Dusk was lowering, the blue sky turning orange. I was due backstage in about twenty, and was enjoying the last of my beer—my fourth or fifth since this morning, and I’d timed them pretty damn perfectly to set me up with a nice mellow buzz. The act on stage was decent—a local trio, two men and a woman clearly inspired by Lady A but without that trio’s insane talent quotient. They played a good foot-stomping set, though, and the crowd loved ‘em. It was getting plenty rowdy by now, with pockets of people dancing, others just watching. I saw the bonfire security switch shifts, the new guys fresh and alert and watchful—so, if anything did get out of hand, at least there was something like backup presence. People were plenty wild, though. Staggering around in groups and pairs and alone, laughing, hanging on each other, toasting with red Solo cups. I saw a guy and his girlfriend making out near the backstage sawhorses, and by making out, I mean he had his fingers up what passed for her skirt, and I had a feeling in another few minute they’d be in the grass just going at it, and whoa, yep, okay, there they went, right there, her on top, topless and bouncing her shit for everyone to see.
I mean, damn, though. Good for them, but I couldn’t imagine ever being so far gone I’d do that in public. Maybe I was just a private sorta guy, but that was plain weird to me.
I drew my attention back to the stage, and the rest of the crowd. Watching, assessing. I’d done security plenty of times, so old habits took over—a guy who looked like potential trouble, dancing loose and with eyes that said he was spoiling for a fight. But he had buddies around him who looked less like trouble, and I hoped they’d keep his ass in check, because I had no desire to ruin my buzz with having to throw down.
A foursome of girls in very short, ripped jean shorts, cowboy boots, and flannel shirts tied up under big tits, dancing like no one was watching even though everyone with a dick within fifty feet was watching, especially when things started to not so accidentally pop out, now and then.
A couple having a hell of a nasty argument as they headed for the porta-potties off to the sides, the woman stabbing her finger at him, and him stomping away trying to pretend he couldn’t’ hear her shrill shrewy-ass voice.
And…oh shit.
This wasn’t good.
A group of dudes, rough lookin’ ones, clustered around someone, off in the shadows where the sawhorses and semitrailers met the porta-potties. Laughing, pushing. Nudging each other, leaning in and whispering. In a crowd, if you’re whispering, you’re up to no good.
And if you’re around the worst of humanity like I’ve been my whole life, you learn to recognize a certain look, a certain kind of laugh. It’s a low ugly laugh, a harsh bark. It’s one that says you’re getting enjoyment out of someone else’s pain or fear.
That was how these assholes were laughing.
I heard a squeal, a cry, a shout. A feisty curse, and one of the guys staggered backward, holding his lip, and then lunged back in. I heard a smack.
Oh fuck, no.
I tossed my empty cup into a nearby trash can and jogged over.
When I got within twenty feet, I knew I had been right. These wormfuck assholes were harassing some poor chick. They had her ringed in against the sawhorses and trailers, so she had nowhere to go. Pushing her around, grabbing her ass, pinching her tits, smacking her enough to knock her off-balance. She was hammered to shit, and scared, but not backing down. She’d slam up against the barricade, try to shake off the alcohol in a way that said she was likely seeing double, if not triple. Then she’d rush at the assholes, only to get grabbed, pinched, licked, smacked…all at once and from all sides.
Her rage was something to behold. She was volcanic, and she was giving out as good as she could—kicking, biting, punching, and connecting, too.
Trouble was, she was just plain outnumbered, out-sobered, and had no fuckin’ chance.
And way over here, where no one was looking, ten-to-one they’d end up dragging her off into the woods…
Fuck no.
I keep a close rein on my temper, which ain’t pretty to begin with. It rumbles close to the surface on a good day and, even kept in check, it’s an ugly fuckin’ bitch of a thing. But a scene like this? I saw red.
Closed the distance.
Grabbed the nearest shithead, caught a fistful of the back of his shirt, yanked him backward, and smashed his fuckin’ face in, hammer fist. Kneed his gut so hard he started retching. Kicked his balls in, and that fucker would never procreate again.
By that time the other five or six were on me.
Lousy cockroaches didn’t stand a goddamn chance.
I was stomping faces outside of biker bars by the time I was eight years old, and had black belts in four disciplines by thirteen, plus an education in brawling from the hardest motherfuckers in four states, the kind of men you whispered about and hoped like hell they didn’t look at you.
These little pissant mealworm shits?
They wouldn’t even bloody my knuckles.
Block, arm-bar, knee, swing him into the other fella, kick a knee so it bent the wrong way, knife-hand to a throat and watch him gag on his own windpipe; break a forearm until I saw bits of ulna sticking through rends in the flesh. One of ‘em managed a glancing blow to my teeth, but it hurt him more than me, and I returned the favor with an open palm to the side of the face, knocking some teeth down his fuckhead throat.
“I think you finished ‘em off there, buddy,” I heard a voice say. “You can stand down.”
Five huge-ass security guys all in tactical black, each one with a bearing that said ex-military, and each with ice-cold eyes.
The speaker was the biggest, and meanest looking—with eyes so venomous and frigid they gave even my dead-ass soul a shiver. “We saw what was going on, but you beat us to the save.”
