Bucky kept that superior smirk right in place, but I didn’t miss the hint of real anger in his eyes. Oh, he was annoyed with me, all right. How dare I speak to him like that after he’d so properly cowed me in the past? At least I hoped that was what was going through his head. I took a momentary mental pause to ask myself, did I actually want to provoke him? My body had gotten stronger, yes—but not that strong. And while Nate hadn’t deliberately let me get through his defenses, I was aware that he hadn’t gone into full offense with me yet. Then again, bruise each other up we might do, but not go for any real damage. While all my attacks were for real, of course I always held back a little.
With Bucky, I wouldn’t have to. And I really, really didn’t want to.
“Think you can do better?” I called out to him, stopping my hopping to spread my arms wide in invitation. “It’s so damn easy to come for a woman when she doesn’t even have the strength to sit up straight anymore. Too afraid to try now when you’d meet with some actual opposition?”
I knew it was stupid. I knew that I would lose—and very likely end up hurting a lot worse than over the past week. I didn’t find it in me to give a shit. The anger churning in my gut would get me through the worst, I knew that. I wouldn’t go down without a fight, and I’d damn well cause some damage in return, and that was all that I cared about. Besides, I would have to test my limits sooner or later, and it wasn’t smart to do that in the field.
It was obvious that the same thoughts—at least about me not being up to besting him—went through Hamilton’s head, but he only hesitated for a moment before he pushed the notepad he’d been carrying at the flunky by his side. If he thought he was intimidating me as he pulled his fleece jacket off, revealing quite the amount of muscles barely contained by his T-shirt underneath, he was betting on the wrong horse. He didn’t make a move to take his boots off, but I wasn’t afraid that he would stomp on my bare toes. I would have donned mine had they been around, but they still sat under my bunk, and my discarded, stinking socks weren’t really worth the hassle. I caught Nate’s gaze as he stepped off the mat to make room. Oh, there was enough caution—and scorn—there to fill an entire book, but also a hint of satisfaction. Neither of us was delusional about my condition, but unlike Bucky, he knew that my punches could hurt—and if it helped take the edge off my frustration, why not have at it? I just hoped he wouldn’t get all “I told you so” over my ass when he was patching me up later. At the last moment before I turned away, I caught the hint of a smile crossing his features. Whether that was in anticipation of me socking Bucky a good one, or watching my usual confidence snap into place, I couldn’t tell, but it was neat to see Nate do something other than glower.
It took everyone else in the hangar about twenty seconds to realize that something was about to go down that was more interesting than their current preoccupation, the entire lot of them coming closer, building a loose ring around the mats. Part of me wanted to step closer to where Nate and Tanner were lurking, but I trusted the rest not to kick me in the knees while I wasn’t looking. As I waited for Bucky to be ready, I rolled my shoulders and tried to get the last few kinks out of my muscles. I considered getting wraps for my hands, but my knuckles would survive either way, and the scar tissue would hurt like hell, so it was just the same. A hint of nerves got my pulse kicking up a notch, but I latched on to the resulting spike of adrenaline rather than tried to quench it—I’d need that, and much, much more.
“You ready?” I called out across the mats when Hamilton was finally done. He kept his knife strapped to his thigh, as if it wasn’t worth the time unbuckling that.
“So eager to be put in your place, Stumpy?” Bucky jeered back—and attacked.
I hadn’t expected him to take the initiative like that, but it was easy to avoid his bull rush. I danced out of his reach, idly kicking for his thigh, just to see whether he would evade me or take it. He did neither, twisting around lightning fast and made a grab for my ankle. Oops. I narrowly avoided him twisting it by letting myself drop, gravity wrenching my foot out of his loose hold. Rolling over my left shoulder, I was up in time to meet his kick toward my torso with the fleshy part of my thigh, throwing a punch as he stumbled into my reach. The knuckles of my right hand hit him square in the eye, even though he tried to pull his head back in time. I had to pay for that hit, though, when his left hook rammed straight into the scars on my abdomen, making pain explode all through my torso.
