A minute earlier Jones had grabbed her right arm and coiled her body up against his to make her a human shield. Now they uncoiled. Jones pivoted away from her, pulling the pistol loose from her finger, leaving an icy sensation in her fingertip that she knew meant serious damage. His left arm, still holding the gun, flailed back as he rotated away from her. His right hand let go of her arm and trailed away until the handcuff chain brought it up short like a dog that had run to the end of its leash, and then she felt a few more layers of wrist skin being macerated by the steel bracelet, and she toppled forward. Jones was near the end of a full one-eighty, and was collapsing to the surface of the pier. He ended up spread-eagled on his back, his right hand pulling Zula down—she had no choice, now, but to fall down on top of him—and his left sprawled out on the pier, still maintaining a grip on that pistol.