Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(6)

I turned my eyes to the greasy black-haired guy who was taking a few steps backwards, still holding the girl tightly and shaking her, as if threatening her would keep me away from him.

“Hey, man!” They were all the words I allowed to leave his mouth.

I stepped forward quickly and grabbed the girl by her ponytail. She cried out again, but I couldn’t pay attention to that as I pulled her face toward my chest and punched at the space over her head to land three knuckles right against Greasy’s trachea.

He released her arms immediately and grasped at his throat.

Spinning to my left, I kept the girl close to me for a moment and then shoved her off to one side before turning to the next guy who was coming at me. She cried out in surprise, stumbled, and ended up dropping to the street, but I couldn’t really think about that. I knew she wasn’t seriously hurt and was out of the way; that was all I needed.

The * with the backwards cap and the moronic ghetto-speak took a swing at me, which I easily ducked. He was still drunk enough that he almost knocked himself right over onto the street, but I caught him. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up close enough to slam my palm into his nose. I heard a snap just before I dropped him to the asphalt.

I quickly looked around me and saw two of the guys running off down the alley. The one I had just dropped to the ground was whining and moaning about his nose, and the last one—the one I had grabbed first—was heading in my direction.

He was, without a doubt, the instigator of all of this. My eyes narrowed as he approached and swung out wildly as if he didn’t even know where I was. I sidestepped and backed up—letting him come at me again. After a couple more swings, he seemed to be pretty much out of breath. That’s when I pounced.

Before I even touched him, I was in the zone though I never felt disconnected like some guys said they did during a fight. I was always completely focused; I just felt different at the same time. Everything seemed brighter even in the dim light coming from the one streetlamp at the end of the block, in sharper focus, and alive. Every muscle was poised, ready for my command. Every synapse was prepared to fire at my will.

Spinning around, my boot connected with the side of his head. Before he had the chance to fall backwards, I reached out and gripped his hoodie in my fist, twisting the fabric right under his neck around in my fingers. I could feel the string for the hood against my thumb as I pulled him up closer to me and slammed my other fist into his gut.

The air rushed out of him in a fragrant gust. He slumped toward me, but I held him out so I had better access to punch his kidney next. Then his face. Then the top of his arm. Then his face again.

He was screaming and crying at this point, begging me to let him go. For a minute I couldn’t understand why he didn’t tap out, but then I realized he didn’t know the rules. I released my grip with some effort—the knuckles had tightened up and ached when I straightened my fingers—and he dropped to the ground in front of me.

A moment later he was up again, turning and fleeing down the street with sideways-slouched, stumbling steps.

For a second I was confused. There wasn’t any cheering, and no one was grabbing my wrist to hold my hand in the air. I was just standing in a deserted street with my heart pounding in my chest and my breaths coming out in heavy pants into the night air. The cool September breeze no longer chilled my skin even as it collided with the sweat covering my chest and back. Then I remembered what I was doing and that the street wasn’t completely deserted.

I turned to the girl on the ground.

She was staring down the street in the direction the last of the attackers had run. A few feet away from her was the discarded purse—if you could really call it that—lying on the ground with the contents all over the asphalt. Whatever it was, it was too damn big to be a purse. Yolanda always carried those tiny little things that fit in your hand, but this one looked like you could fit a whole Butterball turkey in it.

My hands were still a little shaky. The fight hadn’t lasted more than about a minute and a half, and I had way too much built-up adrenaline. All my muscles were tight, and my hands were still clenched into fists. The desire to beat the shit out of something hadn’t ebbed nearly enough in such a short amount of time, and all the energy from my arms and legs seemed to back up into my brain.

I had an instant headache and wished there were a twenty-four hour gym somewhere close-by. As it was, there was only one place for me to vent my building energy.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” I heard myself shout. My hands continued to tighten into fists as the girl startled and gasped, and her wide eyes focused on me.

“I was just walking home…”

“In this neighborhood? At this time of night? Do you have a f*cking death wish?”

I really had no idea why I was shouting at her. I just couldn’t believe how f*cking stupid she was. Everyone knew how dangerous this area was in the daytime, and now it was past two in the morning. The fact that this obviously young, attractive girl—well, far more than just attractive—was wandering around this area in the middle of the night pissed me off.

“You know, if I had come out of the bar two minutes later or happened to have my back turned when those guys started after you, you’d be getting double-teamed in the alley about now!”

Her face went pale in the light of the distant streetlamp, and she looked a little sick. That didn’t seem to stop my mouth, though.