10. Chapter 10
Kingsley
Adrenaline dumped into my system as I headed for the guy with the wooden baseball bat. With the hood up and the headlights of the big pickup backlighting him, I couldn’t make out a face. One thing was for sure—these men weren’t here to talk. Their posture and aggressive moves screamed violence.
I didn’t care. All I could think about was protecting Harley.
No matter the cost.
Sure enough, the guy swung his bat. I backtracked—just in time. My attacker’s choice of weapon whooshed past my head, the air of the momentum brushing my face like a death kiss.
Not wasting the opportunity for a counterattack, I shot forward, ramming my shoulder into the guy’s massive chest and driving him all the way back until his spine cracked into the bumper of his truck.
He dropped the bat with a grunt. Drove his fist into my ribs.
Fire shot through my side, but I didn’t let him go. He went for another blow. And another. Not having another choice, I backed off. The guy grabbed my sweater, hauled me up in a one-eighty-degree spin, and slammed me onto the hood.
My breath got punched from my lungs. I writhed. Where was the other guy? Lord, Harley—
Two hits to my face jarred my brain. Beefy hands wrapped around my neck. The guy’s hood had slid down.
Harley’s ex.
“Shouldn’t have gotten involved, Monk Boy,” he snarled. His breath reeked of booze.
My head clouded from lack of oxygen, my vision graying at the edges.
There’s always a way out, Grady. My professor’s voice invaded my thoughts like I was rolling with him at this very moment instead of ten years ago. There had to be some muscle memory left from my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Krav Maga training.
I gripped Craig’s wrists and yanked them outward while simultaneously ramming my knee into his groin. His grip broke, and he folded.
Not willing to take chances, I shoved off the hood, wrapped an arm around his neck from behind, and squeezed. He didn’t fight back, and within seconds, went to sleep.
Breathing hard, I lowered his heavy body into the grass.
Hot-white pain exploded at the back of my skull. I swayed and collapsed onto all fours. The grass and dirt felt cold under my hands. The other guy. Baseball bat.
A foot stomped down on my back, flattening me to the ground. I groaned.
Get up! He’s gonna kill you. Then he’ll go after Harley and—
A growl ripped from the depths of my lungs. I rolled over with my back to the guy, and as I did, swung my right leg and kicked my heel into his. Swept his leg from under him.
Thud. He hit the grass next to me.
I pounced. Slapped a rear naked choke on him. The guy clawed at my arm. Tried to reach for my face. Then he went limp.
Head pounding and throat burning, I stumbled to my feet. Had to get out of here. Who knew how many more of them were nearby.
I was halfway to the F-150 when Harley hopped out the cab and stormed to me. “Are you okay?” Her question was laden with worry.
“We gotta leave.” I made a spinning motion to Matt, urging him on to fire up the engine.
He did. Harley and I climbed back into the cab, and a moment later, we rolled up the incline and onto the road. I leaned my head against the headrest, suppressing the groan that wanted out. My whole body burned. The first and only time I’d taken a beating like this had been thirteen years ago.
“What on earth was that?” Matt asked after several miles of silence. His voice shook. “The guy tried to punch in my window.”
“They were drunk.” This was Harley’s story to tell, so that’s all I offered.
She remained uncharacteristically quiet.
“What did you do to them?” Matt demanded.
“Choked them out. They’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t know you could fight like that.”
I closed my eyes. “Trained Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Krav Maga in my teens.”
“Just because?” This from Harley.
The occasional streetlamp zoomed by. Every pothole we hit felt like someone stabbed a knife into the back of my skull.
I glanced at her. “We had a family dinner in the city once. I was unwell, so I pestered my sister until she agreed to drive me home. At fourteen, I couldn’t drive myself.
She, on the other hand, was eighteen. We had to walk through a dark alley to get to her car.
” My gut revolted at the memory that had dramatically changed my life.
“Five guys materialized out of nowhere. Beat me up. Pinned her down and . . .” I swallowed hard.
“They made me watch her getting gang raped.”
Harley sucked in a sharp breath.
“Kimball refused to tell our parents,” I pushed on, wanting to get this story over with.
“Made me swear to keep my mouth shut. I did. Didn’t talk at all for an entire year.
Our parents sent me to a mental institution.
My silence pushed the therapists to their limits.
What got me talking again were BJJ and Krav Maga.
” I’d trained like a maniac, swearing to myself I’d never be helpless like that again. Never let a woman get hurt again.
