Don’t do it. Don’t follow him, I think frantically. Other than me, that light is her only hope.
“I’m going to run away,” she threatens. “I’ll scream.”
He looks mildly amused, raising his brow. “That will save you only in the meantime. I guarantee you’ll be dead before you get back to your apartment.”
She’s hesitating. I know she wants to look for me, but that would be a giveaway.
“I’m not moving,” she finally says, but she doesn’t sound as determined as before. “I gave you the money. We have nothing more to discuss.”
I’m holding my breath, ready to spring into action if needed. I don’t stand a chance against this guy normally, but he doesn’t know I’m here, and if I can catch him off guard . . .
“Fair enough,” Jones says. He gives her a nod and then turns around, walking away toward the street, in the opposite direction he came. “Hopefully our paths won’t cross again.”
Seraphine watches him go, tense and unmoving, until it looks like Jones has disappeared behind the wall that runs along the garden.
Then she carefully looks around for me.
Just in case Jones isn’t out of earshot, I don’t want to call to her and draw attention to myself, so as she walks away from the light and farther into the trees, I stand up and hurry through the bushes to her. My plan is to grab her hand, and we’ll run to where I was dropped off, head a good distance away before we call for a ride.
But just as I’m about to break through the bushes into the clearing where she is, two men emerge from the trees, one from the side of her, the other from the front.
She lets out a cry of shock, and then she realizes as quickly as I do that these aren’t random men. Both are tall, dressed head to toe in black, with close-cropped hair, blank faces you couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
Much like Jones.
Disciples of his.
The first man reaches for Seraphine, and she opens her mouth to scream, but then the other clamps his hand around her mouth. They both pull her back into the trees as she’s kicking and trying to free herself.
I don’t think.
I just move.
In seconds, I’m at them.
I get to the first guy at her side, winding up for a lead hook that I know will only get his attention. I punch the side of his face, getting his cheekbone. Because I surprised him by coming out of nowhere, he drops Seraphine and is slow to face me, so I get him at the back of his knee with a fake low kick that brings his attention down to the ground, then I pivot around in a circle with my other leg out, striking him with a high kick to his chest.
He doubles over, but I’m already moving past him and bringing my forearms up to block the fists of the other attacker, parrying against him and protecting my head as he swings. He’s bigger, so one hit nearly sends me flying, the world growing darker for just a second, but I come back at him with an uppercut, striking his jaw before I slip out to the side.
I’m rusty, and I know that the element of surprise has already worn off. I haven’t practiced in a while, though when I was living in Thailand, Muay Thai had become like my religion.
But back then I was lost and looking for something to sustain me.
Now I’m fueled by anger.
The purest, most devastating power there is.
I don’t even feel much pain as the other guy comes at me from behind, clocking me on the back of the head.
I fall to the ground but land in a plank position, and I’m able to spring to my feet just out of the way of one of their kicks.
“Run for help!” I manage to say to Seraphine, who is scrambling to get up, free of their grasp. But focusing on her has taken my focus off them.
The other guy gets me right across the face with an elbow strike, and that’s when I know he knows Muay Thai too. Of course he does—every guy now wants to be the next MMA fighter.
Blood is running into my eyes, pouring from my head where I know he’s split the skin, and though my world is wavering from the hit, my instincts are still right on the money.
I duck another hit, then jump backward, getting enough power through my shuffle to strike a knee right under his rib cage.
He gasps, doubling over, but doesn’t fall.
So close.
Before the other guy can come at me, I slip left and then deliver a palm strike to the same spot where my knee hit him, clinch my knee up into the same area, almost a bull’s-eye; then, while he’s winding up to hit, I quickly place my hands against his chest, pushing back to give myself enough room, and go in for a head kick, striking him full force against the side of his face.
He whirls around from the kick, almost a one-eighty, blood spraying from his mouth, and he goes down to the ground on his knees.
If I’m going to get out of this at all, I have to take one of them out, unconscious, because I can’t keep fighting two guys at once. I am good, but together they’re better.
I leap into the air and bring my body weight down with my elbow to strike right where his neck meets his shoulder, knowing that will put him out, but just as I make contact and feel the tendons on his shoulders snap, I’m tackled from the side.
This is the bigger guy, the guy who can take a beating, and he’s straddling me, striking his elbow against my solar plexus repeatedly until I can’t breathe. When my instincts seem to dry up, I try to remember my training on how to get out of a maneuver, knowing I have to twist my body, and when his hands go for my neck, squeezing tight enough to break my windpipe, I think I might be able to twist free and do an elbow strike to his face, but then my thoughts slow.
There’s no more air left in me.
It was a race to see if he could weaken me before I could fight back, and I think I’m . . . I think I’m . . .
Hold on, hold on, don’t close your eyes.
The blackness is coming for me, right from the trees, like a phantom.
“Stop it!” Seraphine’s voice comes through the darkness, and I know I have to fight back for her. I know that if I die, she’ll be left with them. She probably won’t survive. They’ll probably rape her, torture her, and I’ll have to die knowing that my own father had this ordered.
And this guy doesn’t care that she’s yelling. He doesn’t hear what she’s saying.
She’s saying . . .
“I’m going to blow your fucking brains out!”
He doesn’t hear that.
But I do.
With what little strength I have left, I tilt my head to the side to see Seraphine holding a gun with both hands, aimed at my attacker.
She glances at me quickly, and there is so much fear in her eyes that I’m not sure she’ll be able to do it.
But she does.
She pulls the trigger and there’s a blast of light, and she’s thrown back a step and the guy screams, right above me, blood splashing on my face.
He lets go of my throat and falls over, screaming, holding on to the side of his neck.
She didn’t blow his brains out, but she did a lot of damage.
I don’t even have the strength to wonder where the gun came from; all I can do is focus on getting enough air back into my lungs to get out of this situation.
“What have I done?” Seraphine says, clearly in shock.
I manage to get to my knees, eyes closed, breathing in and out as much as I can, ignoring the pain in my throat, and then her hands are under my arms, trying to haul me to my feet.