He lunges.
I've been riding two-thousand-pound bulls since I was a teenager. I've been hit, stomped, thrown, and trampled by animals that weigh ten times what this man weighs. A guy with a knife in an alley doesn't scare me. It pisses me off.
I sidestep the blade. Grab his wrist with my left hand and twist. The knife clatters against the ground. Before he can pull back, I drive my right fist into his jaw. His head snaps sideways. I hit him again. Same spot. Then his ribs. Then his stomach.
He doubles over, and I grab the back of his head and bring my knee up into his face. The crack echoes off the alley walls.
He hits the ground.
And something inside me breaks open.
Every sleepless night. Every unanswered text. Every morning that I wake up reaching for someone who isn't there. The sedan. The SUV. The feeling of being hunted on my own land. Paulie’s death. Harper in LA, married to a man who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her. The future I can't see. All of it, every ounce of rage and grief and loneliness I've been swallowing for weeks, it fucking explodes.
I grab him by the collar and hit him again. And again. My knuckles split on his teeth, and I don't feel it. Blood on my hands that isn't mine, and I don't care. He's trying to cover his face, trying to curl up, and I drag him upright and slam him against the dumpster hard enough to dent the metal.
"Who. Sent. You."
He spits blood. Mumbles something I can't make out through his broken mouth. I think it started with an F.
I pin him by the throat against the dumpster. My forearm across his windpipe. His feet barely touching the ground.
"Say it again."
His eyes are swelling shut. There is blood pouring from his nose, his lip, and a gash above his eyebrow. He's done. Completely done. But I need the answer before I let him drop.
He chokes out a word. One word. A name I don't recognize.
I let go. He slides down the dumpster and crumples on the floor, gasping for air.
I stand over him. Chest heaving. Hands shaking. Knuckles raw and bleeding. The anger isn't gone, it's just found its edges. The red haze pulling back enough for me to think.
I need Colten.
I pull out my phone. The screen is cracked; it must have been hit during the fight. I wipe the blood off with my shirt and unlock it.
A missed call. Unknown number. No voicemail.
My thumb hovers over it. Something twists in my gut. A bad feeling. The kind I can't explain and have learned never to ignore. Unknown numbers don't usually mean anything. Spam. Scammers. Wrong numbers.
But this one sits wrong. The timing. The area code I don't recognize, but it's not local. It's not Arizona.
I stare at it for three seconds. Then I close it and dial Colten.
He picks up on the second ring.
"I need you on Main Street. Alley between the hardware store and the feed mill."
"What happened?"
"Someone pulled a knife on me. He's down. He's breathing. But I can't drag him to my truck in broad daylight; he's bleeding all over the place."
"I'm ten minutes out. Don't move."
"Wasn't planning on it."
I hang up. Look down at the man on the ground. He's conscious, barely. Curled on his side, wheezing, blood pooling under his cheek.
I crouch beside him.