We both stepped back to catch a breath, me ending up right next to Nate. “You were right,” I wheezed out when my lungs finally started to work again. “Right hand’s useless.”
“Might still end up as a black eye,” Nate offered as he watched Bucky gingerly touch his upper cheek. “But I told you so.”
I flashed Nate a quick grin before I got ready for the next attack. One thing I had to hand to Hamilton, he was quick, particularly for a guy packing that amount of muscle on a somewhat compact frame. I knew I could be quicker—but not when he was waiting for me like that. I feigned left, then right, before I kicked toward his knee, ready for him to deflect. He did, but not in a way I’d expected. He sidestepped and kicked at my leg, only to pivot the second he came down for another kick. I narrowly avoided that, immediately lunging for him to go at him with my left elbow. I missed his head, the blow glancing off his shoulder. I tried to disengage quickly, but his left hook hit me by surprise—literally—smashing right into my nose. It didn’t even hurt that bad, but blood gushed from it, forcing me to step farther away to be able to wipe if off my face.
“Had enough already, Stumpy?” Bucky jeered across the mats, giving me a brilliant smile.
“Oh, you mean because of this?” I said, spitting some of the blood out that had gotten into my mouth. “’Tis but a scratch!”
I was surprised to get several cheers from all around, not just from Gita, who was whooping at the top of her lungs. Yeah, Burns had been doing a stellar job watering down the lines.
Feeling even more motivated than before, I came after Bucky, going all in with a sequence of kicks. Two landed; the third was too slow and he managed to move in as I came down, his arms closing around me like a vise. I knew what was coming but it still hurt like hell as he flung me over his shoulder and came right down on me as I crashed onto my back. His elbow hit me in the right side of the abdomen, like his previous attack, making me howl with pain. I knew he was going to follow that up with a few punches, and to save my face, I rolled, giving him a great opportunity to hit my lower right back as well. Of course he went for it, making my scars and still tender tissues underneath light up with pain.
Bingo.
Rather than disappear in a haze of pain, my mind kicked into overdrive, my body following a moment later. Instead of using my momentum to come to my feet, I forced myself to slow down to lure him into another punch. He fell for it, yet before it could land, I reared up with my hips, wrapping both legs around his torso and neck. He lost his balance, falling over backward in his attempt to shake me, which pulled me on top of him. Right out of our roll, I started pummeling his face and torso, hitting as fast and hard as possible with my left fist, finishing with a slam of my left elbow at his throat with my entire weight behind it. I felt him tense underneath me, knowing he was gearing up to flip us over once more, and quickly let myself fall back into a roll—and this time I came to my feet, a good two yards away from him. I was right across the ring from my people, but that didn’t matter. I was sure that the whoop to my left came from Murdock.
Grinning down at Bucky, blood still dripping from my nose, I made a “come hither” gesture with both hands raised in front of my body. “How’s that for enough?”
I knew he could have jumped right to his feet—my punches had landed, but I hadn’t been able to hit that hard unaided—yet Bucky got up slowly, his eyes skimming over my body, watching my every motion, likely for the first time actually paying attention to what I could do, not how he could land a low blow. I shouldn’t have welcomed that
so much. After all, it killed my last chance to win this fight. But as I waited for his move, I realized that I wasn’t even so much doing that to vent my own frustration, but simply to prove to myself—and everyone around—that I could. He could call me names up and down, all day long, as long as he wanted, but I’d watched him spar with Red and Hill a couple of times. Neither of them had landed more than a few punches, while I had made him bleed. That alone was worth it. No more ignoring me now.
Getting a good feeling for how my body felt when it was starting to slide from all green right toward the danger zone was another.
I hurt, no shit, but I was holding up better than I’d expected. When Bucky came for me, I knew that wouldn’t be the case much longer, but really, he was a head taller than me and almost twice as heavy. The fact that I wasn’t lying on the mat yet, unconscious, was a feat.
