The drunk’s hand remained clenched on the front of his pants. But his leer, which had frozen into a rictus of confusion, transformed to a snarl.
“Listings,” said Evan. He didn’t know what else he was going to say, what else he could say, but he felt like he should say something.
He suspected if he saw a tidal wave rushing down the center of Los Angeles, he’d probably feel the same urge to speak. And that it would probably have the same lack of effect.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hit him,” said Listings. For a moment Evan dared to hope that they might get out of here without things turning violent. Then her smile widened – bad to worse – and she turned back to the drunk and said, “That would be animal cruelty.”
The drunk’s snarl rippled over his entire body. His muscles clenched and he seemed to grow three inches in every direction.
Evan moved. Too slow. By the time he was up, by the time he had moved into position, it had already happened.
The drunk growled, sounding like a wounded animal that had turned deadly in the depths of its pain. He flung himself forward, moving faster than Evan expected. Not just big, not just strong, but agile.
He swung a fist the size of a radiator at Listings.
Evan’s breath caught in his throat.
Don’t kill him, Listings.
Listings moved like a drop of water skittering across a hot stove top. Evan could barely see her, she was so fast. One moment she was right in the path of the fist, the next… gone.
The drunk seemed as shocked as Evan at Listings’ apparent magic act. She hadn’t moved until the last second, the very final moment before he pummeled her out of existence. Now the momentum behind his punch combined with his inebriation to drive him stumbling forward.
The drunk slipped. Slammed face-first into the bar.
Crunch.
Evan winced as he heard the unmistakable sound of bones breaking. Hopefully just a nose.
The drunk slid to the floor between the stools that Evan and Listings had been sitting on a moment ago. His hand covered his face, and his eyes seemed to be spinning independently. He moaned, then slipped a bit lower.
“Dammit, Listings,” said Evan.
“What?” A few locks of Listings’ long brown hair had managed to pull loose from the rest of her mane. She pushed them back into place impatiently. “I didn’t touch him. He slipped.”
She bent over the drunk. Evan considered pointing out the fact that she had definitely arranged the circumstances so slipping would be a bit more likely, but decided it wouldn’t do anything helpful and shut his mouth.
After five years with Listings, Evan had decided that a good partnership, like a good marriage, was often a matter of just shutting up and letting your significant other do whatever the hell she was going to do. He’d be there if anyone needed help. If not, he’d be there, too. Either way, getting in front of Listings was not a healthy idea.
“Come on, Betty Ford,” said Listings. “Up you go.”
The drunk continued his struggle to get both eyes pointed in one direction as he said, “Who you callin’ Betty?”
He swiped at Listings with one blood-spattered hand. She dodged easily, but her face darkened and her smile returned. “You just don’t learn, do you?”
“Listings, don’t –“
Listings wasn’t listening at all now. That the drunk had come on to her and accosted her was one thing. That he had tried to hit her after she had beaten him would be seen as unforgiveable.
Evan started trying to figure out which was the closest hospital with an emergency room.
Listings raised her fist. It was a small fist, but painfully angular, and several of the knuckles had rows of scars that attested to the fights she’d been in over the years. Evan didn’t move to stop his partner now… not because he didn’t have time, but because he genuinely didn’t want to find out what a coma felt like.
Listings’ hand dropped. Fast as a hornet, so fast Evan could almost hear the air split around it.
But it didn’t connect.
Evan felt like the world, spinning along in its predictable if generally horrible way, had suddenly reversed course. He had seen Listings in a lot of fights. He had never seen her fail to connect with something she tried to hit.
It wasn’t that she missed, per se. It wasn’t as though the drunk managed to slide away from her attack, to dodge her punch as she had dodged his only a moment ago.
No, something – someone – had stopped her. A hand had wrapped around her forearm, stalling her forward momentum, cutting off the attack before it could begin.
Listings looked over her shoulder at the stranger, her anger at the drunk transmuting into rage that someone would touch her.
“Let go of me,” she said.