Girl Punches Out

by Jacques Antoine

  “What are you gonna do, dazzle us with some kung fu tricks?”

  He reached out to pat her cheek as he said this. One of the women was recording the scene on a cell phone.

  Emily leaned out of his reach and said “Be careful. Once it starts I won’t stop.”

  This was the last straw for the man standing just behind her shoulder. He reached his right arm around her neck and held her tight. The leader produced a huge knife, which he brandished in front of her face.

  “It’s time to teach you some respect,” he said with a sneer.

  This was too much for Danny. He charged into the circle, pushing two guys out of his way, kicking another in the knee and ready to use his hands on whoever got in his way. Wayne and Billy were right behind him, pushing through the girls’ resistance and crashing in to help. This took some of the gang’s attention off Emily. She heard the commotion behind her and made her move, perhaps sooner than she wanted to.

  The man holding her by the neck tried to lift her off her feet just as the leader was about to backhand her across the face with the fist holding the knife. She leaned back into him and kicked through the elbow behind the knife with her left foot. It snapped loudly, his forearm flapped grotesquely to one side. He doubled over in pain, perhaps hoping to cradle his arm, but she kicked him in the throat with her right foot as he bent towards her. He fell to the ground gasping and gurgling. It all happened in the blink of an eye.

  The man holding her from behind was struck with an almost visceral revulsion. Emily felt him relax his grip. She slipped her fingers under his right hand, a quick twist out and down bent him over. Before he realized what was happening, she pivoted back to punch through his elbow. It snapped just as his shoulder popped out. One more twist and his head hit the pavement. She let the movement carry her into a spin as a lunging knife slashed harmlessly in front of her chest. She trapped the wrist with both hands, twisted and pulled it sharply up and then over her head. The wrist snapped as she stepped through and slashed his midsection with the blade she wouldn’t let him drop. She continued the movement of his arm down and then up forcing him into an awkward front flip. He landed hard on the back of his neck. She was now holding his knife.

  With a roar of inchoate rage another man charged at her from behind. She threw the knife as she pivoted towards him. It stuck in his chest, apparently missing any vital organs. He seemed perplexed to see it sticking out of him. He moved to pull it out, perhaps thinking he would use it on her. A crossover step and side kick to the center of his chest lifted him off the ground and onto a pair of bikes that fell over, carrying him clattering down.

  She paused for a brief moment to glare at the two largest men, still seated on their bikes. Her eyes seemed to be asking them a question to which they had no reply. What could they say? Four men laid low in a matter of seconds, limbs broken, maimed, one man gasping for breath and clawing the pavement. It all happened so fast, and apparently so effortlessly. Her movements would seem almost graceful, if one could view them in the abstract. But the concrete reality of what she had done was quite different. It was a degree of savagery they had never seen.

  “It’s up to you. Do I fight to the end, or do you leave now?”

  They stared at her in disbelief. She was so preposterously small compared to them. A lunging knife, she turned and blocked just behind someone’s wrist with her right hand and took control of it. Before he knew what happened she had punched the back of his elbow with her left hand, snapping this one, too. He shrieked as she sunk his knife deep into his thigh, limp wrist and hand still force to hold it. She spun away from a swinging club, a kick to the back of his head as she came around. He fell to the ground with a thud, face smeared into the pavement. She blocked a low, lunging knife with crossed hands, twisting it out and up. She controlled his wrist by pressing the back of his contorted hand with her thumbs as he writhed in pain. He was forced into an awkward crouch. But before he hit the ground she kicked through his right knee. The sound was sickening. He dropped the knife as she let him collapse to the pavement.

  It was all one seamless sequence of movements, each one leading directly to the next. The others thought better of coming near her. Her eyes were blazing, though not with any light. It was a dark fire, her eyes entirely black. They ran back to their bikes and waited for some sort of indication from whoever was the new leader. The women crouched over some of the maimed men, one shrieked “You bitch!” at Emily. She walked back to the two largest bikers. They looked her up and down, now with something more like an admission of respect, perhaps tinged with a little fear.

