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The leader looked down at the man near his feet who was still making desperate wheezing noises. He would most likely be fine, but I wasn’t kidding about the doctor thing. Like, dude wasn’t going to die here, but he was absolutely going to pass out any second and would need some medical attention.
Not my concern at the moment.
The two new guys were being pretty smart about their approach, moving in opposite directions, circling around to either side of me while their fearless leader remained in front. Soon I’d be surrounded, and since I only had two eyes, and those eyes could only focus in one direction at a time, I was left in a pretty awkward situation where I would be fighting at least two of these guys blind.
Peachy.
You’ve trained for this, I reminded myself. And I had, but training was one thing and being out in the real world was another. These guys weren’t going to obey any rules of polite combat. They wouldn’t play fair.
As if on cue, one of them pulled out a crowbar he had clearly tucked in his belt under his jacket.
“Well, that can’t have been comfortable to carry around,” I declared.
He sneered at me, then dove, swinging the heavy metal bar wildly. Since there was no finesse or logic to his attack, it was hard to counter. He was blindly slashing the bar through the air, hoping to make any kind of contact, and melee fighting was not something I could plan for. The sharp point of the bar smacked into my knee, and I stumbled, hitting the ground, momentarily blinded by the pain of it.
“Son of a bit—” I couldn’t even get the word out before the other guy, who was behind me, darted forward and kicked me hard in the ribs.
All the air in my lungs vanished, and now I felt like this might be a little instant karma for the wounds I’d inflicted on their buddies.
I was barely back up to my knees when one of them threw a perfectly aimed punch into my cheek. I saw stars and spit blood.
“I see you guys figured out how to fight.” I touched my tongue to one of my rear molars to make sure it wasn’t loose. I had a pretty decent dental plan with my coverage at the FBI, but they were going to get annoyed if I started just spitting up molars in street fights every other week.
My kingdom to have fangs again right now. I’d bite the ever-loving shit out of these morons.
I pushed myself back up, spit out more blood, and gave Captain Crowbar what I hoped was a really demented-looking, bloodstained, toothy grin. “I hope you don’t think this means you’ve won.”
He clearly had thought that, because he was staring at me, crowbar in hand, probably wondering if I was out of my damn mind. He would not be the first or last person to think that.
I closed my eyes for a second, re-centering myself. In the quiet of my mind, I could hear the advancing footsteps of one of them—it didn’t matter who—thinking they would be able to take me down once and for all. The steps were urgent, having lost any of the hesitancy they’d had when the two men first attacked.
I rolled backwards, tucking into a somersault, and the footsteps skidded to a halt where I’d been. I clambered to my feet, my whole body singing with pain but my mind absolutely focused. When I opened my eyes, all three of them were in front of me, exactly where I wanted them.
I stretched my neck side to side, worn muscles popping, and licked my teeth clean, the coppery taste of my own blood familiar and almost comforting. I knew what I had survived before this. Three thugs in a garage were not as much of a challenge as they might like to think.
“You.” I pointed to the guy with the crowbar. “Thank you for making this fun.”
I was standing next to where I had left my bag and used my toe to open the top flap. Inside was a new toy I had been enjoying the hell out of recently. The lightweight black baton didn’t look like much, but after I hooked my foot under it and kicked it up so I could grab it without bending over, I whipped it downwards, and the lightweight nightstick extended into something…different.
It wasn’t merely a club, but more like a carbon sword with no sharp edges. It was even shaped like my beloved katana.
No one would get accidentally beheaded with this baby, but it packed the necessary punch.
The three men gaped at the weapon, not sure what to make of a matte-black sword with no cutting edge.
“Bitch, you are nuts.”
“I’m not the one who brought a crowbar to a fistfight, kids. This is my way of evening up the playing field here.”
“Ah, fuck this.” The leader, clearly more sick of me than anyone else, pushed between the other two men. “This is getting boring.”
“Boring? Me? I think you haven’t been paying attention.” I touched my tongue to my split lip, which started to sting anew to reward me for my curiosity. “If you leave now, three of you can walk out of here, and two of you can get dragged, but all five of you will live. I told you I wasn’t going to go to Davos. You should have listened to me.”
“And I told you Davos doesn’t take no for an answer.”
I smiled coldly. “I don’t give a shit what Davos wants.”
“You will.”
