The big one swings again, wild now, panicked. I block it with my forearm and snap a short, clean punch into his jaw. His head whips sideways. He stumbles into the railing and slides down it.
Red Carhartt is back up, half-bent, cursing. He throws himself at me in a tackle. I sidestep, grab the back of his jacket, and use his own momentum to drive him face-first into the wall. He bounces off the cinder block and crumples.
The two by the door haven’t moved. Their hands are up now, palms out.
That should be the end of it. Four guys, two down, two surrendering. Walk away.
But something hot is still buzzing through my veins, and it takes me a second to name it. Not anger. Not adrenaline.
Satisfaction.
The fighting feels good. Easy and natural. Like stretching a muscle I didn’t know was cramped. My heart rate is barely elevated. I could do this for hours.
Then red Carhartt groans and tries to push himself up on one elbow. “The fuck is your problem?” he slurs. “You’re nobody.”
I’m on him before he gets his arm straight, and the sick thing is, I’m glad he gave me a reason.
Knee on his back, fist in his collar, hauling him over and pinning him flat. The first punch lands on his cheekbone and I feel skin split under my knuckles. The second catches his mouth. The third I don’t even aim. The fourth opens something up above hiseye, and blood runs into his lashes, and my arm keeps going. Drawing back, driving down. His head snaps sideways and I grab his chin and turn it back because I’m not done.
It’s not training anymore. It’s every image that just ripped through my skull. My father’s voice sayingenemy. Natalia’s photo on that desk. The shrug.She’s a nobody.The shame of standing in that room with nothing to offer. The fact that I didn’t wash up here by accident. The reason I came here that I can almost taste but can’t swallow.
His nose gives under my knuckle with a wet crack. He stopped fighting two hits ago. Maybe three. The guys by the door are shouting but their voices are coming through water. My arm draws back again. I can feel how easy the next one would be. One clean shot to his temple and he’s not getting back up. Maybe ever.
And I want to.
That’s what stops me, finally. Not the blood. Not their shouting. The wanting.
My fist hovers, shaking. His chest is still moving. Barely.
I shove off him and stagger backward until my shoulders hit the railing. The two bystanders scramble forward, drag their buddies up, and haul them through the door without a word. No threats. No promises to call the cops. They saw what I did, how easily I did it, and they want no part of the conversation that comes next.
The door swings shut behind them and the silence rushes in. I look down at my hands.
Split knuckles on the right. A scrape across the left. Already swelling. The pain is there but it’s distant, like my body’s decided it doesn’t rank high enough to register. The blood drying between my fingers doesn’t bother me either.
That’s the problem.
None of this bothers me. Not the violence, not the ease of it, not the dark thrill still humming through my nervous system. My hands aren’t shaking from fear. They’re shaking because stopping took more effort than any of the punches did.
I lean against the railing and stare at nothing until it sharpens into the ocean. A pelican dives into the gray chop beyond the dunes. Comes up empty. Circles to try again.
I finally start the walk back, my split knuckles throbbing in time with my heartbeat. The wind cuts through my shirt and the sand shifts under my feet.
Natalia worries about what her brother might do to me. She thinks the biggest danger in her life is the family she was born into.
She’s wrong. It’s walking itself home to her now.
13
JOHNNY
My knuckles have gone stiff,the skin pulling tight where it’s starting to swell.
But right now, walking back toward the beach house with sand grinding under my borrowed flip-flops, all I feel is the hum. That low-frequency buzz in my blood that saysyou know how to do thisandyou’ve always known how to do thisandstop pretending you don’t like it.
The beach house sits pale against the late afternoon glare, and I slow my pace to buy time. I need to look like a guy who went for a walk, not a guy who left someone choking on his own blood behind a bar.
I flex my right hand and watch the cuts pull apart, fresh red welling along the ridges. I should feel something about that. Disgust, maybe. Shame. Instead there’s just the hum, steady and warm, like a motor idling in my chest.
