With the door swung open wide and the interior lights beaming outward, a man stepped out past me.
He looked down the steps and saw nothing.
He leaned over the rail to the ground, and there was nothing.
Get here, Ridge!
How many times had I sent out that kind of psychic call for action to an Iniquus team member?
It never worked on humans. But Zeus and I communicated in the ether all the time. This time when I sent out my thought waves, Zeus barked his frustration, furious that he couldn’t do just that.
When the man turned to go back in, he focused on the platform outside the door where my shadow stretched.
The guy reached out and grabbed me by my shirt, turning me and thrusting me into the apartment.
The thought that was foremost in my mind was, don’t let him hit you in the head.
A ridiculous concern since he was reaching under his shirt in his back waistband.
A gun?
He now stood between me and the only other exit in this fire hazard of an illegal apartment. With a snarl, he slammed the door shut.
Reaching to the side table, I picked up a drinking glass, half filled with water, and I threw it with all my might at his head. It bounced off and clattered to the floor, leaving a bleeding welt near his temple.
He staggered a foot out to the side to try to regain his balance.
At that moment, I crouched then leaped into the air in a hitch kick, raising a knee to distract him from my true strike.
His hands fumbled wildly behind him for his weapon as my other leg kicked up under his chin. His head snapped back, catching his spine on the metal coat hook.
He crumpled to the ground.
I stepped forward, stomping on his crotch with vicious heel strikes. If he came to, I didn’t want him to be able to stand. He lay right in front of the door where Ridge and Zeus needed to enter.
I reached for the guy’s pants to turn him and get to his weapon when his buddy emerged from the bathroom. “What the—” Instead of finishing the sentence, he roared.
This guy was a monster. His bald head dissolved into a tree trunk of a neck. Tattoos covered most of his visible skin. He wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and jeans. His biker boots had studs that could do immense damage.
Intimidating as hell.
Holy cow, but he was big.
Protect your head was the marginally helpful phrase circulating through my mind, taking up strategic space. I worked to cast it off. To focus. Concentrate. Plan my moves and execute them.
He dragged a knife from the holster on his hip.
All right, here we go. My brain shifted gears pressing the fear to the side, moving me to the chess board. It was all about thinking. Strategy. Interpreting his upcoming moves so they could be thwarted or used to my advantage.
This was what I trained to do since I was five years old and started my daily private lessons with Master Wang.
Stepping back, I snatched off my t-shirt, hoping that such a bizarre choice would buy me a moment of goon brain stutter.
Loose T-shirts were a liability, I had found. They gave the bad guy something to grip and hold me with. And a T-shirt was its own kind of weapon. I whipped it out, stinging the guy across the eyes. It was enough that I could safely take two steps forward, wrapping the cloth around his wrist gaining some control of his knife-hand.
With a quick twist and tug to lock his arm out, I tried to break his elbow by dragging his arm down as I raised my knee.
No go.
He was a behemoth.
But with a second try at jamming his elbow into my knee strike, the knife spiraled through the air. With my peripheral vision, I tried to keep track of where it landed. It needed to be in my hand, not his.
I flicked the t-shirt again and again at his face.
Irritation, possibly some loss of immediate vision, I was merely trying to keep him away until Zeus could get a bite in.
This last swipe, he grabbed the hem of the shirt.
With his size, and the close confines of the room, honestly, all I could do was try to keep him off mental equilibrium.
Pulling on the T-shirt, I spun into him, lifted my foot, and grazed the edge of my tennis shoe down his shin, an excruciating strike that lights up the nerves up and down the leg. Right leg, his dominant leg, based on the side he carried his knife.
Slamming my heel into his toes, I fisted my hand, dropping it over the back of my shoulder, so my elbow strike hit him under the chin.
I needed to get his jawbone out of the way.
My next strike was a punch to the throat.
Chugging air past his collapsing windpipe, the ogre snatched the T-shirt from my grasp and wrapped it around my throat, pulling me up against his chest. This time, there would be no headbutts and broken noses. Not only would that be a strike to my head, but the man was just too tall. He wasn’t in my striking range.
I could hear Zeus outside frantically barking.
Ridge’s shoulder was hitting against the door.
The ogre lifted me off my feet.
The worst thing I could do is try to wrestle with the cloth.
I reached over my head, trying to press my thumbs into his sockets to dislodge his eyeballs. Or maybe just inflict enough pain that he’d give me a little breathing room.
Not working…try…something else.
Reaching
