Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,97
because as soon as he was on his feet, he came after me. Trapped between the Hummer and the wall, I did my best to get away from him. I needed enough room to land a punch but not enough space to give him room to maneuver.
Glass jaws are a real thing. There’s a bundle of nerves along the chin that, when hit right, sends a guy into a spiraling blackout. It was too much to hope to get the shot in right the first time, but I’d had enough practice, and I’d already rattled his brains.
“Going to kill you,” he grunted at me, snarling with his chin straight where I needed it. “You cut my face.”
Jesus, the guy was too stupid to even realize he’d been shot at and the bullet had done a number across his cheek. His side dug into the car’s grill, and I took my shot, plowing into his chin. I felt one of my knuckles blow, popping the joint out of place with a sharp sting. Dutch’s head rocked back, jerking in response to the solid hit, and I shuffled farther back, careful not to leave myself open. My left hand ached, and my ring finger swelled, throbbing with a hot pain. Grabbing at the first joint, I jerked hard, popping it back into place when Marie took her next shot.
She was really shitty with a gun, but it didn’t take a lot of aim to kill a man, not when you were armed with something big enough to kill an elephant. The Hummer’s back windshield blew out, and then the front followed, the bullet piercing both of them before finally burying into the air-conditioning duct running above the storage lockers’ doors. She was too short to get a straight shot through the area, and the Hummer was too tall, providing us with enough cover to hide behind. But despite Dutch’s eyes rolling back into his head, he remained upright, lodged between the grill and the wall.
“Stop shooting at me,” Dutch groaned, but I couldn’t tell who he was talking to. He didn’t seem conscious enough to really understand what was going on, and I briefly wondered if I’d hit him too hard. But then I remembered he’d promised to tear my head off of my neck, so that pretty much gave me free rein. “Stop moving.”
Since I hadn’t taken a step away from the Hummer for fear Marie would get a clear shot, I figured Dutch was quickly losing all sense of reality. It didn’t seem to stop his determination, because he pushed forward, ripping his shirt on the Hummer’s chrome, and shoved through the tight space. His hands were almost on my neck before I realized he’d moved as far as he did. I heard shuffling behind me and, sure it was Marie, I took a chance and dove across the empty parking space next to the Hummer, rolling as I went.
That move always looked cool in the movies, but the truth was it only scraped up my elbows and knees and, with the slightly tacky surface of the structure’s floor, brought me up short of the Lexus I was trying to hide behind. Dutch followed close on my heels, his grunting more wheezy than a bad ’70s porn shoot.
He was having a hard time breathing, and a sheen of sweat plastered what hair he had across his temples and down over his broad skull. There was already a purple mark forming along his jaw, a sure sign I’d at least gotten a solid hit but not good enough to take him down. I wouldn’t win a fair fight. He had too much mass, and I didn’t have enough room to dance back. Not with Marie hunting me down like I should’ve taken that left at Albuquerque and it was now rabbit season.
Dutch was in my face before I could blink, and either it was muscle memory or just simply fear, but I jabbed him in the throat with my left, swallowing a grunt of pain when my blown-out knuckle connected with his Adam’s apple. Not waiting to see if the choking strike would work, I followed up with my right, aiming just a little bit to the side of that bruise I’d already given him. Still, I wasn’t fast enough, because Dutch’s fingers were in my hair, knotting into the strands with a fierce grip, clubbing me in the chest with his other hand.