Los Angeles | 2011
Bradley's POV
The school supply dock was a concrete canyon tucked behind the cafeteria kitchens. It smelled of diesel fumes, rotting fruit from the dumpsters, and the stagnant heat of the afternoon sun reflecting off the loading bay doors. It was a blind spot in the school's surveillance grid—a place where deliveries were made, cigarettes were smoked, and problems were handled "off the books."
Jackson and his cronies—Rizzo, Meyer, and Johnson—walked ahead of us, their boots crunching on the gravel and discarded packing slips. They moved with the swagger of executioners leading the condemned to the gallows.
I walked a few paces behind, flanked by David, Leo, and Patrick. The air was thick, heavy with unsaid threats. My senses were dialed up to eleven. I could hear the distant hum of the cafeteria and the rapid, nervous breathing of Leo beside me.
We reached the center of the loading bay, a flat expanse of concrete shielded from the parking lot by a high wall.
Jackson turned around after making sure no one was there. He scanned the upper windows of the kitchen—empty—and the delivery road—empty. Satisfied, he faced me.
"Alright, freshman," Jackson said, his voice echoing slightly in the enclosed space. "Let's cut the crap."
He took a step forward, looming over me. "I want back on the team."
I didn't blink. I kept my hands loose at my sides, ready to snap into a guard position. "Is that what this is about? You dragged us out here to beg?"
"I'm not begging," Jackson spat. "I'm telling you, go to that muscle-head coach of yours, and tell him you made a mistake. You tell him I'm essential. You tell him whatever you have to tell him to get my jersey back."
I shook my head slowly. "It's out of my hands, Jackson. The coach made the final decision. He saw you run. He saw you play. He cut the fat. I can't overrule him even if I wanted to."
"Don't give me that bureaucratic bullshit!" Jackson shouted, his face twisting. "Change the Coach's mind anyway you can. You're the 'Captain,' right? You have his ear. Make it happen."
"That won't be possible anymore," I said, my tone final. " The roster is submitted. The locker is cleared. It's done."
Jackson starts to get riled up. The veins in his neck were pulsing. He paced back and forth like a caged animal, kicking a stray cardboard box. He stopped abruptly, turning his cold eyes on me.
"You owe me, Naird," he hissed. "You need to make it up to me."
I frowned, genuinely baffled by the twisted logic firing in his brain. "In what way do I owe you anything at all?" I asked. "Jackson, you are the one who bullied me. You literally sent me to the hospital on my first day. You cornered me, assaulted me, and then spread rumors that I started the fight."
I stepped closer, letting my anger seep into my voice. "You tried to ruin my reputation before I even opened a textbook. And now you think I owe you?"
Jackson laughed, a dry, humorless sound. "You don't get it, do you? You think that was bad? That was just an introduction."
Jackson says that in spite of all that, there was no physical bullying after that one fight. "Did anyone touch you after that first week?" he asked, pointing a finger at my chest. "Did anyone jump you in the bathroom? Did anyone mess with your locker until today?"
He stepped closer, puffing his chest out. "I claimed that territory. I told the other seniors to back off. It was me who stopped others from physically approaching you. Because I wanted to deal with you myself. I kept you safe, Naird. I protected your little crew."
My jaw dropped slightly. It was the most insane, narcissistic rationalization I had ever heard. He was claiming credit for not assaulting me more.
"I never asked for your protection," I told him, disgusted. "And don't pretend you did it for me. You did it because my mother threatened to sue the school district and you into oblivion. You were saving your own ass, not mine."
Jackson pushes on. He stepped right into my face, his breath smelling of cafeteria pizza and malice. "Doesn't matter why. You had a free ride because of me. Now? That ride is over. You took my spot. You took my status."
He poked me in the chest. "You need to pay me."
I slapped his hand away. Scoffing, I looked at him with pure disdain. "That will never happen."
"Then listen closely. Here are your options. Option A: You get me back on the team. Option B: You pay me hundred bucks a week. A 'consulting fee' for my silence."
"And if I choose Option C?" I asked, my muscles tensing.
"Option C is scorched earth," Jackson said, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "Otherwise, I will begin harassing and bullying everyone you know. Your little nerdy friends here? Leo? Patrick? They're going to have a very hard year. Books knocked over, swirlies, the works."
"I know people, Naird. Seniors, dropouts. And this time, I would be discreet enough to not allow anyone to trace it to me. No cameras. No witnesses. Just accidents."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that only I could hear.
"And that little girlfriend of yours... Alex, right?"
