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  Sarah landed soundlessly on the dusty concrete floor. Faint murmurs of voices from the owners of the foreign cars out front came from the same direction. She kept her feet light, weaving in and out of the massive stacks of crates and goods that lined the warehouse floor.

  “Looks like the rehab’s been working,” Bryce said.

  “Are you going to be doing this the entire time?”

  “What? I’m trying to ease your nerves.”

  “Well, I’m going to ease my foot in your ass when I get back to HQ.”

  “Just remember Mack said no casualties. You need to leave them alive for the local police to take over.”

  “Keep the meth heads above ground. I remember.”

  Sarah frowned and crouched behind a stack of pallets twenty feet behind the four assailants gathered around a table that was stacked with lab equipment and enough meth to keep the entire state of New Mexico supplied for the next six months.

  “WOO!” one of the drug dealers said, taking a hit from the supplier’s goods. “That’s some Grade-A shit!”

  “And it’s all yours for the low, low price of one thousand an ounce,” the supplier said.

  “That’s steep, Holmes.” The dealer’s muscles twitched from the rush of narcotics eroding what was left of his brain cells.

  “Yeah, but you’ll be able to charge double what you normally do once you give your clients a taste,” the supplier said. “You’ll make your money back within the first two weeks.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about getting into the business myself.” Sarah stood with her hands on her hips, head cocked to the side, taking in the four men drawing their pistols from the waists of their sagging jeans.

  The drug dealer, still rubbing his nose and tweaking his neck in a nervous spasm, looked to the supplier with the confusion of a gorilla who’d just been frightened. “Yo, did you bring your girl here?”

  Sarah snorted. “Oh, god, no. No, no, no. I’m nobody’s girl. I mean, no offense, but I could stuff my head in that bag of meth, inhale as deep as I possibly could, and I still wouldn’t do anyone in this room. Except for me, maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’d do me.”

  “Listen, bitch! You need to get the fuck out of here before we waste your ass,” the drug dealer said.

  “OH! Right. Drug deal,” Sarah replied.

  Before the four men around her could squeeze the triggers on the guns aimed right at her, Sarah drew both pistols from the cover of her jacket and shot one of the drug dealer’s friends in the shins. The man collapsed, firing blindly into the air as his colleagues opened fire, and Sarah ducked behind a giant pillar of crates for cover. Wooden splinters rained down over her head as she closed her eyes and did a quick recap of the guns in their hands.

  9mm Ruger with an eleven-count magazine, Glock 37 loaded with .45 caliber bullets in a ten-count magazine, two Beretta 92 Vertec Innox with fifteen-round magazine capacity, and one sweet-ass Colt .44 revolver six-shooter.

  “Are you doing a bullet count?” Bryce radioed.

  “Shut up, Bryce.”

  Fifty-seven shots.

  Sarah glanced at her watch. Six seconds to get the count. A little rusty. The bullets stopped, and she heard the distinct thump of magazines and empty shells smack the ground. She pivoted on her left foot and swung around the edge of the crate.

  All three assailants were in mid-motion of reloading, and Sarah brought the three steel sights of her 1911 to the shoulder connected to the Ruger. She squeezed the trigger once, and the bullet jettisoned from her barrel. In less time than it took for the brain to blink, the .45 piece of lead penetrated the drug dealer’s flesh, dropping both him and the gun to the floor.

  Sarah worked her way left. Another round of bullets splintered the new stack of crates she ducked behind as the two men already bleeding out on the ground moaned between the gunshots cracking like thunder. One more stack of crates stood to her left, and she waited for the deadheads to reload. When the smack of more magazines hit the concrete, she spun, aimed, and fired, and the other dealer’s friend was down with his hand clutching a bloody foot.

  The light patter of retreating feet echoed, and Sarah dashed from her cover to the sight of the three druggies rolling on the ground, clutching their wounds, and cursing her name with every combination of words they could think of.

  “FUCK!”

