CHAPTER ONE

Maximus Parker. Max for short, is a forty-six year old half Caucasian half Asian man. He stands six foot four inches tall and weighs close to three hundred pounds. His body mass index is less than eighteen. There is literally no visible fat on him. Besides being built like a killing machine, Max is also highly trained in hand to hand combat, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Krav Maga and he holds a black belt in martial arts. He was an Army Ranger and he spent two years of his time in the service fighting in Operation Desert Storm. He was handed multiple accommodations for his service and bravery. Thankfully for the American public, Max chose to use his powers for good, rather than evil. He could have gone very far the other direction.

When he was five years old, he witnessed the murder of his mother. The trauma in that alone could have sent him careening over the edge into insanity. The fact that the murder took place literally at the hands of his father should have pushed him over. Instead, Max allowed the final image of his three hundred pound Caucasian father throwing his ninety-nine pound Asian mother with one hand like a rag doll through the wall of their apartment. Max found out later that at the moment she crashed through into the neighbor’s living room, she was still alive. She died sometime between then and when the police that Max himself had dialed from the neighbor’s house twenty minutes prior had arrived.

With that image firmly planted in his psyche still after he got out of the army, Max obtained a degree in psychology. He attended countless seminars on domestic violence; he took an entire years’ worth of women’s studies classes to learn how they think. He also took criminology classes to learn how the monster that killed her thought and then when he was thirty-two years old, he opened the doors to a self-defense and martial arts studio that had been twenty-seven years in the making.

When Chloe met him, he was forty-five and he had been teaching for thirteen years. He had been practicing for over thirty and no one— not one single person had a bad thing to say about Max.

Chloe started her classes almost immediately upon relocating. In her first class, Max talked about himself and his background. Once he’d told them where he came from, he told them what he thought were the most important things they would learn in his classes were. Chloe wrote them down. She took them home and posted them on a corkboard in her room. She read them in the morning and she read them again at night. Max said, “Your number one priority when it comes to being stalked or attacked by a predator is as follows: Avoid, Escape and Survive.” He’d gone on to say, “If avoidance is not an option then that is where self-defense training comes in. That training is not necessarily to kill or maim your predator. It is to allow you to escape as unharmed as possible which in turn will allow you to survive.” The next thing she wrote down and posted on his board was what he called his motto: “Hit first-fast-hard and run away, but if there’s no-where to run, and you choose to fight, be prepared to kill.”

He told them to remember that no matter what they heard, they read or they watched on television, size did matter. A hundred pound woman was never going to defeat a three hundred pound man in simple hand to hand combat. The key was going to be more on her footwork, her speed, and her stamina. “Attack retreat, attack retreat, attack retreat…wear your opponent down.” was another of her favorite quotes that she used as a mantra when she was training. “If he’s not trained in martial arts or hand to hand combat, he will eventually tire, leaving you to survive.” The final thing he told them was that at all costs: “Do not let the fight go to the floor.”

He said, “In a wrestling match where there is a huge size and weight difference, barring a miracle, you’re going to lose. In a real fight in the ring with real rules, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a perfect tool. I’ll teach it to you, but remember this: In real life, there are no rules to keep your opponent from using a weapon, gouging out your eyes, or repeatedly kicking you in the head once you hit the floor. Remain standing, remain mobile and get out of the way.”

For the next year, Chloe ate, drank and slept everything Max taught her, using those words of wisdom she’d written down that first day as a mantra in her head when she worked out. She was strong and fast and even in spite of the occasional stress smoke, her stamina was incredible. Over time, Max taught her how important it was to end the fight as quickly as possible, to go for the most vulnerable spots on the body and those most easily damaged: the eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee and legs. He taught her how to use the body weight that she did have to produce force and cause the most damage. “Striking to save your life is not about the form of your punching or kicking. It's about throwing your body weight strategically at someone. Take them down as quickly as possible and get out of the way. The longer you let it go on, the more likely you are to end up dead.”

Chloe had two private lessons with Max a week and she still took the public classes that Tom, his almost equally qualified assistant taught twice a week as well. Three days after she got the message from Chantelle, she knew she needed more. That morning she had waited for Max after her class with Tom and when he came out of his private lesson room and saw her standing there, he greeted her in his usual enthusiastic way, “Hey there Chloe! How’s it going?”

“Hi Max, it’s not so good. I wondered if you had a few minutes, so we could talk.”

“Of course,” he said with a worried frown, “Let’s go to my office.”

Chloe followed him to the gym and back to his office. Max’s walls were lined with the certificates he’d been given in each one of the courses that he’d taken and passed over the years. The trophies and citations he’d earned were too multiple to fit in one small office. They lined the walls of the long hallway that led them back. Max sat down behind his desk and she took the chair opposite from him. He knew her well enough by now to know that whatever she was here to talk about was serious.

“So what’s up, Chloe?”

With a deep breath in and out she said, “I want you or Tom or both of you, to simulate an advanced attack on me in the dark.”

She could tell that Max was trying to get his thoughts together before he spoke. He never said anything, unless he’d thought it through first. Finally, he said, “You’ve resisted this for a long time. Why now?”

“I need to know that I can do this and not freeze up. I also want it to be in the dark. That part is important I think.”

“Okay, but you know the rules. I can’t do this the way it needs to be done without your story.”

“I’m aware of that,” she said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. When it happens, I need to be ready. I believe that I am, but I need to know for sure. The simulations we’ve done in the past are fine, but they’re missing that element of reality. I need to be afraid and still be able to focus.”

As usual, Max didn’t miss a thing. “You said when it happens, not if.”

“Yes.”

“You’re anticipating it.”

“Yes.”

He raised an eyebrow and said, “Is someone threatening you?”

“Not directly at the moment,” she said. She took in a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. Max had been offering her an advanced simulation for months now, but she had resisted. Part of the simulation was giving them her back story and giving them the information they could use to make it real for her. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that. Maybe it was telling her story to her friends and Derek over the past month and a half, or maybe it was because of what Jesse had done to Chantelle. Maybe it was just knowing he was out there waiting. Whatever it was, she knew that she needed to do this, and she started talking. She started at the very beginning with her father and she ended with what Jesse had done to Chantelle. She felt completely drained when she finished. Max didn’t say a word as she talked. He maintained that intense eye contact of his that used to unnerve her a bit and occasionally, he would nod.

When she finished talking, he took a deep breath. “I know that was hard for you,” he said with sympathy in his eyes. I’m going to have to ask you a few questions that might be hard and I’ll need you to write down some things he is likely to say or has said before. Expressions he has used.”

She nodded. She could feel the bile rising in the back of her throat. Just pretending that Jesse was attacking her was going to be hell. Talking about him was hell. The entire situation was hell and Jesse was the devil.

“Tell me about his build,” Max asked.

“He’s not as tall as you. He’s maybe five-eleven. As far as his bulk, he’s been away a couple of years so I can’t be sure. He wasn’t huge before, about 185 pounds. He kept in shape though. He was strong, fit, disciplined and focused. He had a lot of lean muscle.”

“Lean muscle is powerful and compared to you, that’s huge,” Max said. “How much bigger are you now than you were back then?”

“I didn’t have any muscle then. I’m about twenty-five pounds up and all I’ve added was muscle.”

“Okay, I’m going to give you some time alone to write things down and then if you’re up for it, we’ll plan on doing this tomorrow.”

She nodded again. “Thank you, Max.”

Max took her hand and held onto it as he said, “Women like you are the reason I do this, Chloe. Women who refuse to lie down and submit are the ones who survive.”

“I won’t submit to him again, ever.”