"You always pick dramatic entrances," Daniel said as he twisted Sam's arm behind his back, using the man's momentum to throw him into a stack of crates. Sam hit the wood with the breath knocked out of him, and that small sound made Maya's hands flash toward his neck in a half-second reflex.
The other guys Kai had brought were not as coordinated as Kai himself, but they fought hard. They ran on momentum and numbers. Ryan used his combos, the boxing flowing from him in a way that felt inevitable.
Jab, hook, cross, step, dodge, repeat. The cross was lagging—still C-—and he felt it. He compensated with footwork, angling away where a heavy cross could play him for a fool.
Every time his glove connected with someone's jaw, it made a small island of silence in the storm. Thoughts broke like pebbles. A guy with fat red knuckles tried to tackle him and missed as Ryan pivoted, a clean move that left the man sliding into another.
