Page 34 of Fallen Hero

“In a minute.”

“Now. Move.”

“I’m just getting a taste, big man. I’ll be done in a minute.”

Mason was pressed close, completely shielding me. I could feel the tension in his body. His muscles bunching and coiling, readying to strike. I reached into the pocket of my loose-fitting linen pants and wrapped my hand around the handle of my custom-made retractable knife. I blew out a breath and relaxed.

“Move,” the man repeated from up close.

I glanced over Mason’s left shoulder and saw the man’s hand come up—but before I could draw my knife from my pocket and warn Mason, he was already on the move.

Lightning quick, Mason shifted and delivered a brutal jab with his left fist to the man’s throat, followed by a right hook to his jaw.

The man dropped just as two more men came around the corner. Both of them looked at the man on the ground, then at us, and started yelling in Hindi.

Simple and stupid had officially gone to shit.

“It’s all good,” Mason muttered.

Apparently his definition of all good significantly differed from mine.

“Do you know what they’re saying?” I asked.

Mason didn’t answer. The larger of the two men rushed him. I stayed against the building, doing my best impression of a damsel in distress. My acting skills must’ve been impressive, or the boy-man in front of me—who looked like he was underfed and hadn’t had proper nutrition at any point in his life, causing his growth to stunt—underestimated me because I was a woman. I was five-seven and was looking the guy in the eye.

He reached out and grabbed my wrist. I let him pull me away from the wall, still playing the ‘I’m a scared girl, please don’t hurt me’ card.

I really didn’t want to have to kill the boy-man. He looked like he’d barely kissed his teenage years goodbye. Not that that meant anything. The guy who took my sister had been twenty. But there was a sadness in this kid’s eyes that made me hope he’d go down easy.

The grunts and thuds of fists hitting flesh reminded me I needed to drop this kid before someone else came around the corner.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I begged.

“Come.”

“Just let me go.”

The kid stepped closer to me and yanked my arm. I used the force of his tug to slam into him and pulled my other hand out of my pocket. With my fingers still tightly wrapped around the handle of my knife, I swung and hit him square in his ear. Before he recovered, I landed a front kick to his gut and followed up with a perfectly placed uppercut.

The kid didn’t even stumble before he pitched sideways and went down.

Thank God for glass jaws.

I pocketed my knife and made my way to Mason.

He was straddling his opponent, pummeling his face with no signs of stopping.

“Mase, he’s down.”

Like he didn’t hear me, he continued his beating.

“Mason. Enough. We need to move.”

Suddenly, Mason pulled out of his trance and looked up at me.

The lighting was shit on this side of the building, but I still saw the green of his eyes—wild and raw and furious.

“We need to move the bodies,” I told him.