Chapter 46

"Let's get some ice cream or something," Adam said as the left the upper apartment. They planned to simply go down the hill but Adam saw Eric was still sitting in the lot. He didn't want Eric to know where they were staying. Allie and Sarah were alone too frequently in that place for him to feel comfortable with that.

So they drove to a nearby shop and split a couple of milkshakes.

Shelly showed no signs of an adrenaline rush. She was as calm at the ice cream shop as when she faced down Eric. Allie and Sarah were another story.

"That was beautiful!" Allie said – loudly enough that Adam shushed her. "Well, it was!"

"I knew you guys had my back," Shelly said as though she was discussing the weather or the Dodgers. "I was more worried about one of you flying off the handle."

"Walt," Adam said with a nod.

Shelly laughed.

"Walt is a teddy bear," she said. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Maybe not a fly, but he would have put a serious whipping on Eric if he took one step inside the door," Adam retorted. "Look, Walt is a good guy. But you do not want him angry at you."

"He isn't soft," Allie said. "I mean even his belly is muscle."

"He's built like his dad," Adam told them. "And he is as strong as an ox. I think, if I could use my reach, I might be able to take him. But if he got me down – hell, if he got his hands on me – it's be over for me quick."

"Please," Sarah said with a smirk. "I bet you outweigh him by 50 pounds."

Adam tilted an eyebrow.

"I saw what I saw," he remarked. "Walt wouldn't be good in a boxing match, you know, trading punches. He would hurt you if he got you on the ground. I know Rachelle and Mary have formal training in self-defense. I was not, however, aware that Allie did. But I'm positive it's true."

The girls turned to her.

"How did you know?" Allie asked.

"I watched you," Adam replied with a shrug. "You, Mary and Rachelle each moved to the balls of your feet and make sure your hands and legs were unencumbered. Walt rolled his neck and shoulders to make sure they were loose."

"What about me?" Sarah asked.

"You're like Sean," Adam remarked. Sarah seemed to take umbrage at the comparison. "You're both brawlers. You clinched your fists at your side and would have charged in swinging. You're more alike than just that, though. You see an objective and do what has to be done to achieve it. Eric might have gotten one or two shots in on either of you. But it wouldn't have mattered because you would still have taken him - down no matter the cost. Eric might win a fair fight with either of you but you would have won because it wouldn't have been a fair fight."

"So you're saying I have no ethics?" Sarah steamed.

"Not at all," Adam laughed as he covered Sarah's clenched fist. "I think you're both highly ethical – it's just you view certain things differently than, say, I do. A fight, to you and to him, is to be won. There is no use walking in if you don't plan to own the joint. To Allie, Rachelle and Mary, it would be an exercise in what they've learned. I know that Rachelle has taken a form of karate and Mary studied judo. Allie has studied something different from each of them. Still, they would have identified the weak spots and attacked with precision. They would impart the necessary pain to end the situation.

"Walt would let the other guy hit him two or three times just to get his arms around him. Once he did, depending on who it was, he would either subdue him or harm him. You and Sean wouldn't stop until the guy was on the ground and not going to get up."

Sarah scowled but had to admit he was right.

"How do you know this?" Allie asked again. Adam responded with a sigh.

"Farm life, particularly farm life 30 miles from anywhere is boring," he said. "My dad would hire in kids during the summer to help out. Friday nights were what you might consider extremely boring. Also, there were times when it rained for four or five days in a row. So, well, I know it sounds stupid now, but we would fight. It was pretty much like you see in mixed-martial arts – without the training. It got to the point where we would fight every Friday night, sometimes six or seven matches."

"Why only Fridays?" Shelly wondered.

"Because we still had to work and it was pretty much no-holds barred," Adam admitted with embarrassment. He tilted his head forward and shifted his hairline back. "This scar was about 6 inches long when it happened. A guy held my head down and drove his knee into it. I'm lucky I got loose enough to turn my head or he might have killed me. He would have least have broken several bones in my face."

"Jesus Christ!" Sarah murmured. "And you say I'm a brawler. What in the hell does that make you?"

"At the time, a bored farm boy," Adam stated. "I was the boss' kid, you know, and to borrow a phrase from Allie, the biggest oak in the glen. After a couple pretty serious ass-kickings, I learned to figure out exactly what sort of opponent I was facing.

"A guy who knows martial arts, and they were rare where I grew up, always kept his weight forward and balanced and his arms loose. A wrestler spread his base farther and kept his arms tightened. A brawler bounced up and down on their feet and usually had their hands clenched tightly at their sides or in front of them. I was a boxer. I mean, my Dad taught me how to fight when I was younger. I wasn't a wrestler and I know no forms of martial arts. What I have is long arms and big fists. That is usually enough."

"I'll be damned," Sarah said.

"What sort of opponent would I be?" Shelly asked.

"The kind who lulls to you to sleep with her cuteness and then kicks the crap out of you then," Adam asked. Shelly's eyes narrowed. "I don't know. I've never seen you angry. If I ever see you poised for physical confrontation, I might have a better answer."

"How would you fight me?" Allie asked, with genuine interest in her voice.

"Carefully," Adam replied. "You are the worst type to fight. First off, you're too small for me really get a solid shot at you. I would almost have to use strictly upper-cuts to make any sort of noticeable contact, leaving myself open and off balance for any number of attacks. With you, I would probably have to resort to sheer size and I hope I could withstand the number of blows you landed until I got you cornered or in a place where I could get hold of you."

