As his dad was about to bring the hammer down at his skull, Timothy drove the letter opener into the murderer’s neck, and he made sure that it went deep enough to do the trick.

To get the darkness out.

80

I was right—for some reason Blake must not have been interested in shooting me today because he slipped the gun under his belt, grabbed a desktop printer, yanked the cord from the wall, and threw the printer at me.

From where I was standing, I couldn’t get completely out of the way, but I was able to turn and raise my left arm in time to absorb most of the impact.

Last summer, I’d fought Blake’s brother, whom he’d trained in hand-to-hand combat and martial arts.

Dylan was good.

I anticipated that Blake would be better.

He angled toward me, leapt and spun, and kicked me hard in the gut. The force of impact knocked the wind out of me. As I was struggling to draw more air in, he came at me with his right hand chambered for a high punch. When I went to block it, I realized too late that he was faking the punch, and he landed a blow with his other fist directly where he’d kicked me. I coughed and fought to stay on my feet.

Advice from Ralph on fighting: Find a weakness and exploit it. Find pain and capitalize on it.

Yeah, Blake knew what he was doing.

I shoved him backward, but the desk was behind him, and he didn’t stumble far.

I went to tackle him, but he pivoted as I did, using my momentum to carry us both toward the window.

The glass shattered at impact and we flew outside, fell nearly two meters, and crashed heavily to the ground.

I landed on my back, shaken, Blake on top of me.

He pushed himself to his feet and dashed toward the nearest greenhouse. It took me a second to catch my breath, but as soon as I had it, I was on my feet as well and after him.

++++

Mannie was a grappler too and managed to get Ralph in a rear choke hold.

Ralph turned his head and dropped his chin to keep his airway open and to break the choke. He jammed his jaw into the crook of Mannie’s elbow, shrugged his shoulders up, then clenched his teeth to tighten his neck and buy himself a little more time before passing out.

If someone grabs you around the neck from behind, you attack him at his weakest point—his fingers are within your reach. Bend them backward and break them. It took snapping four of Mannie’s fingers before Ralph broke the choke.

They both rose.

Mannie’s fractured fingers were splayed to the side at odd and irregular angles.

Ralph circled right to reduce his adversary’s right arm attack.