The nearest gang member raises a pipe. I backhand him without looking. He crashes through a rotted educational display about primate family groups, taking half the sign with him.
Ron’s smile flickers.
I stop ten paces away. “You will stay away from her.”
He slides off the platform. “You come all this way to say that?”
“Yes.”
“Should’ve called.”
“I dislike compads.”
“Yeah, you seem more like a threatening-people-in-person kind of guy.” He spreads his arms. “Look around, big man. You think you scared anybody tonight? You think breaking some bones changes the way Halo works? Everybody pays somebody. That’s civilization.”
“No. That is scavenging.”
“That is business.”
“That is cowardice with accounting.”
One of his boys makes the mistake of laughing. Ron cuts him a look, and the laugh dies.
Ron steps closer. He has charisma. I see it even through my fury. His men watch him like he carries fire. He is handsome, strong by human standards, theatrical enough to make weakness look like style. He believes himself inevitable, which is the first lie every tyrant tells in a mirror.
“You know what your problem is?” Ron asks. “You think because you’re big, you’re above the rules.”
“I know the rules.”
“Do you? Because rule one is don’t start a war unless you know who backs the other side.”
“I do not care who backs you.”
“That’s because you’re stupid.”
“Yes.”
That gives him pause.
I step closer. “I was stupid enough to let you leave with your hands intact after your men attacked her. I was stupid enough to believe fear might teach you restraint. I was stupid enough to think boys playing predator understood consequence.”
His men shift. Ron does not.
“And now?” he asks.
“Now I teach better.”
He moves fast for a human.
The blade comes from his sleeve, narrow and black, aimed low toward the inside of my thigh where even scaled bodies have softer seams. He has trained. Not enough. I turn, catch his wrist, and let his own momentum carry him forward. My elbow drives into his back. He hits the floor hard, rolls, and comes up spitting water from a puddle.
His men rush.
I meet them.
The next minute is brutal work. One tries to jump onto my back; I slam him into a fake tree until the trunk cracks and he falls. Another swings a chain at my head; I catch it, wrap it around his ankle, and pull him off his feet. A third fires a short-range stun burst that lights my nerves white; I roar through it and drive him through a rusted mesh gate. The roar echoes through the primate house, and every remaining man recoils as if the building itself has found a voice.
Ron uses their distraction to come at me again.
