Chapter 8: Fist & Bricks
The tall leader’s bark had barely left his mouth when the alley erupted.
With his Agility and Perception both sitting at fifteen, Ricky saw the charge before it even really started. The three Gophers in front didn’t move like men anymore; they moved like targets sliding across a screen.
Paddy and Jones lunged from behind, heading straight for Marek. Marek yelled, trying to throw a wild, desperate punch at Paddy. But Paddy easily ducked under the swing. Before Marek could recover, Jones drove his knee hard into Marek’s ribs. The younger boy let out a sharp gasp, curling up on the wet cobblestones as Jones started kicking at him.
"Marek!" Ricky shouted.
Even though Marek was down, he had bought Ricky exactly what he needed: a few seconds of distraction.
The two other thugs charged Ricky. One was swinging a rusted iron pipe. The other had a heavy clay brick raised high.
To Ricky, the pipe’s arc looked painfully slow, like it was cutting through water. He stepped inside the swing, his body feeling incredibly light. He bent his knees, slipped right under the rusted metal bar, and drove his right foot straight into the second thug’s groin.
Crack. The guy’s eyes went wide. He dropped his brickbat, let out a high-pitched squeeze of air, and went down on his knees, clutching his pants.
The pipe-wielder tried to pull his weapon back for another swing. Ricky didn’t let him. He closed the distance in a split second, driving his knee hard into the guy’s stomach. The thug’s breath exploded out of his mouth in a wet cough.
Ricky grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him down onto the stones right next to his groaning partner.
Without pausing, Ricky spun on his heel and leaped toward Paddy and Jones.
Jones was still leaning over Marek, ready to kick him again, when Ricky’s boot caught him flush in the ribs. The impact made a dull, heavy thud. Jones flew sideways, crashing hard into a stack of empty crates that splintered under his weight.
Paddy whirled around, his bruised nose turning pale with shock. He hadn’t even raised his hands before Ricky’s right fist snapped up in a brutal uppercut. Ricky’s knuckles cracked against Paddy’s chin. The thug’s head snapped back, his legs going rubbery as he stumbled into the brick wall and slid down into the dirt, dazed.
Suddenly, a sharp, burning pain flared across the left side of Ricky’s head.
The tall leader had slipped in quiet. The heavy hickory nightstick caught Ricky right above the ear.
Smack.
Ricky staggered a step, his vision flickering with a brief flash of white light. A warm, sticky trail of blood immediately began to trickle down his cheek.
He shook his head, his upgraded Vitality keeping the pain from locking him up. It hurt, but it was just a dull, throbbing sting.
He slowly turned his head back toward the leader, wiping the blood from his cheek with his sleeve. He smirked.
The tall guy’s arrogant grin faltered. He looked at his heavy hickory club, then back at Ricky’s face, his eyes widening slightly.
On the ground, the thug who had taken the groin kick was groaning, dragging himself backward. "That’s... that’s underhanded," he wheezed, his voice incredibly high-pitched. "He fights like a damn girl."
Paddy and Jones were already trying to scramble back up to their feet, their hands scraping the mud. Ricky didn’t give them a chance. He took two quick strides and delivered two clean, heavy punches straight to their jaws. Both of them went limp, their heads hitting the cobblestones with a dull click.
"Kill the bastard!" the tall leader roared, backing up a step. "Get up and kill him!"
The remaining two thugs—the one with the pipe and the one who had been holding the brick—rushed Ricky at the same time. One swung a wild, clumsy fist. Ricky slipped it easily, but he got too complacent. Before he could step back, the pipe-wielder lunged and locked his arms around Ricky’s chest from behind, pinning his elbows to his sides.
"I got him!" the thug screamed, his chest heaving. "Hit him, Boss!"
The tall leader smiled again. He raised the hickory club and charged, aiming straight for Ricky’s face.
Ricky didn’t panic. He waited until the leader was three feet away, then violently threw his head backward.
Crack. Ricky’s skull smacked right into the nose of the guy holding him. The thug let out a wet shriek, his grip instantly breaking as his hands flew to his bloody face.
Free of the lock, Ricky whirled, driving a hard punch into the second thug’s throat to keep him down, then turned back to the tall leader.
The leader swung his club in a desperate, horizontal sweep. Ricky ducked under the wood, spun, and drove his right elbow straight into the tall man’s cheekbone.
The impact was solid. The leader’s head snapped sideways, his teeth clacking together as he crashed onto his back, his hickory club clattering away into a puddle.
