A Wolf at the Door

Her eyes wary, she stopped fighting against me, and watched as I explained. “Look at how I have you here. When someone has you like this, the weakest part of the grip is the thumb, okay?”

“Okay…”

“So all you have to do is give your arm a quick twist, toward the thumb, and you’ll come right out of it.” I released her, and offered my own wrist. “Grab me, I’ll show you.”

After a moment of hesitation, she did as instructed, squeezing my wrist as hard as she could. With a quick yank, I was free. “Well, yeah, you can get away. You’re stronger than I am.”

“Has nothing to do with strength. My six-year-old daughter can break away from me like this. You try it.” This time, I simply offered my open hand, waiting for her to place her wrist in it. When she did, I gripped as hard as I could without bruising. “Now, turn toward the thumb.” She did, and I clamped down harder, preventing her escape.

She frowned. “See? You’re too strong.”

“You grab me now.”

“What?”

“Grab me in return, then yank against the thumb. Double the force, see? I promise you, you will come loose.”

“I feel stupid.”

“If I were some crazed stalker, and you had to use this, at the end of the day you’d just feel glad to be alive. Do it.”

Her brow creased in concentration as she jerked against my grasp just like I’d instructed. Her look of amazement was priceless as she freed herself. “I did it!” Then she looked at me suspiciously. “You let me go. It can’t be that easy. Hold tighter this time.”

We practiced a few more times, with me holding her as tightly as I dared. Even then, I could feel the tiny bones in her wrist grinding, and I hoped I wasn’t going to leave a mark. Once she felt she’d mastered that, I showed her a few more. How to get out of a two-handed grab. How to get free from a choke hold from behind. How to get loose from a hold on her hair. She picked it up pretty fast, really. I was kinda impressed if I did say so myself.

“Okay, so…I get loose, then what do I do?” She bounced a little on her toes, grinning at me. “Can you show me how to kick some ass?”

I snorted. “If it comes to you using this to get away from an attacker, you scream your head off and run like hell. That’s the best thing you can do.”

Gretchen pouted, turning on the full force of those deep blue eyes and full lips. “Oh, come on, show me something. Just one punch. Anything.”

I sighed as I debated with myself. When confronted with an attacker, most people are just going to get themselves hurt if they try to fight back. The best thing to do is get away, run to a safe place. Your garden-variety street mugger isn’t going to chase.

Still…I couldn’t deny any woman the right to defend herself. I’d taught Mira. I was slowly teaching Annabelle. First person to lay a hand on one of my girls was gonna be damn sorry.

“Okay. Make a fist for me.” She did, bringing her hands up in a really bad boxer’s stance. “No…thumb on the outside. You punch someone like that, you’ll break your thumb.” Automatically, she corrected herself.

I grabbed her by both wrists, like we’d been rehearsing. “You have choices here. Your best choice is to break the hold and run, like I said. But, you can also do the last thing he expects. You will only get one chance to surprise a man, so you have to make it count. From this position, you can yank him into a head butt.” I demonstrated, slowly. “I advise against this, mostly because you’re gonna knock yourself senseless if you don’t do it right. Still, as a last resort, it’s an option. Aim for the bridge of the nose. Broken and bloody makes it damn hard for a guy to see.

“You can also break the hold”—I slowly walked her through what we’d been practicing—“and then punch. I’d advise going for the throat if you can, or the eyes.” I showed her how to jab with stiff fingers. “If you do it, mean it. Put your shoulder behind it, roll your hips, try to punch through the back of his head. You’re only going to get one shot.”

She watched me intently as I demonstrated, then carefully followed through, copying my motions. Damn, I wished I had more time to really teach her.

“What about kicking him in the nuts?”

I shook my head. “Every man in the world expects a woman to do that. He’ll be ready. If you wanna go that route, you wait until he’s yanked you close in, then grab him where it counts. You have those long fingernails, put them to use. Dig in, twist, turn, try to yank them off. Even through jeans, that’s gonna hurt like a bitch.” Even the idea of it made me wanna cringe and hold myself. “If you have to kick, go for the side of the knee, or rake your shoe down the bony part of his shin. Or even better with the heels you wear, stomp on his foot. It’d be just like stabbing him. Unless he wears steel-toed boots.”

“And then?”

“And then you run, Gretchen. You’re not a superhero, you’re just a woman who wants to live to see the next sunrise. You run like hell and you make as much noise as you can. Understand?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She sulked a little, mostly for show, then brightened. “Okay, let’s do it again.”

I wasn’t sure how long we worked up there in the roof garden, but it was long enough that Tai came looking for us to see what was up. With a bemused smile, he joined in as a target dummy, and even added a few moves of his own, proving that the big man was more than talk. While we were evenly matched in height, he outweighed me by a good chunk, and he was almost as fast. I didn’t like to think what a fight between the two of us would be like. I’d be pretty unhappy running into him in a dark alley, that’s for sure.

Finally, Gretchen declared that she was starving and called a halt to our impromptu class. Despite my late dinner the night before, I was pretty damn hungry myself, but as we rode the elevator down, I had to admit I also felt pretty damn satisfied. Hopefully Tai and Bobby could keep teaching her after I left, and then Gretchen would be able to take care of herself. Somehow, that made me feel better.