THE ULTIMATE STANDER (COMPLETED)

Chapter Sixteen

      I tightly tugged the wrap on my hand while locking eyes with Erika under the heavy rain. Her face darkened. She suddenly launched herself forward with her right arm scything around in a roundhouse strike. I sidestepped her body and ducked under her arm and bounced up again, spinning around. She stopped short on stiff legs and whipped back toward me. 

      We had changed places. She panicked and came at me again. Same move. Her right arm swung. I side-stepped and ducked, and we were back where we started. However, she was now breathing a little heavier than I was. Erika came at me again, no hesitation. Same exact move.

      This time I crashed an elbow into her side as I spun under her arm. She bounced straight off of locked knees and came right back at me. I loved the fact that Sam had made us battle using only our fists. He had refused any form of weapons.

      I dodged away again, and felt the breeze, even in the heavy rain, as her fist brushed past an inch above my head. She stood there, panting. I was warming up nicely. I blew her a kiss which provoked her and she swarmed through the air at me. Came on like a pile driver. I dodged left, and put an elbow in her face. It connected with her left hand, and it knocked me sideways like I weighed nothing.

      I went down on one knee, and got back up just in time to arch around her next crazy lunge. Her fist missed my gut by a quarter-inch, and its wild momentum tugged her past me and downwards a little, which put the side of her head right in line for a left hook. I let it go with everything I had from my toes on up.

      My fist crashed into her ear, and she staggered back and I followed up with a colossal right to her jaw. Then I stepped back and took a breather and tried to see what damage I'd done.

      No damage.

      I had hit her four times and it was as though I hadn't hit her at all. The two elbows and the two punches had been as hard as anything I had ever thrown in my life. There was blood on her upper lip from the second elbow, however there was absolutely nothing else wrong with her.

      Theoretically, she should have been unconscious. Or in a coma. However she moved with no pain. No concern. She wasn't unconscious. She wasn't in a coma. She was standing and smirking at me. She seemed relaxed. Moving easy. Impregnable. There was no way to hurt her. I looked at her and I knew for sure I had no chance at all. She looked at me and knew exactly what I was thinking. She smiled.

      Got balanced on the balls of both feet and hunched her shoulders down low, held her hands out in front of her like claws. She stamped her feet, left, right, left, right. It was as though she was pawing the wet ground. Like she was going to come at me and tear me apart. The smile distorted into terrible wide grin of pleasure.

      She came straight at me. I dodged left. But she was ready for that maneuver and she landed a right hook in the center of my chest. It felt exactly like being hit by a four-hundred-pound weight-lifter moving at six miles an hour. My sternum seemed to crack, and I thought my heart would stop from the shock. I came up off my feet and went down on my back.

      "I kill you, like Sam said I kill Saanvi and Mia," Erika stated, picking her words one at a time. It was quite obvious how deficient her spoken English sounded.

      So it was all Sam's plan. He had her killed Mia. However why?

      It was about choosing to live, or choosing to die. I chose to live. I rolled over twice, ignoring the mud on my skin, and pushed with my hands and levered myself upright. I jumped back and sideways and dodged a straight drive that would have killed me.

      After that, it was about staying alive and seeing what the next half second would bring. My chest hurt badly, and my mobility was below a hundred percent. But I dodged whatever she threw for about a minute. She was fast, but I got an elbow in her face. It cracked her nose. It should have punched it out the back of her head. But at least it started bleeding. I smirked.

      She opened her mouth to breathe. I dodged and waited. Caught a huge roundhouse punch on the left shoulder that nearly paralyzed my arm. She near-missed with a right and for a fraction of a split second her stance was wide open. I wound up and let go with a cigarette punch.

      This was a trick I learned long ago. As though going to place a cigarette in your opponent's mouth and then you offer him a huge uppercut under his chin while his mouth was open, probably three-quarters of an inch. It slams his mouth shut and breaks his jaw and busts his teeth, and probably bites off his tongue. Fight's over.

      I didn't need to offer Erika a cigarette, for her mouth was already hanging open. So I just let go with the uppercut. Gave it everything I had. It was a perfect blow. I was still thinking and still steady on my feet. I landed the punch right where her jaw narrowed under her chin.

      Solid bone-to-bone contact. I came up on my toes and followed through a hole yard. It should have broken her neck as well as her jaw. Her head should have come right off and rolled away in the wet mud. But the blow did nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. Just rocked her back and inch.

      Erika's quick move of her hand, I saw a flash of metal. It took me a second to register that Erika had a knife. She let out a fierce cry as she jumped down on me. She grabbed my shoulder and knocked me to the ground. Erika raised her hand with the pocket knife. She raised it above my face. She had her knees on either side of me and was pinning me to the ground. She swung her hand down and I rolled my head to the side. Erika buried the tip of the knife deep into the dirt.

      I balled up my hand and punched her under the jaw while leaning over my body. She cried out as she pulled back. I threw my elbow down and hit her in the gut. She doubled over in pain. I grabbed the handle of the knife, knocking Erika onto her back.

      "Stupid bitch!" I threw myself onto Erika and pinned her to the ground.

      She grabbed my wrist. The knife was now inches away from Erika's eye. My teeth clenched as the tip of the knife weavred. She was trashing herself underneath me as she attempted to escape my hold. With all the strength I could muster up, Erika gasped, one eye went wide as I dug the blade deep into her other eye.

      I yanked it free, and went straight for her chest. I heard another gasp as I stabbed the knife into her chest. Yes. I could see the expression I was craving for. The exact look Mia gave her when she thrusted her weapon into her. I climbed off her, gazing down at her bleeding face. I had killed her, and now, I was going for Sam.