Trigger Warning by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

Old habits died hard. When Jake heard the shots, his first instinct was to hunt cover, the second to return fire.

But he didn’t have anything to shoot back with, and in that split second when his brain began to process what was going on, he realized that he was more concerned with Natalie’s safety than with his own.

He lunged across the table, slid on the papers, knocked books and laptop aside, and grabbed her. The impact toppled her chair over. She cried out in surprise. Jake twisted as they went down so that he hit the floor first and she landed on top of him, instead of the other way around. His weight falling on her might have seriously injured her.

As soon as they were down, though, he rolled so he was on top, on hands and knees, shielding her body with his own.

“Stay down,” he told her through clenched teeth. “You’ll be all right.”

“Jake! What—”

“Shhh. Don’t say anything.” He didn’t want her drawing attention to herself, or him, either. He wasn’t sure what was going on here, but getting on the radar of a hostile with a gun was never a good thing.

Jake looked around as best he could without raising his head too much. His senses were working overtime right now, attuned to everything that was happening around him. He heard shouting and screaming from other parts of the library’s lower floor and realized that the man who had come down the escalator and started shooting wasn’t alone.

He was the only one Jake could see from where he was, though, as he peered past a table leg and through a gap in the furniture toward the shooter. The man was around Jake’s age, maybe a little older, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Six-one, around one-seventy. Wiry. Brown hair. Good-looking in a cocky way. He seemed very self-composed, which was good, Jake thought. Wild-eyed panic would mean more shooting. This guy looked like he wouldn’t pull the trigger unless he had a good reason.

One of the students gave him a good reason by yelling and charging him. The gunman calmly shot him down, accurately enough to put the guy on the floor with one round.

Jake’s jaw tightened even more. That was a cold-blooded execution he had just witnessed. He had no doubt that the guy would kill him just as efficiently and ruthlessly if he tried anything stupid.

That meant when he made his move, it had to be a smart one, Jake told himself.

His only weapon was the folding knife in his pocket. That wouldn’t do him much good against three, maybe more, guns. He assumed that this guy’s allies were armed at least as well as he was. The guy had a Glock 17 9mm, from the looks of it. He had fired three rounds. That meant he could still have fourteen or fifteen shots, depending on whether there had been one in the chamber when he loaded a full magazine. And Jake wouldn’t be the least

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