Connectivity Issues with a Cobra 🐍

Chapter 6: History Won't Repeat Itself

Johnny tried several times to work up the courage to say anything that would ease his son's distress. He wanted to say he loved him, tell him that none of this horrible mess was his fault and that he'd always be there for him no matter how long it took the boy to forgive him (if he ever did).

Instead, the rush of words remained locked inside him, and he decided to just observe his son quietly for the remainder of the meal.

The enraged boy he'd left standing in the shattered glass of the dojo bleeding from the temple and with a scowl on his face had bulked up considerably over the last few months. Despite his lean frame and small stature, Robby was noticeably broader from participating in a karate form that primarily focused on brute strength.

Miyagi-do's training centered around breathing exercises, learning to focus on your surroundings, and using a sense of inner balance to defend against attacks. None of those things involved the strenuous workouts and physical exercises that built up the kind of muscle needed to dominate someone on the mat.

Johnny might not have been the most perceptive person, but he could see the cracked skin on his son's knuckles and the faint bruising on his collar bone that made it clear the former war veteran had been working his son to the bone.

Kreese had always been the kind of sensei who put his students through the wringer, and this current battle was no exception.

After losing a tournament twice to a Miyagi-do fighter in the past and finding himself at the mercy of the person he loathed most in the world only a few months ago, it had renewed his desperation to win.

The deranged veteran was on the warpath, his vengeance drenched in the blood of the children he was exploiting, and Johnny's own son was being used as a weapon for a man whose cruelty knew no bounds.

Even all these years later, Johnny could still feel his sensei's hands around his neck as he choked him, and he remembered vividly how the world had grown dark around the edges. The thought of his little boy facing the same "punishment" he had for coming in second place at the karate tournament made him feel violently ill.

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Johnny experienced the feeling of those hands around his throat again only a few months ago. It was something that had nearly cost him his life and yet, only served to drive his son further away from him.

Robby had been unconscious, utterly unaware of what was transpiring, and it was his father's fault he was in that condition. His inability to control his own strength, coupled with not paying attention to his surroundings and desperation to end the fight, left his boy unaware of his sensei's desire to murder anyone who was no longer useful to him.

Even worse, the knowledge that his dad hurt him acted as the catalyst to drive him away from his loved ones who were trying to warn him of the danger and gave him even more reason to lose trust in those same people completely.

'I can't let him do that to my boy,' he thought desperately.

Johnny was ripped out of his thoughts when their waitress returned with a black leather check presenter and handed him the bill.

As luck would have it, the waitress only charged them for one meal, and the father watched with a hint of annoyance as the woman rather brazenly slipped his kid a piece of paper with her number scrawled on it.

Johnny was beginning to understand why fathers say they had to "beat the boys off with a stick" when it came to their daughters and protecting them.

'He's a teenager,' he thought, clenching his fists under the table.

The waitress had to be in her early thirties easily.

Friggin cougar!