On Her Six (Under Covers) (2 page)

Chapter Two

The woman wasn’t wearing the pale, frightened expression Ash Cooper had expected. In fact, her eyes were strikingly clear and her skin flushed.

Her light-colored eyes glanced at the kid between them and a myriad of emotions crossed her face. Surprise. Curiosity. Interest. This chick was going to be trouble. She was perceptive. Too perceptive.

Her gaze locked on Ash, staring in a way that made him feel exposed. Naked, even. Her eyes widened, and she inhaled a quick breath of surprise. The pink on her cheeks deepened as her gaze traveled down his neck and chest. It had been too long since a woman looked at him that way.

He almost choked on a laugh. Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

Ignoring her question, he growled in a low voice and held out an impatient hand. “Give me the gun.”

The thug’s shoulders dropped as he released a ragged exhale.

“Nice and slow,” Ash said. “That’s it.” He snatched the weapon and stored it in the back waistband of his cargo shorts. “Who are you? What do you want? And where’d you get the gun?”

“N-no one, man,” the thug spoke, gripping the hood covering his head. “M-money. I just need m-money.”

“Money, huh?” Ash laughed, thrusting his handgun against the back of the kid’s skull. See how he liked it with the roles reversed. He pushed a little harder, satisfied after the kid grunted in pain. “Hell of a way to go about getting it. Ever heard of getting a job?”

Christ, it was hot. Sweat dripped from Ash’s forehead and down his cheeks. The idiot in front of him shivered and clutched his midsection as if a few feet of snow lay on the ground.

Dealing with this shit was the last thing he needed right now. He’d been given strict instructions to stay hands-off on this assignment. Ash’s DEA teammates were assigned to discover, track down, and take out the Vamp drug supplier by any means necessary. No clue as to who the dealer was yet, so the team was spending most of its time collecting intel on the big dealers around the area. Ash’s bullshit job was to observe any unusual activity in the city and report it to his new acting team leader, Bryan Tyke. No action. One more wrong move and Ash would be demoted from field agent to trash collector. He’d already been demoted from team leader, for shit’s sake.

“Just give me m-money, m-man.” Tremors shook the kid’s body. “Then I’ll le-leave. I-I swear. I just need money. Just m-money. Plea-please, man.”

“Oh my God,” the woman gasped, her hand covering her mouth.

Now what?
Ash tightened his grip on the gun.

She cocked her blond head, and her nose wrinkled as she leaned toward the kid. “What’s wrong with you?”

Keeping the gun pointed at the attacker, Ash circled to stand next to her.

Blood red eyes with black pupils. Shit. “A vamp.” A user of the drugs Ash’s team was trying to stop.

Ash quickly glanced around the street. They usually didn’t travel in packs, but he needed to be careful. Especially if the kid was as desperate as he appeared.

“Vamp?” Blondie asked, her eyes growing wider than the rusted hubcaps on her Honda. “As in
vampire
? But—but—”

Ash shook his head. “Drug user.”

Vamp—more potent than heroin and a hell of a lot more addictive. The official name of the drug was a lot longer and more scientific sounding; Ash could never remember it. Vamp was the street name, because that’s what addicts looked like: vampires. He cursed himself for not picking up on the kid’s cues earlier. After extended use, the drug took over the body to the point that the user appeared more monster than human. Shaking. Desperate. Confused. Pasty skin with a dry, chalky texture. The whites of the eyes a deep red color as if filled with blood, pupils so dilated there wasn’t any color around them. No blue, brown, or green. Just black.

“Drugs? What kind of drugs do
that
?” He didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes grew even wider. “I don’t understand. I’ve never heard of Vamp.” If he wasn’t mistaken, she sounded kinda pissed about it.

And I’m going to make damn sure no one around here ever does.
He shifted his weight on his feet. “You complaining?”

She stiffened at his comment. “Well, no. I just—” He didn’t like the way her eyes suddenly narrowed in his direction.

The addict’s trembling spasms increased. His gaze darted around as if he couldn’t control it, and he licked his chapped lips repeatedly.

Blondie leaned even closer to the guy.

Did she have no common sense? He was dangerous.

“Why do his eyes look like that?” she asked.

