Surely there had to be an easier way to go legit?
Shahdi Feroz knew she was lucky when she woke up on the Commons floor. She was alive. Frankly, she hadn’t expected to wake up again. She tried to move and bit her lips over a gasp of pain, then opted for lying very still, instead. A station riot had erupted as far as her swollen right eye could see. Given the shocking bruises she could feel the length of her body, Shahdi suspected panic stricken tourists had stepped on her, multiple times. John Lachley’s single, if somewhat devastating, right cross to her temple couldn’t begin to account for her stiff, unresponsive limbs and aching back muscles.
At the moment, she could only give profound and shaken thanks that John Lachley had dropped her at all. What he would’ve done to her . . . She shuddered, recalling the sight of Dominica Nosette’s severed head clutched in his hand. Poor, stupid reporter. The rest of her lay in the basement of New Scotland Yard on Whitehall; they’d watched Lachley drop off the mutilated torso and bid her a flippant farewell, via the camera hidden at the construction site. Shahdi was gingerly flexing her fingers, trying to decide whether or not her body would accept being pushed to hands and knees, when someone literally dragged her to her feet. Blinding light caught her square in the eyes and the world erupted into a chaos of shouting voices.
“Dr. Feroz—”
“—comment—”
“—really Jack the Ripper—”
“—how could you allow that monster—”
She stumbled and swayed sharply, and would’ve fallen again if she hadn’t collided with someone far taller and heavier than herself. The man grasped her by the shoulders, keeping her on her feet, then a new voice thundered into her awareness.