AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Paige kept following. There were lights set into the structure so at least she could see what was happening now. Fabiano seemed to be slowing.
“You can’t outrun me,” Paige said. “Just put down the knife and get on the ground.”
Fabiano turned, the knife still in his hand. “All alone now, Fed.”
Paige raised her gun, but he took a step towards her anyway.
“Freeze there, Fabiano, or I’ll shoot.”
Paige gave ground as she said it, wanting to maintain a reactionary gap where she could still fire if she had to.
She didn’t want to. The last thing she wanted was to shoot someone dead, even if he was armed, even if he’d already wounded one person and possibly killed three others.
Fabiano took another step towards her. Paige realized then that he was so high that he simply didn’t care that she was armed. He just kept coming as Paige backed away.
All her training said that she should shoot. A knifeman was still dangerous. At close range, a knife could be every bit as deadly as a gun. Maybe more, since someone could potentially grab a gun and hold the barrel away from them, but there was nothing to stop a knife from slashing and hurting from every angle.
Her instructors had been clear about the situations where the use of lethal force was authorized. This undoubtedly counted. An armed suspect advancing and refusing to stop? Any one of them, if they’d been there, would have been telling Paige to put rounds into Fabiano’s center of mass and to keep shooting until he was down.
Paige found herself thinking about Adam Riker then. About the promise that he’d made to her, the deal that he’d offered. He’d told her that if she killed someone, even if it was in the line of duty, he’d tell her who the Exsanguination Killer was. Here, now, Paige had not just the perfect opportunity, but a situation where she wasmeantto do it.
The thought of Adam Riker was what saved Fabiano’s life. Even as he began his charge forward, Paige shifted her aim and put a single bullet straight through the shoulder of the arm holding the knife. The sound of the gun was almost deafening, but even over the echo, Paige heard Fabiano cry out, clutching his shoulder and falling to the ground in agony. Apparently, whatever he’d taken hadn’t dulled his sense of pain.
Paige rushed in, kicking away the knife from his grasp and covering him with her Glock. “Like I told you before, Fabiano, you’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Paige waited impatiently in the hospital for the doctors to say that they could talk to Fabiano, pacing up and down outside the room they were keeping him in.
“What were you thinking?”
It didn’t help that Christopher was anything but happy with the way she’d handled things up on the bridge.
“I was thinking that there was a suspect getting away,” Paige replied.
“Anarmedsuspect, who you chased afteralone,” Christopher replied. “You could have been hurt, Paige. You could have beenkilled.”
Paige might almost have been touched by the concern in his voice had it not been for the implications of what he was saying.
“So, what? You should have been the one to go after him alone instead?” Paige would have been just as afraid for him as he clearly was for her.
“Yes! I’m the more experienced agent. I’m the one who’s . . .”
“Who’s what?” Paige demanded. “I’m a fully trained FBI agent, Christopher. I’m trained to do this. You can’t try to protect me from danger.”
“But I should,” Christopher said. “I’ve done more of this than you. You’re a psychologist.”
“I’m an agent!” Paige snapped back. “I’ve done the training. I’ve played a key part in taking down five killers and several other criminals. I faced down a serial killer even before I was an agent. So, don’t tell me that I can’t chase after bad guys.”
There was something almost insulting about him trying to protect her like that. Like he didn’t trust her to be able to do her job. A part of Paige knew that it just came from the fact that he cared about her, but he’d already told her after they’d kissed that they couldn’t be together. If that was true, then he couldn’t try to hold her back and keep her from doing her job.
“When you shot him, was he coming at you?” Christopher asked.
Paige nodded. “He still had the knife, he’d advanced several steps, and he tried to charge me.”
She knew all of that might be important in the future. She had to be able to demonstrate that she’d used force correctly when she’d fired her weapon, and on a lonely bridge that might be hard to prove. Maybe there would be cameras on the bridge. Even if there weren’t, Paige felt certain that her version of events was likely to be believed when Fabiano had already stabbed someone.
It turned out, though, that it wasn’t what Christopher was worried about.