  “I didn’t start this fight, but I’ll finish it if I have to,” she said sternly. “It’s up to you what happens next. By rights, their bikes belong to me now. Stay out of our way and you can keep ‘em.”

  They nodded and motioned to the others to move to the other end of the lot.

  ~~~~~~~

  It took a few seconds for her friends to fathom what had just transpired. The boys had been ready to fight. They entered the fray to help Emily. But they also knew she had kept them from really having to confront the sort of violence these men would not shrink from perpetrating.

  As grateful as they all were, they were also disturbed by the much greater ferocity of the violence she had unleashed. They saw what the bikers had seen. None of them had even imagined anything like it before, and even more astounding was how naturally it seemed to flow from her graceful movements. What was most shocking: she didn’t hesitate. No flinches, no doubts. She slashed through her assailants like a spinning blade. Each movement led to the next, every block turned into a strike, and her strikes did damage. They stood speechless in front of her.

  “C’mon guys. Let’s go,” she said.

  The spell was broken. Danny climbed into her pickup and the others got into Billy’s SUV. Emily gestured to Wendy to lower her window.

  “Talk to them, especially Mel. She looks pretty freaked out,” she whispered. “You’ve been there before. Help her.”

  The air in the SUV was almost suffocating. It even seemed to be strangling the boys. They all just stared at the taillights of the pickup ahead of them. Finally Wendy turned to Melanie in the back and pushed some words out of her mouth.

  “Thank God Emily was there.” Melanie’s ashen face hardly moved. “If she hadn’t been, we would probably have been raped and beaten, and left for dead.”

  That statement certainly put a point on the whole affair. True as what she said might have been, sometimes her years as a Goth still shaped her thoughts in less than helpful ways. Melanie said nothing. Her eyes were so wide it wasn’t clear she would be able to close them again. She leaned her head on Wayne’s shoulder—the uninjured one—and let the tears roll down her face. Finally, she managed to shut her eyes.

  ~~~~~~~

  In the pickup, Danny hardly spoke the whole way home. He’d seen her compete in the tournament, and he’d seen a video of her in a real fight. But he’d never experienced the concrete reality of it face to face. Not like this. He remembered her words after the fight in the dojo with Marty and Jeff: “I hate fighting… it’s about inflicting pain, and it sucks.” They rang especially true for him now. Fighting does suck, he thought.

  “Thanks for keeping everyone safe, Em,” he finally said. “I’m sorry you had to do that.”

  She didn’t say anything at first. When he looked over at her he saw tears in her eyes. Perhaps neither of them quite knew why. She turned to look at him and smiled a weary smile.

  “You’re beginning to understand me, I think.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Floating in the lake just breathing helped. Thanks for that.”

  “Do you still want to go to the prom with someone like me?”

  Her question had to burn its way through to make it all the way into his consciousness. If he were a rational creature, he might weigh carefully the wisdom of allying himself to someone whose life was so clearly a slow-motion train wreck. It was a glorious wreck perhaps, but
a catastrophe none the less. None of that mattered to him. In his eyes she was heartbreakingly beautiful. He could see nothing else.

  “Are you kidding? Of course I do.”

  -back to top-

  Chapter 17

  Into the Frying Pan

  The next day at lunch Emily stood by the cafeteria doors wondering whether she should go in. Her friends were sitting at their usual table. Talking, laughter, definite indicators of high spirits. Perhaps they had put the horror of last evening’s events behind them. Should she join them? Where was Melanie? Had she retreated to Amanda’s table? She could hardly blame her if she had.

  Then she spotted her out on the patio by herself. That seemed to be her way of dealing with turmoil. She should probably leave her alone out there. Let her sort stuff out on her own. Maybe decide if she even wanted her as a friend, now that she’d caught a glimpse of who she really is. But is that who she really is? Emily had been haunted by this question for weeks now, and it grew more urgent everyday. She couldn’t answer it by herself. And she wasn’t sure her friends could help. She went out to the patio and sat next to Melanie. Neither one said a word at first.