The Vamper’s attention went everywhere—the cloudless sky, the unevenly paved street, the line of brick row houses behind Ash. He was in need of a fix soon, or it would be a short withdrawal period.

The drug was constructed so users lasted a matter of hours between fixes. Without another taste of the drug, their organs started to fail. Talk about dependency. At this stage, vamps were uncontrollable and unstable, willing to do anything—even kill—to get their next hit. Ash couldn’t think about what would have happened to the woman if he hadn’t shown up when he did.

Whatever made the drug so addictive—the DEA was still trying to figure it out—made the body crave it so bad that, after one direct taste, it couldn’t live without it. Like air in the lungs and food in the stomach, the body physically couldn’t function without Vamp in its system. There had yet to be any medicinal assistance to wean users off the drug.

Once a Vamp addict, always a Vamp addict. Until death.

Blondie took a step back and inched toward her car.

He leaned into the addict’s face, using his height as intimidation, and bared his teeth. “Where’d you get it?”

When the kid hesitated, Ash hardened his stare and all but shouted. “
Where?
”

“Clu-club Hell. 27th St-street!” he barely got out as a wave of violent spasms took over his body. “C’mon, m-ma-man!”

The addict didn’t seem to know what he was begging for—money, another hit, or to be put out of his misery.

Now the dilemma: try to apprehend and get more information out of him in front of the woman? He wanted to laugh. Right. That would go over well. She’d be all up in his business while he interrogated the addict. It wasn’t worth risking it just to torment the fool. And if the kid remained silent, he’d be dead in a matter of an hour or two anyway. “Damn it,” Ash said under his breath. He lowered his weapon and reached in his back pocket, pulling out two fifties. He tossed them into the street. “Get the hell out of here. And don’t come back.”

“Wait, what?” Blondie surprised him by saying. She took two commanding steps forward. “You’re letting him go?”

The vamp leaped forward to retrieve the cash.

“Yeah,” he said. Blondie was saved. The addict was retreating. Mission accomplished. Ash could get back to his boring-ass surveillance assignment in peace.

Ash started to turn toward his row house—

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Blondie leaped forward and caught the kid by his hood. She yanked his head free of the cover, making him scream in more pain.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he clawed at the air around him.
“
What are you doing? Get the fuck off me!” The addict yanked at his dark, shaggy hair as if he would take pleasure in pulling every strand out by the root.

Ash found it pretty damn interesting the kid didn’t stutter when the sun’s sharp rays stabbed his eyes.

Since the addict was only a hint bigger than Blondie—he was scrawny, really, and incapacitated by the sun; plus she had the element of surprise—she easily snapped his arms behind him.

She shoved the kid toward the back of her car and popped open her trunk.

What the fuc
—

Ash’s mouth actually dropped open when she pulled out a pair of handcuffs. What the hell was she doing with
those
in her car? Who was this chick?

Probably out of mercy for her ears, she flipped the man’s hood over his head. “Oh, hush.” She latched one of the thug’s wrists and then the other. “I’m taking you in. It just so happens I’m on my way to the police station right now.”

Ash continued to gape, a ridiculous thing for someone with his skill and training. This woman was beyond anything he’d ever seen. Anyone else would have run in the other direction. Not her. She faced danger head-on. Seemed to welcome it. Panic and exhilaration overcame him as he watched her. His pulse quickened, but all he could do was stand there and blink like an ass.

“I’ll need you to make a statement.” Her long slender neck turned to face him as she shoved the kid into the passenger side of her gold POS car. “Once I get Dracula here settled into the backseat, the front’s all yours.” When he didn’t respond, her eyebrows rose in question with a look of,
Yo, dumbshit. Anybody home?

“What?” His mind recapped.
Handcuffs. Police station. Statement.

No way. He grabbed the woman around her upper arm, causing her to jump. “No cops.” That’s the last thing he needed. If he went to the precinct or any cops came around here, his cover would be screwed for sure. Not only his cover, but the entire investigation. The DEA had discovered enough dirty BPD cops that they had to be on guard. No telling who was clean or who could be trusted within BPD. This was strictly DEA territory now. All it would take was one leak to alert the dealer that the team was onto him and he’d go underground. They couldn’t allow that. They were too close to nailing the son of a bitch.