But the guilt still lingered. Guilt over nagging until Kimball agreed to drive me home. Guilt over being too weak to help her.
Something warm brushed my knuckles, causing me to flinch. Harley slowly uncoiled my fingers I had dug into the polyester seat and interwove them with hers.
My heart thumped as warmth spread through me. I made no move to pull away. Not even when she leaned over, her shoulder pressing into my arm, our thighs touching. It was like her silent comfort reached into my soul and soothed whatever part of me had broken in that dark alley.
“Sorry this happened to your sister, man.” Matt, unaware of the intimate moment Harley and I shared in the dark of the cab, turned onto the windy road leading up to Saint James. I couldn’t wait to get back, take a shower, and retreat to my cell to pray.
Though that meant I’d have to let Harley go. I didn’t want to. Holding her hand felt too good.
Way too soon, Matt pulled into the gravel parking lot outside the monastery walls. Harley and I untangled from each other right before the interior light came on.
“I want your nose to get checked out.” I rubbed my hand on my sweats to make the tingling stop. “Brother Oswin is our doc.”
Her hazel eyes wandered my face. “Only if you get checked out as well. You might have a concussion.”
Sure felt like it. I nodded. “Let’s go.”
“What do we tell Father Cruz?” Matt whispered as he shoved open the heavy iron door. “With the way the F-150 looks we can’t keep it a secret.”
Wanting to make sure the door was bolted, I gestured for him to go inside. “The truth. That we got run off the road.”
“He’s not going to like it.”
My shoulders tensed at the thought of having to bring the abbot into the loop.
The search Officer Moore had performed on me on Velvet Drive, the busiest road on Darkwater Refuge, had gone viral, drawing attention to our monastery.
Not the good kind. So telling him I had choked out two guys, one of them a detective .
. . Not sure if I’d share that part with him.
Ten minutes later, Harley and I sat on the two twin beds in the infirmary, four feet of stone slabs separating us. The bright neon lights allowed me to see her face better. Her freckled nose was swollen, and some residue blood stuck in the corners of her mouth.
“Are you going to tell Father Cruz that it was Craig?” she whispered into the disinfectant-heavy air. Matt had retreated to his cell.
“I’d like to tell him the whole truth.”
“Okay.” She chewed on her bottom lip. The fear in her eyes told me she didn’t want me to drop Craig’s name.
The door squeaked open, and Brother Oswin limped inside. Though in his mid-sixties, he looked like eighty with his gray hair, leathery skin, and hunchback posture. The man was a fountain of wisdom, not only when it came to medical topics. And he had a very dry sense of humor.
“What am I looking at?” He opened the wooden closet across the room and unearthed latex gloves, then a first aid kit.
“Harley got hit in the face with a soccer ball.” I touched the back of my throbbing skull. My fingers came back wet. Blood. “I hit my head pretty good.”
“Show me that wound.” Brother Oswin shuffled across the stone slabs to me.
I turned so he could see the back of my head.
“Looks fatal. You don’t have much longer to live.”
“You can see my brain, can’t you?” I joked along.
“That would require that you have one.”
I chuckled. “Whoever said the older people get, the meaner they are was right.”
“There’s too much dirt in it. Wash your head, no soap, then I can take a look.”
He moved to Harley’s bed, and for a moment, I watched her posture and expression as she answered his questions. She seemed relaxed, laughing at his jokes.
Confident she was comfortable without me, I slipped out of the infirmary and headed down the hall to the shower. My ribs were red from the punches I’d scored. Wouldn’t show those to Brother Oswin. The ring Harley’s ex had worn had left a gash in my left cheek.
After the shower, I donned my other habit and headed back to the infirmary.
Brother Oswin was in the middle of explaining to Harley how Matt had managed to ram an ax into his forehead.
He did quick work with my head wound, cleaning it and applying antiseptic, then wrapped a bandage around my head while asking an array of questions.
“Looks like you have a mild concussion,” he said once he’d checked my eyes with a pen light. “Nothing too serious. Notify me instantly if any symptoms come on.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Brother Oswin.”
He dismissed us, and I walked Harley back to the guesthouse. Though she was silent the entire way, I sensed something weighing on her. The sky was dark now, the only light coming from the stars and the kerosene lamp I carried.
“I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am about everything,” she finally said when we’d reached the guesthouse.
I stopped outside the door so as not to invade her safe haven. “Don’t worry about it.”