Page 78 of Concealed

And then I’m rolling before jumping on Wang Yong and Dean, roughly throwing her to the side so that he’s only tussling with me.

I’m a much fairer match.

We’re all cops and we’re all equal, but goddamn if I don’t fucking hate it when any man lays hands on any woman.

The blast of the automatic weapon in Wang Yong’s hand continues to fire, the light from the barrel temporarily blinding me every time it flashes. Ear plugs protect my hearing, but also muffle all the other noises.

I’m screaming at him to drop the gun, to surrender, and there are other voices in the background doing the same.

But he’s a cornered animal with nowhere to run and no option to escape. For a man like him, suicide by cop is better than being arrested. Maybe that’s the end game he’s going for while trying to take out as many of us as possible on the way down.

Instead of dropping his weapon, he gives me a toothy grin that’s full of blood from his battle with Dean, an eerie as fuck image that will play on repeat in my dreams tonight.

If I live to have dreams.

He fires again, the bullet hitting the drywall behind Dean’s head.

Fuck!

I need to get the fucking gun.

My elbow lands on his face, the bones crunching under the power of the blow.

His fist hits my chin, rattling my teeth and filling my mouth with the metallic tang of blood.

Another blow connects, this time on his eye socket.

We’re rolling around and around, me trying to knock the gun from his hand while he does his best to point it at my face and end my life.

His knee cracks into my solar plexus, knocking the wind out of my chest and causing a moment of panic.

If I can’t breathe, I can’t fight.

Need to keep fighting.

And, fuck, this guy is tough, and should already be exhausted from fighting Dean.

He isn’t.

None of my team can land a shot, and I can barely make out their indistinct screaming, likely continuing to order him to surrender and drop the weapon.

But he doesn’t.

Of course, he doesn’t.

We’re too far into this battle to give up, and one of us isn’t walking out of here tonight.

Both of my hands are needed to fend off his blows, and clearly, Wang Yong is trained in hand-to-hand combat.

I can’t get to my gun, but I don’t want to shoot this motherfucker anyway. I need him incapacitated, but breathing and desperate. With a list of charges as long as the state racked up against him, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win.

But so am I.

He needs to be compelled to sing like a fucking canary.

He isn’t the big fish.

We need to get Zhang Lei, and this punk ass bitch is the ticket to the promised land.

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