The Law of Nines

The others started speculating as to why Nurse Alice would have left without saying anything. It seemed to be common consensus that the woman typically did things without telling others what she was up to, so, as far as they were all concerned, it wasn’t entirely out of character.

No one was looking at Alex as he stood submissively. He wanted Jax to be ready. When her eyes turned to look at him again, he gave her a small wink. The smile grew and stayed on her lips as she returned the wink. He didn’t know if she grasped his full meaning or if she was merely heartened by the wink.

Losing interest in the talk about Alice, Henry pulled a folding knife from his pocket, letting everyone know that it was time to get on with it. Pressing on the thumb stud, he flicked his wrist and snapped open the blade. One of the other two orderlies did the same. Alex saw that the nurse had a syringe.

Henry used the point of his knife to back Alex up a few steps. “Have a seat.”

The nurse shoved the chair against the back of his legs. Alex flopped down in the chair. In his peripheral vision he tried to keep track of the syringe.

His level of alarm rose suddenly when the other orderly stepped up close behind, pressing against the chair to hold it in place. The orderly in front of him with the knife pulled a handful of zip ties from his pocket.

Alex realized what they intended to do.

37.

HURRY UP AND SECURE HIM to the chair,” Henry said. “Thorazine or no Thorazine, I don’t want to have to worry about either of them being loose and getting difficult to handle when we start cutting.”

It appeared that they weren’t going to wait for Yuri to show up. While that was one less man to worry about, Alex knew that he had to remain aware that Yuri could show up at any moment. The nurse had said that they were early, though. Maybe Henry had decided to grab the glory, and Jax, for himself.

Alex kept an eye on the knife hand of the orderly in front of him. He knew that it was the hands that were the killers.

“Put your arms behind your back,” the big orderly growled as he seized Alex by the hair.

Alex knew that if they restrained him he would have no chance at all. Jax would have no chance.

He had run out of time and options.

He remembered lessons Ben had taught him from a young age, warnings that you couldn’t always choose the fight. The best thing to do was to avoid a fight, if you could. But the way that it all too often happened, his grandfather had told him, was that you would find yourself in a fight you didn’t want, outnumbered, and outmatched in weapons. That was because people would generally only attack if they felt confident enough in their superiority to feel sure of the outcome.

Alex recalled, as a boy just entering adulthood, being troubled by the warning. It didn’t seem fair. He asked Ben what he should do if he ever found himself in that situation. That question was the gateway to a whole new level of training.

Ben had told him that in such a case there wasn’t any such thing as fair. His only chance was speed, surprise, and violence of action.

Henry stepped up beside the orderly facing Alex. “Come on, let’s get this over with so we can get to her.”

As the man with the zip ties took a step forward, Alex pushed his shoulders back against the man behind him, as if trying to back away from the two knives in front of him. The man behind leaned in to keep Alex from sliding the chair back. That was exactly what Alex had wanted him to do.

There was no choice now. He had only one chance.

Alex pressed his shoulders against the man behind him. The man pushed back.

In an instant of exquisite, unrestrained rage, Alex put all his force into screaming a battle cry as he uncoiled, throwing a mighty kick squarely into Henry’s chest.

The blow was powerful enough to break ribs. It drove a grunt from the big man as it knocked him back.

The orderly in front of him was so surprised by the sudden burst of movement that he stood motionless for just an instant. An instant was all Alex needed. With Henry clear, in that instant when everyone else was frozen in shock, before the man behind could get a better hold on him, Alex bounded out of the chair and seized the wrist of the hand holding the knife.

With an iron grip on the man’s wrist, Alex dove under the arm and came up behind. As he sprang up he used all his momentum and strength to violently twist the arm up in a way it wasn’t meant to go. The shoulder popped out of its joint. Sinew separated with a sickening rip. Alex spun around, taking the arm with him. In less than a heartbeat the man’s shoulder was torn apart enough that the arm was useless.

Jax was the only one who had been ready for the sudden attack. At the same time as Alex was taking out the orderly with the knife, before Henry could recover, Jax threw her legs around him, pinning his arms to his side. She locked her ankles.