The Fury - Jason Pinter [80]
murderer. And like I told him that night two years ago,
while I was holed up in a crummy building as three men
were approaching to kill me, I used my father's short
comings to fuel me. Because of him I wanted to be to
Amanda what he'd never been to my mother. I'd gotten
it wrong once, with Mya.
I steadfastly believed that a person became who they
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were by choice. They achieved or they did not. They
were decent or they were not. Those choices might be
harder depending on the worldviews they are subjected
to. The climb might be more difficult, but being a good
man, working at my craft, those were possibilities that
were attainable to me.
I was born with ability. I knew that. But it took ev
erything I had to wrench myself away from the grips of
this man, and I was happy to forget him. And in the
years since, I'd found a few times where that anger
could be reversed. Where the climb became more man
ageable because it lifted me.
Amanda, Mya.
We were all recovering from our injuries, emo
tional and physical. Mya's would take longer, but
inside the girl she'd become was the girl I once knew.
She would move on.
I'd moved on eight years ago. Now I wanted to be
everything James Parker was not.
I wanted to be strong. Anger was a powerful tool.
And I wanted my anger to be used for the right reasons.
I stopped at a corner deli. The manager recognized
me. He was a burly Arab man, very pleasant, who'd
seen me once with Amanda and now greeted me with
a humorous "hubba hubba" whenever I was alone.
"Large coffee," I said. "Cream and three sugars."
"Cream?" he said, surprised. "Usually you take it
with milk."
"I need the extra jolt tonight," I said. He nodded,
understanding.
"Where's your ladyfriend?" he asked, moving
toward the pots.
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Jason Pinter
"Out tonight," I said with a smile.
"That lady, whoo, hubba hubba," he said, pointing
to the coffee. "Fresh pot, plenty hot," he continued.
"Just the way I like it," I said.
He poured me a full cup, steam rising off the top,
and added the cream and sugar. I paid him, thanked
him and left.
The coffee, cream and sugar would be enough to get
through the night. Or at least keep me awake until
Amanda got home. Sipping it as I approached my apart
ment, I set it on the call box and searched my pockets
for my keys.
Staring ahead as my fingers felt around for the
familiar metal, suddenly my body froze.
The door to our building was glass. Through the il
lumination of the lamp on the corner, I could see the re
flection of the street behind me. And what I saw was a
man approaching holding what looked to be an
unopened switchblade.
He was a few inches shorter than me, white, with
a scraggly beard and loose-fitting clothes that had
surely been bought when he was a few pounds heavier.
In that light, he looked scarily like my brother had the
night I saw him.
Slowly I reached up, picked up my coffee cup, took
a small sip. My fingers trembled as I pretended to be
unsure of where I was.
Then I heard the chilling snick and saw a long, thin
piece of metal protruding from the man's hand. His
blade was now open.
My heart hammered. In just seconds he would be
behind me. And I would be dead.
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Then I saw the man's hand rise above his head, the
knife pointed down, ready to bury itself in my neck. I
had one shot to do this right, or I'd feel that knife point
inside me, the cold steel lodging itself in me.
I spun around, startling the man, and swung the
entire cup of steaming-hot coffee into his face.
He shrieked, his hands clawing at his face. The knife
clattered to the ground, and I kicked it as far as I could
before he could react. It skittered away and stopped
beneath a parked car thirty feet down the block.
While he was still pawing at his face, I swung an
elbow that hit him right in the chest. It connected solidly,
and he went down in a heap, still moaning, his face red
from the scalding liquid. He was curled into a fetal
position, so I knelt down on top of him, spreading his
arms