Vaughn didn’t hesitate. While reaching for his gun, he kicked the door. It smacked into a table and something fell.
Shattered.
Saw Ivy on the floor, on her back, a man in a blue shirt hovering over her. Vaughn charged, intent on driving his shoulder into the man’s spine, open field tackle style.
At the last second, the man turned—just a kid, Vaughn’s mind had enough time to register—and slashed at him with a knife. The blade cut into Vaughn’s forearm, but he kept charging.
Instead of hitting the kid in the back, he struck him in the side, his shoulder connecting with the man’s kidney. Vaughn heard him grunt, heard all the airwhooshout of his lungs.
They went to the ground together, the kid beneath Vaughn taking the brunt of the fall. The knife skittered across the floor.
“Ivy!” Vaughn yelled. He laced a forearm—bloody, he saw—across the kid’s throat, pushed all his weight down. “Ivy, you okay?”
The kid bucked, and Vaughn moved his knee to his chest, keeping his forearm pressed to his windpipe.
“I’m okay. I’m fine.”
“Stop fucking moving,” Vaughn warned.
The kid on the ground was making a strange hissing noise and spit flew from his lips. Landed back on his red face.
He stopped wriggling.
Vaughn grabbed his handcuffs from the back of his belt. With his free hand, he gripped the kid’s wrist and then lifted his knee. In a practiced move, he flipped him over, replaced his knee in the small of his back. When he pushed the man’s arm up toward his shoulder blade, the kid cried out.
Vaughn applied the cuffs. One hand first, then the next.
“Stay on your stomach,” Vaughn said. “You so much as move and I’m going to pin you down again.”
The kid tried to say something, but only managed to cough instead. Vaughn lifted his knee, stayed low.
“Ivy?”
She came over to him.
“You okay?”
Ivy was rubbing her throat, which was raw and red. Vaughn couldn’t see any other injuries.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes were wide.
“You’re... you’ve been cut.”
“Huh?”
Vaughn followed her gaze to his left forearm. There was a six-inch gash that ran from his elbow to just beyond the meaty part. Vaughn probed it gently. It wasn’t deep. Blood leaked from the wound, but he didn’t think it warranted stitches.
“Who the hell is this kid?”
“He’s one of my students. Zeke Godfrey.”
The surname tickled something in the back of Vaughn’s mind.
He removed his phone, thought about calling Darnell. Decided to dial Delaney instead. Told the cop he needed backup and EMS. Gave Ivy’s address and hung up quickly before the man could ask questions.
“What happened?” Vaughn asked Ivy.
