She jerks backward but is too slow, and the knife slices through the sleeve of her shirt.
She gasps.
I see blood. The cut is deep. It’s in her left forearm.
I go at the man, who’s now in the chamber with us, and instinct and three years of TaeKwonDo sparring take over. I use an inner forearm block to knock his knife hand to the side. Then, despite the close quarters, I’m able to land a fierce front kick to his thigh. I aim a punch at his throat, but he’s able to partially block it.
He feints at me, then swishes the blade in a figure-eight pattern in the air.
But he’s holding the knife in his right hand, which is good for me because I’m on his right side. I avoid the blade, almost manage to trap his wrist. He expertly flips the knife around and raises it to bring it down toward my chest.
An ice-pick grip.
Bad idea.
I step forward, wrists crossed, and snap them up against his forearm to keep him from bringing the knife down, then I move toward him as I twist my right hand, grasp his wrist, and swing the knife he’s still holding down, fast and hard, toward his leg.
The blade must be sharp, because it goes in smooth and quick and deep, not to the hilt, but far enough to do some serious damage.
Amazingly, he doesn’t back off, only lets out a small grunt of pain. He holds his ground, levels his flashlight at me, and with the other hand grabs the hilt of the knife and pries the blade, dripping wet with his blood, out of his thigh. “Do not move.” A coarse, low whisper.
This guy is either unbelievably tough or on drugs, or somehow the adrenaline was blocking the pain, because his voice remains slow and measured.
Still I cannot see his face.
My arm is hidden in shadows, and I pocket the item I took from him when I brushed my hand across his arm. Sleight of hand. I did it without even thinking. My heart is churning, my breathing fast. He didn’t see. He didn’t notice.
My TaeKwonDo instructor’s words flash through my mind: “A tense muscle is a weak muscle.”
I know that from my escapes as well.
Relax. Relax.
But I can’t seem to. Charlene is here and this guy just cut her and I wasn’t about to let him get close to her again. My fists are tight, my stance ready, my muscles tense and flexed. It’s not ideal, but it’s not an easy time for a tai chi state of mind.
I could make a move, but if something happened to me, I couldn’t imagine what he would do to Charlene.
I edge in front of her.
Relax.
Relax and respond.
A wire-tight silence stretches through the air.
He backs up a little, but Charlene and I are still trapped in the chamber. She’s pressing her right hand against the wound to stop the bleeding.
I’m about to ask if she’s okay, but before I can the man speaks, keeping his voice in the gravelly whisper. “Who are you?” I say nothing. He swings his light toward my face. “Tell me who you are and who sent you.”
I blink against the brightness. Don’t reply.
“You tell me”—now his voice is ice—“or I will kill you both. Right where you stand. Do you understand me? Who sent you?”
He might have more weapons, a gun.
Based on the size and type of the knife he brought with him, I take the guy seriously. I search for what to say.
Think, Jevin, think—
“Who sent you?” He tightens his grip on the knife and tilts the blade first toward me, then toward Charlene.
I have an idea, go with my gut.
“RixoTray,” I tell him. “To verify everything.”
He keeps his flashlight directed at us. “RixoTray,” he repeats softly, but it doesn’t sound like a question and he doesn’t ask me to elaborate.
Okay, don’t let him ask a following question. Please don’t let him ask a follow-up question.
All I can think of is helping Charlene. I don’t want to fight this man, but in a rush of emotion I find myself wondering how far I would go to defend her if he came at us again. Would I die for her? Would I be able to kill for her?
Yes to the first. I wasn’t sure about the second.
And thankfully, I don’t have to answer it, because finally, without another word, our attacker backs slowly through the room and disappears out the door to the hallway.
I hurry to Charlene’s side. “Are you alright?”
She’s still holding her hand against her wounded arm. Her sleeve is soaked in blood.
“I’m fine.”
“Let me see.”
“No, Jevin. It’s okay.”
I lay my hand softly on her shoulder. “Charlene. Let me see.”
Gingerly, she lifts her hand, revealing a dark, bleeding gash over four inches long, visible through the slit fabric.
Not good.
She quickly puts her hand back on her arm.
“Here.” I take off my belt, wrap it around her arm, and carefully cinch it off, not as a tourniquet, but snug enough to serve as a pressure bandage, to slow the bleeding. “We need to get you to a hospital; you’re going to need stitches.”
“We have that test tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Jev, a man just tried to kill us. This is no longer just about some kind of ESP test. We need to find out what else is going on here, and we’re not going to be able to do that from a hospital room. I’ll be okay, we’ll just bandage it up. I saw a first-aid kit in the bathroom at the cabin.”
She knew first aid, had to, working as my assistant. CPR too. She was the one who’d brought me back after the water escapes I didn’t quite succeed at. I figure she should be able to evaluate how serious the cut is.
But still—
Argue with her later. Just get her out of here.
“Okay, come on.” I help her to her feet.
“You stepped in front of me, Jevin. I saw that. Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“Where did all that come from, by the way?”
“All what?”
“Those moves. How you swung the knife down into his leg? I’ve never seen you do anything like that before.”
I’ve never had to.
“I guess those Bruce Lee movies are paying off.”
“I guess they are.”
Gently, I lead her out of the chamber and into the room. I’m not certain if she needs me to or not, but I support her with one hand under her armpit. She doesn’t pull away.
Before we head to the hallway, she insists that we check the computer to see what the guy might’ve been accessing. “Go on. I’ll be okay.”
Though I want to keep moving, I tap the keyboard and wake up the screen, only to find that the computer is password protected. As Fionna had pointed out to me more than once, you hack a site, you hash a password. I had no doubt she could hash this one in seconds, but it might take me hours.
Obviously there was no time for that.
Did the guy hash it, or did he already know the password?
It was impossible to know.
“Let’s get out of here, Charlene. Get back to the cabin and take care of that arm.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
A voice in my head: That guy might not have been alone. Watch out in the hall. Edging open the door, I tip the light quickly in both directions. After making sure the coast is clear, we head in the opposite direction from the spotty blood trail our assailant left behind.
Unfortunately, even though Charlene has her wound covered, we leave our own sporadic trail of blood as we go, and I wonder what kind of suspicions it might raise in the minds of whoever would be cleaning this floor tomorrow, but—