Rusty Nail

The shock of contact made me gasp and see red, but Holly took the worst of it. Both of her feet left the ground and she hit the floor ass-first – not the preferred landing on concrete.

Pressing my advantage, I lunged forward, wanting to get on top of her and strike at her face or throat.

I was too hasty. Holly scissored her legs out and swept my feet out from under me. I also hit the ground hard.

When a fight goes to the floor, the stronger opponent usually wins. Holly wasn’t only stronger, but her Marine training probably made my police academy training look like ballet. I rolled backward, two or three body lengths away, before getting up on my knees.

Holly moved like lightning, and hit like a baseball bat, throwing a roundhouse punch at my face that I barely deflected in time, taking the hit on the left shoulder.

My whole arm went numb.

She followed up with an equally vicious kick to my chest. I bunched up what little pectoral muscles I had, but her big construction boot knocked the wind right out of me and I went skidding backward across the dusty floor on my butt.

I let momentum take my legs up over my head, and rolled to my feet. My lungs tried to take in air, but they weren’t working. It’s a terrifying feeling, not being able to breathe. I’d been hit in the diaphragm before, and knew that in just a few seconds the muscle would stop spasming and allow me some air, but rationality doesn’t mean much in the throes of panic.

Holly sensed my struggle, and came at me with snarling, bleeding fury, taking two ru

I slipped the first kick, but the second caught me under the chin, cracking my lower jaw into my upper jaw, spi

I would have hit the floor, but instead slammed into the metal shelves, and was able to grab on and keep from falling.

My breath came back, and I gulped it in, began to choke when something got caught in my throat, and spit out a chip from one of my teeth.

My right ankle was pudding. I kept my weight on my left foot and clutched the metal railing.

“I thought you were third dan,” I said through the new gap in my front teeth. “You fight like a yellow belt.”

Holly wiped the blood from her eyes and fell into her cat stance, her palms flat and fingers extended for pyonson keut.

“And that wedding dress made your ass look huge.”

She yelled, “KIYAA!” and struck with her fingertips at my neck. I pivoted my head around and her fingers met the steel bar supporting the giant shelf.

The shelf won.

I executed an elbow strike, cracking her across the cheek. An illegal move, but hey, no refs.

Holly hit her head against the shelving unit, and I grabbed her hair and helped her hit her head two more times. There was no tae kwon do name for that maneuver, but it felt great.

I was going for thirds when her hand grasped my wrist and she dropped all of her weight down to one knee, flipping me onto my back.

Before I could get my hands up, she used the knife edge of her good hand to break my nose.

I’d never had my nose broken before, but I know she did indeed break it because I heard the snap and the pain brought fresh tears to my eyes.

Again, using blind instinct, I rolled away. The rolling intensified the pain and dizziness I felt, and when I came to a stop I titled my head to the side and threw up.

“Jack!” I heard Latham yell, but he seemed very far away. My vision was a kaleidoscopic mess, but I could make out Holly stumbling toward me, looking like Sissy Spacek at the end of Carrie, bloody and murderous and out of her freaking mind.

A foot away from me, still in his cat carrier, was Mr. Friskers.

“Hang on,” I told him.

Holly lunged.

I picked up the carrier and thrust the corner into Holly’s face. She staggered back, and the door popped open. Mr. Friskers hopped out, gave each of us a disappointed look, and ran off into the shadows.

I switched my grip to the carrier handle, got to my knees, and hurled it at her.

She ducked it, and came at me again.

Standing up wasn’t going to happen for me. It looked like I had a small pumpkin growing out of my foot. My nose made even the tiniest movement of my head pure torture.

Holly looked to be faring better. Her right hand was mangled, and she had some visible bumps on her head, but that didn’t seem to slow her down.

“Enough of this bullshit.”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the hunting knife. Charles Kork’s knife. The one I’d so cleverly tricked her into bringing along.

How quickly things could go from bad to worse.

I got onto all fours and crawled away as fast as I could. Harry was the closest thing to me, so I headed for him, reaching out my hand for his chair, and then I felt Holly’s iron grip on my bad ankle.

That pain was bad enough. But when she slashed the blade across my thigh, I thought I’d died and gone to Pain Hell.

I twisted around, the pain giving me superhuman strength, kicking out at Holly with my good foot and knocking her off me.

I stretched out my hand, fumbling for Harry’s lap, my fingers locking around the handle of a what looked like a hairbrush, but when I pulled it out McGlade yelped and I saw that instead of bristles it had a dozen nails sticking out of the end.

Holly jumped at me, bringing down the knife.

I let out a war cry, my reptile brain screeching with rage and fear and pain, and my left arm blocked the downward arc of the knife while my right swung the hairbrush with everything I had, digging into Holly’s face, and tearing much of it off.

Holly spun in a semicircle and hit the floor.

I sat there, clutching the brush, breaths coming out in ragged gasps, waiting for her to get up so I could give her a second helping.

She didn’t get up.

“I wet my pants again,” Harry said.

I crawled over to her, not looking at the ruin that was once a gorgeous face, not listening to the gurgling coming out of the hole that was once a beautiful mouth, taking the knife out of her hand, digging around in her pockets until I found my handcuff keys.

Dragging myself across the floor, I uncuffed Latham, who hugged me gently and kissed my fingertips.

“Nice job, Jack. I forgot how exciting life with you was. We’ve been apart for months, and not one person has tried to kill me in all that time.”

“So you’re taking me back?”

“You couldn’t keep me away if you tried.”

“Hey lovebirds!” Harry yelled. “Can you save the kissy face for later and get me the fuck out of here?”

Latham ran off to get help. I stared at Phin, and he gave me a weak thumbs-up.

Returning to Holly, I cuffed her hands behind her back and pulled off her shirt to try to stop some of the massive bleeding coming out of her face. It didn’t help much.

“Use a tourniquet,” McGlade suggested. “Put it around her neck.”

I crawled over to Phin, not wanting to move him in case of a spinal injury. He had two bullet wounds in his left shoulder. Holly hadn’t wanted him to die, probably because she wanted him around for a while to torture.

I slipped off Harry’s belt and tied it around Phin’s arm to slow the bleeding. Then I picked up some tin snips off the table and crawled to Harry, setting him free just as the sirens howled in the distance.

Harry hugged me.

“Thanks, Jackie. I owe you one.”

“Just take me off that damn TV show.”

“Take you off? Do you know what kind of amazing episode this would make? Shit, Jack, we’d hit number one in our time slot.”

“Harry…”

“Fine. You’re off.”

The sirens got closer, and Latham came back in, toting my cell phone. He sat beside me, holding me tight. And I began to sob. But it wasn’t from pain, and it wasn’t from shock. It was from pure relief.

A purring sound made me turn around. Mr. Friskers was sitting in McGlade’s lap, a dead rat in his jaws.