Dog Days of Summer (Damned of the 2/19th Book Four) - Finished

It Started in the Bathroom...

SEA-TAC Airport

Seattle, Washington, USA

8 August, 1986

1045 Hours

Douglas was reaching forward, his fat fingers seeking to grab me by my throat or the back of the neck, just like he always had when we were kids. He would hold me, squeezing cruelly, usually to cut off my air, while his brother beat on me. Douglas has a grin and I could tell he was relishing the beating that had already started in his mind. I knew that the two of them would work by habit, Douglas holding me and Carl moving in, mocking and jeering, to start punching.

Which meant that Douglas was on his own at first.

And completely unaware of what was about to happen.

The lizard's claws hit the button and everything changed. That primordial bit of jelly buried deep in my brain fired my adrenal system, kicked off endorphins to head off any pain and let me fight through wound shock if it occured, my dopamine levels swung wildly to enhance my motor control, and all the rest of the combat chemicals flooded my system as time stuttered and slowed down to my perceptions.

I grabbed Douglas' outreaching arm at the wrist, yanking him toward me as I shifted, my Class-A shoes squeaking on the tile. It had not even registered that anything was happening as I pulled his arm straight with my left hand, pivoted so I was facing his outstretched arm.

He realized things were different when my right hand, cocked at a 90 degree angle at the wrist, drove forward, slamming the heel of my hand into the outside of his elbow joint. The joint went with a loud snap as I pulled his arm up, over his shoulder, so his hand was almost touching his shoulderblade. Instead of letting go I kept pulling down, hearing the shoulder go with a pop.

Douglas was out of the fight, the pain just starting to register as I turned to Carl, who had no idea just how much things had changed. His first was cocked back and he was stepping forward, still smiling with perverse pleasure at  the thought of beating on me.

Basic Training and further training since I'd arrived at Group had ingrained certain reflexes into me, and one came into play at the sight of the fist, my body reacting automatically. A quick rotation at the shoulder, my elbow at a 90 degree angle, shoving aside his arm so his fist missed me. I drove my right into his xiphiod process, knowing by the crunching feeling that it had snapped free. I turned around, knowing Carl needed a hospital and soon. He was in danger of one of his lungs collapsing, a possibly mortal wound. I hadn't intended on hitting him that hard, but things had changed and now Carl knew it.

Carl was folding over, holding onto himself. Douglas was starting to scream as I finished turning, grabbing Douglas by the back of the neck, catching a flash of my face in the mirror. I had a tight lipped grin, my lips pulled back in a grimace, my eyes wide and my nostrils flared. The left side of my mouth was jerked up, the cheek nerve in spasm.

Before anyone could stop me, do anything about it, I slammed Douglas face first into the water that filled the sink, kicking his legs out from under him in one smooth, well practiced motion. Normally it was used as a silent takedown, I'd be slamming a six inch bayonet under his ribs to puncture the heart and tear through the lung, but instead I just held his face in the water.

I turned my head to look at Aunt Regina and Niall, ignoring Douglas flapping his broken arm weakly. Her mouth was wide open, her eyes wide in shock.

"Let him go, asshole!" Niall yelled, setting his feet in that Tae Kwon Do pose he was so enamored with, the same pose that he always took right before he put a roundhouse kick into the side of my head. Douglas was burbling, blood staining the water from where I'd smashed his face into the porcelain and the faucet had gashed his head on the way down.