"Probably. He has five guys with him. That gave him a lot of courage it looked like," Kevin answered.
"He was drunk the last time. I suspect they'll have a little liquid courage and then come over to the house to cause trouble," he continued.
"What are we going to do?" Crystal asked.
"When he gets there, if he shows up, someone needs to immediately call the cops. I'll take care of things until they arrive," Kevin said reasonably.
"Kevin, there's six of them!" her mom said, raising her voice.
Kevin looked at her mom and grinned.
"I know," he said evenly.
"You can't fight six guys by yourself!" her mom practically screamed at him.
"Baby, I won't unless I have to. Just make sure to call the cops and get them there as quick as you can. Everything's going to be OK," he told her.
Crystal saw tears streaming down her mom's face.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kevin
They went back to the house. Nobody really wanted to go to bed, surprisingly. They all three ended up just finding a movie on pay-per-view and watching it together. Kevin selected a comedy in an effort to lighten the mood. Despite the fact that the movie was hysterical, there was very little laughter.
As he predicted, he heard a car pull up out front and the sound of car doors opening and closing. Crystal peeked out the window.
"It's him," she said.
Just as she turned away from the window, the silence in the room was broken by the sound of shattering glass. One of the assholes had thrown a brick through the window Crystal had just looked out of.
"Yoohoo, can Kevin come out and play?" she heard a voice say loudly in a falsetto.
"Yeah, Kevin! Come out here so we can kick your ass!" she heard another voice yell.
"OK, girls. Call the cops," Kevin said calmly. "I'll be outside."
"Kevin, don't go out there. Just wait in here for the cops," Charlotte said.
"Lock yourself in. I'll be OK," he told her in an even voice.
"Crystal!" a Mark's voice yelled from outside.
Crystal said nothing.
"When we get done taking turns kicking your friend's ass, me and friends are going to take turns with you!" he screamed at the house.
"Do they have little two inch dicks like you, Mark?" she questioned him by screaming out the broken window.
"Shutup, you bitch!" Mark screamed at the house.
Kevin laughed as he went out the door, which he locked behind him.
His karate instructor had always told him that when you made the decision that you had to fight, to go onto the offense and stay there. Never go defensive in a fight, or you will probably lose. That was exactly what he intended to do this time.
Leaving the house, he saw Mark about halfway across the front lawn. As he approached Mark his posse spread out on both sides of him, forming a ragged line across the front yard.
Well, I didn't think you'd have the balls!" Mark sneered as he approached.
Then he made his first mistake. He stepped forward, moving a step forward of the rest of his posse.
Without saying a word, Kevin struck.
Kevin snapped off a combination punch at Mark's face. Mark started to duck and counterpunch as Kevin's blows landed on both sides of his face. Dropping into a low fighting stance, Kevin kicked upward into Mark's chest as he staggered from the blows to his face. The kick knocked Mark backwards and he fell into the grass behind his posse.
One of Mark's posse ran forward from the right side. He was a tall but lanky teenager with an acne pitted face and tousle of red hair. Kevin shifted into a high fighting stance with his fist upraised ready to strike.
The teenager's fists raised, and he closed the distance and shot a jab toward Kevin's face. Kevin shifted slightly to the right as it to let the blow pass his face. Instead he reached with his hand and grabbed the incoming fist and enclosed in an iron hard grip.
Then he neatly pivoted the lanky teen's fist upside down, and snapped his wrist downward hard and fast. The wrist went past its range of motion and Kevin heard the sound of bones popping as he forced it past its range of motion. Kevin let go of the teen's hand, placed his other hand in his chest and shoved him roughly to the ground.
The lanky teen, screaming in agony, fell to the ground clutching his wrist.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another guy make his move from the other side. Pivoting his head, he saw a form behind him aiming a punch for the back of his head. He twisted to the side as the blow shot past his head.
He reached up with both hands and grabbed the arm. Grasping it firmly, he pulled the over-extended arm savagely down across his shoulder. He heard the satisfying sound of breaking bones as the teen's elbow snapped at the joint. From behind him, he heard the blood-curdling scream of the teenager as his arm was snapped 90 degrees in the wrong direction.
