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off his feet and hurled him away. Alex landed several parking spaces away on the concrete, tumbling as best he could but mostly just getting hurt. He didn’t stop to assess the damage he’d done. He just scrambled to his feet and ran for the stairway exit.
    The door opened inward; Alex pushed his way past, then slammed it shut again and stepped beside it rather than rushing down the stairs. His hand reached inside his jacket, hoping to God that Diana had more reason to stop Lambert from pulling his pepper spray than a concern for what it would do to her perfume.
    He couldn’t take her in a fight. She was plainly going easy on him despite her anger. He couldn’t hope to outrun her, either. It was either this or hope to survive until Rachel popped in on him again, and that might not be for hours.
    Only a second passed before the door flew open again. Alex caught it and slammed it shut as hard as he could once again, catching Diana with it before she crossed through. He stayed low, avoiding the arm that flung out sideways to retaliate, and let loose his pepper spray in a wide, panicked burst. Much of it hit the wall behind her, but more than enough wound up in her bloodied face to do the job.
    The overwhelming fumes from his weapon had an effect on him, too. He choked despite trying to hold his breath and barely kept his eyes open. Diana swung around blindly, but didn’t fall.
    Alex placed one leg between hers, caught her wrist and twisted. His free hand came up against her shoulder and pushed with all his strength. Disoriented, off-balance and without leverage, Diana went straight over the handrail and tumbled head-first over the stairway railing.
    Tears welling up in his eyes, Alex threw himself back through the doorway. He blinked as quickly as he could to clear his vision as he got to his bike, his hands fighting to draw the keys from his pocket. He’d had dreams like this as a child: someone chasing him, escape nearby, just a matter of getting his keys, only to find it impossible to get them out of his pocket, or impossible to insert in the ignition or the door or whatever symbolized escape, and then the killer or the monster or whatever would get him. Déjà vu did nothing to calm his nerves.
    The bike roared to life, never sounding so beautiful or reassuring as now. He backed out without even looking in the mirror, realizing his mistake only after luck allowed him to get away with it. Alex kicked it into first gear, twisted the accelerator and swung around to head down the wrong way out of the parking garage.
    She’ll hear this , he realized. She might already be up again. Might be waiting for me. Might jump me again before I get out of here.
    He cursed his luck, knowing he had no other option. It wasn’t like he could hop onto a bus or call the cops. Alex swung down around another level, accepting the honking horn of an SUV and another from a Prius and wishing they’d just shut the hell up so he could get away.
    On level two, he spotted the wolf. Its brown fur matched Diana’s hair, and the blood trailing from its nose and the anger in its eyes surely fit. Alex couldn’t help but notice how big it was—and how angry. The thing waited beside a car in a crouch, ready to leap out at him. Alex tilted his handlebars toward it, only for a split second, and flashed his high-beam while honking his horn.
    The wolf turned its head, wincing and blinking, and then Alex was past. He swept on through to the first level, and then he was out onto wet, open streets.
    He spared a glance in his mirror and saw the wolf lope out of the garage to watch him go. Then he had to turn his attention to traffic around him.
    The straight shot to home took him to I-5, and then to downtown. At this hour, it would take him only fifteen minutes at the most.
    Instead, Alex rode to the 520 bridge across Lake Washington, rode all the way to Bellevue, and then back again toward Seattle across the other bridge on I-90 before he went home, hoping