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“Fuck,” I mumbled. I grabbed my bag, ignoring the shirt that fell out of it and onto the ground and heaved at the heavy gate that enclosed the area behind Feet First. For once, the damn thing was padlocked. I growled before flinging my bag up and over the fence, grabbing onto the links with my fingers, and hauling myself over it, too. I had to move pretty quickly if I was going to catch up with the drunks and their would-be victim.
I was never one to play the hero, but some things you just didn’t let slide.
Chapter 2—Save the Girl
Stepping lightly but quickly, I moved down the quiet, empty street. There was a bend just a couple of blocks ahead of me, and both the girl and the guys pursuing her must have already passed it. I couldn’t see anyone else on the street at all though someone could certainly have been hiding in the shadows. More than half the streetlights were out here—no one ever seemed to bother replacing them—and you couldn’t see the moon or any stars. The light pollution from deeper in the city was the only thing keeping the streets from being completely dark.
I moved a little faster, making my way around the curve in the street.
I saw them then, and I was correct in my initial assessment of their plans. They had already caught up to her—two in the front, two in the back. The one with the baseball cap and the greasy one were behind her with their arms held out a little to keep her in place while the two brothers shifted back and forth in front of her. They had her surrounded and were moving slowly, herding her toward the walkway between two buildings.
“Hey, baby,” the blond brother with the darker colored hoodie purred. I was pretty sure it was the one who had shoved his buddy down in the street earlier. “Relax. We just want to have a little fun.”
“Yeah, you know,” the kid in the backwards baseball cap said, “invite you to our little par-tay.”
I couldn’t stand it when people talked like that. It didn’t make them sound cool; it made them sound like morons.
“Leave me alone!” The girl slung her bag off her shoulder and held it in both hands, as if she might try to use it as a weapon.
The group laughed and closed in on her. One of them reached out and grabbed the large bag, wrenching it from her hands and spilling the significant contents all over the street. The guy with greasy black hair reached for her then, grabbing her by the tops of both arms and pulling her backwards as she cried out.
As if anyone around here would even notice or care if they did hear her screaming.
The guy in the hoodie stepped forward and began to reach for her. I dropped my own bag, no longer concerned with a silent approach, and raced down the street. They were far too occupied with their captive to notice me anyway, and I managed to get right behind the one grabbing for her.
My hand grasped the top of his head, clenching the material of his sweatshirt and his hair as well. I yanked him backwards and off balance and then released him as he fell on his ass with a thud. Changing my stance, I leaned over and let my foot fly out, catching another one in the side. I heard a distinctive crack as my booted heel came into contact with his ribs.
I turned my eyes to the greasy black-haired guy who was taking a few steps backwards, still holding the girl tightly and shaking her, as if threatening her would keep me away from him.
“Hey, man!” They were all the words I allowed to leave his mouth.
I stepped forward quickly and grabbed the girl by her ponytail. She cried out again, but I couldn’t pay attention to that as I pulled her face toward my chest and punched at the space over her head to land three knuckles right against Greasy’s trachea.
He released her arms immediately and grasped at his throat.
Spinning to my left, I kept the girl close to me for a moment and then shoved her off to one side before turning to the next guy who was coming at me. She cried out in surprise, stumbled, and ended up dropping to the street, but I couldn’t really think about that. I knew she wasn’t seriously hurt and was out of the way; that was all I needed.
The asshole with the backwards cap and the moronic ghetto-speak took a swing at me, which I easily ducked. He was still drunk enough that he almost knocked himself right over onto the street, but I caught him. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up close enough to slam my palm into his nose. I heard a snap just before I dropped him to the asphalt.
I quickly looked around me and saw two of the guys running off down the alley. The one I had just dropped to the ground was whining and moaning about his nose, and the last one—the one I had grabbed first—was heading in my direction.
He was, without a doubt, the instigator of all of this. My eyes narrowed as he approached and swung out wildly as if he didn’t even know where I was. I sidestepped and backed up—letting him come at me again. After a couple more swings, he seemed to be pretty much out of breath. That’s when I pounced.
Before I even touched him, I was in the zone though I never felt disconnected like some guys said they did during a fight. I was always completely focused; I just felt different at the same time. Everything seemed brighter even in the dim light coming from the one streetlamp at the end of the block, in sharper focus, and alive. Every muscle was poised, ready for my command. Every synapse was prepared to fire at my will.
Spinning around, my boot connected with the side of his head. Before he had the chance to fall backwards, I reached out and gripped his hoodie in my fist, twisting the fabric right under his neck around in my fingers. I could feel the string for the hood against my thumb as I pulled him up closer to me and slammed my other fist into his gut.
The air rushed out of him in a fragrant gust. He slumped toward me, but I held him out so I had better access to punch his kidney next. Then his face. Then the top of his arm. Then his face again.
He was screaming and crying at this point, begging me to let him go. For a minute I couldn’t understand why he didn’t tap out, but then I realized he didn’t know the rules. I released my grip with some effort—the knuckles had tightened up and ached when I straightened my fingers—and he dropped to the ground in front of me.
A moment later he was up again, turning and fleeing down the street with sideways-slouched, stumbling steps.
For a second I was confused. There wasn’t any cheering, and no one was grabbing my wrist to hold my hand in the air. I was just standing in a deserted street with my heart pounding in my chest and my breaths coming out in heavy pants into the night air. The cool September breeze no longer chilled my skin even as it collided with the sweat covering my chest and back. Then I remembered what I was doing and that the street wasn’t completely deserted.
I turned to the girl on the ground.
She was staring down the street in the direction the last of the attackers had run. A few feet away from her was the discarded purse—if you could really call it that—lying on the ground with the contents all over the asphalt. Whatever it was, it was too damn big to be a purse. Yolanda always carried those tiny little things that fit in your hand, but this one looked like you
