"Please, Mr. Turner! violence will—"
My fingers clawed at the backs of his hands and my nails dragged off ugly strips of some theatrical stuff—collodion, I think—that had covered the scrapes and bruises he had taken hammering away at me and my belt buckle.
Sergeant.
Sarge.
I let go of him and stood away.
For the first time, Sergeant smiled.
I backed to the door and turned the knob behind my back. It wouldn't open.
I turned around and rattled it, pulled on it, braced my foot against the wall and tugged.
"Locked," Sergeant supplied.
He was coming toward me, I could tell. I wheeled and faced him. He had a hypodermic needle. It was the smallest one I had ever seen and it had an iridescence or luminosity about it, a gleaming silver dart.