to be in a time of need.

  When the ambulance arrives, it takes both Michael and his partner to lift The Bull’s lifeless body to the stretcher and load it into the back of the unit.

  Dax stands in the doorway, watching as the crew works to assess The Bull’s condition.

  I know I’m in the way, but I don’t care, I climb into the back with them and take a seat on the bench.

  “His blood pressure is shit,” says Michael, “and his heart rate is through the roof. Get the pads.”

  Tearing away The Bull’s shirt, his partner slaps a large oval sticker to The Bull’s upper chest and another to his side, underneath his arm.

  “Charge it up.”

  A long beep from the defibrillator rises until the ‘Ready’ button flashes bright yellow.

  The high-pitched sound sustains, awaiting someone to deliver the shock.

  “Clear!” says Michael.

  But before the button is pressed, his partner intervenes.

  “Wait! It’s coming down.”

  The numbers displaying Bull’s heart rate, 210, begins decreasing to 130.

  His eyes are still closed, but the color in his skin returns and the sweat begins to dry from his brow.

  Michael pushes the side of a pen-sized flashlight hard against the bed of Bull’s pinky fingernail.

  “No response to pain,” he says. “Let’s go. I’ll drive.”

  He hops into the driver’s seat.

  Dax steps inside the back and fastens one of Bull’s hands to the rail of the stretcher with a set of handcuffs, then hurries to his cruiser.

  “I’ll clear the way for you,” he says.

  With me sitting on the bench and the Michael’s partner prepping Bull’s free arm to start an IV, this is my moment to let this monster know how I really feel. To confess his own mistakes to him. To let him know how much he fucked up. Whether or not he can hear me is of no matter. This moment is something I’ve been waiting for since my daughter disappeared.

  With Dax leading in his patrol car, the ambulance follows toward the city.

  The bumps in the road shake the truck like a small earthquake.

  “Damn it,” says the medic, grasping The Bull’s arm tight in his lap and trying to line up the tip of a needle with a vein. From the other side, I lean over and put my face inches away from The Bull, and whisper in his ear.

  “He’s only trying to save your life because he has to. I could stop him at any moment if I wanted to, but I won’t. If I had my daughter back, I would have left you rotting for the vultures to find, hoping there would be an ounce of life left in you so you could feel what it’s like for them to peck out your eyes.”

  The needle penetrates The Bull’s skin just as another bump in the road jolts everyone in the ambulance.

  “Fuck,” says the medic.

  The sudden shake causes the needle to retract, but even through all of the poking and prodding, Bull stays asleep.

  “You’re not allowed to die,” I say, “but it’s not because you’re the only one who knows where I can find Haylee, and it’s not because the rest of the children will be shipped away. I won’t let you die, because you deserve something much worse.”

  The front of my shirt feels tight, like a fist clenching ahold of it.

  The Bull’s arm pulls me in closer.

  My hands press back against his chest, trying to push myself away, but his free hand grabs ahold of my hair as he sits up.

  The medic tries desperately to free me but the grip won’t weaken.

  “You stupid bitch,” says The Bull, his eyes glaring at me.

  Michael’s head spins back from the driver’s seat to see the commotion just as the front tires plummet into another pothole.

  The bang throws the wheels off track.

  He slams the brakes hard and fights the wheel for control.

  From his rearview mirror, Dax sees the ambulance swerving and slams the brakes of his patrol car.

  The truck barrels toward him before he’s able to get out of the way.

  The front smashes into the back of his cruiser, sending Dax off the side of the road into a ditch.

  He’s knocked out instantly.

  When the car clears its path, the ambulance continues to swerve, sending it’s top-heavy back tumbling three times.

  Everything begins moving in slow motion.

  The doors swing open and bend each time they touch pavement.

  What was the floor becomes the ceiling, and the medic’s body flies across space like a piece of cloth in a clothes dryer, smacking him repeatedly against the walls before tossing him out the busted door.

  Another bang, and tackle boxes of medicine vials, syringes and gauze pads break open, sending their contents through the air like shrapnel.

  The only thing keeping me from being tossed around like a rag doll is Bull’s tight fist holding me close to him. The seatbelts keep him secured and the stretcher never breaks free from the floor locks.

  In a way, his anger and hatred is what saves me.

  He’s not about to let me die because he wants things done his way, in under his control.

  Once the tumbling vehicle comes to rest, I notice Michael up front, slouched over the armrest, with his head hanging to the side and his eyes closed. A trickle of blood oozes down his face.

  Now it’s just me.

  Me against El Toro.

  My heavy breathing comes through clenched teeth, spraying tiny bits of spit, and struggling to get Bull’s hands to release me. One of them finally does, the one he uses to unfasten his straps. The other still gripped with a fist full of my black hair. How he frees himself from the handcuffs, I can’t tell you. It may have been the force of the crash that broke the railing, allowing the bracelets to slide from the bars. They say people can lift cars because of the sudden rush of adrenaline. It gives them a super strength they never knew they had. Maybe it was the adrenaline in El Toro, giving him enough power to break free. Maybe it was his pure hatred that fueled his muscles.