  “Well, aren’t you creative,” Sarah said, quickly holstering her own gun and picking up the Glock 37 and Colt revolver on the ground. “Make sure you keep pressure on that,” she said, patting the dealer on the top of his head.

  “Fuck you, lady!” he answered.

  With her back still to the moaning criminals, Sarah aimed the Glock 37 behind her and fired a bullet into the man’s other shin. “Keep pressure on that one, too.”

  Sarah wove around the piles of crates with quick, soundless steps, listening for the panicked scurry of the supplier that had fled to the back of the warehouse. She winced as her knee suddenly tightened from her increased speed.

  Finally, making it all the way to the end of the warehouse, she slowed her pace. The massive stacks of pallets and crates almost reached the ceiling. She knew he had to be back here; there weren’t any other exits except for the front. “I love a good hide-and-seek game as much as the next person, but I think playtime’s over.” She tilted her head left, then right, listening for any hint of where her target hid. “I’ll tell you what. You come out right now, and I won’t shoot you. I promise.”

  “Not if I shoot you first, bitch!”

  The echo sent the words reverberating off the walls, throwing the supplier’s voice in all different directions, making it difficult to pinpoint his location. She had to keep him talking. “I don’t think your marksmanship is something you should be boasting about right now. I mean, for Christ’s sake, you emptied two entire clips into wooden crates. I haven’t even needed to reload yet. In fact, I actually have more bullets than what I started with, so rea—”

  The quick, successive thump of shoes echoed behind her, and Sarah spun around, dropped to her knee, and brought the supplier’s hand into her sight. The bullet ricocheted off the supplier’s pistol, and it dropped to the floor, accompanied by crimson raindrops from the bleeding wound on his hand.

  The supplier collapsed, clutching his bloody right hand with his left. “Wait, wait, wait,” the supplier said, driving his heels into the concrete floor and pushing himself backward. “You said you wouldn’t shoot me.”

  “Yeah, if you had come out when I first asked you to. And technically I didn’t shoot you, I shot your gun, and then the ricochet hit you. That bullet was negligent.” She aimed the gun at his shoulder then squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet straight through the flesh between his neck and his collarbone. The man screamed, unsure whether to keep pressure on his hand or his trapezius. “There. Now I actually shot you.”

  Sarah grabbed the supplier’s ankle and dragged him back to the front of the warehouse, where the dealers had made a pathetic attempt to crawl to the door. She tied them all up and radioed Bryce. “Call the boys in blue. I’ve got a present for them.” She turned one last time to the drug dealers behind her and flashed their guns at them. “Thanks for the fun, boys. Next time, see if you can get your hands on a Smith and Wesson. The Glock felt a little jerky on the pull.” The wail of sirens echoed in the distance as she jumped in the dune buggy outside and tore off through the desert.

  The Chicago Central Manufacturing district was riddled with buildings older than Sarah’s grandfather and more worn down. She made her way into Chicago Packing and gave a few high fives to the workers on the belt line. “Hey, Mary, how’s Timmy doing?”

  “Fine, Sarah. He starts kindergarten next year.”

  “Really? Well, tell him to keep working on that right hook. And if anybody gives him any crap, just tell him to call me.”

  “I will.”

  Canned goods varying in size and label rolled down the multiple conveyer belts. The hum o
f the machines ached with the weariness of age and time, but they were well maintained, and the workers inside were some of the best people she’d ever come to know.

  Past the humming, industrious metal, a large service elevator rested in the back. Sarah lifted the rusty, paint-chipped gate and jumped inside. She hit the red button on the three-button control panel and began her descent into the earth.

  A robotic arm with a pearl-colored ball attached to the end extended from the roof in mechanized fashion and scanned Sarah’s left eye with beams of infrared light, casting the entire elevator in a neon red glow. Upon successful completion of the scan, the lights turned green, and the robot arm retracted into the ceiling. “Welcome back, Agent Hill.”

