LITMIR.BIZ

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row house several doors down had gone to ground, drowning who-knew-what demons in a bottle, no doubt. And her teenagers were safe inside the shelter, warming themselves before the fire.

      Except for one. The one who worried her the most.

      Ignoring the premonition of danger stirring inside her, Haley hurried down the steps to the sidewalk, then started up the empty street, heading toward the metro station where the runaways sometimes hung out. She should have watched Lindsey more closely. The teen had exhibited the classic signs of depression—refusing to eat, unable to sleep, rebuffing Haley’s attempts to talk. Instead, she’d withdrawn into a sad kind of silence, slipping outside when no one was looking, and nine hours later, she hadn’t come back.

      Not that Haley blamed her for feeling depressed. Lindsey was fourteen and pregnant. Her boyfriend had dumped her, her family disowned her—and Haley knew exactly how that felt. She understood the despair that threatened to engulf her, the terror of her unknown future, the knowledge that her childhood had abruptly ended in the most fundamental of ways.

      Haley had tried to offer her comfort, to give her a shoulder to lean on and pull her back from the brink. But the girl had rejected every overture of help. She’d retreated into moroseness, into the overwhelming dejection of someone who’d given up hope. Haley just prayed she hadn’t done anything drastic—to herself or that unborn child.

      Her sense of urgency mounting, Haley hurried down the cracked sidewalk, the low drumming of subwoofers a block away quickening her pulse. Trouble was right. The Ridgewood gang was on the prowl. No wonder everyone had fled the street. No one with any sense would risk confronting that violent group.

      But she refused to give up. She’d made it her life’s mission to help these troubled girls, to give them the acceptance and safe haven she’d lacked. She knew the desperation that drove them, the terrible dangers that awaited them on D.C.’s brutal streets.

      And she didn’t intend to lose one now.

      The wind gusted hard, pushing loose strands of hair into her eyes, and she paused to shove them back. She scanned the row houses bordering the street, the late-model cars lined up along the curb, and searched for the missing girl. Her gaze landed on the dilapidated row house where the homeless man holed up. Another wounded soul. Another loner adrift in an uncaring world. Another stray she wanted to save.

      One stray at a time. She had Lindsey to worry about first.

      She just prayed she could find her in time.

      * * *

      Staff Sergeant Sullivan Turner slumped against the wall in his best friend’s row house, the whisper of oncoming danger prickling his nerves. Not his problem, he reminded himself firmly. Fighting the bad guys hadn’t been his problem in months—nine long months, to be exact. Not since he’d returned to civilian life.

      He knocked back a swallow of vodka, then rubbed his aching leg. Dusk crept through the empty room, shrouding the corners in darkness, but it did nothing to subdue his nerves. He dreaded the night, dreaded battling the memories that inevitably flashed back, reminders of the ambush that had claimed his buddies’ lives. And he especially dreaded confronting the failures he couldn’t erase, no matter how much alcohol he drank.

      He closed his eyes, inhaling around the desolation gripping his chest, and willed the images aside. He couldn’t afford to go there. He couldn’t afford to picture their grinning faces and remember the deaths he’d caused. And he definitely couldn’t afford to envision his best friend Jason’s cocky grin, that instant when he’d turned around, preparing to launch another laughing insult at Sully just as his world had come to an end.

      By some miracle, Sully had survived. But his survival hadn’t been a blessing; it was a curse. A curse that would plague him until the day he died.

      Determined to hold off the flashbacks, he drained the bottle of vodka and hefted himself to his feet. It was going to be one hell of a night, his wounded leg already aching with a vengeance, unwanted memories bombarding him like those RPGs that destroyed his squad. He tossed the empty bottle onto the counter and twisted the cap on another, but a faint mewling sound made him pause. Frowning, he limped across the kitchen to the glass door leading to the patio, his steps thudding on the wooden floor.

      A furry animal huddled on the step outside. Great. Just what he didn’t need—a cat. If he could call him that. He was the most pathetic creature Sully had ever seen, with one missing eye, flea-bitten ears encrusted with filth and a scraggly, crooked tail. His fur was mangy and gray. A shock of white stuck up on his ruff, matching his face and legs. He had a lame front paw, a limp that matched Sully’s own. His chest swelled with unbidden sympathy—a feeling he couldn’t afford.

      “Go away,” he told the cat through the glass door. “I’m not taking care of you.”

      The cat meowed and gave him a beseeching look with his good eye. Then the wind bore down again, ruffling what remained of his matted fur. He hunched his back, his thin body so undernourished, Sully was surprised he didn’t blow away. More kitten than cat, he decided. Lost and alone. Another misfit wandering the streets.

      “All right,” he grumbled. “But just this once.”

      Swearing, he shuffled back into the kitchen, his own stomach growling as he opened his last can of tuna—the sum total of his remaining food. But what the hell. The cat needed it more than he did. He cracked open the sliding glass door, nudging the cat back to keep him from slipping inside, and set the can on the ground.

      “Don’t think I’m doing this all the time,” he warned him. “Don’t start hanging around, expecting handouts. I don’t need a damned pet.”

      He shut the door. He didn’t need anyone to take care of—or another failure to add to the list. He’d already let everyone down enough.

      Pushing aside thoughts of the needy cat, he crossed the empty room to the front window, his steps echoing in the gloom. The house had no electricity, no heat, no hot water. No furniture, except for the mattress Sully had hauled inside. Jason had cleared out before his last deployment, as if he’d known he wouldn’t be back. And for some unfathomable reason, he’d willed the place to Sully, his best friend since childhood.

      The best friend who’d caused his death.

      Sully braced his forearm on the glass and worked his jaw, trying to control the flood of regrets. Shadows bled across the pockmarked yard. Bare tree branches scratched at the gloomy sky. His sense of foreboding grew stronger, and he frowned at the empty street. He’d once trusted his instincts for danger. But then, he’d once felt invincible. He’d once believed in good versus evil, the glory and necessity of war.

      No more.

      The rhythmic thud of subwoofers made the floor pulse, rumbling through the lug soles of Sully’s boots. Tensing even more now, he skimmed the houses up the street, eyeing their peeling paint, their house numbers hanging askew, the weedy yards littered with trash. There was no sign of the approaching car, no sign of the gang that had been making inroads into the neighborhood. But he wasn’t fooled. The bad guys were out there.

      And evil always won.

      He shoved away from the window, but a motion on the sidewalk caught his eye. A woman hurried into view, her long woolen coat flapping in the wind, her thick chestnut hair whipping around her face. The woman who ran the teen shelter. He’d seen her from a distance a couple of times. But this close he caught the elegance in her slender frame, the graceful way she moved. She had clear, creamy skin, an open, appealing face. She was in her early thirties, he guessed, and wholesome in a girl-next-door sort of way.

      Wholesome. Right. Just what the world didn’t need—another misguided do-gooder, idealistic and naive. A crusader out to save humanity.

      He’d once been the same.

      Well, he definitely knew better now.

      A movement in the opposite direction grabbed his attention, and he turned his head. A teenager waddled into view across the street, heading the woman’s way. One of the pregnant teenagers

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