“Fucker,” I yelled, observing Max’s twitching body on the TV room carpet.
The man garbed in black, a black balaclava concealing his face, aimed the Taser at me. Charging at full speed, I backhanded the Taser from his hand before he pulled the trigger. It bounced off the carpet somewhere behind me, then I punched him across his jaw.
He stumbled back but recovered far faster than I’d anticipated. He yanked a long knife from the small of his back, and now I was on the defensive. The dude was maybe ex-military, or an MMA fighter, for he was fast and light on his feet. He swung the blade in short arcs, never leaving himself open for attack.
Forced to leap back, I ducked and dodged the knife, the intruder advancing on me with icy, cold gray eyes above the balaclava. He gave me no opportunity to find a weapon of my own –
Until I stumbled over the fireplace tools.
I sucked my gut inward, feeling the blade slice a thin groove across my belly. Spinning, I bent and seized the first object that came to my hand. The broom I’d used to clean the ashes from the hearth. I didn’t care that it was a damn broom. The long handle was made of solid steel, and I blocked his nextswing with it. I heard a muffled curse from behind the black cloth, then attacked. Swinging in short arcs as he had, I both blocked his weapon and aimed to either hit him on the head or his wrist, whichever came first.
If I got him to drop the knife, I might just win this fight.
Unfortunately, he was a better fighter than I was.
I swung hard at his head. In a lightning-fast move, he grabbed the handle and tugged. I didn’t let go, of course, but the brief tug threw me off balance. His returning slice went for my throat. I both dodged it and threw my arm up in a defensive move – and his blade slashed deeply into my forearm.
I cried out at the sudden, burning pain, stumbling into the sofa’s back. Bleeding profusely, I tried to ignore the wound as the intruder came at me again, knife lifted for the killing blow.
With my back to the couch, I was trapped.
His body suddenly jerked.
A grunt emerged from behind the balaclava.
He fell to his knees, the knife skittering from his hand.
Jacy advanced on him, her mouth a grim slash across her face, the Taser aimed at the dude. He half-lifted his right arm in a gesture of surrender, pleading, perhaps, for her not to hit him again. She paused, a short distance away, and glanced at me, the blood gushing from my arm.
“Are you –” she began.
The intruder lunged at her from his knees, dashing the Taser from her hand. Jacy cried out, the Taser flying across the room. Without either weapon, the dude staggered to his feet, then ran, limping, for the front door. Unable to pursue him in my current state of going into shock, I merely watched as he yanked it open and vanished into the night.
“Shit,” Jacy yelled.
She seized the Taser and ran after him.
My vision blurry, my head spinning, feeling that I should sit and put my head between my knees, I couldn’t call her back. I made my way to the kitchen, flipped on the light, trailing blood across the carpet and flooring. Grabbing a towel, I wrapped my arm in it and pressed tightly. I managed to sit at the table just as Jacy ran back in.
“He’s gone,” she snapped. “Why didn’t the Taser knock him out?”
Unable to speak, I couldn’t tell her that in some instances, a Taser does little good. For another, he could have had training in which he’d been Tased over and over. Instead of telling her this, I hung my head and hoped I wouldn’t pass out.
“You need an ambulance.”
Garbed in her shirt and undies, she dodged around the kitchen, searching for a cell. Ours were upstairs, charging and unavailable. Jacy seized another towel, then unwrapped the soaked one I had. She rewrapped it and put pressure on the wound herself.
“This isn’t good,” she stated. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
I slowly shook my head. “No. Hospital.”
“You’re bleeding out,” she cried.
“No. It. Will. Stop.”
Already, I felt the blood flow slow to a trickle. The towel soaked it up thirstily but kept much of its original color. The urge to faint passed gradually, and my mind cleared once it was gone. I breathed deeply, but the burning agony didn’t cease with my blood flow.
“Dad!”
