Either shock or he was genuinely the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet. “He still have a hold of it?”
“No. Kicked it under the couch.”
Well, that was one positive.
Spinning on my heel, I drew my gun forward again. “Stay here.”
The resounding scoff that followed me out of the room was both annoyed and snide, a condescending mixture not blowing past me in the slightest. A dumb statement, sure, but one I needed to make on the off-chance TJ tried to get up and follow me. I wasn’t willing to risk him aggravating any bullet wounds he may have sustained in the midst of his tussle with our perp.
So far, he was well enough to curse at me, a good indication he would be pulling through this with only a bruised sack and a hell of a heckling session once we got back to the precinct. That’s all that mattered at the moment.
“Unit 12. Medical assistance ETA 2 minutes.”
Two minutes too fucking long.
“Thomas!” I called out, stepping back into the hallway. “Come out with your hands up. Don’t turn this into something it doesn’t need to be.”
Whether he heard me or not, there was no answering shout back or muffled footsteps heading my way. The house remained eerily silent outside of the radio’s chattering and beyond the dark void that stretched past the hall’s overhead light. Without knowing the actual layout of this place, that made it impossible for me to know if there was a backdoor he could potentially escape out of or how many rooms were upstairs to check.
Leaving TJ behind long enough to go look left him too vulnerable for my taste. There were too many things that could happen while he was still prone on the floor and without a gun in his hand, too many opportunities for Thomas to take him out while I was thirty feet away, looking through closets upstairs.
Two minutes until the ambulance arrived and probably another four until an actual patrol unit rolled up. Edgewood was small but without its own precinct, it heavily relied on how fast ours over in Palmerston could respond.
Priority first: get TJ out to the ambulance and then look for Thomas.
Holstering my gun, I pivoted back into the living room and hauled him up off the floor by the back of his jacket. As a man much taller and bulkier than me, the sudden weight distribution nearly had me doubling over in the split second it took me to get his arm looped over my shoulder, draping him against my side.
He grunted, the shadow of a bruise already forming on his jaw and cheek was becoming more prominent by the second.
“Clocked you, too, huh.” We’d have to leave his gun behind.
Our captain was going to have a fucking fit but it was either I took the time to fish it out from where itmightbe hiding under the couch and give Thomas the precious seconds to try andattack again, or I got us the hell out of this place until backup arrived.
I had a feeling the latter was going to be the more accepted answer in the end. Even if it came up in my quarterly review.
“He’s strung out. Freaked the second I tried shaking him awake.”
I dragged him through the living room and into the hallway, no signs of a skulking drunk hopped up on molly and coke lurking anywhere from what I could see. “Girlfriend said the friend was a dealer.”
“Well, fuck.”
Tell me about it.
With a tight hold on his utility belt, I began walking him toward the front door, still wide open and reflecting the blue and red from our cruiser’s lights on the window. Not even ten steps in, the sound of somethingwhooshing by my head caught me by surprise, sending us stumbling into the wall.
Crushing TJ against it, I had hardly enough time to react to the silver glint of something arching toward me, caught in the light from the hallway just enough to force me into turning my body out of the way and shoving TJ down onto the ground at my feet.
A knife thunked into the side of the wall right by my shoulder, missing me by a mere two inches. Attached to the handle was a white-knuckled hand that strained to pull it out, the soft grunting of someone close to me sending chills racing down my spine.
Holy shit?—
I brought my arm up to block the fist thrown at me, surprisingly with a good amount of force behind the swing. The knife was dislodged a single second later and swiped at my face, a breeze ghosting over my cheek and narrowly missed me for a second time.
Less than twelve fucking steps from the door and this jackass decided to attack us now.
Another tone chimed in my ear, muffled by my heart hammering in my chest, a familiar voice coming over the radio—dispatch? Another unit arriving? I couldn’t tell. Not with my focus pinpointing directly on the man trying to stab me.
I caught him by the shoulder before he could swing back around again, shoving him hard in the opposite direction and toward the wall on the other side of the hallway. Thomas’s body snapped back the second he hit it, his head slamming hard enough to force a wince out of me. To my surprise, he didn’t crumble to the ground like I was expecting, keeping himself upright with one hand splayed out next to him and the other with the knife still clutched tight between his fingers.
