Page 26 of Vital Signs
Pathetic.
I drove a sidekick into Billy's solar plexus, the technique textbook perfect. He doubled over, wheezing, and I followed with a spinning heel kick to his liver. The organ compressed under the impact. Billy dropped as if someone had cut his power cord.
The rush hit me like a drug. The same sharp focus I'd gotten in the ER when a trauma came in and everything went crystal clear. My heart rate spiked, my vision narrowed, and the world suddenly made perfect sense. I used to get the same feeling during successful intubations. There was something satisfying about threading a breathing tube down someone's throat while they were dying. I'd known I was the difference between life and death.
Except now the rush came from watching Billy hit the dirt.
The crowd murmured in appreciation. Part of me preened under their attention. It was the same part that had spent Monday nights watching Stone Cold Steve Austin destroy people while the audience cheered. This was performance as much as survival. Violence as entertainment. The same fucking thing that had made me jump off the couch as a kid when The Rock hit someone with a steel chair.
Billy came at me again, more careful this time. I caught his clumsy punch, stepped into him, and drove my knee into his liver again. Billy went down hard this time, retching in the dirt. The crowd whooped like this was fucking WrestleMania instead of two desperate men destroying each other for pocket change.
And God help me, I played to them. Raised my hands like I'd just won a championship instead of degraded myself for thirty dollars. I'd seen that same theatrical flourish on TV a thousand times growing up.
"Stay down," I said quietly. "You don't want me to show you what else I know."
The worst part wasn't that I was using my medical knowledge to hurt people. The worst part was some fucked-up corner of my brain was enjoying the control, how good I was at it, the way Billy's body responded exactly the way my training said it would.
He tried to get up anyway. Stubborn bastard. I almost respected that.
I moved behind him as he rose, slipped my arm around his neck in a perfect blood choke. Not the flashy submissions from WWE where both guys were working together to make it look good. This was the real thing. I was cutting off blood flow to the carotid artery, the same rear naked choke my father had drilled into me at the dojang until it became muscle memory.
Billy's pulse fluttered against my forearm. His hand slapped my arm repeatedly. By the time I realized he was tapping out and released him, he was barely conscious.
The adrenaline coursed through my system like its own drug, and for a second I understood why people became addicted to violence instead of just chemicals. The combination of complete control over another person's body, the rush of technical mastery, and the crowd's approval was almost as good as fentanyl.
Almost.
"Winner!" Greg announced to the tiny crowd. "The ex-nurse!"
I winced, but when Greg handed me thirty more dollars in crumpled bills, I shoved them into my jacket pocket without counting. Trust but verify was for people who had the luxury of principles.
"Same time Saturday?" he asked.
"Maybe." I was already walking away, my hands shaking as the adrenaline wore off. The withdrawal was starting to make my skin crawl again.
I'd made it three steps toward the tree line when I heard that voice. That fucking accent that made my name sound like something valuable instead of a warning label.
"Hunter."
I turned slowly, dread pooling in my stomach. Misha stepped into the circle of Christmas lights, and he looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine. Or a wet dream I'd been too ashamed to admit having. His hair caught the colored lights, making him look ethereal and untouchable. Everything about him screamed money and control and a life where you didn't have to degrade yourself for drug money.
And fuck, I wanted him anyway. Wanted to pull him down into the dirt with me, see if he'd still look perfect covered in my sweatand blood. Wanted those elegant hands on me, touching me like I was worth something instead of thirty dollars and a black eye.
Shame and desire twisted together in my gut until I couldn't tell which was making me sick.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" The words came out harsher than I intended. Shame made my voice ugly, but underneath was something worse. Hope. Relief. Want. The kind of want that made my skin itch worse than withdrawal ever had.
He'd found me. Tracked me down to the lowest point of my week, watched me beat a man for pocket change, and he was still here. Still looking at me like I was worth pursuing.
That shouldn't have made my cock twitch. Shouldn't have made me wonder what he'd do if I pinned him against that pristine van and found out if he was as fearless as he pretended.
But it did.
"Looking for you." He moved closer, taking in the dirt on my clothes, the split lip Billy had managed to land, the way I held my left shoulder where I'd taken an elbow. "Your phone was off."
Of course my phone was off. I'd turned it off to save battery.
"How did you find me?"