  He rises to his feet, ducking his head under the doorway and dragging me along by my hair.

  I try to reach for my gun, still holstered in my belt, but it takes both my hands gripping The Bull’s to keep him from ripping chunks of hair and skin from my scalp. Holding on is the only thing to ease the sharp pain and I can’t let go.

  Once outside, he throws me to the ground, snatching my gun and tossing it into the night.

  He drops a kick to my chest so hard, it knocks the wind from me which makes it impossible for me to get back up, impossible to raise my arms to block his fist as it pummeled my face.

  Lose strands from my ponytail stick to the sides of my face.

  He’s beating a woman and doesn’t care.

  He knows I’m a cop, and doesn’t care about that either.

  Blood is the same no matter whom it comes from.

  It smells of copper.

  Its bitter taste seeps in the corners of my busted lip.

  Even with the night only lit with broken headlights, it’s hard to see the red.

  I become a punching bag, being beaten to my breaking point.

  Weak.

  About to become another victim of murder.

  From where I lay face down, the silhouette of El Toro towers six feet above me. Hanging from his ripped muscles are shreds of a cut gray tank top still tucked in his belt. Black tactical pants with large pockets at both knees. The ends of loose wires stuck to his chest, dangle by his arms. With my eyes stinging, it’s hard to see his face.

  It’s too dark to tell if my hair is wet from blood or sweat. Regardless, now it’s a mess, and that pisses me off.

  I try not to move, but it’s hard to play dead when you’re struggling to catch your breath.

  Even now, in this night
air, just above freezing, The Bull would be hard to fool.

  Each purge of air from my mouth comes with a cloud of fog.

  Dissipating warmth burns as each one escapes my lungs, like breathing fire.

  Grabbing a fist of my hair again, Bull yanks hard, bending back my neck.

  I can feel the strength in his hand as a few individual follicles lose their grasp from my scalp.

  Up close, his face is illuminated just enough to see his expression.

  Blank.

  Robotic.

  Emotionless.

  If not for the tiny bead of sweat running down his nose, I wouldn’t believe he’s even human.

  There’s a fine line between reason and instinct.

  His knuckles slam my temple.

  His fist is like a brick.

  The sharp pain and blurry vision only last a few seconds, but it’s enough to knock me back down.

  My body falls flat, but he still has my hair, still holding my head back.

  Sweat burns my eyes.

  “My only gratification,” he says, “comes from seeing the expression on your broken face at this exact moment.”

  Still clenching his handful of my hair, The Bull lets me stand, but my knees are weak.

  My boots slip in the wet grass and my legs buckle.

  All the crunches I’ve done at the gym finally serve their purpose. Right before his foot kicks my gut, I flex my stomach muscles to prevent the wind from getting knocked from me.

  He doesn’t hesitate.

  He doesn’t hold back.

  His kick has enough force to push me back.

  One of the things they teach in martial arts is to visualize your target behind the person you’re trying to attack. This way, the power of a strike can reach its full potential. I know it to be true because I can feel it, and by now, I’ve lost count of the blows.

  Crouched to the ground, I take another hit to the ribs from The Bull’s boot.

  Aching pain shoots to my shoulders.

  My elbows give way and I fall flat.

  Groaning is a shit way of giving him satisfaction. It’s a shit way of letting him know he’s winning. But damn this hurts.

  With blades of dark grass glimmering blurry reflections from the distant headlights, my sight is aligned with equipment bags and plastic boxes. The vials of medication and syringes scattered across the ground. Bits of glass and shreds of metal, painted white.

  The Bull rips the dangling wires and defibrillator pads from his chest before picking me up by my vest.

  I can hear the rasp of Velcro losing its hold.

  The wires once stuck to his chest, fall to the grass.

  He drops me to his knee, slamming it to my chest.

  The ache goes through to my entire body.

  My ribs pop, echoing a crack through my bones.

  Rolling away and clutching my chest with both arms, I moan.

  Each breath becomes more painful and it’s hard to take in enough air without the feeling of sharp ends of ribs rubbing against the insides of my chest.

  I’m losing this fight.

  I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

  There’s no one to help.

  No backup.

  No one to intervene.

  The two of us fight this battle in the middle of nowhere, miles from the Kansas City limits.

  Dax is somewhere yards away and unconscious inside his wrecked patrol car.

  The driver of the ambulance, Michael, is still strapped in with a seat belt and out for the count. I’m not even sure he’s still alive.

  There are no signs of the medic who was ejected either. Given the violent tumbling he took, his body slamming against the walls as we rolled over, I’d say there’s a slim chance he’s alive as well.

  All anyone else knows is the five of us were on our way to the hospital with Dax leading the way.

  Everything happened so fast; no one had a chance to call for help.

  In such a short time, none of us had a chance to think.

  The flickering headlights start to dim.

  The clanking engine finally gives up and dies. The Bull waits for me to do the same, but despite the toll I’m taking from this brutal beating, it’s a satisfaction I’m not willing to give him.