"You said blows," Shelly giggled. Sarah shook her head.

"What about me?" she wondered.

"Again, the brawler is a different beast," Adam commented. "If we established rules ahead of time, I could handle you or Sean fairly easily. You are not trained in any style so you leave yourself open to people who are. However, in a fight without rules, you would be the most dangerous. Take for instance Sean tonight. He would have used whatever he could get his hands on to fight with. He would go for the eyes, the nuts, the knees. He would hit them with a chair or a bat or, hell, a chainsaw.

"The other thing a person has to worry about with a brawler is that they get so angry they don't really register pain. If I landed the first punch in a fight with you or Sean, I would have to make sure it is debilitating. Because if it wasn't, you would be so pissed off that you would swarm me before I had a chance to put up a decent defense. Because there is no real defense against a brawler."

Adam had described the only physical confrontation Sarah had been involved in as an adult as if he was in the room when it had happened. She shook her head in amazement.

"What about Eric?" Shelly asked.

"Eric is the last breed, the coward," Adam said, certainty in his voice. "I would bet Eric has never been in a one-on-one, face-to-face fight in his life. He'll hit you from behind or bring a half dozen of his friends but he will back down before fighting someone by himself. He was scared of Shelly tonight. Sure, he knew we were there but that was beside the point. Shelly stood up to him and he backed down.

"He had no other option familiar to him. She wasn't going to turn her back on him and he was by himself. But now, we have to be more careful. He was still in the parking lot when we left. That's why we came here. If he shows up again, it will be with reinforcements or he will wait until he thinks we're not looking."

"I want to learn what Allie knows," Sarah said firmly. "I want to be able to kick his ass."

"It's not about being able to kick someone's ass," Allie said, with equal firmness in her voice. "The first two or even three years, you learn no offensive moves. You learn to protect yourself and you learn to focus yourself. I'm a red belt. My next promotion will be in about six months and I will move to brown. Perhaps a year later, I will be a black belt if I continue. But novices are white belts. You learn a series of movements designed not only to improve balance and teach technique but to introduce you to the form you'll use throughout the ranks. The club here uses slightly different ranks than what I was used to. You go from white, to yellow, to blue, to green, to camo, to red, then brown, then black.

"After you move past the novice ranks – white to blue – you must test for your stripes. A single stripe means you have mastered the basic forms; a double stripe means you have mastered the weapons and sparring along with the basic forms. Three stripes means you have mastered the elements of courtesy and integrity that are introduced at each new level and can test for rank. There are some clubs in the area where you can become a black belt in two or three years. The club I belong to is not one of those.

"The master tests each student through his camo belt. Those are the intermediate ranks – green and camo. After you reach your camo belt, you test with an out-area-master or a student who is at least a third-degree black belt. They test your form, your character and your skill. One mistake and you might as well stop. If you fail, it is six months before you can retest. You retain your stripes but you must spend six months focusing on the whole or training others below you in rank."

"Damn," Sarah said. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Of and on since I was 13," Allie replied. "I stopped for about 18 months when I started dancing back home and out here. I picked it back up a while ago. I had to drop back two ranks – from what would be red here to green because I hadn't been instructed well or I hadn't retained what I had been taught. But I enjoy it. I am not interested in testing for rank or becoming a black belt. So I'm only going once a week for two hours. It's usually Tuesday mornings. But they offer a basic women's self defense class there too. That might be more of what you're looking for."

Shelly seemed to be considering something but it was a moment before she spoke.

"What is it about?" she asked. "I mean, I took a really basic self-defense class in high school. They taught you how to use mace or your keys as a weapon, that sort of stuff. Mostly it was about not putting yourself in dangerous situations."

"It might be similar," Allie admitted. "I know it runs two nights a week for four weeks. So I figure it is a little more in depth. I know they spar. I mean, they get to actually act out the movements. It might be worth looking into. You guys can do it while I'm taking my GED classes."

"Like you're going to need classes," Sarah scoffed. "She was taking the pre-test yesterday when Tara called. She only got about halfway through it but she was hitting at 97 percent. I truly think you could set up the test tomorrow and ace it. You're no dummy, that's for damned sure."

Allie blushed slightly, unused to having someone praise her intellect.

"I've said that since I met her," Adam added. "The thorough but concise explanation she just gave us on her sport proves it, if nothing else did. Let's make sure we can set aside an hour each day to help her out. I'm decent at math."

"I'm good at English and grammar," Sarah said.

"I'm pretty good at general science and biology," Shelly said. "If there are physics or advanced stuff, you're out of luck."

"No shit," Allie said with a laugh. "I'll do the pretest again – all of it this time – in the morning. I figure I only got through the easy part. Plus, I think there are an essay or at least question and answer portions on the real test. The pretest is strictly multiple choices – or at least it was for the parts I got to."

She colored again.

"Thanks, guys," she said softly.

"Never a problem to help out a loved one," Shelly said.

Shelly smiled lightly and glanced at her female counterparts.

"And I definitely want to learn enough martial arts to flip Adam onto his back anytime I want him there," she laughed.

"Oh, I don't think you need to learn any new skills to accomplish that," Sarah said wriggling her eyebrows. "Just hone the ones you already possess."