Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

Jenna realized that she had come to a complete standstill, partly in amazement at what she was seeing, and partly because she didn’t know what to do.

She saw a ladder, propped against the side of the tall building, and beside it, a long rectangular case, big enough to hold a guitar. Or a rifle, she realized.

Noah must have surprised the would-be assassin as he descended the ladder. Not the man she knew as her father, but the Noah Flood she didn’t really know at all: the decisive man who had overpowered Carlos and Raul Villegas a week before, and who had just a few minutes ago known how to shield Jenna from a bomb blast…

What was he thinking? What did he hope to accomplish by charging headlong into combat with a killer?

Whatever the answer, Noah seemed to know what he was doing. Instead of trying to block or dodge the punch, Noah leaned into it, catching the fist on his forehead. There was a spray of blood as Ken’s fist made contact with the still weeping gash above Noah’s eyes. Noah didn’t seem to notice. He let go with both hands and reached up to trap Ken’s wrist. Faster than her eye could follow, he flipped his entire body around and pulled Ken to the ground, trapping his opponent’s arm with both hands and legs. Jenna heard a crack as cartilage and ligaments separated, and Ken’s grunts of exertion became a low howl of agony.

Something moved just beyond the struggling men, and Jenna glimpsed another man running toward them. It took her a moment to recognize him. It was Zack Horne, the other client who had been with Ken during the fishing trip. The friendly expression he’d worn throughout the day was gone, replaced by a hard grim mask. He was looking right at her.

Jenna saw him raise a hand, as if to point in her direction, but instead of an extended fingertip, she saw something dark…and then a tiny flash.

Something cracked against the wall beside her, throwing out a puff of dust and splinters, and Jenna’s mind went into overdrive.

A gun. He’s shooting at me.

She ducked back, behind the corner, removing herself from Zack’s line of sight, but her instincts weren’t telling her to flee.

Listen to your gut, Noah always said, but make up your own damn mind.

Your gut reaction to a threat will be to either run away, as fast as you can, or to blow through it head on, which, he had added with a trace of sarcasm, is probably what you will do because you’re a teenager and you think you’re invincible. But a lot of times, those are the worst choices you could make. You might make a bad situation even worse, or you might miss out on an opportunity.

Opportunity for what?

She couldn’t believe that Noah had been talking about threats like this—or had he?—but she had taken the advice to heart. Her instincts were saying that she should stand her ground and fight these men who seemed intent on killing her. She had to help Noah, but she had to let her mind guide her now, rather than her primal urges.

Zack had a gun, a pistol. She hadn’t heard a report, which meant he had a silencer, which also meant none of the gawkers on the other side of the bait shop would hear the shooting and come running.

It’s not a silencer, damn it, Noah would say whenever someone in a movie called it that. It’s a suppressor. It’s just a fancy muffler, like on a car. Noah would then go on to complain about how pistols weren’t very accurate beyond about twenty-five yards, or how most of the ones the movie stars used didn’t have much stopping power.

That information did not seem particularly helpful right now. Even if it didn’t kill her, she wasn’t keen on letting even one bullet find her. But there was something else Noah always said. Run away from a knife, but run toward a gun.

She had pressed him for an explanation on that one.

A bullet can run faster than you can. If someone is trying to shoot you, the only way to stop them is to take their gun away. You get close to them, move faster than they can track you, and you’ll take away their only advantage.

How do you know these things? she would ask, and he would just smile and wave a dismissive hand.

How did he know those things?

She crouched at the corner, holding her breath and listening. Over the grunts of Noah’s battle with Ken, she heard the thump of footsteps.

Wait for it.

Get close.

Remove the advantage.