From the Back Cover
From Chapter 5:
The last man grabbed her ponytail from behind, no doubt thinking to control her with his other arm. Knowing he expected her to pull away so he could yank her head back, Emily pivoted directly into him, wrapping her right arm over his elbow and under, which allowed her to force his elbow out at the same time as she pulled his shoulder down. The enormous pressure on the back of the joint gave him no coherent way to move his body and extricate himself from her grip, and she was so close to his chest he couldn't even grab her with his free hand. In the next instant, she drove the heel of her left palm under his chin with a quick, sharp blow, and heard his teeth crack through his tongue just as his elbow snapped. He crumpled to the ground in tears, and looked up at her, not quite able to focus, as she slammed her knee into his face.
She turned to the first two men, still feeling the rush of ferocity she had just unleashed, her cheeks warm. The one with the broken face, groggy but still more or less conscious, moved to pick himself up until he saw her eyes and shuddered. With a finger pressed to her lips, she pushed him back down until he lay flat on his back on the pavement.
Crouching next to his head, she said, "Don't make me hurt you," and flashed him a crooked smile, her head tilted to one side.
She found Danny wedged between the bench and the wall. They had worked him over a bit, but hadn't had time to do much damage, and hadn't marked up his face. At least he would be spared a lot of questions at home. She helped him up and led him back to his truck, and they left before the police arrived.
On the way home, she reassured him about what happened. "Just some thugs looking for trouble," she said. No deeper meaning in it. He'd been brave. Fortunately for him, he didn't see just how thoroughly she had rescued him.
Once he'd dropped her off, other things occupied her thoughts, things she would have liked to settle in her mind before talking to her father. Who were those guys, and what did they want? She wanted to believe it was just a random attack, but a nagging thought kept her wondering. That man had tried to carry her off, and he'd brought other men with him, well-trained men. That didn't feel random.
An even more troubling thought nudged its way into her consciousness. Had she reacted too fiercely? She wasn't concerned for those men. They had meant to do much worse to her, exactly what she didn't know, but she'd felt the malevolence in them, the absence of any humane sentiment towards her. At the same time, she remembered feeling the thrill of her own ferocity and wasn't sure she'd really been in control of it. She'd vanquished her assailants, but couldn't help wondering if she'd lost sight of herself in the process. She'd never been in a real fight before--not just sparring, not a schoolyard scuffle. Those men meant to harm her, maybe even kill her, and she had prevailed, though she found the thought that she might have killed one of them, and certainly maimed another, alarming.
"That must be what it means to be in a fight," she muttered, trying to quiet her mind as she walked up the stairs to the apartment above the garage. "If someone puts your life on the line, he puts his own life on the line, too."
One thought offered some little bit of comfort: if she'd harbored any doubts about her ability to defend herself, to keep her wits about her, and to generate enough sheer aggression to prevail, to survive, those had been effectively dispelled. She could still wonder what this victory had really cost her. All of her training had not been directed toward fighting, or at least that's not how Sensei had always presented it to her. He spoke of deeper, more meaningful goals, spiritual goals, and the residual thrill--and remorse--of the evening threatened to eclipse those entirely.
About the Author
Jacques Antoine is a teacher, a father, a martial artist and a writer. The Emily Kane Stories are written for his daughter who dreams of being a writer when she grows up. They are inspired in part by her experiences studying karate in various dojos around the world. She also consulted on the fight scenes in Go No Sen.
