Knight In Black Leather Gail Dayton (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

Marilyn held her breath, then decided that was stupid. She couldn't hit him at all if she was dizzy from lack of oxygen. She breathed slow and steady.

"Slug? Where the fuck are you?" Flash came off the stairs, took two steps into the room. Marilyn came out of her hiding place, swinging hard as she could.

The resounding thwack! reverberated up her arms as she hit his head, but Flash barely paused. He turned, putting his hand up to his head. No blood.

Damn. She'd hit him with the nails pointing the wrong way. Marilyn fumbled the board over, scrambling to keep him from pinning her in the corner.

"You fucking bitch!" Flash roared, charging. He raised his fist for a backhanded blow.

Marilyn put up her board as a shield. Oh, God.

Eli bent over the map on the hood of the patrol car, racking his brain for any more places Flash could have taken Marilyn, not paying much attention to the hubbub around him. The commander was sending teams out to search the places he marked and taking reports as they called in. Some of the old hellholes had been pulled down, but the cops were finding some action in the surrounding buildings.

He just wished he could remember better. So much of that time was a blur, part of it when he was messed up on speed, but mostly because he'd done his damnedest to erase it from his mind while it was happening.

A commotion out on the fringes caught his attention, distracted him. Eli swore, cupping a hand over his eyes to try to block out the noise when he heard Joey's voice raised in a shout, and he looked up.

"That's my sister's coat, you little shit!" Joey had grabbed the coat, long and dark green like Marilyn's, and was shaking the boy inside it while cops half-heartedly tried to pull him back. "Where did you get it? What did you do to her?"

Eli had already reached the scuffle, pushed his way through. "Hey!" He grabbed Joey's arm, swung him around to get his attention. "He's a kid. He's not--"

The kid tried to run. Eli let go of Joey and grabbed him, holding on tight while the kid fought to get free.

"I got 'im," he shouted, as the cops approached, handcuffs out. "Just stay back. He's not going anywhere."

Eli looked at the boy--maybe thirteen, maybe a year older or younger--at the thin, battered face, the grimy snowflake-patterned socks on his feet. "You're not running, are you?"

"Why shouldn't I?" The kid shivered inside Marilyn's coat, one bare bony knee sticking out below the last button.

"Where'd you get the coat?" Eli didn't relax his grip, knowing what the kid would do.

Sure enough, he fought harder to get free.

Eli hung on. "She gave it to you, didn't she?"

The kid went limp so suddenly Eli almost lost his grip. "Yeah," he whispered. "How'd you know?"

"'Cause I know Marilyn. She gave you the socks too, didn't she?" Eli helped the kid get his feet under him.

"Yeah." He swiped the back of his hand across his nose. "She was gonna give me her shoes, but my feet are too big." He looked at Eli then. "You know her?"

"I know her. You gonna run?" He relaxed his grip.

"You Eli Court?" The kid stayed put.

"That's right." His heart thundered so loud he could hardly hear the kid talk. He wanted to scream at him, demand to know where she was, but it would only scare the kid off. Eli let go of him, ready to grab hold again if necessary.

"She told me to find you. So she could be sure I was okay."

That sounded like Marilyn. "What about her? Is she okay?"

The kid frowned. "Yeah. She was when--Don't you have her? I called. Like I promised. I called 9-1-1 and told them to tell Detective Jackson. I told them where Pete is and where she is and--didn't you go get her?" The kid was screaming now, spit flying from his mouth. The way Eli felt.

"Where?" He grabbed the boy's shoulder to calm him down, hold him still. "Show me where."

"It's not that far." The kid turned and ran, crashing through the circle of watchers, Eli right behind him.

The street full of cops erupted into noise and motion behind them, but Eli barely noticed as he dashed into the night.

Marilyn blocked the first blow with the board. Sort of. Her head still rang with the force of his glancing fist. Flash bellowed. He grabbed the board, wrenched it out of her hands and threw it across the room. Blood trickled down over his hand.  She'd caught his arm with one of the nails.

Nails. She'd lost the board but she had nails in her pocket. Scrambling backwards in a desperate attempt to stay out of his reach, Marilyn shoved her hand in her pocket, groping for a nail. She pulled it out just as Flash slapped her, open-handed. It spun her around and knocked her to her knees on the concrete floor. The nail went skittering across the room.

On hands and knees she scooted after it, trying to keep one eye on Flash. He kicked her in the side. She grabbed his foot and yanked up, hard as she could. He didn't fall, but he staggered back, giving her space to stand, gasping at the pain in her knees and side and head and face.

Marilyn staggered forward, dizzy, blinking to see through the tears. She was turned around. Where were the stairs? There. To the left. She took a step and screamed.

Flash had grabbed a fistful of her hair and was yanking on it, hauling her backward. He jerked her back hard against him, slamming an arm around her waist. "You think you can fucking fight me, bitch?"

He let go of her hair, obviously to get his knife out, because seconds later, the sharp tip scraped down the length of her throat. "You think you can beat me, you stupid whore?"

No. She knew she