One that spelled out his next step.
James ran out of the bathroom and dropped Rose onto the bed. She was still coughing as she looked up at him, red eyes wide.
“Phone’s in my room,” was all he said.
Then he went back into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him.
He locked it.
The man who had dared to lay a hand on Rose was getting to his feet.
His eyes widened too.
James smiled.
“I’m no unsuspecting woman in a bathtub but I sure hope you won’t mind fighting me.”
He didn’t know if the man had a weapon hidden in his clothes but didn’t give him a chance to grab for any. He was on the stranger in a few steps. He threw a hit the second he was close enough.
The man didn’t dodge it, but he did block. That was the same for the next few hits James tried to land. He was hoping for a knockout punch but instead he was bruising the man’s forearms and sides.
Which was fine by him.
They were still hits. He was still damaging the body, even if he wasn’t hitting his target.
The man must have realized that too. He took achance and dropped low. James’s fist hit empty air. It left an opening that allowed the other man to spring up and across at him.
His shoulder connected with James’s ribs.
It made him stagger back.
The other man must have thought this was a winning move. The beginning to an end he surely wanted.
But James had been through worse in his life, even before the bomb in the auto shop.
His life had built him up to one truth.
Heendured.
James tightened the muscles in his legs and did a move he had only ever seen used once. He left his face and chest open and grabbed each of the man’s biceps in his hands. James pushed the man away from him but didn’t let go.
It created obvious confusion in the assailant.
James gritted his teeth.
He didn’t need to land a punch to knock someone out.
Instead, he could simply use his head.
And he did.
James slammed his head against the man’s without mercy. The man could no more dodge the hit than he could block it. Pain exploded behind James’s eyes and his vision spotted.
But he stayed standing.
The other man did not.
His body went limp in James’s hands.
