Page 9 of The Code

Evan reminds himself once more not to kill anyone. He keeps his voice low: “Where you are. Nothing better to do but go find trouble. But you don’t want this trouble.”

“You been there?” Dale brays laughter, jerks a thumb. “He’s been there?”

“I severely doubt that,” Clay says. “You look like a rich kid from a soft neighborhood. Got meth-hooked, think you had it rough. You don’t understand rough though. Not till you’ve traveled this country like we have, set up in all kinds of places with all kinds of tough guys.”

“Tryin’ to bluff his way out,” Franky says, drawing even with Clay. “He’s scared as shit.”

Evan waits in the shadows.

Clay draws himself fully upright. A tall kid, he wears boots with blocky heels and a flaming-skull tattoo on the soft underbelly of his left forearm.

“That a butterfly knife in your left front pocket?” Evan says.

Clay looks surprised. “Switchblade.”

Sure enough, Evan can make out the tiny dimple of the button. “Quaint,” he says.

“‘Quaint’?” Clay says. “Listen to how this scared motherfucker talks.”

Evan pictures that master chief up in his face, head tilted, words flying.

Are you scared? You look fucking scared.

No, sir.

Get it outta yer eyes then.

He draws in a breath. Four-second hold. Release. He feels himself snap into solidity, rigid like steel.

“You’ve made a mistake,” he says. “You think you were stalking me up this alley. But you weren’t. I was leading you here.”

Franky says, “’Z that so?”

Clay: “Led us here to get yer ass kicked?”

Assorted chuckles.

Evan says, “I know you think you’re intimidating with your mangy beards and second-rate tattoos, your shitkicker boots and broad shoulders. You been in plenty of fights, sure, and three-to-one makes you confident. But I want you to look at me. Look at me closely. And ask yourself…”

He steps forward out of shadow and into the band of light from the park, and the big tall glow of the Ferris wheel catches him square in the face and he can feel the heat of it right through his pupils and he knows his eyes are shining like the eyes of a great cat and his muscle memory already has the fight choreography, which thumb to jam into which eye, the low shuddering dig of a close-in body shot, the crackling yield of a floating rib.

“… do I look scared?”

All three sets of eyes flare—fear, surprise, adrenaline—and he sees Clay’s emotions migrate from terror to ramped-up aggression and Clay’s right hand balls into a fist and his legs tense to lunge.

Evan darts forward, fingers held together and slightly curved, the tips forming a spear. Generate power through legs and hips, rapid arm extension, the bil jee strike landing squarely on the impression of the switchblade button in Clay’s pocket.

Evan’s middle fingertip strikes and already he’s driving the heel of the same hand forward, jabbing the knife handle down to angle into the vastus lateralis of the thigh.

A ffffft sound as carbon steel ejects into flesh.

Clay looks down.

The handle is jogged forward, tenting the pocket and trapping the blade in place. A red carnation blooms on the denim.

Clay wails.

He hops on one leg but the blade is inside him and wedged in the pocket; any movement skewers him deeper. Franky and Dale have parted like the Red Sea, shoulders to opposing trailers, horror lighting their faces.