Contact.
The fight wasn’t the danger.
The room was.
Parker circled left, but Beck adjusted.
Someone in the crowd shoved someone else. Another surge of shouting erupted.
Red stumbled into the back of my chair.
Bubba grabbed his arm. “Stand up, damn it.”
Red’s head snapped toward him.
Too sharp.
Too quick.
I stood, slowly. Keeping my movements calm and steady. The legs of my chair scraped concrete, adding one more shriek of sound to the already loud room.
Red shifted with me.
His balance wasn’t steady.
I subtly stepped back into him. Not too hard but just enough.
He stumbled forward into Bubba’s chest, and without thinking, Bubba shoved him hard.
The crowd shouted as the fight intensified.
And something inside of Red broke.
It was fast and ugly… and wet.
Teeth sank into the inside of Bubba’s forearm. Deep. His scream tore through the warehouse and bounced off the metal walls until it sounded like ten men were screaming instead of one.
The fight in the ring faltered.
Parker stepped back in shock.
Beck, on the other hand, wasn’t at all surprised and had a proud smile on his face as he stared in my direction.
Red ripped free, blood running down his chin, eyes unfocused and wild. Bubba staggered backward, clutching his arm.
“You stupid—” Bubba started.
Then he dropped to his knees and began convulsing… hard.
The crowd surged forward, trying to see where the screaming was coming from.
The man who was holding the bat came closer, trying to figure out what he was looking at, when Red launched himself at him and bit out his throat.
I grabbed the bat he’d dropped and backed up quickly, holding it at the ready. I wasn’t a damsel in distress, hoping my man would come in time to save me. Any one of these infected bastards who came near me was going to find that out the hard way.
For a half-second, nobody could believe what they were seeing.
Then Bubba surged back up, like something pulled by a wire. He lunged for the nearest body.
