17.
Sienna
It had been a few months since I’d gotten my ass kicked, and man, the experience had not gotten any better in the interim.
I was lying on my back behind the counter in a Waffle House just over the Tennessee state line from Alabama, my weight resting not so comfortably on my shoulder blades, my legs straight up in the air. I’d landed that way after taking a hit that would have wrecked a car, smashing into the griddle where, dammit, my waffle should have been cooking even now.
But, no, instead some yahoo with a grudge had come stalking into the place and started shit with me. Poor, innocent little old me. Depowered, just-a-vanilla-succubus me.
Now he was closing in for the kill with his super-fast-punchy powers. About to level me with a last punch, in fact, aimed right at my face. He was leaning down to do it, because he was super tall, and I was on the ground (well, head and shoulders, anyway).
Most people probably would have been unconscious by now. I would have liked to have been. Sleeping in my bed somewhere, preferably, where my entire cerebrum and spinal column would be much more in harmony and not carrying my lower body’s entire weight. It was, after, generally supposed to be the opposite, but here I was, almost standing on my frigging head, about to get punched out properly by some looming linebacker of a man who seemed an awful lot like the African-American version of the Terminator.
I just hoped he didn’t have a metal skeleton.
He started to lean down to deliver the knockout blow, and I made use of those legs dangling over my head by lashing out and giving him a solid kick to the balls. I couldn’t do much—not nearly much as I used to do—but I still had some strength, and dudes still had the ultimate weak point, and—
All the wind went out of the Terminator as he realized, too late, Whoops! She’s not out of the fight! He didn’t say that, instead going with, “WHOOOOOOOF!” a muted version of the pained noise most guys tended to make when you hit them in the boys with super strength.
I followed up with a nice, clumsy kick to the face, taking advantage of the natural slowdown that happens right after your body takes critical damage to a crucial area. His jaw made a profound cracking noise, and his speed advantage seemed to be nullified by the fact he was in pure agony. He was doing a really good job of controlling it, though, credit to him.
“Ungh,” I said, rolling over and landing a knee, painfully, on the tile floor. Terminator was on all fours, and, not being one to waste a lot of opportunities for cheap shots, I drilled him in the jaw and he slammed into the base of the griddle. “Jerk off,” I grunted, getting to my feet and aiming a kick at his lower back. I hit him, he grunted, but he was tense—
He was preparing himself to be beaten on the ground. Bad sign. Take it from one who’d adopted that same posture every now and again. If someone was preparing their body in that way, a counterattack was coming.
And I just didn’t have time for that. We’d been brawling for a few minutes—well, I’d been getting my ass handed to me for a few minutes before this reversal of fortune—and that meant there had been plenty of time for someone, probably Mike! my waiter, to call the cops.
This being not to my advantage and maybe to his, instead of delivering another blow, I leapt the counter and grabbed a barely-conscious Eilish by the collar, dragging her to her feet. “Come on,” I said, to her and to Cassidy, who was standing back all wide-eyed and ineffectual, waiting for somebody to tell her uber-smart-but-useless-in-a-fight skinny ass what to do. “Move!”
I ushered them both out the door in a hurry, mourning the loss of my chance for a waffle. I half walked, half dragged Eilish, who was barely conscious and moaning at the physical harm done unto her, out the door and into the parking lot as someone came skidding to a stop inches in front of us.
Harry. Driving the damned car.
I threw the back door open and tossed Eilish in as Cassidy skittered around the other side. Then, with a look back over my shoulder at the Terminator, who was rising to his feet behind the counter inside, I hopped in the passenger seat and Harry floored the accelerator. The SUV took off with a roar, and we skidded onto the street and straight onto the entry ramp to I-65 north about a half second later, causing some semi driver to lay on his horn in full-fury pissedness as he came to a stop with a hearty ROOOOOOOOOOOAR of his engine brakes.
I looked back in time to see the Terminator come leaping out the hole in the window that he’d made with Eilish’s barstool. He hit the pavement running and disappeared as we moved down the onramp far enough that the slope of the earth obscured him from my sight.
All I could do was hope that we made it out of there before he could get to his vehicle and begin an honest pursuit. But for the moment I sat there, breathing in, my aching side, back—hell, everything—crying out at me, as we rolled onto Interstate 65 and Harry accelerated up to 80.
I did not stop looking back for many miles.