  The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened. Sarah’s entrance was greeted with lighthearted applause as she made her way through the desks of support agents and those field agents not away on assignment. Computer screens were filled with military recon data, criminal profiles, politicians, international legislation, and whatever other assignment the boss threw at them. She gave a few bows accompanied with overexaggerated pageant-like waves. “Thank you, thank you. Yes, it’s good to be back.”

  Of all the people in the room, the only one who didn’t even acknowledge she was back was her own partner, Bryce. She jumped on the edge of his desk, shaking the monitors in front of him.

  “You know Mack is pissed, right?” Bryce asked.

  “Pissed about what?” Sarah asked, picking up the solved Rubik’s cube. She twirled it in her hands and shifted the colors around.

  Bryce snatched it from her and flipped the pieces she’d moved back to their previous spots. “You weren’t supposed to have any causalities.”

  Sarah threw her hands into the air. “Well, they were alive when I left.”

  “You didn’t have to keep shooting them like that.”

  “One: the shots were nonfatal. And two: they didn’t have to try and sell meth to the entire state of New Mexico, but alas, ’tis the hand fate dealt them,” Sarah said, bowing in her best Shakespearean performance.

  “Do you even know how many times you’ve been written up?”

  “I don’t know. Thirty something.”

  “Forty-three.” The deep voice seemed omnipotent and caused Bryce to jump in his chair. Sarah scrunched her face in preparation for the lashing to come. The light from the Bluetooth in Mack’s ear blinked a light cyan, and he sipped coffee from a stained mug, which fueled the tired bags under his eyes. “My office. Now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarah said.

  Sarah tiptoed lightly in the wake of Mack’s disappointed tone and looked back at Bryce, who looked like he’d just been touched by the Grim Reaper as she mouthed, “Forty-three?”

  The automatic doors to Mack’s office opened then quickly shut after the two entered the glass box centered in the headquarters’ floor. Mack flicked a switch on his desk, and the four glass walls faded grey so those inside could see what was happening outside, but no one could see inside. Mack leaned back in his chair and rested his coffee mug on the same circular stain it had sat on for the past fifteen years.

  “You look like you’re upset,” Sarah said.

  “Agent Hill, do you think your field antics are amusing?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sort of in the moment when it happens. Bryce would probably be better qualified to answer that question. I’ll just run and get him real quick.”

  Sarah had her hand on the door handle when Mack stopped her. “Sit. Down.” She turned, gave a half smile, then sank into one of the chairs in front of his desk. As many times as she’d been called to the principal’s office, she would have thought she’d be used to it by now. But this time was different. She knew it, and so did Mack. The first mission back after a surgery wasn’t one that warranted her usual shenanigans.

  “It’s been four months since you’ve been in the field,” Mack said.

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  “And do you also remember what took you out of the field four months ago?”

  “Yes, sir. I remember.”

  Mack opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a stack of papers as thick as the man’s skull, which wasn’t to say Sarah had ever told her boss he had a big head, except for that one time during the Christmas party when she was already on her sixth shot of tequila.

  “Our review board was watching you on that mission, per our protocol for an agent returning from medical leave to active duty.” Mack pounded his thick index finger onto the top of the paper stack. “And this is what they had to say about it.” Mack pulled the first piece of paper off and cleared his throat.

  “We really don’t have to—”

  “Agent Hill displays a narcissistic attitude in the field that could put both her and other operatives in danger.”

  “That’s blatant slander. You know I don’t go out into the field with anyone.”

  “Agent Hill has a vindictive personality, shown in her capricious attitude toward opposition.”

  She puffed up, spreading her arms in exasperation. “Oh, c’mon, they were meth heads! I shot drug dealers, for crying out loud, not nuns!”

  “Agent Hill also has a blatant disrespect for authority and following orders.”

  “Tha… Okay, that one’s actually pretty accurate.” Sarah sank back into her chair slightly and fiddled with the tips of her fingers.

  Mack slammed his palm on the rest of the stack. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what they had to say about you. Look at this,” Mack said, thumbing the thick reams. “There are literally hundreds of pages.”