  “Hi, Em,” a little voice said. “Thanks for last night. I was so frightened. If you hadn’t been there….” She just couldn’t face the end of that sentence.

  “It scares me sometimes that I can do what I did. I hope I didn’t freak you out.”

  “You? You were beautiful. You are beautiful!” Melanie looked directly into her face, a smile playing crookedly around the edges of her mouth. “Sure, you can be a little scary sometimes,” she added after a moment. “I have to admit I threw up when I got home. But what else were you supposed to do?”

  “It’s not that. Those guys didn’t get anything they didn’t deserve. But you know I wasn’t afraid or angry or anything. I just watched the scene unfold before me with no emotion. Like I was folding laundry or washing dishes.” She paused to take a breath. Melanie had tilted her head to one side, like dogs sometimes do when they’re confused. “One of those guys, I snapped his elbow like it was just a matter of course. He attacked and I just did what felt like the natural thing. But maiming someone is not natural, is it?” Her anguish practically dripped off this last question.

  “I don’t know, Em. But that was not a ‘natural’ situation last night. You did what it took to protect yourself and us. It was an ugly scene, but you were beautiful. Maybe that’s what made it so terrifying.”

  Emily laughed.

  “Thanks, Mel. What are you, some kinda poet? Terrible beauty,” she smirked.

  They were both laughing now. Wendy plumped down across from them. She’d gotten impatient waiting inside.

  “What are you guys up to?”

  They both giggled. Melanie looked like she’d been caught in the act of something or other.

  “We’re not doin’ nothin’,” Emily sang out merrily.

  “Mel, I think you’re horning in on my lunch turf,” Wendy teased. “Whatcha got in there?” she said gesturing to Emily’s unusually large lunch bag.

  “Oh. I almost forgot.”

  She dug into her bag and pulled out a sack full of rice balls for them all to share. She had a big bowl of chicken teriyaki on noodles, plenty to share, which she took over to the microwave.

  “You okay?” Wendy asked while she was gone.

  “Yeah. I got a little freaked out last night.”

  “I’ve been there. With Emily you just have to get used to it. The girl is like a magnet for trouble.”

  “So I’m noticing.”

  “You know the secrecy thing, where she’s always saying not to talk about stuff like last night?” Wendy said. “I think it’s our way of protecting her. Or everyone would think she’s some sort of freak. Even if we know better.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “I give her a hard time about it sometimes. But it’s like one of the few ways we have to pay her back.”

  Emily returned a moment later with a steaming bowl and three sets of chopsticks. They laughed and talked. She showed Melanie how to use the chopsticks, and they made fun of each other and the boys until the end of lunch.

