Page 62 of Out of Sight

Antonio wasn’t far behind, but I was satisfied to see the blood flowing freely from his right arm; I got him good.

I put an arm around Will’s waist to help him stand as we faced down Antonio. There’s no way someone didn’t call the police after all the damage we caused.

All we had to do was wait him out.

twenty-three

Will

We were in a holding pattern with Antonio: he wanted to kill us, but we held him off at knife-point.

Not that Antonio had enough self-preservation to care about the knife too much.

He lunged at us. I made the split second decision to push Claire out of the way instead of hold him off me, so I hit the ground with a hard thump, my breath knocked out of me as my bad shoulder smashed into the ground under Antonio’s weight for a second time. The hit threw me off guard enough that Antonio had the advantage as he wrapped his skinny fingers around my throat again.

Dozens of cars passed by on the freeway, not giving a damn about the life and death situation going on right next to them. People only cared about rubbernecking if someone was already dead.

I knocked his arms away, but my vision was getting fuzzy around the edges, not enough oxygen going to my brain after being choked twice.

Any other day I probably could have managed Antonio’s attack easily. But I was working off too little sleep, too much stress and tension, and countless body aches and bruises from everything we went through in the last twenty-four hours.

I was at my limit and Antonio was a slippery little fucker. I just couldn’t keep a grip on him.

I felt more than saw Claire join the fight, trying to pull Antonio off me. He let go of me long enough to push her away, but she kept coming, her body landing on mine and arms wrapping around my waist.What the hell?

The gun! I was so out of it from Antonio’s surprise attack in the car that I completely forgot about it sitting in my waistband until she pulled it free.

“Antonio!” she screamed, getting his attention. He froze, gun pointed at him. “Get the hell off him!”

He stood, holding up both hands in surrender, but his grin spoke volumes. He didn’t think this was over, not by a long shot.

“Freeze!”

I sat up, turning to look past Antonio where the voice came from.

A cop car was parked behind our Honda, a uniformed Highway Patrol officer pointing his weapon atClaireof all people. She looked just as horrified at the situation as I felt.

“Drop the weapon!”

She shook her head, glancing from me to Antonio again.

“I said drop your weapon!”

Another couple OHP cars pulled up, probably half a dozen officers joining the standoff, us against Antonio, the police against us.

“Drop it or we will be forced to shoot!”

“Claire!” I called to her. “Drop the gun. We can explain everything later, but please. Put it down. Please. I wouldn’t survive it I lost you, too. Please.”

I saw the moment my words got through. The defeat hit her eyes and she set the gun on the ground. A couple of the officers rushed forward, grabbing Claire and handcuffing her. She cried out in pain.

“She has a broken wrist, be careful with her!”

The cops were either too focused on reading Claire her rights to hear me or they just ignored my words.

“It was self-defense!” I tried to explain. “She wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

No one was paying attention to me, but Claire tried to redirect their attention.

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