My assessment had been right—he was done playing, and while I fought with everything I had, we both knew that I was losing. I still got a few good jabs with my knee in and the odd punch, but then he threw me again, and this time I could tell he wouldn’t let me turn things around on him anymore. It was when I realized that his plan was to sit on me and choke me with his arm pressed against my windpipe that I knew I had to do something about that. I wouldn’t have minded either that much, but I caught that glint in his eyes just as he came down on me to keep me pinned, and I knew I had to act. So I did the only thing I could still do, with my right hand, because he already caught my left—the one I’d done the most damage with—and wrenched it onto the mat, in a way that when I tried to rear up, my shoulder gave a weird, painful twinge. Then his other arm pressed against my trachea, making me go as tense as possible to keep him from cutting off my airways.
And of course, he had to go for the lowest asshole drawer in the shelf as he leaned heavily enough on my left thigh to force me to pull it away to the side, thus landing between my somewhat spread legs. Jerking his hips forward—yup, he definitely liked beating me up—he leaned down until his breath was all over my face as he asked, “Feel that?” and repeated the motion, pretty much laying down on me—until he froze
I didn’t need to force a smile onto my face. It came all naturally. “Feel that?” I echoed—and shoved his knife just a little farther up, making sure that it not just pressed against his shirt but cut right into the outer layers of his skin. “That’s yours, if you’re wondering. Should have pinned both of my hands. Rest assured, even with only three and a half fingers, my grip is still strong enough to stick you like a pig. Now, get off me.”
Of course he didn’t, but I could deal with his almost dead weight on me as long as his crotch was nowhere near mine—and he’d been smart enough to pull back once he’d realized what was going on. Too bad, really.
“Would have been too much to expect a fair fight from the likes of you,” he growled right in my face.
I didn’t bat an eyelash. “I hate to break this to you, but no physical fight between you and me will ever be fair, and that’s not my fault. Besides, I thought this was something you subscribed to as well. Who cares about a fair fight when all that counts is coming up ahead?” I raised my brows at him. He didn’t react. “Seeing as you’re not going to move, let’s use this occasion for a nice little chat, shall we?” I proposed. “I would be much obliged if you took your arm off my trachea. Unless you want me to get a cramp in my right hand that makes it jerk upward, uncontrolled, repeatedly.”
I could tell from his considering look that he was calculating whether he could incapacitate me before I got to that, either try to suffocate me or slam my head into the mats until I was unconscious, but seemed to realize neither was possible. He didn’t remove his arm but eased up until I could breathe more or less freely again. It was enough.
“I have no idea what we would have to talk about,” he sneered.
Just for fun, I poked a little harder, making him wince. Great abs training for him, I was sure, but didn’t expect any thanks.
“Oh, I can think of a few things,” I suggested, trying to get a little more comfortable. “How about you stop being such a dickturd? You and I both know that you have zero interest in touching me, let alone fucking me. So drop that crap. Just because some imbecile wrote a psych eval about me based on what happened in Taggard’s little underground bunker doesn’t mean that will get you anywhere. Might have worked last year, but not now. I do greatly prefer not to be raped, but do you really think that’s worse than what’s happened to me so far? Don’t be so fucking naive.” Raising my head up as much as his hold on me would let me, I aimed for a sweet smile. “I will bend, but I won’t break. Not from anything you can say or do. But if that’s too hard for you, I can be nice and rid you of those shriveled raisins that you call your balls, right here, right now. What do you say?”
I only got a grunt in return—or maybe that was because I pushed the knife in just a little farther—but I could see in the way he glared at me that the message was received. Might as well deliver the rest, seeing as neither of us was going anywhere.
