“Ah, fe ah!” Brad squealed, slapping his free hand frantically against his own thigh in a desperate, frantic tap out. “Let go! Let go!” The gym was completely paralyzed. Thirty guys—regional champions, tough guys, and brawlers—all stood frozen, staring in absolute disbelief. The undefeated knockout artist of Apex Gym was on his knees, weeping, brought…
I drove my thumbs directly into the soft, vulnerable notch at the base of Trent’s throat, right above the collarbone. I pressed inward and upward, hard. Trent choked, his gag reflex firing violently. His hands instantly unclasped from my neck as his brain screamed at him to protect his airway. Freed from the clinch, I…
“Seven hundred,” I said. My voice was quiet, but in the freezing, dead air of that yard, it sounded like a gunshot. Every head in the crowd snapped toward me. Men in Carhartt jackets and worn boots shifted on their feet, their eyes wide. Frank Miller’s head jerked up from the porch floor. He stared…
My fingers tightened around the cold steel of the custom hydraulic bypass valve I had machined myself from an old aircraft part. I didn’t rely on algorithms or a digital sensor grid to tell me what was happening beneath the soil. I could hear it. I heard the subtle change in the engine’s pitch a…
The massive starter motor engaged with a heavy clunk, and the engine began to turn over, slow and deliberate. Whomp. Whomp. Whomp. It sounded like the heartbeat of the earth. I pushed the throttle to full. A wisp of white smoke puffed from the massive twin exhaust stacks. The rhythm quickened. A cloud of thick,…
I didn’t answer him. I just walked to my corner. There was no stool. I stood facing the center of the canvas, unspooling a roll of standard white athletic tape. I started wrapping my own hands. Figure eight around the knuckles, lock the thumb, anchor the wrist. I didn’t look at the crowd. I was…
Combat is entirely about the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act. Trent’s loop was jammed by sheer arrogance. He expected me to flinch. He expected me to retreat or raise my hands in a panicked, untrained guard, which would leave my ribs perfectly exposed for a follow-up roundhouse kick. I didn’t retreat. I stepped forward…
The crack of his hand hitting the brim of his service cap sounded like a rifle shot in the dead silence of the afternoon. For a moment, the entire world seemed to stop spinning. The heavy, humid air on Route 4 froze. The murmuring crowd at the bus stop, the clicking of the hazard lights,…
I stood frozen by the airport newsstand, staring at my darkened phone screen. Pull the fire alarm. Fake a medical emergency. Dr. Albright was a man who lived by rules and protocol. To hear him command me to commit a felony in a major international airport made the blood rush in my ears. I lowered…
She bypassed the clothing racks and walked straight up to the customer service desk. “Is this where he stood?” Rear Admiral Mahoney asked. Her voice was perfectly level, but every syllable was cut from steel. The clerk blinked, her smirk instantly vanishing. “Who?” “The Navy veteran you laughed at,” Mahoney said, sliding the photograph of…
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