Race the Darkness (Fatal Dreams, #1)(69)

“I have a right to be here. She asked for my help.” The way the guy accented help made it sound like he was saving Isleen from Xander. “Asked me. Wants to get away from here. From you.”

“Kent! That is not what I said. Or meant.”

A jolt of energy Xander couldn’t deny or control—and didn’t want to—landed directly in his shoulder. He grabbed Isleen’s wrists, pulled them off his shirt, then took two steps away from her—all the time he needed to funnel the anger into his fist. He swung at Kent.

Fights in real life weren’t like in the movies where everything was perfectly choreographed. In real life, there were misses and failed maneuvers because fury, not intellect, drove the body.

Kent flinched at the last second. Xander’s knuckles didn’t connect with bone; they just scraped Kent’s face hard enough to burn them both.

Before Kent could recover and react, Xander mashed his other fist into Kent’s gut. Surprise was going to determine who won this battle, but Kent didn’t go down from the gut punch. Must’ve been prepared for it. He and Kent were too similar. They’d grown up fighting. Taught each other how to brawl through the experience.

Kent launched himself at Xander, tackling him low in the waist and driving them both back. Xander’s boots couldn’t keep up with the momentum and went airborne. He landed ass first, spine, then shoulders on sharp shards of gravel. Might as well have been a bed of nails. Kent used Xander as a landing pad, driving each gravel spike a bit deeper into his flesh. He ground his teeth to keep from groaning.

Street Fighting Fact 1: Keep standing. Don’t go down.

Street Fighting Fact 2: If you go down, be on top.

Street Fighting Fact 3: If you are on the bottom, you are fighting two people—gravity and the asshole on top of you. Yeah. And Xander was underneath two hundred pounds of Kent’s temper.

Everyone started shouting. He could pick out each of their voices—Isleen, Roweena, Hopkins, the other BCI guy—

Kent’s fist caught him in the jaw. The sharp crack of flesh against flesh was something he heard both externally and internally. Acrid warmth filled his mouth. It was low—he knew it and didn’t care—but he spit the blood and saliva in Kent’s face. The guy startled, giving Xander an opening. He bucked, knocking Kent off balance, and then flipped the guy over, landing on top.

Kent knew the rules. He wrestled Xander for top. Top being more important than landing any blows. They went into an alligator roll. The world flipped over on itself again and again as they battled for primary position. Xander lost all sense of direction, of up and down, top and bottom.

The spinning stopped. Kent crushed Xander’s skull between his hands and slammed his head back. Twinkling stars of pain burst in his vision. Guess he was on bottom. He punched the guy in the ribs. Heard a satisfying grunt.

Isleen shouted, but Xander’s brain wasn’t working fast enough to understand her words. His gaze found her. The BCI guy—the one Xander didn’t know—held her from behind, arms around her, pinning her hands to her sides. She fought his grip, throwing her head back to butt him, but he was too tall and she hit his chest.

Part of Xander understood why the guy was holding her. He was trying to keep her away from the two grown-ass men going at it with their fists.

Pain exploded in his cheek. Spit and blood slung from his mouth. Kent had used Xander’s distraction to get in another shot.

The other part of Xander—the Bastard in His Brain—didn’t understand logic. All he saw was someone holding Isleen against her will. She’d been there, done that, and he’d be damned if he’d let anyone ever hurt her again.

Xander’s world went white, Bastard in His Brain officially in control. The only color that existed was Isleen. Quick—one, two—he landed a double punch to Kent’s ribs, then threw him off as if he weighed no more than a toddler. Xander was off the ground and in front of Isleen before any of them had a chance to react. He popped his fist into the BCI guy’s nose and snatched Isleen to his chest, so the guy wouldn’t take her down with him.

And he did go down. Fell straight back. Unconscious.

“Don’t fucking touch her.” He spat the words at the world, blood dripping from the side of his mouth and over his jaw, then sliding down his neck. Everything had gone still and silent.

“Xander…” Isleen reached up to him, sticking her hand in the mess on his face. He flinched away from her, but the moment she touched him, everything changed. The Bastard in His Brain receded, taking all Xander’s tension and anger with him. The hundred points of pain in his body eased and vanished. A cooling tingle spread through him. Was this what she felt when he took her pain away? Was this her healing him?

“You feel this?” he whispered, his gaze locked on her. “This is why you can’t leave. We are special together.”

Her chin quivered, and water glistened in her eyes. “I had a nightmare. You died.” She choked on the words. “I’m given these dreams in order to save lives. To stop these bad things from happening. It’s my duty. So I will stop this dream from happening, but the only way is to find the guy who killed Gran. And use what I saw in the dream to stay away from any situation that may re-create what happened. So I can’t be around you at night. I have to leave.” Truth resonated in each of her words.

His naive heart buoyed inside his chest. She had been trying to protect him, not leave him.