Mark let go of his arm, allowing the teen to drop writhing to the ground.
Sensing motion on his left, Mark jumped and pivoted in that direction. Too late, he took a hard blow which struck the side of his face. A hard punch, it didn't hit any sensitive locations, but did stagger him as he was off balance from his pivot. He went down, but when he hit, he rolled quickly to create distance between him and his attackers.
He arched his back, placing his feet on the ground, and his hands on the ground above his head, and heaved himself up. He landed cat-like on his feet and immediately went on the attack against the guy that knocked him down.
He launched a double combination attack. He hit the teen twice in the gut with rapid fire strikes. He smelled whiskey on the breath of the teen as his wind was expelled by the force of the blows. Then he savagely struck him in the face with a second double combination. The second blow caused the teens nose to explode in a spray of blood and snot.
The teen tried to fight gamely through a blow, but with his wind knocked out of him and unable to see from the tears filling his eyes, he launched a weak roundhouse blow. Kevin parried the blow with his arm and held his arm high, and then fired off three savage kicks into the exposed ribcage under the boy's arm. Again, he heard the satisfying crunch of bones breaking as he shattered part of the boy's ribcage.
His head pivoting as if it was on a swivel, Kevin looked in every direction. Three teens sat or laid in the grass, holding various parts of their anatomy, while Mark and the other two were heading to the back of the car that they had arrived in. Reaching in the window, Kevin pulled out a baseball bat. The other two followed suit. They began to approach again.
"Oh, shit!" Kevin thought as he struggled to remain calm.
Mark kept a respectful distance, while the other two began to circle Kevin to get behind him.
Kevin weighed his options and began to formulate a plan. He decided to go straight for Mark, hoping that by demolishing him, the other two would decide this wasn't their fight.
Behind him, Kevin heard the sound of the door of the house opening.
"Get back in the house!" he yelled without looking to see who it was.
Coiled to strike, Kevin launched his attack on Mark. With the bat held like a batter at the plate, Mark waited on him. Kevin came in high, and waited for the right moment. When he saw Mark begin his home-run cut toward his head, Kevin ducked and rolled across the ground. Coming up out of his roll he hit Mark in the groin with two rapid-fire combination punches. Mark cried out in pain as Kevin pummeled his nuts.
Kevin stood up, delivered rapid fire punches to Mark's midsection and face, and had the satisfaction of seeing Mark's nose, only recently healed from their last fight, smash flat out across his face. Blood spray from his collapsed nose. Mark started to sag to the ground, the bat dropping to his feet.
Kevin turned to face the last two attackers.
As he did, he heard the roar of a gunshot. He started from the noise and turned to look at the source of the sound.
He saw Charlotte putting a shotgun to her shoulder and leveling at the closest teen to her.
"All right you assholes! Drop the bats and get down on the ground. The next round isn't going into the air," she yelled in a commanding voice.
The teen closest to her, a large tow-headed oaf looked at her in stunned surprise. Kevin almost grinned when he saw a large wet stain begin to form in the crotch of his jeans.
"Down on the ground!" she commanded again. "I'll kill you if you don't!"
Both boys fell to the ground, dropping their bats.
"Hands behind your heads!" They both complied.
Looking up and down the street, he saw the just about every light in the neighborhood was on and many of their neighbors were outside standing in front of their house trying to see what the ruckus was about.
Kevin got up and collected all the bats from the downed teenagers. With that done, he turned to Charlotte, smiled, and gave her a thumbs up.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Charlotte
Charlotte stood on the front porch of the house with the shotgun in the crook of her arm like a bird hunter. She saw the cop cars slowly moving down her street toward the house. Crystal had been on the phone with the cops the entire time, while Kevin fought with Mark and his posse and Charlotte was getting the shotgun from under the bed.
"Mom, they say they won't come to the house if you have the gun out," Crystal yelled through the broken window.
"OK, tell him it's put away," Charlotte said.