King stood motionless for far longer than he was comfortable with. In truth, his equilibrium had faltered — instead of hastily devising a fresh scheme to eliminate Reed he was simply trying to focus on staying conscious and preventing his legs from wobbling under the loss of balance.
Reed noticed that, too.
‘You’re in bad shape,’ he said.
His voice had turned cold, as had the surroundings. Unnatural shivers ran down King’s spine as he tuned into the words. He was losing it, slowly but surely. He grimaced, righted himself, and maintained a sweaty grip on the useless Browning.
Reed gazed left, then right. Searching for anything he could use as a weapon, more than likely. Finding nothing. A wry smirk spread across his face.
‘Sort of poetic that it came down to this, huh?’ he said. ‘Our bare hands. I’d be shitting myself if I were you. You saw how well that worked out for you in Afgooye.’
He was talking, droning on and on. Far longer than necessary. King sensed the blurry darkness forming like a ring around his vision, closing in, threatening to consume him. He realised that Reed knew fully well how debilitating King’s injuries were, and had simply elected to distract him long enough for nature to take its course.
Every second he spent waiting, listening to the spiel, was another second of opportunity for his body to shut down on himself. He recalled each sensation back in Afgooye as Reed had manhandled him, breaking his wrist, kicking him hard enough to incapacitate him, throwing him off a haul truck like he weighed nothing at all.
That was what awaited him just a dozen feet ahead.
Bryson Reed was a hand-to-hand phenom — there was no doubt about it.
But there were few other alternatives.
In fact, there were none.
King took a deep breath, hurled the disabled Browning away and sprinted straight forward, surging directly toward his worst nightmare.
51
As King charged, the endless list of disadvantages rolled through his head — unable to help the doubt seeping in, he chose to utilise the emotion. He let it wash over him, relishing the raw fear it carried with it. It honed his senses, zoning him in on the man in front of him.
He thought of all the reasons why Reed would beat him to death in the coming fight without breaking a sweat.
With both of them at optimal health in Afgooye, Reed had practically manhandled him, breaking his wrist and hurling him off a haul truck without King landing a single shot of his own.
Now, he was hurtling toward the same man — who was still unharmed, unblemished by the raging effects of non-stop combat — whereas King had a seemingly unending list of injuries to deal with. From his broken wrist to his crippled abdomen to the tender patches of skin all across his face from repeated blows, he knew it wouldn’t take much effort for Reed to overpower him and end it all with a rapid outburst of pinpoint-accurate punches.
King knew how to kill a man with his bare hands, which meant Reed did also.
Once again, King thought of the sheer potential in the man, and how much of an impact he would have made in the ranks of Black Force. For a moment he felt nauseous — he himself had single-handedly beat down everyone he came across in Mexico, and his superiors had hyped him up as one of the greatest prodigies in military history. Now he was facing a man who had made him look like a fool in hand-to-hand combat, something King was unaccustomed to.
He forced it all from his mind.
Reed was untarnished, and maybe that meant he’d be susceptible to the power of momentum. If King managed to gain the upper hand for just a second, he could deal out such pain that the tide would turn, and Reed would lock up, paralysed by a barrage of attacks. It had worked flawlessly with the bearded man minutes earlier.
He held onto the fleeting idea that he had a chance in the coming brawl.
Even though he knew what little hope there truly was.
You can take any kind of punishment he can deal out, he told himself. You don’t know if he can deal with pain the way you can.
He kept that idea in the back of his head as he surged into range and launched a series of Muay Thai side kicks into Reed’s torso.
He targeted the largest centre mass, making sure that each kick slammed home. Even if Reed had the reflexes to block the strikes — which he did, bringing his arms up to protect his sensitive mid-section — King’s shin bone smashed home relentlessly against the delicate bones in the man’s forearms. He let them fly with all the technique and power in his arsenal, drilling each kick home with enough force to break bones.
Reed battered them away, taking all the correct precautions to make sure none of the kicks were fight-ending. He used his forearms as twin shields to absorb the brunt of the impacts — King prayed that one of the kicks would hit with just the right pressure to crack the radius, or the ulna. The two major bones in the forearm — an injury to either of them would be debilitating.
Unfortunately, after four of the side kicks in the space of two seconds, Reed timed the fifth and hurled himself into range, taking a glancing blow from the fifth kick in exchange for closing the gap. King twisted away from the punch he knew was coming, but certain movements were slow and laborious. He tried to lean back away from the swinging left hook but his mid-section screamed in protest. Broken bones and torn muscles simply refused to move with the rapidity he was looking for.
It threw his timing out the window.
The fist crashed against the side of his head with enough force behind it to knock him unconscious. Thankfully, the muscles in King’s neck and jaw were unhurt, and he managed to roll with the trajectory of the punch at the last second. It took some of the devastating weight out of the shot.
But that didn’t make it any less painful.
He physically sensed his brain reeling from the punch, and a bright light flared across his vision. He understood a terrible sign when he saw it — his motor functions were fried, subject to a world of hurt with little room left to delay the inevitable.
You don’t have much time, a voice told him.
Take one to dish one.
The second thought kept him in place, planting his feet when every fibre of his being screamed at him to recoil away from Reed’s attacks. There was another punch heading straight for his face — a lightning-fast jab with Reed’s right hand. But the timing was slightly off — Reed had been expecting King to stumble away in the aftermath of the connecting left hook.
The jab landed with half power, hitting home a full foot before Reed intended. The man had been expecting to build up speed as he flicked his fist through the air, and it crashed home far too early.
Despite that, it still hurt like all hell.
King took the punch square on the forehead, his head snapping back as the kinetic energy dispersed through his skull. He clenched his teeth and fought through the sensation, remaining in exactly the same place.
Reed couldn’t help himself.
His natural balance took over and he was forced to take a step forward after throwing two successive punches with all the effort he had.
That put him uncomfortably close to King — only a foot separated each man from chest to chest.
King willed his body to put up with his requests for another ten seconds longer, and then he unleashed hell on the man he’d been chasing through war-torn Somalia for the better part of twenty-four hours.
52
The sequence took five seconds from beginning to end, but by the time it came to its conclusion King had dealt enough damage to kill a lesser man.