THE CAT POUNCED AND little Donny Martin screamed as he was pinned beneath its forepaws—which held him fast against the pavement as the oversized predator’s tail wagged furiously and it dipped its head to take its first nip, which much have severed an artery because a plume of dark blood geysered forth like a grisly, red fountain.
Then Charlotte was up; she was up so fast that her head slammed into the compact bunk above her—hard, enough to make her feel as though she might black out—and she was spinning around, un-holstering her sidearm, when she realized a 9mm pistol was pointed in her face.
“Don’t move,” growled its wielder, a man she’d never before seen, a man whose head shined with sweat beneath his closely-cropped hair and who wore a uniform not dissimilar to the security guard at t
