Page 114 of Pretty Savage: Defy

I strike him with the gun again, this time across the throat. His breath cuts off. I hook my foot behind his ankle, wrench his injured arm across his body, and send him into the dining table hard enough to crack the wood.

He collapses beside it.

“Carrson.”

Laurel’s voice comes from behind me, high with warning.

I turn toward her, but a third man is already rushing from the hallway at my back.

Laurel saw him before I did.

He has a gun in one hand, the barrel swinging toward my spine.

Laurel steps toward him. Her left hand clamps around his wrist. She pivots outside the path of the weapon and drives her forearm under his elbow, using his momentum to force his arm upward.

The gun fires into the ceiling.

Plaster rains over us.

Laurel kicks the back of his knee. When his leg gives, she twists his wrist in the direction I taught her, forcing his shoulder against the wall and the weapon from his grip.

I recognize the move.

Back when Sam was trying to kill her, I drilled this exact sequence into her until she stopped trying to overpower me and learned to use my weight against me instead.

The attacker jerks free before she can retreat. His hand closes around her hair and drags her backward.

Rage surges through me.

I let go of the gun and reach him in two strides.

My fist connects with the side of his head. He releases Laurel, but I don’t give him time to recover. I drive him into the wall, forearm across his throat, and stab the dagger through the fabric of his uniform into the meat of his upper arm.

He grabs for my wrist.

I twist the blade. “Who sent you?”

He bares blood-streaked gums at me but says nothing.

I pull the dagger free and drive my elbow into his face. His head snaps against the wall, and he crumples at my feet.

Laurel stands a few paces away, breathing hard. Strands of hair have pulled loose around her face, but she appears otherwise unharmed.

Her eyes go to the body. Then to the dagger in my hand.

The shock is still there. So is a new awareness of me I can’t take back.

I wipe my bloody palm against my jeans, though the gesture is useless. She’s already seen everything.

I keep the dagger low at my side and touch her cheek with my free hand.

She freezes but doesn’t pull away.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“What were you thinking?”