  “Sir, you and I both know I’m the best agent you have. I belong out in the field. I stop the bad guys. We stop the bad guys.”

  Mack let out a breath that almost sounded painful as he released the thin sheet of paper pinched between his fingers and it floated down. He thumped his elbows on the desk as he rubbed his temples. “You know, I used to have hair before you worked here.”

  “But you look so much tougher bald! Like a badass Mr. Clean.”

  “While the board’s review is taken into consideration, they do not have the final say on whether or not an agent is field ready. That decision lies with me.”

  Sarah perked up in her seat, smiling. “I like where this is going.”

  “And while I do agree with many, many of the board’s statements, you are fully reinstated into active duty.”

  “Sir, for the record, I think you are in fact the most handsome, intelligent, debonair individual that has ever walked this earth.”

  “Get out of my office.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The windows flashed back to clear, and the room’s entire population attempted to pretend they weren’t trying to snoop in the boss’s office. Bryce continued to ignore her as she sat right back in the spot she had occupied before Mack came to get her. “Number forty-four and still kicking.”

  “Unbelievable,” Bryce mumbled.

  Sarah checked her watch and slapped Bryce on the back. “See you bright and early tomorrow, big boy.”

  Bryce kept his face glued to his computer while she walked away. “Can’t wait.”

  Sarah pulled the kickstand down and rested the motorcycle next to the curb outside a modest one-story house with a tire swing in the front yard, where a mixture of footballs, Barbies, and playhouses littered the grass. Without knocking, she burst through the front door and was pelted with the smell of lasagna and the high-pitched squeals of two five-year-olds running through the halls. She bent down and scooped up Ella before she could get away.

  “Didn’t your mom tell you not to run in the house?” Sarah asked, hanging Ella upside down, exposing her olive-skinned belly.

  “Yeah, but you always said I should run faster,” Ella giggled.

  Sarah gasped, then pressed her lips against Ella’s bare stomach and blew a raspberry that echoed a fart noise through the entire house. After a spate of giggling and lightheadedness, Sarah finally let Ella back
down as her twin brother, Matt, came tackling into the back of her legs. “Easy there, bulldozer. I don’t need any more knee surgeries.”

  The two five-year-olds clasped Sarah’s legs tightly, and she was forced to waddle forward with the two of them clinging for dear life. She entered the kitchen, where her sister-in-law sliced a loaf of bread.

  “Becca, could you take a minute to give me an exam? I suddenly had these two growths appear on my legs,” Sarah said.

  Becca shook her head in a disappointed cadence. “I don’t know if we can save you. They look like they’re inoperable.”

  Both Ella and Matt giggled and squeezed Sarah’s legs tighter as the front door opened and Sarah’s brother, Ben, brushed past her without a hello. The kids immediately let go of Sarah and rushed to their father, wrapping their little bodies around his legs.

  “Well, I guess I’m just the flavor of the week, then,” Sarah said.

  “I didn’t realize you were coming over tonight,” Ben said, shuffling through the mail.

  “Yeah, well, I talked to Becca about it.”

  Becca set the knife down, wiping her hands on the apron around her waist. She walked over and whispered in Ben’s ear. Sarah watched the slight motion of her lips along with the movement of her throat. I thought it would be good for the two of you. The only thing about learning how to lip read was once you did it, you couldn’t stop noticing other people’s conversations. She actually used lip reading more in her personal life than in the field. With all the surveillance technology, it was becoming an obsolete skill.

  Ben turned around and forced a smile. “Well, I know the kids are happy that you’re over.”

  Sarah smacked her lips together a few times and moved her hands awkwardly. “Yyyup!” She clapped her hands together on the “p.”

  “So, Sarah, you’re back working at the factory again now that your leg’s healed up?” Becca asked.

  “Yeah, today was my first day back. It felt great getting back into the swing of things,” Sarah answered.

  Ben shuffled through the mail some more. “I still can’t believe you work there after what happened. It’s too dangerous.”