Ghosts by Matt Rogers (ap literature book list txt) 📕

stock police cruiser couldn’t match it.

Slater said, ‘Where is he?’

‘Wan’s.’

Slater shook his head. ‘You can’t fix stupid.’

‘We shouldn’t have done this,’ King said.

‘What?’

‘Started this war.’

‘It was the best—’

‘Gates is a coke fiend,’ King said. ‘He marketed himself as a competent criminal when we were with him, and that’s why we made that call. But he’s fucking crazy. And so is Keith Ray.’

Slater nodded. ‘And now Ray has Alexis.’

‘Gates could have her,’ King said. ‘There’s always—’

‘Gates doesn’t have anything,’ Slater said, highlighting the pimp’s incompetency. ‘It’s Ray.’

‘And now they’re in a war. That we started. We got her wrapped up in this.’

Slater banged the wheel.

He said, ‘Don’t start with that. I had reservations about letting her try anything. It’s on me.’

‘It’s on all of us. Violetta, too. It was a group decision.’

‘She’s okay,’ Slater said. ‘She’s fine. I swear to God, if she’s not…’

‘One step at a time,’ King said. ‘Breathe. We get Ward, we figure out this whole damn puzzle.’

Ward sensed the Bentley on his rear. The cruiser took the exit onto South Decatur Boulevard at breakneck speed. Out of the corner of his eye, King saw Slater smile.

You want to get into a battle of nerves with someone, you best hope it’s not Will Slater.

Slater took the exit faster. He pulled alongside Ward on the boulevard, slowed an ounce, and then swerved.

The Bentley was massive.

The cruiser wasn’t.

The hood crushed the rear right-hand-side of the squad car and sent it into a wild tailspin, complete with screaming tyres and plumes of smoke from the burning rubber. It rotated two full revolutions before it mounted the kerb — thankfully devoid of pedestrians — and hit the side of a brick shopfront, lurching to a violent halt.

The impact slowed the Bentley hard enough for Slater to regain control, and he veered onto the sidewalk and shot down a laneway between the two shops. He skidded to a halt, aiding the deceleration by smacking the side of the big car into a dumpster. It came to rest with all the rapid momentum loss of a full-scale car wreck, but King and Slater were braced for it.

King launched out of the passenger seat, his SIG raised before Ward had managed to peel himself from the wreckage of the cruiser. He was bleeding from the mouth, and his uniform was torn in a couple of places, but aside from that he seemed largely unharmed. If nothing else, the man was fast-thinking. He already had his service weapon out, and he aimed it at King as he staggered into the alleyway.

King didn’t want to shoot.

They needed him alive.

Slater was out of the Bentley, too, with his own gun aimed at Ward’s face.

An old-fashioned Mexican standoff.

Then they all heard it.

A car taking the exit off Blue Diamond Road at ridiculous speed, rivalling how fast Slater and Ward had exited. No sirens, so it wasn’t another squad car coming to investigate. Which only left one option.

Ray’s men, in pursuit.

Like a ticking time bomb dropped into the fray.

Ward heard it too, and panicked.

‘Get out of the way!’ he screamed at King, shaking his pistol. ‘I’m not—’

The roar of the engine droned closer.

King said, ‘Alan, they’re coming for you.’

Silence.

Ward couldn’t help it.

He threw a glance over his shoulder.

Slater materialised in front of him like an apparition. When Ward turned back Slater smashed his gun aside, kicked one leg into the other, then headbutted him as he lost his footing and pitched forward. The impact of skull on skull sent Ward tumbling backward — Slater had a harder head. The cop went down like a rag doll and Slater kicked his service weapon aside.

The approaching engine was right on top of them.

In unison, King and Slater melted behind dumpsters.

Like they’d never been there at all.

The car pulled into the laneway and the driver killed the engine. Four men piled out in a collective wave of adrenaline — three had sub-machine guns and one had a full-auto assault rifle. MP5s and a HK respectively. Heavy duty firepower. They swarmed Ward, four barrels aimed at the semi-conscious cop, hooting and hollering between themselves.

Tasting the sweet, sweet thrill of victory.

Because there's no hunting like the hunting of man.

One of them tutted. ‘Alan, Alan, Alan.’

Another said, ‘Wrong call, motherfucker. Running wasn’t smart. You didn’t even kill him.’

A third said, ‘What the hell did you do to yourself?’

The fourth didn’t say anything.

He’d realised that someone else had done this to Ward.

43

Time passes in excruciating fashion when there’s no external stimuli.

Alexis sat in the dark room, keeping the tendrils of insanity at bay. Her vision was non-existent. Her heart thudded twice as loud when it was the only thing she could concentrate on. There were muffled sounds from out in the warehouse, but they were at the edge of her hearing.

A whole lot of her wanted to cry, to break down, to scream and curse and shout for help. Slater had imparted enough of his stoic mindset for her to know the way forward, but there’s a giant rift between knowing what to do and actually doing it. The logical part of her brain said, Crying, screaming, pleading — it achieves nothing. There’s no benefit to it whatsoever. Focus on what you can control. Stay calm, stay alert, stay ready. Breaking down only wastes your energy and destroys your ability to make your own choices and do things your own way.

But now she couldn’t see, and her breathing was heavy and laboured, and the fact that Ray had promised to come back for her hung over her head in an invisible cloud. No part of her wanted to stay composed when that door opened and that sweaty disgusting old man stepped into the room.

Nevertheless, she was going to do it.

Because what other option did she have?

Seconds or minutes or hours passed. She wasn’t sure which it was. Her mind went everywhere and nowhere. She got stuck in endless thought loops, and fought her way out of them, and succumbed to them again. The battle in her