“Hi,” he said, moving toward her.
The hit was solid, jaw to inner ear. Her world was swimming. Tanaka rolled away and found her gun on the ground. She was bringing it up when Burton’s boot connected with her forearm and sent the pistol flying off into the grass.
“What are you doing?” Holden asked.
I’m getting my ass kicked, Tanaka thought, dazed enough to wonder why he was speaking to her.
“I think we might want to talk to this one,” Burton said. “Let’s take her with us.”
Tanaka said, “No,” and tried to stand, then let herself collapse again. Look how hurt I am. It was only half bullshit.
“Hurry up,” Holden said, and started to lead the girl past her.
Burton reached down to grab Tanaka’s arm and yank her to her feet. He was very strong. That was good. It would make him overconfident. Tanaka let him pull her up, pushing hard with her legs as she rose, and snapping her other arm up to drive her palm into the underside of the big man’s chin. His head jerked back from the impact, but his grip on her left bicep didn’t loosen.
He raised his other arm and threw a massive fist at her face. With his hand gripping her, she couldn’t dodge, so she whipped her head to the right and slapped at the punch, shoving it to the left. It still grazed her cheek, and the impact was enough to make that side of her face go numb.
The motion brought him in closer, and Tanaka threw herself backward, letting the momentum of the punch and her own weight yank Burton off his feet and on top of her as she fell.
He let go of her arm, trying by reflex to catch himself, and they both hit the ground. He landed on her like a falling tree, driving the air from her lungs. She was ready for it, though, and threw up an elbow that caught Burton in the throat as he dropped. He made a sound like an injured duck and rolled away, clutching at his neck. Tanaka bounced to her feet and looked for the girl. The swimming world whirled around her. She gritted her teeth and ignored it.
The girl was hiding behind Holden, clutching at her dog and staring at the melee, her mouth a round O of surprise. He was digging around at his feet, trying to pick up his dropped gun.
Tanaka could see hers, lying in the grass not too far away. Diving for it to take a rushed shot at Holden would be risky with the girl so close by. She raised a hand instead. “Holden, wait.”
“Leave him out of it,” Burton said behind her, “we’re not done yet.”
Tanaka spun on the ball of her foot and lashed out with a kick at the spot the sound was coming from. The big mechanic casually swatted it away. He looked none the worse for wear after a throat strike that would’ve killed most people. Something was wrong with his eyes. They were flat black. She remembered reading about someone with eyes like that. She didn’t remember who.
“I’ve read your file,” Tanaka said, backing toward Holden and the girl. She didn’t have time for a boxing match with the strange-looking man with the eerie black eyes. Not when her best shots didn’t seem to even faze him.
“Yeah?” he asked, moving toward her.
“It said we killed you,” she said. “Any other time, I’d stay to figure that out.” The girl was so close that, if she could just get her balance, she could take two steps, grab her, and be running before the others knew what had happened. Tanaka would place bets they wouldn’t shoot at her if she had the kid in her arms.
“You’ve got time,” Burton said.
Tanaka turned toward the girl and then stopped short. Holden was standing in front of her, his gun in his hand. The eyes that had seemed frightened a moment ago were now flat, emotionless, cold. That’s bad.
“No,” he said. “She doesn’t.”
Before Tanaka could even start to move, Holden’s gun went off three times. She felt the three shots as hammer blows to her sternum. All three, center mass. Kill shots. She hadn’t been certain until that moment that he had it in him.
Tanaka staggered two steps toward the edge of the path and then collapsed on her face. The three slugs from Holden’s gun pressed into her chest where the nanofiber undershirt had caught them, like daggers in the deep-tissue bruise they’d left in her flesh. She ignored the pain and lay very still, holding her breath.
“Shit, Cap,” Burton was saying. “I think we shoulda kept her.”
“We have to go. We have to get out of here. Now,” Holden replied. He sounded angry. Based on her reading of his file, Tanaka would have bet he wasn’t mad at the mechanic. He was angry he’d been forced to shoot someone. For all the shit he’d seen, the Laconian interrogator’s psych evaluation said that Holden had never really grown comfortable with violence.