Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,55

burst inward, because not only hadn’t it been locked, it hadn’t been securely shut, so the door smacked into the wall and came back at us with way too much force. Newman caught it with one arm, and with the other kept his gun pointed into the room. I was at his back with my gun out, pointed at the floor, but the safety was off, finger on the trigger. Shots fired meant “gun safety” was hitting what was shooting at you.

There was a man in the now familiar uniform of the local cops aiming between the bars of a cell. I had a second to notice he was tall, thin, but I was mostly trying to aim around Newman’s body without crossing him with the barrel of my gun. I didn’t even bother to look inside the cage. Whatever had been done was done in that second. There was nothing at the end of the short hallway but the man, shoulders rounded, gun still in hand. It wasn’t pointed at us, but Newman and I were both yelling.

He yelled, “Put the gun down!”

I yelled, “Drop the gun!”

The deputy turned and looked at us. I had a moment to see he was pale, with huge eyes in a face that looked shocked, but his hands with the gun still in them turned with him, and I yelled, “Drop it!”

Newman yelled, “Don’t make us shoot you, Troy. Don’t make us do it!”

I finally went to one knee against the wall opposite the cell, so I had a clear shot at the deputy without endangering Newman or accidentally shooting into the cell. It’d be a bitch to accidentally shoot the person we were trying to save.

If the shooter hadn’t been another cop, I’d have shot him moments before, but then he dropped his gun. The only thing that had saved him was the uniform. Newman kicked the gun toward me. I changed my grip on my gun from two-handed to one- and picked up the dropped gun. Loose guns were bad guns. I clicked the safety on, got to my feet, and moved around so I could keep an eye on the deputy as Newman put him on the ground and secured his hands behind his back.

I heard something behind us, and I had the second gun up and pointed before I could think anything. I just reacted. I even thumbed the safety off, and my finger was on the trigger. I didn’t have time to wonder if Wagner had messed with his trigger pull and lightened it from out-of-the-box standard. If he’d made it a hair trigger, then potentially someone else was about to get shot. I was okay with it, because a cop should have known better than to walk up on people when the guns came out.

Sheriff Leduc put his hands up without me asking; he also stopped moving closer. Good, it would be a shame to have to shoot him in his own jail.

My peripheral vision is above average. I could keep half an eye on Newman kneeling on the deputy and still watch the sheriff. Newman pulled the cuffed man to his feet.

I spoke very carefully, each word as cautious as the touch of my finger on the unfamiliar trigger. “You got that one?”

“I got him,” Newman said.

I turned toward the sheriff, bringing my gun up to bear on him as I lowered Wagner’s gun toward the floor. I took my finger off that trigger but left the safety off. One of his deputies had just shot one of his prisoners in his own jail. It might mean that Duke would be okay with it. Besides, he’d already pointed a gun at me once. I wasn’t going to let him get the drop on me twice.

“Ease down there, Anita,” the sheriff said.

“Fuck you, and it’s Marshal Blake to you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

He stood very still, hands up. He was doing his best to not piss us off further. That was great, because we needed to look in the cell and know if we were calling an ambulance or the coroner. How had I not looked in the cell before? The armed person always takes my attention first. Enough people shoot at you and it’s like you acquire this tunnel vision that cuts out all the unnecessary shit. The exception to that rule is if someone you love is involved. Then you’re fucked because you notice too much. You’re never at your best if you love someone in