Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

I continued to chase. He rolled, at one point made it up onto all fours, but I rewarded his efforts with such a devastating kick to the ribs, he collapsed and scuttled sideways.

He kept his head down, protecting his face, but also making it hard to read his intent. Thus, he managed to surprise me when I lashed out again and his left hand came up lightning fast, grabbed my foot, and jerked hard.

I toppled back, landing with a crack on my right hip. But even gasping in pain, I had the presence of mind to kick with my other foot, dislodging my first leg from his hand. Now we were both on all fours on the frozen ground, scrambling around each other.

Tulip circled as well, no longer barking but whining and uncertain. I couldn’t risk looking at her or our surroundings. I should probably scream, call for help. We were just off the street. It was after 9 A.M.; even on the outskirts of the city no place is ever completely deserted.

But I couldn’t make a sound. My blood rushed in my ears, I could hear the hoarse sound of my own breath. But I couldn’t even whisper. My vocal cords were locked, frozen.

In the horror movies, the plucky victim always screams her terror. In real life, we are more likely to die in silence.

I got my feet under me at the same time he got his. I bounced up, fisted hands up, proper fighting stance finally established, just as my attacker squared off against me.

And I found myself staring into the weather-beaten face of my shooting instructor, J. T. Dillon.

“I GIVE YOU A C,” he said. He straightened, hands dropping to his side.

Still not entirely sure about things, I punched with my right, going for the side of his head. Just as quickly, J.T. blocked my shot with his left arm, then his hands were down again, passive at his side.

“Maybe a D,” he said roughly, his breathing no easier than mine. “You’re still alive, but only barely.”

Slowly, I straightened. “You attacked me as a training exercise?”

“Think of it as graduation.” He fingered his side, where I’d kicked him pretty hard, and winced. “Though, given my age, next time I’m going with a paper diploma.”

My hands were still up. I couldn’t drop them. Not yet. My breathing was too shallow. My throat hurt. I would be bruised in a matter of hours.

“Fuck you!” I said suddenly.

He studied me, eyes cool, inscrutable.

I hit him again. He blocked it again. So I really went for it. Punching, jabbing, and attacking until pretty soon we were chasing each other around in a circle again, him on the defensive this time, me powered with a rage I barely recognized. He had hurt me. I needed to hurt him back.

He’d almost killed me.

And I’d nearly let him.

It burned. My throat, my chest, my pride. All that training, all that practicing, and I’d still nearly died, taken out by a sixty-year-old ex-marine.

Tulip chased us. Not barking or whining. She had seen me spar before, and maybe she understood the situation better than I did. I don’t know. I chased my shooting coach and he let me. Dodging, blocking, recoiling, sometimes slapping back. Moving with a speed I didn’t know a silver-haired former marine sniper could still have.

Problem with hitting, really truly throwing a punch, is that it demands such an explosive release of energy. Even world heavyweight champions can only sustain the action for three minutes at a time.

Sooner versus later, my hands grew heavy. My lungs heaved for air, my shoulders and chest burned. My heart rate had spiked to the edge of nausea, and I no longer chased my opponent as much as I staggered after him, my rage still willing, the rest of me giving out.

J.T. ended the situation, by plopping down beneath a skeletal tree. I collapsed on the snow next to him. My face was beet red, covered in sweat from my exertions. The snow felt good, the gray sky a balm against my flushed cheeks.

Tulip came over, sat beside me, and whined uncertainly. I stroked her head. She licked my cheek. Then she wandered over to J.T. to repeat the ritual. Satisfied all was now well, she plopped between us, burrowing against my side for warmth. After another moment, J.T. got up, trotted over to my messenger bag, and returned it to me.

He sat back down and we passed another moment in silence.

“Why is my firearms instructor beating me up?” I asked finally.

He regarded me steadily. “Nothing wrong with training with a handgun,” he said curtly. “But odds are, you’ll never get off a shot. Or if you do, you’ll be panicked and overwhelmed with adrenaline. You’ll shoot wild till you run out of ammo. Then, you’re back where you started-up close and personal.”

I thought of my encounter with Stan Miller. J.T. had just summarized it quite nicely. Stan and I had both fired wildly. And the situation had ended up close and personal.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” I asked.

“I’ve done my share of damage.”

“How did it feel?”

“Never as good as I wanted it to.”

We sat in silence again. I stroked Tulip’s head.

“Am I going to die on the twenty-first?” I asked at last. A stupid question, but maybe that’s what life came down to. Stupid questions in waning hours where we stood on the tracks, watching the locomotive bear down on us and wondering how bad it was gonna hurt.

“Maybe,” J.T. said. He looked at me again. “Who beat you? Mother, father, boyfriend?”

I didn’t answer right away. I stroked Tulip’s silky brown ears. “Mother,” I said finally. “Munchausen’s by proxy.”

First time I’d said the words out loud. Aunt Nancy and I had never discussed it. And I’d never told Randi or Jackie. Never even mentioned my mother to them, or where I’d lived before the mountains or any of the days, weeks, months that had existed before I became my aunt’s niece instead of my mother’s daughter.

But I told J. T. Dillon, because physically hitting someone is like that. It forms a bond. Sex, violence, death. All intimate in their own way. Another thing I hadn’t known until the past year.

“You didn’t defend yourself,” J.T. said curtly. “You didn’t fight for you.”

“Eventually I did.”

“No. I kicked your dog. You fought for your dog.”

“She’s a good dog.”

He stared at me. “You gotta get her out of your head,” he said abruptly.

I stiffened, still stroking Tulip’s ears, but feeling myself pull away.

“Mean it,” J.T. said. “You gotta hit for you. You gotta take that rage and shame and silence, and turn it into a weapon. You gotta know, Charlie, you gotta well and truly know it’s not okay to be hurt. You don’t deserve to be punished. Someone attacks you, stop accepting, start fighting back.”

“I’m trying.”

“Bullshit! You hesitate. You go to some place in your head where you’re conditioned to hang out until the punishment stops. Look, I can train you to shoot. Dick can train you to hit. But neither one of us can untrain you to stop playing victim in your own life. You gotta do that. You gotta care.”

I flushed, felt like a little girl chastised for not doing my homework. I didn’t want to be passive. I wanted to be a badass. And yet, when his hands had closed around my throat…When he’d attacked me from behind…

I’d felt like I deserved it. I’d been bad and I deserved my punishment. Conditioned response of abused children everywhere. We all grew up, but none of us ever got away.

“Dying for someone is easy,” J.T. murmured now, as if reading my mind. “Living for yourself, that’s hard. But you gotta do it, Charlie. Honor yourself. Defend yourself. Fight for yourself.”

I nodded finally, tucking Tulip closer to my body to help keep her warm.