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A choking sound came from my throat, and I tried to swallow a couple of times, which just induced a wave of nausea. My back and neck were sweating; my head was pounding in my temples, and the images in my head kept flittering back and forth between memories of Aimee and the same memories replaced with Tria’s face in her stead.
I desperately wanted to go back to being numb.
My stomach clenched, and I pounded my fists on the side of the seat next to me. Part of my mind registered people getting up and moving away from me as the subway continued down its underground passage, but I ignored them. I also ignored it when the train reached the end of the line and started traveling back the way it had come.
I couldn’t let all of this happen again. I couldn’t let it all happen to Tria, not when I knew what might transpire. As a kid, I had been ignorant of the dangers, but now I knew better. I had to make sure she didn’t go through with it.
Not your choice.
I continued to pound on the seats with my fists, and more people moved away.
She was taking the choice away from me. She wasn’t allowing me any say in it at all. How was that fair?
Some drunk stumbled down the middle of the subway car, running into other people, and completely incapable of hanging onto the handrails. He made his way to the back where I sat and looked down at me.
“You’re in my seat!” he exclaimed.
I looked up at him, saw the look of absolute indignation on his face, and laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, either.
“Go fuck yourself!” I said.
The dude swayed a bit before taking a step closer to me. He dropped his voice a little, lower and quieter.
“I said you’re in my seat,” he repeated.
“And I told you to go fuck yourself.”
He narrowed his eyes, and his hand disappeared inside his nasty brown jacket. He sneered at me, and then pulled a silver blade from his pocket. Right in front of my eyes, his face began to change. His skin darkened, and his hair went from dirty blond to black. Glancing back to his face, the dark, flat brown of Keith Harrison’s eyes gazed back at me.
I lost it.
He probably didn’t even realize he had been hit before he was on his back with me slamming his hand into the bottom part of the subway car’s handrail. The knife flew from his fingers, and I released his hand so I could punch him with both fists.
It felt fucking great, too, even though his head was hurting my knuckles. Actually, that made it even better—it gave me something to focus on other than what was going on in my head. It gave the other people on the train something to focus on, too, which ultimately led to security making their way to the back car, screaming and yelling at people to get out of the way. I didn’t pay any attention as they approached and tried to pull me off the guy.
The drunk’s yelling was really too loud for me to understand what the security dude was trying to say anyway.
My fist flew into the drunk’s face once more, and I heard the crack of bone as I connected with his eye socket. He was really screaming now, but it didn’t make any difference to me. I felt hands on my shoulders, but I ignored them when they pulled at me. There was only one thing that mattered—and that was beating this shithead into the ground.
I jerked forward and backward as the train came to a stop. More yelling and screaming ensued as a couple of uniformed cops entered the car. I ignored them as long as I could and moved to punching the guy’s chest and stomach instead of his bloodied face. He was just cowering and crying now, and I didn’t give a shit.
All my muscles tensed, froze, vibrated, and screamed as I sat up straight and tried to cry out. It didn’t work, and every one of my muscles went completely rigid as electricity shot through my system. A moment later, the sensation stopped and I slumped over to one side. I wasn’t sure if I could move or not and definitely didn’t want to try.
I’ve been tased.
Now there’s something to cross off my bucket list.
The hands around me were a lot more successful this time as they grabbed onto my shoulders and hauled me upright. My arms were pulled behind my back, and I heard the distinctive click of handcuffs and the cool feel of metal around my wrists. I heard someone asking what had happened, and all the people who had been riding along started shouting out their own versions of what had transpired.
“The other dude pulled a knife—it was self-defense!”
“Seen that other guy before,” a woman’s voice called out. “He’s a nut! He’s always yelling at people who sit there.”
“He wouldn’t stop hitting that guy.”
“That’s Takedown Teague, the fighter.”
“Didn’t he bust up a wedding in Northside?”
