Face to Face by CJ Lyons Read Free Book Online

of the alley. No obvious watchers, but she knew they were there, somewhere. A white woman with a black kid would stand out. Sooner or later, the Rippers would know she and Tagger had come calling.
    If they caught him and he started mouthing off about the Gangstas...
    "Go back to the Center," she told him. "Tell Tammy to call the ambulance again."
    "No. You'll never find her in there. Not without me, you won't." He hauled her across the street and up the steps to the Stackhouse's front entrance. "Don't worry none about the Rippers," he said once they were inside what used to be the foyer, waiting as she grabbed a Maglite from her pack. "They're all a bunch of punks."
    Out of the mouth of babes. She only hoped Tagger never learned how deadly punks could be. Then she remembered his older brother and knew he already had.
    Gloom engulfed them in a claustrophobic embrace. Tagger gripped her wrist as she flicked the flashlight on. The narrow beam illuminated an alien landscape, reflecting off garish fluorescent graffiti, the gleam of crack pipes, and abandoned bottles of cheap booze and forty-cans. That was all she could see before the charred remains of furniture and drywall swallowed the beam of light whole.
    She shuffled her feet over used condoms and other debris. The stench of urine, vomit, sex, and rotten food mingled with the wet, stifling smell of burnt plastic and decaying wood. Each breath brought with it a new and unwanted odor. Cassie waved her hand before her face as if she could brush away the stench clinging to her like cobwebs.
    "This way," Tagger said, moving past a half-charred sofa dumped in the foyer like it was a dentist's office waiting room. He ducked his head under a fallen piece of drywall. 
    Her foot crunched down on a child's plastic doll. Not singed by fire, relatively new. As if this burned out crack den was their playground. The realization pricked at the back of her eyes. Tagger's unique graffiti splattered over the walls, psychedelic sunflowers and neon star-filled skies reminiscent of Van Gogh, a bright ray of hope in an otherwise godforsaken cavern of despair.
    He led her through a maze of charred timbers, walking through the walls of the apartments, stepping over melted baby toys, appliances and unidentifiable objects, grazing against fried wiring and broken pipes that gleamed in the dark like goblin's teeth and barked her shins when she wasn't careful.
    "The hallway's blocked, ceiling collapsed," he answered her unasked question. "Whole other side of the building is lots worse than this—couldn't make it more than a few steps over there."
    Cassie had somehow gotten used to the stench and bizarre sights, was even able to ignore the sensation that the walls and ceiling were about to fall in on her, squeeze all the air from her body, abandon her in the blackness. Then she saw where Tagger led next. 
    "C'mon," he urged when she stopped. "She's down here."
    Oh no, no, no. She shook her head, words failing her as her breath caught in her throat. He couldn't be serious. No way.
    He had crouched at the opening of a plumbing access panel, low in the wall and had climbed halfway inside. "It's the only way. It's not far now."
    She waved the light, trying to make the two-foot square manmade tunnel appear larger. It didn't. In fact as the light was swallowed by the darkness, the area looked smaller. And a lot more deadly. Jagged spikes of copper piping jutted from every surface—just waiting to impale her, trap her. Tagger had no compunctions. He slid on his stomach through the opening as easily as Alice down the rabbit's hole.
    "Hurry," his high-pitched voice echoed from the darkness.
    Cassie sighed, clamped the flashlight between her teeth, and pushed the backpack before her, stalling for one more breath of air before she entered. How the hell had a pregnant woman gotten through this? There had to be a back way to where her patient lay. Had damn well better be, because no way in hell were any paramedics