Troy frowned deeply, while Darby protested. I held my hand up to both.
“I outrank you both, and this is my decision. I take full responsibility for it,” I told them calmly. Well, as close to calm as I could get right now, which wasn’t that far.
“You aren’t armed,” Troy reminded me. We kept our weapons in a dedicated locker at the office and only used them for field work.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to rip this motherfucker apart with my hands,” I told him flatly. Troy blew out a resigned breath, knowing that protesting was futile. Instead, he nodded and stepped back.
“You’re just letting him go?” Darby asked, bewildered.
Troy nodded with an air of finality.
I turned from the two of them and started down the alleyway. It was quiet and long as hell. The small alley wrapped behind the building, and had a vast area where recycling was collected and sorted. I was more than halfway down when I heard them.
Emily was standing against a wall, her arms crossed and a furious expression on her face. My dangerously high blood pressure dropped a fraction, seeing her unharmed. She was saying something to someone I couldn’t see, and I heard a low voice snarl back. I edged closer. The best course of action would be to get around the back of the motherfucker. Emily’s eyes cut away from the invisible man further along the alley.
The moment she saw me, she tensed, but not overly much. Her expression barely changed. I was impressed by her grit Her eyes slid away casually, like she was just looking around. I nodded encouragingly at her.
“Anyway, what’s the plan here? Keeping me here isn’t changing your missed court date,” she pointed out, and a loud bang came, like the skip had kicked something. Trust Emily to piss off the man holding her at gunpoint.
I edged closer still, and when she looked at me, I tried to show her with my expression what I wanted her to do. Emily wasn’t trained like the rest of the team yet; she had no way to communicate with hand gestures like us. After this, I was seriously chaining her to the desk in the office. The days of entertaining her being a field agent were gone. I vowed then and there to get her pregnant as quickly as possible, so she’d be more careful with herself.
“So, you didn’t tell me your plan yet, idiot,” she called to the guy. I could just about make him out now. He was pacing, a skinny, white dude with a stained wife beater and low hanging jeans. I seemed to remember he was called Donnie. He held his gun like he’d only ever played video games. I could take him. The problem was getting Emily out of the line of fire.
Donnie lost his temper and stormed toward her. “The plan, bitch, is that your boss should reschedule the date, unless he wants his employee capped.”
“If you’re worried about missing a court date, don’t you think a murder charge would be worse? You really are dumb as a box of rocks,” Emily said, and I nearly died as the skip tensed, then stormed up to her. I knew she was trying to distract him. I reached for the calm indifference I had donned in my years of active service, but it was nowhere to be found. Emily had woken me up from my zombie state, and there was no going back from that, not when my heart lived outside my body now and seemed determined to get herself into as much trouble as possible.
“You’ll shut your bitch mouth now, unless you want me to do it for you,” the guy snarled, getting up in her face. To her credit, she barely flinched as he pushed close to her.
It was the distraction I needed to slip behind him and get into position. I crept forward, ready to knock his gun out his hand, just when my foot stepped on a shard of glass, hidden under fallen leaves. The tiny crack was deafening in the quiet alley.
Everything happened at once. The guy exploded into motion, reaching out to grab Emily, as I reached around him and grabbed her at the same time. He was closer, but I was faster, and she wanted to go with me. She sprang to the side as I body-checked the guy in a bid to get between them. Unfortunately, the scumbag kept his balance, too far away for me to grab his gun without leaving Emily uncovered.
I held my hands up between us, trying to reduce the tension.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.
“A concerned citizen,” I deadpanned, trying to think my way tactically around this, but it felt impossible. All I could think about was Emily, standing just behind me. “Let’s talk this out. I’m sure there’s a solution.”
“Tell that to her. The bitch won’t leave me alone,” Donnie said, waving the gun toward Emily. I side-stepped, keeping the end of the gun pointing firmly at me and not her. I wanted to smash his face in for calling Emily a bitch, but I’d settle for doing that in a minute, after she was gone.
“Well, she’s done here, and she can go. We’ll fix it,” I told him firmly and turned my head only just enough to speak over my shoulder. “Go on now, get out of here.”
“No, I’m not leaving you,” Emily’s immediate reply came.
“Yes, you are. Get out of here now, kid,” I nearly snarled at her. I needed her to go. She had to listen to me. “Please.” The last was nearly a whisper, but I knew she heard it. She was quiet and then with a sigh, started to back out of the alley.
“Hey! I never said she could go,” the skip snarled and attempted to keep the gun on her. I stepped in front of him again, using my broad chest as a barrier he couldn’t even see past.
“We don’t need her. We can resolve this ourselves.” It went against all my training to let this man hold a gun on me, at point-blank range, no less, but I couldn’t risk fighting him until Emily was safely around the corner.
“How? You a lawyer or something?” the idiot asked.
“No, not a lawyer,” I said, while counting down the steps it would take Emily to reach the bend in the alley. Then I heard it, a slight whistle that sounded just like the bird that used to live right outside the Archer’s house. I knew that sound.
“Well, how can you help, then?”
I let my expression melt into the feral grin I’d been holding back. “Because once I’m done with you, you’ll have a medical exemption from turning up in court for six months at least,” I said. The guy’s forehead creased, as if he was trying to figure that statement out, but was too damn slow. In the time it took, I stepped closer to him and slammed one hand upward on the butt of the gun, jolting it out his weak grip. My other hand was already grabbing it from his hand and turning it. After a second, I held the gun. The skip stumbled back, looking confused, as I emptied the clip and the active round and tossed the gun to the side. His eyes went to mine, and he went white when he took in my expression. He tried to run as I reached for him.