Suddenly, a heavy, solid weight crumbled against the back of Ricky’s head.
His vision went completely black for a second. He stumbled forward, his knees nearly hitting the wet stones. He shook his head violently, turning around as his sight slowly cleared.
Paddy was standing there, his chest heaving, holding a broken piece of red clay brick in his hand.
But Paddy wasn’t looking at him.
A few feet away, Jones had crawled back to his feet. He had his arm hooked tight around Marek’s neck, pulling the younger boy off the ground. In his other hand, Jones held a small, dirty pocket knife, the blade pressed hard against Marek’s throat.
"Freeze!" Jones spit, blood dripping from his split lip. "Move another inch, big man, and I’ll open his throat!"
Marek was completely still, his eyes wide with terror, the metal blade digging slightly into his skin.
Ricky raised his hands slowly, letting his shoulders slump. He forced a look of absolute panic onto his face, his eyes darting wildly.
He pointed a shaking finger right over Paddy and Jones’s shoulders, toward the main street.
"Oh, shit!" Ricky yelled, his voice cracking with fake fear. "Coppers! Run!"
Paddy and Jones were street-hardened, but the word coppers was an automatic trigger. Both of them instinctively glanced back toward the mouth of the alley.
The second they turned their heads, Ricky dropped.
His hand found a heavy, loose red brick in the mud. He scooped it up, locked his focus on Jones’s forehead, and hurled it with everything his upgraded Strength had to offer.
The brick flew like a fastball.
Crack. It hit Jones dead in the center of his forehead. His eyes rolled back instantly. His grip loosened, and the small pocket knife clattered useless to the stones as his entire body went limp, folding like a sack of potatoes. Marek scrambled away on his hands and knees, gasping for air.
Paddy whirled back, his jaw dropping in shock. He realized the trick a second too late. He tried to throw his own brick, but Ricky had already closed the distance.
Ricky slipped the flying brick easily. He stepped inside Paddy’s space, drove a brutal right hook into his ribs, and followed it with a heavy left cross right across the bridge of Paddy’s nose.
Paddy collapsed, his head hitting the wall before he rolled into the mud, completely unconscious.
Ricky snatched the brick out of Paddy’s hand as he went down. He whirled around, spotting the tall leader groaning and trying to push himself up on his elbows. Ricky didn’t hesitate; he hurled the brick. It clipped the tall man’s shoulder and collarbone with a loud smack, sending him crashing back down onto the stones, clutching his collarbone and groaning in pain.
The alley went dead quiet.
Ricky stood in the center of the wet stones, his chest rising and falling as the adrenaline slowly began to recede. He raised his hand, wiping his face clean of the warm blood trickling from his temple.
Five men. All of them lay scattered across the cobblestones, either completely unconscious or groaning in the dirt.
"Ricky," Marek breathed, pushing himself up from the wall. His face was pale, his hands shaking as he touched his throat where the knife had been. "Are you... are you okay?"
"Yeah," Ricky said, his voice a little hoarse. He checked his temple. The cut was shallow, though it was bleeding heavily. "It’s just a scratch. My head’s too hard for a wooden stick anyway."
Marek looked around at the bodies, then down at his own shoes. "I’m sorry. I wasn’t much help. I tried to hit him, but..."
Ricky walked over, offering a hand and pulling the younger boy up. He patted Marek’s shoulder. "Are you kidding? If you hadn’t jumped in and held off Paddy and Jones at the start, I would’ve been surrounded. You bought me the time I needed."
Marek let out a weak, shaky chuckle, rubbing his ribs. "Well, if getting kneed in the gut and turned into a hostage counts as helping, then I’m your man."
"It was close," Ricky said, his eyes lingering on the small pocket knife lying in the mud. "Too close. If he’d been faster with that blade..."
"But he wasn’t," Marek said, his usual easy smile slowly returning to his face. "Because you throw bricks like a steam crane."
Ricky grinned, then walked over to where the tall leader was still groaning, clutching his shattered collarbone. Ricky knelt down, his fingers automatically slipping into the man’s coat pockets.
Marek blinked. "What are you doing?"
"Finders keepers," Ricky said simply, pulling out a small leather pouch that jingled with the heavy clink of coins. "These guys have been extorting the whole dock for a week. Consider this a refund."
Marek’s eyes lit up. He shook his head, a genuine grin splitting his face, and quickly knelt down next to Paddy, his own hands reaching into the unconscious thug’s pockets.
"If we’re going to be hunted anyway," Marek muttered, "we might as well get paid for the trouble."