“Please hold while I transfer you to that station,” the operator replied. Moments later, another voice asked what her emergency was.

“I’m reporting an aggravated assault,” Kira said, not bothering with the code this time. She gave the address and information again, her teeth grinding in frustration as she had to repeat twice what she’d heard.

“So you never actually saw an assault?” the dispatch operator asked.

“No, I didn’t go in there,” Kira said stiffly, not walking now that she was close to her apartment building.

“Right,” the now bored-sounding voice replied. “What’s your name?”

“I prefer to be anonymous,” Kira said after a pause. She had a history with the police that wasn’t necessarily pleasant.

“We’ll send a car around,” the operator intoned.

“Thanks,” Kira muttered, and hung up. She’d done all she could. Hopefully it would be enough for whoever’d made that awful noise.

But when she started to walk toward the front door of her building, her steps faltered. Instinct told her to turn around and head back to the warehouse. It would be five to ten minutes before the patrol car arrived. What if the unknown, injured person didn’t have that long?

Never try to be a hero, kid. Leave that to the shields.

Her boss’s admonition rang in Kira’s mind, but instead of making her feel better, anger rose. If not for her ex-husband, she’d be one of those “shields.” She’d aced the police academy, gotten her certification in law enforcement, and she was just two blocks away from that scream, not several minutes like the patrol car.

Mack’s voice, deep and scratchy, sounded through her mind next: Save one life. That had been her mentor’s credo. If Mack had been more like her boss, Kira might be dead. Not standing on a sidewalk debating whether or not to help someone in need.