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AS WE ROUNDED THE CORNER and made it into the parking lot, I knew that they probably thought we were safe. But I knew better. The other day, they’d confronted me right there, right in sight of cameras and people and everything. They didn’t care if people saw. They only cared that their message got across.
Passing onto the pavement of the parking lot, Kevin and Emma slowed down, and I skidded to a stop to say something when I noticed what was ahead of me. Three shadowy figures, one of them already moving my way. I shoved Lila toward Kevin and turned to face them, standing on my feet in defiance. One of them, the one that was already moving, was coming around one side, and I braced myself for whatever was going to happen. If it stayed only fists, I had a chance.
A blur passed me, and the sound of two bodies smashing into each other filled the air. I looked down to see Kevin tackling one of them and heard a moan rumble out of him as he was crushed under Kevin’s weight. Kevin was already back to his feet, squaring off against one of the others, leaving the bald one for me.
It was on.
I jumped into action, the flurry of punches being swung from me, the bald one, Kevin, and the other guy. I could hear the tell-tale sound of a body losing all its breath as Kevin smashed the other guy in the stomach while I ducked a punch from the bald guy.
One of the few advantages, and there were only a couple, of having my parents was that Dad had taught me to fight at a young age. He was actually a pretty talented boxer when he was young, and I got a good education in how to punch and not hurt myself and how to duck and move.
The bald one’s fist sailed over my head as I bobbed to the left and thew out a hook that hit him under the arm. It was an old trick, and one that Dad had taught me early. One of the best ways to win a fight is to take out their arms. They can’t punch you if they can’t swing. Hitting him under his swinging arm, in the right place, would send a shock to the nerves down his shoulder and arm.
I heard the punch land, and he groaned in pain. I took the chance to step forward, swinging my right elbow into his jaw. He stumbled back and fell on his ass. The first guy was back up, and I heard him running before I saw him. He was heading for Kevin, a lead pipe in one hand. I rushed over, jumping up with my knee and slamming into him. It knocked him off course a few steps as I scrambled back to my feet.
Now he was aiming for me. He was running, holding his pipe up in the air, leaving me with the only options of trying to avoid it or catch it. Neither one was going to work well. I waited until the last possible second to move, and before I did, he suddenly fell forward, crumpling onto the ground. Shocked, I looked up to see Lila, her body in a pitching stance and a heavy rock tumbling on the ground between her and the guy with the pipe.
She had nailed him in the back of the head.
As he lay groaning at my feet, I smiled at her, but she wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes had moved to the ground, looking for something else she could launch.
The guy Kevin was fighting had somehow shoved him into the wall and hit him low. Kevin was crumpled, and the guy was taking potshots at his face. Most of them were missing, hitting him in the chest or shoulder, but it was enough to do some damage. I charged at him, knocking him off Kevin and going right into fisticuffs with him.
A blow glanced off my eye, and the blood that had stopped in my nose started again as he doubled up and hit me right on the bridge. It sprayed everywhere, all over my shirt and even onto his. In the flashing light of the overhead streetlamp, I could see him grin.
I went to a knee, but it was on purpose. As he came forward, I launched up and into his stomach, spearing him into the car behind him. An alarm started to sound, and I thought they would leave in a hurry, but it just made it worse.
The bald guy jumped back into the fray, double-teaming me as I tried to fight off the other one. Lead pipe guy was lost somewhere, and I didn’t know where he had gone. Kevin was shaking off the blows against the wall, wiping a bit of blood off his cheek, and then he tore toward me, pulling one guy off me with one hand and shoving him away.
I reached up with my legs, wrapping the bald one in a triangle choke and trying to pull him down. His free arm started wailing punches into my thigh, enough to loosen my grip before I could get him down and he was able to wiggle out.
“You motherfucker,” he shouted, diving on top of me and sending a right cross over my jaw.
For a moment, everything went dim, bright pinpoint lights flashing in my vision.
But the bald guy was winded, and he tried to catch his breath for a moment as I rolled to my side. He raised his body up and was pelted by something white and heavy that smashed him in the back from Lila’s direction.
“Someone get that bitch,” the voice of another one said, and I frantically searched for the one with the pipe. I thought he had been knocked out, but now he was gone.
“Touch her and you’re dead,” I said, kicking at the bald one until he was off of me and I could get to my knee.
“You’re the one who’s fucking dead, Freeman,” the bald one said, rolling to his side and holding his face which was now bleeding. “We told you a deposit. Tonight. And you went dancing. You’re a dumb fuck, just like your old man.”
“I am nothing like him,” I said, scrambling over to him and sending a right across his chin. He slumped under me, and I wound back for another. And another. And another.
“Gav!” Kevin’s voice shouted behind me, but it was no use. I was seeing red.
