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“Hit the alarm, you asshole,” she shouted as Francois stood like a statue with his runted as the blow to her ribs stole her breath This time he’d used his fist

He eeping now, scratching and clawing up her arot to have it I’ll kill you I’ll kill you all”

She ht her a few seconds, but lacked the power to debilitate

She saw stars again as her head smacked sharply into the side of a counter Dozens of the candy bars she’d craved rained down on her

“You son of a bitch You son of a bitch” She heard herself saying it, over and over as she landed three hard short arrabbed her arm

And she kneas going to break Knew she would feel that sharp, sweet pain, hear the thin crack as bone fractured

But just as she drew in breath to screaht was off her

The ball still cupped in her hand, she rolled over onto her haunches, struggling to breathe and fighting the need to retch From that position she saw the shiny black shoes that always said beat cop

“Book hihed once, painfully “Atte an explosive, assault” She’d have liked to have added assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, but as she hadn’t identified herself, she’d be skirting the line

“You all right, ma’am? Want the MTs?”

She didn’t want thecandy bar “Lieutenant,” she corrected, pushing herself up and reaching for her ID She noted that the perp was in restraints and that one of the two cops had been wise enough to use his stunner to take the fight out of him

“We need a safe box—quick” She watched both cops pale as they sahat she held in her hand “This little booet it neutralized”

“Sir” The first cop was out of the store in a flash In the ninety seconds it took hi and deactivating explosives, no one spoke

They hardly breathed

“Book him,” Eve repeated The an to treuys with the Hundred and twenty-third?”