But it’s not the twenty-first!
Fight, I needed to fight. But I was expecting to punch forward. To squat, block, jab. Now I was left with self-defense 101, trying to stomp on my attacker’s instep, kick back into a kneecap. Hurt him, incapacitate him. Do something so that he’d have to let go.
Barking. Tulip, running around our feet, leash trailing.
Hands still squeezing, white spots appearing in front of my eyes.
Forgetting to stomp, to fight. Succumbing to panic and clawing futilely at the fingers at my throat, as if that would make a difference.
So this is how Randi had felt. This is how Jackie had felt.
Such a crushing weight against my chest. The desire, the urge to breathe was so primal, so hardwired that the lack of oxygen led to the most peculiar kind of pain. As if I could feel the cells in my body dying one by one, screaming out their last desperate seconds.
Baby, crying down the hall.
I know, I know. I should’ve told. I should’ve.
I was crying. He was killing me, and instead of fighting back, I was weighed down with old regrets. The baby I’d failed. The mother I’d let hurt me. The friends I’d loved with all my heart and buried one by one.
Tulip barking, then suddenly, a yelp of pain. He’d kicked her. My attacker had hurt my dog.
That pissed me off.
I sagged. In a dimly remembered move from so many rounds of training, I stopped surging up with my legs and turned myself into dead weight instead. The sudden shift of my knees giving out threw my attacker off balance. He lurched forward, and I immediately countered by planting my feet and using my attacker’s own weight to flip him over my head.
Then, I was on him. I kicked at his ribs, punched his unprotected head. This wasn’t boxing. This was street fighting. I inhaled ragged, desperate gasps of air into my searing lungs as I kicked and jabbed and chased my killer across the snowy ground.
My attacker rolled, forearms over his face as he quickly put distance between us in order to regain his footing.
No way. Not gonna happen. If he got up, no doubt he was gonna be bigger and stronger than me, with maybe a knife or gun or other tricks up his sleeve. So I had to keep him down, where I could loom over him, where I was the biggest badass in town.
I continued to chase. He rolled, at one point made it up onto all fours, but I rewarded his efforts with such a devastating kick to the ribs, he collapsed and scuttled sideways.
He kept his head down, protecting his face, but also making it hard to read his intent. Thus, he managed to surprise me when I lashed out again and his left hand came up lightning fast, grabbed my foot, and jerked hard.
I toppled back, landing with a crack on my right hip. But even gasping in pain, I had the presence of mind to kick with my other foot, dislodging my first leg from his hand. Now we were both on all fours on the frozen ground, scrambling around each other.
Tulip circled as well, no longer barking but whining and uncertain. I couldn’t risk looking at her or our surroundings. I should probably scream, call for help. We were just off the street. It was after 9 A.M.; even on the outskirts of the city no place is ever completely deserted.
But I couldn’t make a sound. My blood rushed in my ears, I could hear the hoarse sound of my own breath. But I couldn’t even whisper. My vocal cords were locked, frozen.
In the horror movies, the plucky victim always screams her terror. In real life, we are more likely to die in silence.
I got my feet under me at the same time he got his. I bounced up, fisted hands up, proper fighting stance finally established, just as my attacker squared off against me.
And I found myself staring into the weather-beaten face of my shooting instructor, J. T. Dillon.
“I GIVE YOU A C,” he said. He straightened, hands dropping to his side.