“I am nothing like him, do you hear me?” I shouted as I rained down shot after shot, aiming for the side of his eye socket. It was another trick I had learned early. If they can’t see you, they can’t hit you.
Dad had said that.
And now I was on top of another person, hitting them just like he’d taught me. In the spot he taught me.
“Do you hear me?” I roared, stopping the last punch before it fell on him.
There was silence for a moment. I looked up at one of the other men, sitting on his ass between me and Lila, holding his arms over his head as Lila was paused in the pitching position. Kevin was leaning against a car, on one knee. Emma was hiding behind Lila. And a man was below me, mostly unconscious, and his blood was all over my hands.
The blood was on my hands now, I thought. Literally.
This was my problem now.
“Gavin,” Kevin said. “I think he gets the point, boss.”
“Do you?” I thundered, the anger still searing in my chest like a fiery burning ring of hatred. I hated this. I hated fighting in a parking lot like so many of Dad’s own stories. I hated cleaning up his mess. I hated him.
I hated myself.
“Yes,” the crumpled, bloody mass of a human below me said. “Just get off me.”
“You get the fucking point?” I thundered again, unsatisfied. “I am not my father. You want something from him, you get it from fucking him. I don’t pay his bills. Got it?” I grabbed the shirt of the man below me and shook, his limp head scraping the concrete below. “Got it?”
“Yes,” he spat, blood coming from his lips and hitting my chin. “I got it.”
“Now get the fuck out of here,” I said.
Slowly, I stood, still not trusting him. He crawled a few feet, meeting the other one halfway and looking back.
“You got spirit, kid,” the bald one said. “You’re right. You aren’t like your old man. You’re a better fighter than he is.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Just go. Get out of here. And leave me and my friends alone.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, getting to his feet. He shot off a mock salute, grinning with a mouth full of broken teeth. “Just one more thing.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’re right-handed, right?”
I scrunched up my face in confusion. What kind of question was that?
“Yeah,” I said, opening my mouth to say something else.
“GAVIN!” Kevin’s voice boomed.
But it was too late. The entirety of all sound in my mind was filled with the crunch of a lead pipe crushing into my right shoulder. It felt like someone had sawn it off, and yet the nerves were still out, being tortured while the arm hung limply. I cried out in pain and went down to a knee. The person behind me clearly thought I was done, and in a last bit of anger, a last bit of fury, I jumped up, smashing the top of my head into his chin.
He went down below me as I fell with the momentum on top of him. He was out cold. The pipe clanged on the ground and rolled under a car as I went onto my back, holding my limp arm to my side.
“Fucking hell,” Kevin said. “Get out of here, now! Now!”
The bald one and the other ran forward, looking cautiously at Kevin and back at Lila, who now had a selection of heavy things to fling. They looped the unconscious pipe-swinger’s arms over their shoulders and began to hurry out. The bald one was laughing.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered, pushing my back against a car as Kevin stepped between me and the fleeing bikers.
I heard the clatter of rocks hitting the ground, and suddenly Lila was beside me. She knelt down, and I watched as her eyes roamed all around me, unsure of what injury to pay attention to most. Or first. I was sure there was a lot of them.
“Your arm!” Emma said, joining her. “Oh shit, your pitching arm!”
“They’re gone,” Kevin said. “At least for now. Let’s get inside.” He turned toward me, and our eyes met after he got a look at my arm. “Oh fuck, Gav, that’s not good. That’s really not good.”
“I know,” I said. “It hurts like hell.”
“I fucking bet,” he said. “Let’s get you inside.”
“To my room,” Lila said, interrupting us. “Get him to my room. They don’t know me, and they don’t know what room I’m staying in. Come on.”
“Good call,” Kevin said. “Bro, can you walk?”
“My legs are fine,” I said. “I just need help getting up.”
Kevin reached down and hooked his giant hand in my belt buckle and looked me direct in the eyes.
“On three. One. Two. Three.”
He pulled, and I straightened my legs. Kevin got me to my feet in one tug.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he said. “I’d do this for you any day of the week, seven times a week, you know that.”
“Let’s go in the side door,” Emma said, rushing ahead of us. “If we walk in the lobby, people will have questions I’m not sure you want to answer.”
“Smart,” I said, trying to ignore the pain. “Lila, can you go with her and just make sure we have a clear path to the stairwell and then to your room?”
“Done,” she said, rushing ahead. “Kevin, I’ll wave you in.”
“Got it,” he said.
With that, they rushed inside, and I leaned my good arm against the wall. Blood smeared on it from my forehead, and I groaned.
Then Kevin laughed. And laughed and laughed. It got louder and heavier, and as I turned my face toward him in frustration and horror, I found to my shock that I was laughing too.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. “Son of a bitch that was a scrap.”