The world stopped. The ambient noise of the loading dock vanished. All I could hear was the rushing of blood in my ears.
"She seems to be a good target to get things started," Jackson mused, watching my face. "Smart girl. Pretty. It would be a shame if she started getting scared to walk home. If she started getting nasty texts. If she..."
Something inside me snapped. It wasn't the tactical anger of a fighter; it was the primal, protective rage of a predator whose territory had been breached.
"Back off!" I roared, the sound guttural. "You never mention Alex. You keep her out of this!"
Jackson picks on my aggression, mistaking my rage for desperation. "Oh, hit a nerve? What are you gonna do about it, freshman? You can't be always there to save her. I have friends everywhere. One day, you'll be at practice, and she'll be walking alone, and—"
He never finished the sentence.
I didn't telegraphed the move. I didn't wind up. I exploded from a standstill, launching myself at him like a missile. My shoulder drove into his chest, lifting him off his feet and slamming him onto the concrete.
"Get him!" Jackson screamed as he hit the ground.
A fight breaks out.
Rizzo, Meyer, and Johnson rushed forward.
"David! Leo! Pat! Watch your six!" I yelled, but my focus was entirely on the boy beneath me.
Jackson tried to scramble up, swinging a wild haymaker at my head. I slipped the punch easily, my Agility stat making his movements look like they were underwater. I grabbed his wrist, twisting it sharply into a control lock.
"Aagh!" Jackson screamed.
I wasn't trying to knock him out. A knockout leaves bruises. A knockout brings the police. I wanted pain. Pure, invisible pain.
I drove my knee into his thigh, dead-legging his quadricep. He buckled. I spun him around, taking his back, and drove my thumbs into the soft tissue behind his ears—a pressure point cluster that Katz had taught us.
"You threaten her?" I whispered into his ear, grinding my thumbs in. "You threaten my people?"
Jackson howled, trashing wildly, but I had him pinned. I delivered a short, sharp punch to his kidney. Not enough to rupture, but always with force strong enough to send a shockwave of nausea through his body.
He gasped, arching his back. I hit him again. Solar plexus. Liver. Floating ribs.
The attacks were so numerous and precise that I was able to immobilize Jackson through sheer sensory overload. He wasn't fighting anymore; he was just trying to curl into a ball to make it stop. I pinned him face down, twisting his arm behind his back until the shoulder joint was at its breaking point.
"Stop!" he sobbed. "Stop!"
I held him there, panting, my rage cold and controlled. I looked up to check on my team.
To my left, Leo was getting beat up. He was scrappy, but Rizzo was bigger and meaner. Rizzo had Leo in a headlock and was delivering uppercuts to his ribs. Leo was flailing, trying to break free, but he was overwhelmed.
"Get off him!"
David is defending himself while attempting to help Leo. Johnson was trying to tackle David, but David—the tank—was shoving him off. However, David was too slow to get to Leo. He shoved Johnson into the wall, but he couldn't bridge the gap to Rizzo.
To my right, Patrick had tackled Meyer. Patrick wasn't using martial arts; he was using pure, unadulterated fury. He was on top of Meyer, raining down clumsy but effective punches. Meyer was covering up, completely shocked by the ferocity Patrick was displaying.
But Leo was in trouble. Rizzo was hurting him.
Brad quickly intervenes.
I leaned down to Jackson's ear. "Your boys are losing. Call them off."
I wrenched his arm up another inch. Jackson screamed.
"Tell them to stop!" I roared.
"Stop!" Jackson shrieked, his voice cracking. "Rizzo! Johnson! Stop! I'm done!"
The sound of their leader screaming in agony cut through the chaos. Rizzo froze, his fist cocked back to hit Leo again. He looked over and saw me kneeling on Jackson's back, Jackson's face pressed into the dirty concrete, his arm bent at a sickening angle.
Rizzo dropped Leo immediately, stepping back with his hands up.
"Let him go," Rizzo stammered.
Johnson backed away from David, looking terrified. Even Patrick stopped punching Meyer, breathing heavily, his knuckles reddening.
I held the pin for five more seconds, letting the image burn into their brains. Then, I shoved Jackson's face into the ground one last time and stood up.
"Get up," I ordered.
Jackson scrambled to his feet, clutching his shoulder, tears streaming down his face mixed with grime. He looked at me with pure terror. There wasn't a mark on his face, but he was holding his side like he'd been hit by a truck.
I walked over to Leo. "You okay?"
