Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [103]
I thought calm, mundane thoughts as I moved toward Shang-Da and Jamil. Rowe grabbed my arm and whirled me back toward him. I let him do it, let his own momentum turn me back toward him; I turned my shoulder into his body, and my foot swept him as I came. He ended up on the ground with my arm still gripped. I twisted my arm in his grip, helped by the bulky coat, and ended with a one-armed joint lock on his elbow. I put enough pressure on the arm that he made a pain sound for me. He still had a gun in his other hand. If this had been a real fight, I’d have had to shoot him a second or two before this.
He started to bring his gun up, but mine was already pointed at his face. “Move, and die,” I said.
“You point that gun at her,” Jamil said, “and you die before he does.”
I didn’t look away from Rowe on the ground. I trusted that Jamil had a gun out and pointed where it needed to go.
I stared down into Rowe’s face, kept the periphery of his hand and its gun in my sight. “Open your hand, Rowe, just let go of the gun.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
“I don’t think so.” I smiled and could feel it was unpleasant. It was sort of the smile I used sometimes when I knew I was about to kill somebody, but at the same time it didn’t feel like me, exactly.
Why had I upped the violence in the hallway? I hadn’t needed to do this, but it was a little late to say oops. I stared down at Rowe. His pulse was thick in the side of his throat. He could control his face, but the pulse and beat of his body gave him away. He was scared. Should he have been? Would I really shoot him? There was a small piece of myself that said, quietly, If we have to, sure.
I took a deep breath, and let it out slow. “You shouldn’t have grabbed me, Rowe. Maybe I overreacted, but you shouldn’t grab a woman like that unless you know how she’ll take it.”
“Don’t go all soft on us, Anita.” This from Shang-Da.
“They helped me last night, Shang-Da. My Hatí was not there to protect me, but these two men were.”
“You smell of fresh wounds. They did not do a very good job.”
“The shift had changed to other men. These two did their best.”
“Then why are you about to shoot one of them?” It was Richard’s voice. That calm, matter-of-fact, hail-fellow-well-met voice. My chest actually felt like it squeezed tight at the sound of his voice. God, would I ever stop reacting to him like this? Honest answer: no. Answer I wanted to hear: maybe.
“He touched me, and I didn’t want him to.” My voice sounded rough around the edges as if I couldn’t get enough air.
I felt him coming closer. Heard Shang-Da and Jamil protest. “They have guns; we can’t let you go forward.”
Richard said, “Shadwell, right?”
“Yes,” Shadwell said.
“Put up your gun, and I’ll come help.”
“Help who?” Shadwell asked.
“Everyone.” And there again in his voice was that confidence that he would do what he said. He would try to make it better. At his best, Richard really meant that. Problem was that sometimes there was no way to help everyone. He wasn’t so good in situations where there were no good choices. He tended to freeze, or react badly. Of course, I was at my best when the choices all went south. We could have been a good team, if we hadn’t hated each other. Okay, honestly, we didn’t exactly hate each other.
I didn’t really think that Shadwell would put up his gun, but he did. He even said, “Drop your gun, Rowe.”
“Hell, no.”
“You grabbed her first, Rowe. Maybe she overreacted, but you did touch her.”
“No way, I am not dropping my gun.”
“Just open your hand, and slide away from it,” Shadwell said.
“They’ve mind-fucked you,” Rowe said.
“She could shoot you before you even brought your weapon up.”
“I’m her bodyguard, for God’s sake, I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Then drop the gun,” I said, softly.
He gave me a look that was part hate and part confusion. “How the hell did we get here?” he said.
“You touched me.”
“A lot of guys