The Law of Nines

“My knives. Please, I want my knives.”

As Alex reached under the seat and pulled the bundle out, a horrific explosion shook the night. The sky lit with the orange and yellow fireball.

As Alex turned to the explosion, he saw an orderly dressed in white barreling at him out of the darkness. The man was huge, and he had a knife.

Without even thinking, Alex grabbed a handle of one of the knives in the bundle and pulled it out. Despite the adrenaline rush of his sudden alarm, the balance of the knife, the feel, made an impression somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

As the man charged toward him, with no time to do anything more than simply react, Alex thrust the knife straight into the man’s center mass.

It didn’t stop him. The big man crashed into him at full speed, knocking Alex back.

As Alex rebounded off the side of the truck, the man swung his own knife. Alex ducked, seized the arm, and took it with him as he circled around the orderly. Once behind him he rammed his blade into the man’s lower back several times in rapid succession. He didn’t hit anything immediately vital, and his stabbing only made the man angrier.

The man twisted around, driving Alex back with his feet as well as his fists. More than one connected, staggering Alex back. The man was a fury of nonstop lunges and slashes. With the drugs, Alex had difficulty focusing.

The man was a good head taller than Alex and must have been sixty or seventy pounds heavier. Despite his size, he was quick. Not only was he hard to handle, but his size seemed to help keep the knife wounds from slowing him.

Alex made another attack. The man threw him back. As he rebounded, Alex ducked under a swing, threw a shoulder block into the man, and at the same time grabbed a leg. He pulled with all his strength, upending the orderly. The man landed flat on his back, but bounded back up as if on springs.

His arms seemed to be everywhere at once. Alex was having trouble keeping track of the furious attacks. He picked his openings and cut whenever he had the chance. One slashing cut across the man’s thigh halved the muscle, making him stumble.

Alex used the opening to dive in to try to finish the fight. He seized the man’s knife-wielding arm and stabbed again, but the man was strong enough to push him back. Alex felt like a child trying to fight a grown man.

When the man spun around, pulling out of Alex’s grip, his arms were spread in an angry fighting stance. He looked like a bear on its hind legs about to charge. Seeing the opening, Alex used all his strength to drive his knife like a punch straight into the middle of the orderly’s throat.

He felt the blade sink in and hit bone.

The furious fight seemed to freeze in place.

Then the man started to corkscrew toward the ground. As he collapsed, his weight pulled him off the blade.

Panting, catching his breath, his exhausted arms hanging, Alex tried to gather his wits. He was so drained, so bone-tired from the fight, that he was ready to drop.

Jax was suddenly there beside him, putting her arm around him, holding him up.

“Almost there,” she reminded him. “Hold on.”

He smiled at her words, words he had used to encourage her not to give up.

Alex felt like he was watching himself in a dream. He realized then, by the way Jax was bent over, that he was on his knees. He didn’t remember going to his knees.

“Stay still,” she said.

Jax turned away to the open door of the truck for a moment. She was frantically doing something. He couldn’t figure it out. It finally dawned on him that she was ripping cloth. It was the rag the knives had been in. She was tearing off a long strip.

She put the strip around his upper left arm, wrapping it tightly around several times. She used her teeth to split the end and then tied a knot. She made another knot and drew it tight.

“What are you doing?”

“He cut you. I’m tying a bandage around your arm to keep the wound closed. I need to stop the bleeding.”

Alex only then realized that blood was dripping off his fingers. He wondered how bad it was. He didn’t really feel any pain, but at feeling a warm, wet sheath of blood running down his arm he suddenly began feeling sick.

“It’s all right,” she assured him. “You’ll be fine.”

By the way her voice sounded, though, he didn’t know if he believed her.

“How bad is it?”

“It’s dark. I can’t tell,” she admitted. “But I don’t think it’s too bad. Can you move your fingers?”

Alex tried. “Yes.”

“Then you’re fine. As long as your arm still works, it can’t be too bad.”

“Thank you,” he said in a numb voice. “I don’t understand why he was trying to kill me. If I’m dead they can’t get the information they need.”

“He wasn’t trying to kill you. He was trying to capture you. If he had wanted to kill you I think he could have.”

“Well, from my side of it it sure felt like he was trying to kill me.”

She only smiled as she adjusted the bandage on his arm. Alex liked the feeling of her taking care of him. It made him feel calm, feel like everything would be all right.