I burst from the truck, sprinting across the concrete. I move silently, boots rolling heel-to-toe. I don’t yell. A warning makes her freeze, and a frozen target is a dead target. I need her moving. Or I need her flat.
The sedan’s window lowers further. The muzzle glints. Not a gunshot. A declaration of intent.
Three seconds. That’s all I have. Twenty yards of pavement. I have to devour it in two.
Iris bends to pick up her keys. That mistake, that clumsiness, saves her life.
The first bullet shatters the driver’s-side window exactly where her head was a heartbeat ago.
CRACK.
Glass erupts, safety glass disintegrating into a million diamonds in the sickly sodium light.
She screams. A raw, ragged sound clawing at the air.
I launch forward and become a projectile.
I hit her broadside, hard, swallowing the flare of pain in my ruined shoulder as I slam into her. I drive her into the asphalt, riding my momentum to slide us behind the engine block of her car.
Cover. Hard cover.
“Stay down.”
My voice snarls into her ear, a weapon of its own.
My body covers hers completely. Living armor. I press her into the grit, shielding her vitals with my own plates.
She struggles, fighting me like a trapped wildcat. Knees, elbows, nails. She strikes blind. She thinks I’m the killer. She thinks this is the end.
“Get off. Get off.”
“Stop moving.”
I pin her wrists with one hand, pressing her cheek to the cold oily concrete. It’s violent. It has to be. If she stands, she dies.
She’s small beneath me, all soft lines and heat pressed to the unforgiving Kevlar of my vest. Her heart jackhammers against my chest, a frantic stutter answering the adrenaline scorching through my veins.
Pop. Pop.
Two more shots.
One ricochets off the concrete inches from my boot, flinging stone shrapnel into the air. The other punches into the sheet metal of the car door above us.
They’re adjusting aim. Triangulating. Professionals.
“Showtime.”
I draw my SIG with my free hand. I roll off her, staying low, putting my back to the tire.
I pop up. Target acquisition.
The sedan reverses, hunting a better angle. The tires squeal on the slick surface.
I fire.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three rounds. Controlled rhythm.
