Apparently he wasn’t a fights enthusiast, because he just kept on spinning to try to shake me off. This was great, because while we were going slower than I had been, I was now higher than the guys I was fighting.
Adriana saw what I was doing. I knew this because as I slammed the mitt into the head of the nearest A-C, she used a low kick to knock him off his feet. In fact, she was using the Iron Broom Sweep, where she stayed low, had her leg out, and spun around in a 360 as she swept the legs of the A-Cs near us. This was an impressive technique. Which meant I had to knock more heads in order to keep up. Worked for me.
She was slower, of course, but that gave me more time to hit agents, slam their heads together, and so forth. My unwilling partner was actually a great help. He kept on trying to hit me and I kept on slamming his arms away from me, meaning he ended up hitting someone else around us.
We flailed around like this for what felt like a long time, but which I knew to be less than three minutes, because “White Trash Circus” was still going when the last A-C around us hit the ground.
While Adriana slammed heads into the floor to ensure the agents were out and stayed out, I dealt with the guy whose shoulders I was riding. Decided the easiest way was to just hit him until he stopped being ornery.
Slammed the mitt into his face a few times while I tightened my thighs around his neck and head. This was working, but not fast enough. Decided to go for the impressive option. But it would require tag-teaming. “Adriana, need that Iron Broom move again!”
Leaned forward, looked him in the eyes, albeit upside down, grabbed his arms and kept them off my thighs, then flipped myself backward as hard as I could, while pushing against his back with my feet and lower legs and pulling his arms back.
Adriana, meanwhile, both heard and answered the call. She swept his legs as I went back. I let go with my legs and hands and did a backflip. I landed on my feet and my purse didn’t hit me in the face, so I was definitely counting this one as deserving of at least a 9.0 for Olympic Trials. He landed flat on his back. His head slammed into the floor, but Adriana did another slam on him anyway.
“I approve of the double-tap.”
“Good.” Adriana got to her feet. “I hear women fighting.”
Grabbed her hand. “You lead, let’s go see.”
We took off and, sure enough, we found some women fighting all right, behind a big set of isolation chambers. Claudia, Lorraine, and Serene were fighting back to back against the rest of Security. Speaking of unfair fights. Sure, the one Adriana and I had just had had been unfair, too, but this one looked worse. The girls were seriously pissed and the Security team looked pretty bad.
Remembered what the fight Jeff and Christopher had been having looked like. They hadn’t been doing nearly so well as the girls. “I think I need to go help Jeff.”
“I’ll stay here.” Adriana pulled some rope out of her backpack. “I have a plan.”
“I’ll let you run it. Hoping you’re conscious and unhurt when I get back.” Zipped off to where I’d seen the guys. Sure enough Jeff and Christopher were fighting one person. A woman. A small woman. If she was five feet tall that would be pushing the boundaries of measurement. And they were losing.
They were losing in part because they weren’t trying to kill this enemy and in fact weren’t really fighting as hard as I’d seen both of them do before. Was pretty sure that was the case for everyone else on Alpha and Airborne who was down and out, as well as those still fighting. These were our people, under mind control, and our side knew it.
As I arrived, this one tiny opponent sent Christopher flying, similar to how someone had done with Reader. Christopher slammed against an isolation chamber door and went down. Then she turned back to Jeff. She was older but still Dazzler gorgeous, with short, black hair. But I could see familial resemblance, more to Lucinda than White, but still, there.
I had a damned good guess who this was, and I also knew one thing, clearly—the gloves had to come off. And there was only one person here who could do that. Me.
She wasn’t my aunt or sister, she wasn’t someone I worked for, and, more to the point, she wasn’t someone I’d ever actually met in person. And I was tired of her intimidating me. That was so last Operation ago. Right now, as she slammed a fist into Jeff that doubled him over, slammed her knee into his head, then tossed him aside and onto the floor, I wasn’t intimidated—I was enraged.
When Jeff didn’t get up, I quickly went from enraged to supernova rage levels. I had one thought, and one thought only, and it wasn’t how to subdue my opponent without hurting her.
“Hey Gladys, got some news for you.” Took my purse off and tossed it near to Jeff. Hopefully someone would be able to give him an adrenaline shot, because I was betting that he needed it. Kept my earbuds in and iPod on. Tunes were always my friends.
She turned to me. “What’s that? You’re quitting Centurion because you’ve never belonged here in the first place?”
“Nope, something much simpler. Bring it, bitch, ’cause you’re going down.”
CHAPTER 37
AS THE SONG ON MY IPOD CHANGED, I was now certain Algar was controlling my playlist. Because the new song was “Kill Your Idols” by Static-X. A fine song to kick butt to, good, fast, angry beat, helpful lyrics. Put it on repeat.
Gladys did that creepy crack your neck just by tilting your head really hard thing. Was pretty sure she did it to be creepy. Chose to look at is as a challenge, to see if I could crack her neck a whole lot harder.
Unlike most of my opponents over the years, she wasn’t talking. That one insult seemed to have been it. Instead of chat, she launched herself at my legs.
I jumped up and did the splits. She flipped into a forward roll and as I came down and spun around, she tackled me, hitting my stomach with her head.
“Ooof!” I sounded like Mahin. And figured I knew how she’d felt when I was kicking her butt. I went backward, Gladys on top of me, straddling my chest, all the better to do her version of ground and pound. Her version sucked, and by sucked I mean hurt a lot.
Still had the baseball mitt on. It was working great as a defensive tool—I had it in front of my face for protection and absorption of blows.
“Defend your head!” Tito shouted. Ah, my MMA coach was watching on the sidelines. Or, more likely, coaching while he was also kicking butt, which was a standard move for him. For this I was grateful. I’d personally thought the mitt was handling the defensive end, but I put both arms up, bent in front of my face.
“Knee her back! Knee her back and work to get out!” Tito was full of good advice.
I’d pulled it off earlier when no one was around. Might as well give it a go here, in the presence of witnesses. Besides, Gladys was tough but she was also small.
Shifted my hips so I rocked her, slammed my knee into her back as hard as I could, while I shoved my arms at her with all my strength.
Gladys went back as my leg went up. The move worked perfectly again. The only problem was that Gladys was a lot shorter than Mahin. I did hit the back of her head, but with my shin. Which hurt like hell.
It stunned her, though, which was what I needed. Used the mitt to hit her with a slapping left and she went off of me to my right. I rolled to my left and scrambled to my feet.
She ran toward me again, and I decided it was time for my favorite Kung Fu technique—Crane Opens a Can of Whup-Ass.
Jumped to the side onto the leg whose shin wasn’t hurting with my other leg up. Blocked her with my nice pointy Crane Hands. Side blade kick to her knee. Okay, to her hip, she was really short. Two palm strikes to her head, another to the face, and a fourth to her floating ribs. Okay, to her damn shoulder. No wonder she was considered so formidable—she was hard as hell to hit correctly.