The gun spiraled out of her reach across the floor, disappearing among the rows of mannequins, gone out of her line of sight until she knew there was no point in even looking for it. It was him and her now, him and his mannequin arm…
She dodged to the side just in time, flinching in reaction to the blur of movement in her vision. Maybe it was the rage, or maybe it was the lingering effects of the gun firing so close to him, but he was slow. Off. Not as strong or as fast as she had expected. Her head was throbbing, but she was used to that, and she analyzed even as she tried to move and scramble away from him that he hadn’t dealt too harsh of a blow. Not like the one he had dealt to the security guard.
All she had to do was stay alive until Nate got there.
She just had to stay alive.
He made a sound, a kind of half-sob of rage, and the arm-club was coming down towards her again. Laura shot to the right instead of the left this time, trying to put him off, trying to make him guess. If she only went in the same direction, he’d catch her sooner or later. The blow landed on the floor right next to her head, and she could almost hear the vibrations going up into his arm as it connected with the hard ground.
If he hit the floor instead of her often enough, his arm would tire.
That was how she would keep going. That was it. Every time that she successfully dodged him, it was one more hit to his arm, to his stamina.
And maybe, just maybe, when he finally did hit her – there wouldn’t be enough strength in his arm to finish her off.
He howled over her head at the miss and aimed again, the arm hitting the floor so close by her head this time she was sure she was only saved by her last-minute flinch. And she was running out of room. One more roll and she would –
The arm was coming down, and there was no time to think, she had to –
She rolled –
She hit the base of one of the mannequins and it fell, swinging forward, bringing down more, falling on her heavily, several more of them landing around her –
And she was pinned down, couldn’t move, and wouldn’t luck have it, they’d all missed the killer –
He took aim at her head again and this time she could see it in his eyes, see he knew –
He was going to kill –
A shot rang out, startling Laura into utter confusion because she knew she hadn’t fired, and there was a spray of something dark from the janitor’s shoulder. The arm he was holding clattered to the ground uselessly as he clutched at his shoulder, crying out in pain.
“Don’t move!” Nate yelled, and Laura could have just let go and sunk into the ground with relief, knowing it was over. “You’re surrounded by armed police. One movement and I fire again. I repeat, do not move!”
Laura fought her way free of the mannequin, pushing it off herself and slowly testing her strength, putting her hands down on the cold ground and then pushing herself up. Her head swam, throbbed, then cleared a little. She looked up at the janitor. He was clutching his shoulder, looking down, gone totally still. Only his ragged breathing gave away that he was not made of plastic himself.
Nate approached with his handcuffs in his hand, and Laura flashed him a weary, pained, wobbly grin.
“You took your time,” she said.
“You know I always like to make a dramatic entrance,” Nate shrugged, and then he was making the arrest, and Laura allowed herself to stumble over to a pair of detectives who supported her on each side as they walked back into the light.