Survivalism
an excerpt

Winter’s detective turned. “Can I help you,” he asked. Messner had a moment to think that he looked like the decent sort of guy you enevitably saw in movies, especially romantic comedies, that never got the girl.
Adams moved forward to move the detective out of the room. Messner took a deep breath. “Hello Anna,” he said in a calm voice.
her eyes widened. She actually looked like she might have just survived an attempted murder, but he never could be sure with her. She was a violent, vindictive bitch and he knew it. “I’m sorry,” she began, but he quickly cut her off.
“No games, Anna,” he said. He wondered for a moment why he kept using that name. Probably to get a rise out of her. Also, it was the name he’d first heard her called. “It’s over. Now, why don’t you just come quietly. It will be better in the end if you cooperate.”
And then, the detective had to put his two cents in. He stepped up, away from Adams, towards Messner. “Now what the hell is going on?”
“I’m Special Agent Messner. I work with the FBI. This woman is Anna Cote, alias Grace Waters, and she is under arrest for the murder of deputy director of the FBI Lyle Thatcher,” Messner said, never taking his eyes off of the girl.
The detective began to fire off protests, mentioning her being the only whitness in a murder investigation, but Messner wasn’t paying attention. He was watching her as Adams moved to try and cuff her. He heard Adams say in his slow, reassuring vioce, “Now, let’s not make this difficult.” Then everything was a blur.
Adams moved to grab her right wrist. She morphed, going from the scared innocent girl to something else entirely. She twisted her arm in his grip to gain control, then slammed her foot into the soft flesh behind his knee cap. Messner heard the pop as Adams; knee dislocated. Adams went down fast. She moved his momentum to slam his face into the edge of the table, hard. He heard the break of of bone. Messner went for his gun. She went for Adams’.
The next thing he knew she was standing there, calm as day, with Adams’ gun pointed at his head and his pointed at her. Her eyes were cold ice, her entire body taunt and ready to spring, like a great black panther. He let out a breath he hadn’t been holding. “Hello Jezzi,” he said, finally calling her by the closest thing he knew to a real first name.
The corners of her mouth turned up every so slightly into a wry smile. “Hello Jack.” She caught him glancing at his fallen companion and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh relax, Jack. I didn’t kill him. He’ll be out for a few hours or so. He’ll have one bitch of a headache when he wakes up, but nothing serious. Besides, isn’t it better, just you and me?”
“You’re forgetting about the detective over here,” he said, indicating to the man who was now frozen in place at his side.
She rolled her eyes. “Walsh isn’t going to do anything. His feeble little brain in too busy trying to understand how sweet, poor, broken Grace could be pointing a gun at him.”
“Speaking of which, put the gun down, Jezzi. It will be better if you just accept that I’m going to arrest you for murder.”
She snorted. “With what proof? You and I both know you’ve got nothing more than a phone call to go on. True, there’s motive, but where’s the proof. Hypothetically, wouldn’t that bomb have destroyed all evidence? Stop bluffing.”
“Just put the gun down.”
“I don’t think so. You see, someone tried to kill me, and if you’re little murder theory is correct, you know how badly I take it when someone tries to kill me. So put the gun down Jack and I won’t have to shoot you.”
“What do you think is going to happen?”
“Honestly? I’m just going to walk out the door.”