“Speaking of which, as you’re already reorienting your view of the world at large… I’m not my husband’s weakness—I’m his strength. All you do by trying to get to him through me is piss me off, and you really won’t like me when I’m angry.” Damnit, even that little reference was making his eyes narrow, but I was wise enough not to exploit that—yet. “Let’s talk shop here, shall we? You’re neither as bulletproof as you think, nor as untouchable. I should probably not tell you this, but why not. Raynor has it out for you. She’s fed up with your continuing incompetence. You couldn’t even fetch me when she was asking for that, who knows where else you have failed her? She’d much rather see Miller take your place—or me. Why not both of us, seeing as we come as a package deal? You might have guessed that already, but that’s the real reason I’m here. I’m sure that in your orders there’s another explanation, but we both know that it’s bullshit. Tell you what? I have absolutely no interest in working for that bitch, and whoever’s above her in the hierarchy of your little organization there. You can be top dog all you want, as long as you leave me and my people the fuck alone. But I swear to you, if you give me even a hint of a reason why I should change my mind, I will. And I will come out on top, and you will wish that I had eviscerated you today. Are we clear on that?”
Bucky snorted dismissively, but I knew that he wasn’t that stupid. “Are you done talking trash?” he wanted to know. “Not that I’ve ever heard anything else from you.”
“You’re the one who’s still lying on me,” I pointed out.
“I can’t move up unless you withdraw the knife.”
“Oh, you mean this one?” I said—and rather than retract it, I shoved it another inch up into him, making sure to cut deep. I doubted I’d get lucky and perforate his intestines, and right then, I didn’t care whether I did or not. “Do we have an agreement? I need you to say the words. And I need everyone to hear them.” I jerked my chin toward our bystanders, who were, to a man, undecided what to do with the situation.
Hamilton’s face had turned into a grimace, but he still let me wait a full ten seconds before he finally gave the smallest of nods. “We do.”
“Good,” I said cheerfully, rearing up once more so that my lips were almost touching his ear. “And never forget—the only reason why I didn’t castrate you today was because I simply didn’t want to.”
I pulled the knife out with a jerk that was hard enough to make the hilt slam into my abdominal scars, but I didn’t give a fuck about that now. Bucky launched himself off me the same moment I scrambled back, both of us ending in a ready stance at the different ends of the circle. Never one to risk a hard-earned victory, I relaxed first, giving a dismissive flick with the knife to get some of the blood off it. It wasn’t much, but enough to be easily visible, covering parts of the blade. “I will keep this as a sweet souvenir,” I told him, offering him another fake smile. “I hope you don’t object.”
“Keep it,” Bu
cky offered, ignoring the small pool of blood that was spreading on his T-shirt. “It’s a worthless piece of trash. Fits you.” He paused, then added, just as I was about to turn around, “Stumpy.”
I considered not reacting, but since we were already being so chatty…
Turning back to face him, I grinned. “Yeah, you say that like it’s demeaning, for me. Right after defeating you, with the hand that took the brunt of it. Exactly what do they feed you? Because I’d add a little more carbs in the mix. Your brain doesn’t have enough energy to work right.” I could do that dramatic pause, too. “Besides, Bucky… two can play that game. I guarantee you, I will have the last laugh in this, you petty, little fool.”
There were no outright cheers, but some good-natured if suppressed laughter going on. The two soldiers closest to the door—Cole and Aimes—stepped away to make room for me to pass as I aimed for them, both offering me a small nod. I did my best to keep a straight face, but it got harder from second to second. Yeah, I could maybe bullshit them all, but that didn’t mean I was as relaxed as I pretended to be. If I’d been smart, I would have lost the fight and let him have that little triumph. But I’d had a chance, so I took it, and I didn’t really find it in me to regret it. And only feeling a little beat-up with a possibly broken nose was better than being dragged the whole nine yards.
I was almost to the door, trusting that Nate and the others would pick up my discarded clothes on the way, when two of the marines stepped in my way, blocking my exit. I still had the bloody knife in my hand, but did my best to make that none too obvious, next to my thigh.
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