Page 12 of Out of Control

“Oh yeah? ’Bout what?”

Drago knew damned good and well about what, so Spencer didn’t bother to answer. He merely rolled his eyes and, without comment, carried the bucket into the kitchen. He ran a bit of precious water from the rain cistern into it and rinsed it out in the sink.

He returned to the main room and dug out a couple of MREs and water from his big duffel bag in the corner. He tossed a plastic pouch of dehydrated food and a two-liter bottle of water to Drago. No way was he getting too close to the guy. Even if Dray was handcuffed to that post, the man was freaking lethal in a fight.

First time he’d ever witnessed the aftermath of Drago fighting was in an alley behind al-Mandolib. The two of them had sneaked out back to steal a kiss, and some local thugs had decided to clear out Fag Alley and beat the shit out of the couples necking behind the bar.

The young men armed with lengths of pipe and clubs had picked the wrong night to have a little fun at the expense of the gay community.

As soon as Drago had seen over Spencer’s shoulder that the gang was coming, he’d called out tersely in Arabic, “Everybody. Inside now.”

The startled couples had broken apart, grabbing at clothing and scurrying back into the bar, leaving him and Drago alone to face nine guys.

The problem with hand-to-hand combat was that quantity could overwhelm quality in almost every situation. Nine on two was almost a guaranteed beatdown for the twosome.

“You got a blade?” Drago bit out.

“Yup. You?”

“Always.”

Quickly, he and Dray shed their jackets and wrapped them around their left forearms. Using his teeth and right hand, Spencer tied the sleeves in a knot to hold the cloth in place. He reached for his Ka-Bar field knife, which he carried everywhere in an ankle sheath.

Drago flipped his right forearm down sharply, and a glint of silver slid down into his palm. “Kill ’em if you need to,” he growled. “They’ll do the same to us.”

A little voice swore in a steady stream inside Spencer’s head. This was exactly why he’d never come out as gay in the military. He didn’t need to fight for his right to simply exist all the goddamned time. This would never have happened behind a straight club.

Hell, just the knowledge that he was a SEAL would have been enough to chase off twice this many guys anywhere else. As it was, in this alley, if he tried to explain to these jerkwads that he was a trained special forces operative, they would laugh in his face and kill him instead of merely beating the shit out of him.

“Here they come,” Drago murmured.

Spencer settled into a fighting stance, his shoulder lightly rubbing Dray’s. Fortunately Drago’d had plenty of hand-to-hand combat training and would know what to do. They would hold this position until they got surrounded, and then they would shift to a back-to-back formation.

“Let’s fuck ’em up good,” Drago muttered as the youths broke into a run.

If the locals thought charging Spencer and Dray would scare them, they had another think coming. It merely allowed Spencer to identify who appeared to be the most athletic members of the crew, who hung back looking reluctant, and who overbalanced and ran clumsily.

He picked out the two most dangerous targets in his end of the line and focused on them. Maybe if he and Drago took down the ringleaders hard and fast, the others would lose the will for this stupid fight.

Grimly, he waited as the gap closed. The first guy reached him and swung his steel pipe at Spencer’s head. Spencer threw up his coat-padded forearm to catch the blow and lunged under the guy’s arm, low and fast.

His razor-sharp field knife sliced into the guy’s belly with ease, and a fine, hot spray of blood hit his face. He gave a quick sideways yank to partially gut the guy and to free his blade as he dodged under a wooden club and lashed out with his right foot. He caught club boy in the side of the knee and drove his foot forward, smashing the guy’s leg sideways and wrenching his knee in a direction it wasn’t meant to go. Both young men fell down, screaming.

But then two more guys were on him, and he took a hard blow to the upper arm from one and barely dodged being brained with a pipe by the fourth. He spun in a ninety-degree left turn to place his back against Drago’s as the last two guys arrived and circled around behind the fray, looking for an opening.

Spencer felt Drago moving so fast at his back he could hardly believe the speed with which the guy was lunging and retreating. Spencer jumped forward low and sliced a guy across one hip, narrowly missing the kid’s groin. The kid leaped back, and Spencer used the momentary opening to reach down and scoop up the length of pipe his first victim had dropped.

Brandishing the pipe in his left hand, he felt better. He’d practiced two-handed knife fighting for years, and pipe-and-knife was close enough in a pinch.

He lunged again, swinging out from his body with both weapons simultaneously. The guy on his left thought he would be clever and duck under the pipe, but he didn’t count on Spencer arcing it down hard midswing. He connected at full speed and full strength with the top of the kid’s skull. The youth dropped to the ground, at a minimum unconscious, but possibly dead.

The kid on the right got his wooden club up in time to catch Spencer’s knife, and unfortunately the steel blade bit into the softer wood and lodged. As he and the kid both yanked hard to separate their weapons, Spencer swung his left arm across his body and clocked this target in the right ear. It wasn’t a full-power swing, but it was enough to send the kid spinning back and away from him, club abandoned.

Spencer stepped on the end of the club and frantically yanked his knife free. He came up in a crouch, looking for more action.

He became aware that silence had fallen around them, broken only by the moans of the guys on the ground who were still conscious.

Ear-shot guy stumbled away from them as fast as he could, disappearing around the corner.

---