Leo was coughing, holding his ribs, a bruise already forming on his cheek. "I'll live," he wheezed. "David helped."
David nodded, his chest heaving. Patrick stood up, wiping blood from his lip.
I turned back to the seniors. They were huddled together, broken and defeated.
"Leave and never bother me again. Never look at me. Never look at my friends. And if I ever hear Alex's name come out of your mouth, Jackson, I won't stop next time."
Jackson nodded frantically, backing away.
"And one more thing," I called out.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I tapped the screen and held it up. A red light was blinking.
"I have recorded the entire fight," I warned them. "Every word. The blackmail. The threat against Alex. The threat to commit discreet violence. It's all here."
Jackson went pale. "You... you can't..."
"If you try to report this to anyone," I said, stepping forward, "if you go to the principal, if you go to your parents, if you try to say we jumped you... I will make this public. I will send it to the school board. I will send it to the police. Extortion is a felony, Jackson."
I lowered the phone.
"And think about the optics," I also played on their ego. "Four seniors, athletes beaten by four freshmen in a loading dock." I laughed, a cold, mocking sound. "The news that freshmen beat seniors would devastate your reputation. You'd be the laughing stock of the entire district. So even if the story breaks, I will end up coming out on top. I'll be the hero who defended himself. You'll be the pathetic bullies who got their asses kicked by the juniors."
I stared at them. "Do you really want that story getting out?"
Jackson looked at Rizzo. Rizzo looked at the ground. They knew I was right. They had lost the physical fight, and they had lost the narrative war.
"Let's go," Jackson mumbled, clutching his ribs.
The cronies take Jackson and leave. They shuffled away, limping, bruised, and utterly humiliated. They didn't look back.
I watched them turn the corner and disappear. Only then did I let out the breath I was holding. My hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the adrenaline dump.
I turned to my team.
"Leo, let me see that cheek," I said, my voice softening.
"I'm fine, Captain," Leo said, trying to grin but wincing. "Did you see Patrick? He went feral."
Patrick was staring at his hands, looking a little shocked at himself. "He tried to hit me," Patrick muttered. "So I hit him back."
"You did good," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You all did good."
"We should go," David said, looking at the door. "Before a teacher comes."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's go get some ice."
We walked away from the loading dock, the adrenaline slowly receding like a tide, leaving behind the sharp, stinging reality of injuries. I looked at my guys. They looked rough, disheveled, and breathless, but they were walking taller than I'd ever seen them.
"Let this be for now," I told them, wiping a smudge of dirt from my shirt. "We made our point. But a wounded animal bites back. If any of them approach you—Jackson, Rizzo, any of them—you don't engage. You just tell me."
"You got it, Captain," Leo mumbled. He was ecstatic, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet despite the swelling on his cheek. He winced, rubbing his jaw where Rizzo had clocked him. "Ow. Worth it, though. Did you see his face when you twisted his arm? Man, that was legendary."
He looked at me, his good eye gleaming with mischief. "Where's the video? Send it to the group chat immediately."
I had a shameful smile creep onto my face. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I tapped the screen, showing them the home screen. No recording app was open. No file was saved.
"About that..." I scratched the back of my neck. "There is no video."
Leo stopped dead in his tracks. "What?"
"It was a bluff," I told them, shrugging slightly. "I didn't have time to unlock it and find the camera app before things went down. I just held it up and hoped the red notification light from my unread emails looked convincing enough."
I looked at them, half-expecting them to be mad that I'd gambled our safety on a lie. "It was a bluff I hoped would work on Jackson. And luckily, he was too panicked to check."
For a second, there was silence. Leo looked completely stumped, his mouth hanging open slightly as he processed that our "insurance policy" was literally nothing.
Then, a dry, wheezing sound started to my left.
Patrick began laughing. It started as a chuckle and grew into a full-blown belly laugh, the kind that relieves a thousand pounds of pressure. He used his sleeves to wipe a tear from his eye.
"You bluffed him," Patrick wheezed. "You looked a senior in the eye, told him you had a felony on tape, and you were holding a blank screen. That is... that is terrifying and daring."
David just smiled, shaking his head slowly as he looked at Leo's confused face. He clapped a massive hand on Leo's shoulder.
"It worked," David rumbled. "That's all that matters."
"I can't believe it," Leo finally said, a grin breaking through his shock. "You're crazy, Brad. You know that? You're actually crazy."
"Maybe," I said, pocketing the phone. "But we won. Now come on. Let's get some ice before practice. Coach Casey is going to kill us if we show up looking like this."