Page 3 of Three to Fall

When three men rounded it, the two of us groaned quietly.

I scraped a hand through my hair, every muscle tensing. “Damn. Not nothing.”

It was the same three guys I’d seen trying to break their way into the administration office.

“What’s doing, fellas?” The leader had a cocky saunter to his step, like he had all the time and right in the world to walk these hallways, terrifying children as he went. “You’re blocking that doorway, you know.” He leaned on the wall a few paces away. “I used to be a hallway monitor, and that, my friends, is a fire hazard. So we’re going to have to ask you to move on.”

“Over my dead fucking body.” I spoke more to Hawk, but clenched my fingers into fists.

“Play it cool,” Hawk murmured. “We’re just taking a break from the hunt. No need for them to pay us any attention.”

I shook my head, my hair falling in my eye. “Not gonna fly.” My gaze dropped to the papers clutched in the leader’s hands. “I’ll bet anything those are the classroom assignments. I saw them trying to break into the administration office.”

Hawk let out a huff of irritation and rolled his head to one side, loosening the tension in his neck. “Damn, I hate when people get smart. You remember how to fight?”

“Been awhile.”

“You gonna use that knife if it comes down to it?”

I answered honestly. “No. But it won’t come to that.”

Hawk glanced at me, then nodded.

He clearly didn’t want to leave a dead body on the floor of an elementary school either.

The leader’s eyes darkened. “You aren’t having that kid. I need that fucking money. So unless you want to die today, I suggest you move the fuck over and let us through.”

“Can’t do that, brother,” Hawk said casually, though the fighter’s stance he was slowly moving into said he was anything but relaxed. “That little girl you want is our daughter. So you can imagine why we aren’t too keen on letting you in there.”

I glanced at him in surprise.

So did the other guy. “Your daughter? Both of you? You two fags?” He spat on the floor at our feet. “That’s fucking disgusting.”

I cracked my knuckles, letting anger float its way to the surface of my emotions.

Hawk stiffened beside me, then shook his head, staring at the wad of spit on the floor. “I fucking hate germs.”

I continued the conversation between us, loud enough for the other guys to hear, but not speaking directly to them. “I remember.”

“You know how many germs are probably in the air right now ’cause this fucking moron has no manners?”

I shrugged. “A lot, I would think.” I glanced at the three men. “He’s into medicine. He finds germs personally offensive.”

The guys stared at us like they had no idea what was going on.

In unison, without a word, Hawk and I let punches fly. Hawk’s landed on the spitter, his head twisting sharply sideways beneath the force of Hawk’s swing.

My fist connected with the jaw of the skinny white guy with straggly hair and two missing front teeth. The third guy was shorter, and heavier, and reacted so fucking slow I was also ableto deliver a punch to his gut before he even realized what was happening.

Hawk threw a blow that sent his guy spinning backward and flat onto his face. He didn’t get up.

Which left Hawk free to kick the knees out from the skinny guy, sending him to the floor too. My short guy took one look at his friends on the floor and held up his hands in surrender, walking backward down the hall, stumbling when his foot slipped on the admin papers these assholes had stolen.

Skinny followed after, crying out as he tried to put weight on his knees, and then crawling after his friend when he couldn’t get his legs to work fast enough.

Hawk and I instinctively moved back to guard the door, both of us eying the thug leader still on the floor.

He rolled to his side and groaned, spitting out blood. “Fucking faggots. Fuck you, goddamn queers.”

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