She glanced despairingly at her shop, safe behind its locks and steel-mesh doors. If she could get to the shop, she could trip the silent alarm, summon help. And she kept a pistol in the shop. When she tried to change direction, he pressed the knife against her ribs again. “Not that way! I saw him take you from your shop. I shan’t allow you to summon help, woman, a fact you had better learn now. Take me to Primary, by a safe route. If you do not oblige me quickly, I will find someone else.” The blade cut through her blouse. “Do you understand me?”
She nodded, still half-choked by the bloodstained hand pressed across her mouth. The entire left side of her face ached, where he’d slammed her against the side of the Langskip, and her eye was starting to swell closed. Senses whirling, Goldie took the nearest route into Residential, moving woodenly along with the Ripper’s knife under her ribcage. Goldie staggered frequently, but her captor made no offer to assist her. He simply held the knife against her ribs and hissed, “Cry out and I will kill you where you stand.” She guided the killer through twisting corridors until they reached a passageway that emerged at the junction between Edo Castletown and Primary Precinct.
She pointed toward the gate, since he hadn’t freed her mouth.
He eased to the corner and peered around, surveying the stretch of open Commons beyond. Goldie, too exhausted even to try running, hung in his grip and waited to die. Tremors threatened to send her to the floor even sooner. As she sagged against the wall, waiting, the public address system blared to life.