  My tears are not from crying, they’re just beads of sweat dripping from my lashes. The pain in my ribs dissipates, and that’s how I know nothing is broken.

  I’m nowhere close to giving up.

  Not until I see blackness.

  Not until my heart stops beating.

  Not until the last bit of air escapes my lungs.

  And as long as I have something to say about it, none of these things will come easy for El Toro.

  His fists grab the back of my belt and my collar. With clenched teeth, he lifts and tosses me head first against what was once the top but is now the side of the tipped ambulance. The metal slams my face, and the sudden stop radiates another shock throughout my body. I’m barely able to lean against it, but I slide my back down to bent knees.

  A set of handcuffs lay at my feet. Bull grabs them and tosses them to me. Stepping forward, he holds out both wrists.

  “Go ahead,” he says, “arrest me.”

  Gnashing my teeth, I throw the cuffs to the ground.

  The Bull snickers and moves closer.

  In a small holster strapped to my ankle is a gun. It takes less than a second for me to reach for it, and not long for me to free it from its snug strap. When he sees the tip of the barrel pointed at his head, Bull stops and grins. His hands spread apart. My hands shake the finger pressed against the trigger.

  “Bang, bang,” he whispers.

  He stays still, waiting for me to squeeze the trigger, waiting for me to end this fight.

  If he were anyone else, self-defense would be justified, but to take his life would be a mistake.

  Its impact would be a nightmare I would never awake from.

  With another groan, I toss the gun to the grass.

  Bull steps toward me again, removing something from his side pocket. The fastened loop of a cable tie. The industrial kind, long and thick. The kind that zip and lock in place.

  At this point, my muscles are like gelatin.

  Panting is the only thing I’m strong enough to do.

  All it takes is for him to swoop the zip tie over my head and around my neck.

  With a quick pull of the plastic and the rapid sound of a few clicks, he’ll leave me struggling to save my own life. After a few moments of desperate attempts to free myself, it’s lights-out.

  And then…then I’m done for.

  He thinks I’m finished. He believes his battle ended with me in defeat. Unfortunately for him, my weakness gives me an advantage. The Bull grabs the zip tie loop with both hands.

  Before it slips over my head, my fist slams the inside of his thigh.

  He falls forward with his head above me.

  My elbow jabs deep into his stomach.

  As he falls back, I grab ahold the plastic tie and zips tight around his knuckles before his body hits the ground.

  He’s fast to roll away, so I lunge toward him.

  My vision is blurry.

  My lungs surge with cold night air.

  It’s not until the sole of his boot meets my throat, when breathing becomes less painful, simply because I can’t do it. The wretched sound of struggling to inhale, a high-pitched stridor as the air fights to move in, but won’t come out.

  I step back, holding my hand out for him to stay away, but he grabs the front of my vest.

  The side of my face meets the palm of his open hand, following through with enough force knock me back to the ground.

  The hand with his bound knuckles covers my mouth, but not to silence me. The space between his finger and thumb presses up hard against the bridge of my nose. A pressure point, sending untold amounts of sharp pain through my head. My eyes water as his other hand presses the back of my head forward. I wait for The Bull to s
nap my neck, killing me instantly, but his hesitation tells me only one thing; I’m not getting out of this fight that easily.

  “I wish I had known before,” says Bull, examining the plastic tie around his knuckles. “A cop’s daughter could have been profitable. I would have made her reusable. She would have lived a long life of being traded and purchased, over and over, by merchants wanting to get their hands on such a prize. After all the places I’d send her, and all the things that would have been done to her, she would have prayed for death, something she wouldn’t find as long as there was a profit to be made.”

  Wrapping his fingers underneath my chin, he lifts me to my feet.

  He lets go and kicks my back, slamming me again into the wrecked ambulance.

  “It’s too bad,” he says. “She’s of no use to me now.”

  It’s become easier to breathe again, but only just. What The Bull says seems real, but words can be powerful weapons. He hasn’t broken me physically, so he tries to get inside my head by telling me Haylee is dead. Taking away all hope of me ever seeing her again. I fight through the thought of it. He’s lying. Who’s to trust evil without being fooled? God, I hope he’s not telling the truth, and until I see for myself, I’m not giving in to his deception.

  My right foot kicks to his side, but the muscles of his ribs crack my toe and he grabs hold of my knee, pushing it away before thrusting his fist to my stomach and knocking the wind from me.

  Every part of my body goes limp.

  Every nerve signals my brain that my body is in too much pain for it to handle.

  My sight fades dim and back again.

  Any more anguish, and I’ll pass out.

  Despite how strong you are, despite how tough you become, there’s only so much the body can take.

  During the crash, the rear doors had swung open and broke loose from the hinges. Beside one of them sits a large dark green pressurized tank of oxygen.

  Bull throws me against the wreckage and presses his forearm to my throat.

  His bound knuckles turn white.

  He digs his knee into my thigh.

  All his weight pins me down.