Her forehead creased, and a beet red color seeped into her face, despite his hand clutching her arm like a baseball bat. She inched onto her tiptoes and shoved her scrunched-up face into his personal space. “Why? You got something to hide? You know an awful lot about this Vamp stuff. Maybe I should grab an extra pair of cuffs and force your butt down to the station, too. As a proud employee of the Baltimore City Police Department—”

She’s a fucking cop?
That explained the handcuffs.

“—I am well within my rights to—hey!”

He let go of her to snatch the addict. Never without a key—old habits and all that—Ash snapped the cuffs open, releasing the thug from the metal hold. “Go.” He pointed in the direction of 27th Street. Maybe the kid would make it the eight blocks to Club Hell. “Now.”

Blondie’s head swept from the direction of the handcuffs to Ash and back again. “How did you—?”

The young thug stumbled away, clutching his stomach, not bothering to glance back.

“Get back here!” she shouted. Then she turned her fury on Ash. She actually stomped her foot. “Oh! You—you…imbecile!” She stretched up on her tiptoes again, even farther than before, barely putting her at his chin level, and shoved her bony finger in his face. “What’s wrong with you? He should be arrested!”

Ash shrugged and turned toward his house. He was done dealing with this. The issue wasn’t the kid being addicted. It was the source of the drugs. And he’d just gotten a strong lead on the latter.

She followed him. “Oh, great. That’s just great. Ignore me, why don’t you?” She practically stepped on his heels. “Do you have any idea what you just did? You said that guy’s a drug addict!”

And the perp had had a gun to her head, but that didn’t seem to matter to the insane woman. “Your point?” He kept his back to her. If she was a cop, then she’d ask all sorts of questions. Questions he sure as hell wasn’t going to answer.

“Right, it’s not your problem,” she continued, trailing him like a fucking shadow. “You obviously don’t give a crap about other people. If you did, you wouldn’t have let that guy go. You know what I should do? I should lock you up for obstruction of justice!” Her footsteps stopped, and he peered over his shoulder. She seemed lost in her own little world. Her eyes clouded, and she stared down the vacant street, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, that’s what I should do. I mean, I couldn’t officially lock him up. But I could get Martinez to do it. He owes me from last week’s poker game.” Her gaze raked from Ash’s buzzed-cut head to his scuffed sneakers as if sizing him up.

His lips curled at the corners.
I’d like to see you try
. That would be a sight. She thought she was such a badass with her handcuffs, but she’d never faced anyone with his kind of training. The Special Forces and later the DEA had seen to it that he could tackle any situation. No way would a tiny, annoying thing like her get the drop on him.

The smile broadened into a grin. That is, unless he wanted her to.

He could imagine it now: she’d get a few touches in as she tried to maneuver him into submission. He’d let her get one arm behind his back. Make her think she had the upper hand. That’s how pushy broads like her operated—always dominating everything. But after a few moments of playtime, as she reached for his other arm, he’d reverse her hold, and get her under him so fast she wouldn’t know what hit her.

Keeping his thoughts and smiles to himself, he proceeded toward his front door in silence. That would aggravate her more than if he spoke. He liked knowing that.

“Wait, you live here? Next to me?” She sounded devastated. “
You’re
the new neighbor? Ugh. Of course you are. Just my luck.” He could almost hear her eyes rolling.

Ash couldn’t suppress a smirk.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Approaching his porch, her footsteps grew heavier, the soles of her shoes pounding into the earth. “I want answers!” When he didn’t provide any, she switched tactics. “What if that druggie comes back? What if he finds Carrie London and her baby a few houses down? Huh? How will you feel when you hear about a single mother and her child getting hurt knowing you’re the one who let it happen? And gave the addict money for his next hit!”

Fuck. Ash halted with one foot on the first step. In his book, women and children were always off-limits.

Jesus, what did he do?

No, he’d taken the addict’s gun and given him money. He was long gone by now.

As if hearing his thoughts, she placed her hand on his arm. “So you do care.”

He shot a sharp glance at the physical contact but didn’t turn around. Such a contrast—her tiny hand to his large, powerful arm. His fists clenched and unclenched. “Remove your hand.”