1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,83

pillow down over my face.

It had been hard enough to breathe already. Now it was impossible. There was no air anywhere that I could find. And I knew it was finally close to over.

In every way.

CHAPTER 90

THE PANIC OVERTOOK me. I twisted, side to side, straining against the tape. I whipped my head around as if that was going to fight him off. There was nowhere to go and nothing I could do.

I felt the full weight of his body on the pillow now, pressing into my face, while his hands sought out my throat. One finger at a time, they closed around me, trembling and tightening, both.

I couldn’t breathe. Not even a little.

Dear God, I was going to die.

Blue sparks, or something like it, shot across my dark field of vision. My head swam. Even as I struggled, my body was losing the strength it needed to move at all.

A loud bang of some kind sounded in the background. It was my bedroom door, I realized, slamming open.

Then the Engineer’s voice.

“Something’s wrong! We have to go, now!”

But the pressure around my head and face only increased. The hand on my windpipe tightened its grip.

“What are you talking about?” I heard. “Get the hell out of here!”

The hand on me slipped away, and the pressure eased. I sucked in a breath, and another. The pillow slipped off my face, and I saw the older of the two trying to pull the kid off me. With my wrists taped to the bedposts, there was still nothing I could do.

“I’m not screwing around with you!” the older one said. “Nobody’s home. Understand? We have to go. This one’s my call. Bring her if you want, but we’re leaving.”

Another loud slam sounded, this time from downstairs.

“FBI!” someone shouted.

Klieg-bright lights blazed to life outside my bedroom window. I heard feet on the stairs. Flashlight beams danced and crisscrossed in the hall.

The Poet had already started cutting the tape around one of my wrists. He was still on top of me and looked back fast over his shoulder as the raid came closer.

I moved just as fast. My hand ripped free and landed on the first thing I could reach—an old Mathlympics silver cup from ninth grade on the nightstand.

I swung it as hard as I could. This time, I connected. One of the cup’s handles sunk with a nauseating crunch right into the side of his skull.

The effect was instantaneous. He slumped and rolled halfway off the bed, blood already seeping from the wound in his head before he slid the rest of the way to the braided rug on the floor below.

I tore the tape from my mouth. “In here!” I screamed just as the older one grabbed me off the bed.

My other wrist, still bound, felt like it was going to snap.

But the tape gave way, and he had me now. We stumbled back against the wall farthest from the door even as he was pulling me in front of him like a shield.

At the same moment, the doorway filled up.

“FBI! Drop your weapons!”

Black-suited cops in tactical vests and helmets were there, AK-47s raised. They came in formation, one agent in the lead, with two others flanking him from behind. Red and blue flashers were running outside now, casting bits of color around the walls of my room.

“Don’t even think about it!” the Engineer yelled, pulling me closer. He had one arm snaked around my neck and was using the other to press the barrel of his pistol into my scalp just above my right ear.

Shouts reverberated and blended in the room.

“Let her go!”

“Back off!”

“Don’t do this!”

“I’m warning you!”

I could feel the gun scraping painfully against my head. A line of blood trickled into my ear. I wasn’t even sure where to look.

“Back off!” he screamed at them again. “I’ll kill her, and you know I will!”

As fast as it had all happened, it seemed as though he’d suddenly realized his own advantage. The entry team did, too.

“That’s right!” he shouted. “Guns down, right now!”

My body was blocking any clear shot they had. The lead agent put up a hand for the others, and they moved, almost in slow motion, lowering their weapons.

“Now back up, out of the room!” the Engineer told them. “And give me someone I can talk to! Unarmed!”

“That’d be me,” said a voice from somewhere in the back of the pack.

As the others cleared out, I saw Billy standing in the doorway. He still had his vest on,