The Eighth Day

Chapter 42

The Alpha pulled the trigger, and the silenced pistol spit a muffled report. As Harrington fell, chaos swirled through the restaurant. Its patrons rose in a scrape of chairs and stampeded for the exits. They knocked aside tables and each other, shrieking and hollering in a mad trample to escape. Several careened off the giant, like waves battering against a rock cliff. The giant reached into his jacket and tore his pistol from its holster. Next to the Alpha, Victoria fumbled with her own holster. Dodd lay on the floor and leaked blood and moaned.

Shawn's first instinct was for Harrington, but the Alpha turned his gun on the giant. If he missed or if the bullet passed through the man, it would hit someone in the crowd behind him, an innocent bystander with a family and a future. Shawn leapt to his feet, seized the Alpha's wrist, and forced the barrel down. It bucked and spit. A gouge of wood splintered the floor.

The Alpha shoved him sideways. The giant fired, and the shot went wide. The Alpha lifted a knee, pistoned his leg forward, and drove the sole of his foot into Shawn's chest. The force of the blow catapulted him backward. He went airborne. Tables and chairs passed beneath him as he flew across the room. He crashed into the wall. It caved with a cloud of plaster and dust. He rebounded off it and fell onto a table that gave way beneath him with a series of sharp cracks, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap amid its remains.