School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,112

Adele. Love to stay here while you two make yourselves targets. Jesus, don’t get dead.”

“You neither. Got extra clips?”

“You ask that now? Do I look stupid? Now go!”

With that, Fetzer left the safety underneath the stairwell, Jackson on her heels.

God, he hated these complexes—had some shitty, terrible, frightening memories of running through them—but this moment here? Crouching behind Fetzer and running as quickly and quietly up those goddamned concrete stairs in the darkness? This was one of the worst. A shot echoed through the quad, and then another, and the staircase rang as a piece of concrete ricocheted behind them. Fetzer put on a burst of speed, and Jackson followed just as Hardison’s pistol echoed beneath them: one, two, three shots, and a muffled scream that followed.

They reached the landing, and Fetzer grabbed Jackson’s chest, tugging until they were in the shadows again, at a doorway. Jackson checked the apartment number and nodded.

“Your people,” she muttered.

Jackson stood to one side and tapped on the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Dobrevk? Are you there? Sascha sent me.” He paused for a moment and listened—heard a struggle and upended furniture and a muffled scream.

He met Fetzer’s eyes, and she shook her head, reaching over to give the door a quick knock before yanking her hand back.

Just in time for the door to explode in a shotgun blast of pellets and splinters raining over them, making Jackson grateful for both the helmet and the goggles. Fetzer risked a look through the night vision and jerked back.

“He’s got her to his left so he can use the gun,” she said. Jackson’s ears were still ringing from the blast, but he heard her.

“I’m dropping down for the shot,” he said, waiting for her hard nod before crouching and peering over the bottom edge of what was left of the door.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out the young man, thin at the wrists and neck, holding poor Mrs. Dobrevk across the shoulders while staring eye-level out the door.

Jackson aimed carefully and took out the gunman’s kneecap.

He howled and dropped Mrs. Dobrevk, his gun drooping, and Fetzer crashed through the door in time to hold her gun to his unprotected head.

Jackson followed her, scrambling upright, getting there to relieve the young man of his weapon as he dropped to the floor and moaned.

Jackson holstered his own gun and cracked the shotgun, removing its ammo before shoving it through his belt, where it hung, heavy and useless, thank God.

Fetzer was speaking into her radio, saying, “Suspect apprehended in apartment 220A. Please advise.” She nodded at Jackson and whispered, “Get them out,” while she waited for a reply.

Jackson showed her the shotgun and set it on the counter that stood between the kitchen and living room in the humble apartment and then turned to Mrs. Dobrevk, who was crouched on the floor, sobbing.

“Where’s your husband?” he asked.

“Tied up,” she hiccupped. “Tied up in the bedroom. He used me to keep my husband silent. He said Dima’s men would be after us, and that we would bait the trap.”

Which was what Jackson had suspected; one way or another, the Dobrevks were going to be in the thick of it tonight. He grabbed a knife from the butcher’s block and strode down the darkened hallway, thinking that he really did need to get night-vision goggles, because it was all he could do not to knock into shit as he walked.

Mr. Dobrevk was tearful and grateful to be cut from his zip ties and reunited with his wife. Jackson told them to stay down behind the door while he went to scope out the sitch with Fetzer.

The situation wasn’t good.

They could both hear Hardison down below the stairs, the reports of his pistol precise and specific—and usually followed by a scream or shouted swear word from somewhere across the quad. But the fact that he was still down there firing meant that going back through the quad was not a good situation.

“I’ve got nothing,” Fetzer said. “The captain says to stay put and protect the civilians, but—”

Bullet fire crashed through the window, and she and Jackson dropped to the floor.

“Yeah,” he muttered in the silence that followed, a silence punctuated by the original gunman’s moans. Fetzer had administered first aid, tying a scrap of fabric around the wound with a towel to keep pressure on it, but this kid—and he was truly only sixteen, if that—was going to bleed out before anybody got to this corner of