“I’ll cut the cuffs off him, to make it fair. I’ll keep my weapon on him. And I will shoot you, asshole. Nobody’s going anywhere. Go on. Take a piece of him.”

Breathing hard, Jeff stared at the guy.

“Jeff,” Dillard said. A soft snap sounded, the guy’s shoulders rolled as Dillard sliced away the plastic cuffs. The guy didn’t move. “He wanted to rape Lisa. He promised to come back to your house and fuck her. Are you okay with that?”

The veins in Jeff’s neck and jaw began throbbing as he glared at the guy. Jeff tasted blood webbing from a cut on his cheek, and something quaked deep, deep in a black, secret chamber of his heart. Something thundered. The feral force he’d fought all his life to keep chained was raging again—images blazed before him of the guy with the knife on Lisa, his hand all over her, molesting her, while Jeff stood useless to stop him. The cage exploded.

Jeff saw white and blanked out.

He didn’t know what happened in the next few moments, but when he became aware again, he was on the ground smashing his fists into the guy’s face, his gut, his back, his groin. The guy groaned, never fought back as Jeff beat him in a frenzy bordering on insanity.

“Stop! Lord, stop!” Tripp said.

But Jeff was crazed, couldn’t stop himself and continued hammering the guy until Dillard and Tripp pulled him off.

“All right, I think we’re done,” Dillard gasped. He turned to Jeff. “Are you okay?”

Jeff blinked, coming back to himself. “What—what happened?”

“That was frightening,” Dillard said.

“I never saw anyone act like that before,” Tripp said.

The suspect, his face bloodied, stared at Jeff in silence.

Once they’d restrained him again and called it in, they walked him to the sidewalk. Sirens sounded and two Miami-Dade marked units arrived, lights flashing, radios alive with static chatter. Some neighbors ventured from their homes, others peered from windows. The officers who approached them knew Dillard.

“What’ve we got here, Roland?” one of the uniformed cops said, before saying ten-four into his shoulder mic. Then he added, “This is one of our houses.”

“This man was witnessed burglarizing this home. When our patrol member here—” Dillard nodded to Jeff “—came upon him, the subject attacked our member with a knife with the intent to kill him, and there was a struggle.”

The uniformed officers, four in total, had arrived and looked at the suspect. Blood cascaded from the guy’s face, drenching his shirt. His lip was split, his mouth and nose were bleeding, his eyes were swollen. Then the cops looked at Dillard, Tripp and Jeff.

“Is this what happened, sir?” one of the officers asked Jeff.

“Yes.”

“And you, sir?” The officer raised his chin to Tripp. “This is what happened?”