Chaisi arrived sooner than she'd expected.
She didn't know which of her shouts had finally brought him, only that a flashlight beam had suddenly flashed across her face. The brilliant white light made Jin Xueli flinch away, her eyes narrowing to slits.
The dial tone that had been pressing relentlessly against her ear suddenly cut out, as if yanked into thin air. A second later, the policewoman was thrown against a nearby wall. The impact created a dull, heavy THUD in the subterranean cell.
The policewoman's shriek, the CLATTER of her phone hitting the floor, the rush of air, the sounds of a struggle... For a moment, it was as if a small, chaotic bomb had gone off just outside the iron bars of her cell.
"Chaisi…?"
Jin Xueli looked up just in time to see a tall, slender shadow stomp down hard on the policewoman's phone. The screen fractured, and the dial tone and the distant ringing phone were both swallowed by the silence.
