“Right in this filthy parking lot,” Cole growled, raising his fist high overhead. “Behind this stupid, shitty bar…”
Hayden raised her tiny arm, defensively. Just as Cole’s fist came down…
“NOOOOO!”
But with the heavy thud of flesh against flesh, something blocked it.
~ 55 ~
HAYDEN
Cole’s fist was so big it eclipsed all the rest of the world. It swung upward, slinging away the rain, then came down with all the force and fury of a man who’d completely, utterly snapped.
Wincing, I braced myself for the strike…
But the strike never came.
Crack!
When I looked up again there was an arm outstretched, between Cole and myself. It was thin, but sinewy. Pale, and even wrinkled, but also improbably strong.
I gasped in amazement. The arm belonged to the old man who’d sat, for all these weeks, at the end of the bar.
The arm belonged to Grizz.
“You fucked up,” Grizz said quietly.
And then he began to move.
The first strikes were a complete blur. Cole’s face registered the same levels of shock that mine did as Grizz delivered a vicious flurry of rights and lefts. I heard his nose crack, then watched it explode in a fountain of blood. The rain washed it down his stupid, surprised face, as Grizz continued to pound on him. It wasn’t until he’d completely fallen back, pushing the old man away, that he was able to finally compose himself.
Cole wiped his face with the back of one arm, snarling down at all the blood. Then he fell into his fighting stance, bouncing gently, and surged forward with murder in his eyes.
It didn’t matter. For every punch Grizz dodged, he returned two or three of his own. He moved skillfully, fluidly, like a man in his 20’s instead of the wily old veteran that he was. His return strikes didn’t just connect, either. They were absolutely devastating. They cracked Cole’s jaw, rattled his teeth, shattered his already broken nose. Whenever Cole fell backward, Grizz leapt forward and pounded him in the stomach. Whenever he doubled over, the old man shot him in the face with a swift, merciless knee.
This happened again and again, with the old man grinning the whole time. It was like he’d fallen back into his past; to a time where he was young and lethal and wholly indestructible. He was reliving his training; moving effortlessly and with deadly efficiency as he completely dismantled his enemy’s defenses.
And he was ruthless, too. Chasing his quarry around the parking lot, Grizz didn’t let up. His strikes came in faster and harder and with more precision. As I watched, Cole’s expression turned from rage to surprise to absolute panic. A dozen strikes later, there was terror in his eyes. But his eyes were all I could see, because there so much blood I could no longer make out his ruined face.
Eventually, exhaustion set in. Cole fell forward one last time, and Grizz flung himself onto his back. He snaked one arm around Cole’s thick neck, and used the other as a fulcrum to squeeze tightly. The choke sank deeper, Cole’s eyes bulging wildly as the two of them fell to the ground.
“GRIZZ!”
Sawyer was up again. So was Bodie. They rushed over to where Grizz was just about ready to decapitate his foe. Already Cole’s arms had gone limp. The fire — and everything else with it — had completely gone out of his eyes.
“Holy shit, Grizz! What the—”
“Say the word, and I snap his neck.”
The words dropped icily from the old man’s cracked lips. The corded arms he had locked around Cole’s throat shifted like a snake, coiling even more tightly.
Carter had somehow dragged himself over. Now on one knee, he held out a trembling hand.
“Grizz, no…” he choked.
“Are you sure?” the old man growled. “He’s not going to stop,” Grizz said coldly. “He’s going to keep coming back for you, again and again.”
His cat appeared nearby, its eyes glinting in the rain-soaked shadows. Sawyer and Carter just looked at each other. Bodie was still holding his head.