  The boys watched from the other side of the big plate glass windows fronting the patio. They clearly wanted to go out there, even though Wendy said not to. On some level each of them must have realized how important it was to their own happiness that the girls get along without them.

  ~~~~~~~

  In homeroom on Friday, all the buzz was about Miss Park, who had been seen in the office. In the ‘T’s there were mixed reactions to this news. Amanda was pleased to the extent that Miss Park was a favorite of the cheerleading squad, and no doubt because the sub who’d been filling in for her seemed too old for teen agers to bond with. By contrast, Wayne would know what this meant. He sat behind Emily, so he couldn’t catch her eye. But she knew he’d want to talk. He would have to catch up to her in the hall. She waited for him.

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “I dunno yet. But one thing I’m not doing is going to PE like it’s business as usual.”

  True to her word, Emily did not go to the locker room to change. Instead she walked directly across the gym floor in her street clothes and into the office. The ‘phone’ in her pocket vibrated just as she approached the door. It would have to wait.

  She could see her just inside arranging something in the pocket of her leather jacket. It looked like she wasn’t getting ready for class either. Emily pushed through the door and stood opposite her. Miss Park said nothing, only looked at her, betraying nothing with her face, not fear, not anger, not perplexity. She was totally composed.

  “Ah, Miss Tenno,” she began.

  “Let’s just go with Kane. It might be simpler.”

  Miss Park briefly seemed to be caught between the etiquette of her disguise and the real purposes that brought her to school today. The ambivalence only lasted a moment. Her facial muscles soon stiffened and her eyes took on a steel grey resolve.

  “We have the boy. Surrender yourself to us and we’ll release him.” She handed her what looked like a prepaid cell phone. “We’ll contact you with directions tomorrow.”

  “The boy? What the hell are you talking about.”

  It suddenly occurred to her to check Jesse’s ‘phone.’ There was a text message: “mc shot, ac taken, be careful.” The composition of her own facade almost gave way. She recovered herself by lunging at Miss Park, effectively startling her. She pressed her neck against the wall as she jammed one hand into the pocket of her jacket. She found another cell phone there. She took it and stuffed the prepaid phone in its place.

  “You can contact me on this phone.”

  Emily was right up against her nose, staring into her eyes. She let her see the full force of the violence in her heart. Miss Park tried to turn away.

  “If I really were who you evidently think I am, you’d be dead already.”

  She turned to leave the office. At the door she said over her shoulder: “No deal without the girl.”

  Miss Park looked relieved that Emily had released her, and puzzled by her last remark.

  “The girl?”

  “Give me the little girl, too, or it’s no deal. You know who I mean.”

  She slammed the door and walked out of the gym. Out in the parking lot, Emily pulled the battery out of the phone, removed the sim card and the memory chip. She smashed the rest of the phone on the ground, not wanting to risk bringing an active GPS chip to Michael’s estate.

  Ninety minutes later she pulled up the long driveway. The security guards waved her through. At the house everything was in disarray. Michael was in surgery. Andie and Yuki were already at the University Medical Center with Ethan. Jesse was waiting to take her to the hospital. He filled in the details on the ride over.

  “An assault team ambushed the family car on the way to school this morning,” Jesse said, clearly upset. “Four men, heavily armed, body armor. The driver, Keller, he’s dead.
Shot twice in the head. They took Anthony, shot Michael. At least two rounds in the chest.”

  This analytical recitation of the facts seemed to calm him down.

  “What was Michael even doing in the car? Does he normally go along?” Emily asked.

  “The Headmaster’s office asked him to come in, some sort of meeting. Sounds like a setup, like someone at the school’s been turned. Karansky’s looking into it.”

  “What about the police?”

  “They’re on the scene, and the FBI is getting underfoot at the hospital. I don’t think they’ll be more than a nuisance to us. If they approach you, don’t give them anything more than superficial answers. Remember, you don’t know anything. Also, pick a name and stick to it. Tenno’s probably safer than Kane, since it’s better documented.”

  Emily handed over the sim card and memory chip, and told him about making her switch phones.

  “They’re going to call with instructions. I said there’s no deal without Jiang’s niece, Li Li.”

  “What’s she got to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. But they have her, and I’m not gonna let them dictate all the terms.”

  “You certainly have some chutzpah,” he said, whistling his astonishment at her self-possession. “And I’m not surprised to hear about the North Koreans. That’s who we think she is, right?”

  “That’s what Michael thought last time we talked about her.”

  “Whoever they are, this never seemed like a kidnapping for ransom. Too much firepower in the assault. And they killed the driver, probably meant to kill Michael. You don’t kill the person you expect to pay the ransom. We just have to wait to hear what they want.”

  “They want me,” she said, as casually as if she were dropping a name at a cocktail party.

  Her effort to minimize the burden of this revelation hardly fooled Jesse, especially since he half expected to hear it all along. With some reluctance, she told him about her second conversation with Jiang, how he was sure they didn’t have Tang Li Li with them.