So I did the next best thing. I turned to Natty and said, “You remember this jerk who looks like a giant penis? He was one of the guys that kidnapped Bailey Mae.”

Natty had no idea why I was antagonizing a man with a gun. He tried to participate. He nodded his head slowly. He said, “I remember.” It wasn’t genius, but he was giving the effort. I had to cut him some slack. Then he added, “Those men looked like something from a concentration camp.”

That made Jackson more angry than any insult I had hurled at him. He glared at my brother. “Those weren’t men. They were terrorists. Maybe not directly, but they were funding terrorists. So don’t give me any of that…”

He stopped short when my full 230 pounds slammed into him. He felt like one of the tackling dummies from high school. Except he was harder. His abs hurt my shoulder. Now we were a little more equal.

He slammed against the breakfast bar. The cheap bar rattled and creaked. A two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew fell to the floor and exploded. Sticky clear soda sprayed the small kitchen.

Somehow, Jackson managed to hold on to the pistol. All I could do now was grab his right wrist and make sure the pistol didn’t point at me. I felt like I had a giant snake by the neck. I couldn’t let go and couldn’t move fast enough to get away.

Jackson was strong. That was an understatement. He somehow managed to make it back to his feet even with me hanging all over him. I used my left elbow to slam him in the head a couple of times. It had no effect.

Then I got lucky. I slammed his arm against the corner of the refrigerator and the gun flew out of his hand. It bounced off the stove, then slid across the floor under some cabinets in the kitchen.

Natty came across the room to help. As soon as he entered the kitchen, Jackson kicked him in the side of the leg so hard it knocked him into the flimsy wall and he tumbled onto the hardwood floor.

Now Jackson and I faced off against each other in the kitchen. I couldn’t spare the concentration to wonder what sort of injuries my brother had suffered. If I didn’t win this fight, it wouldn’t matter.

The problem with knocking the gun out of Jackson’s hand meant that he had two hands to fight with. He swung at me hard. The first punch glanced across my chin. It was mainly luck that I was moving and it didn’t catch the full force. Then he gripped both of my wrists. I felt like a child in his grasp. My hands almost immediately turned purple.