Broken Highway: A Thomas Highway Story Read Online Free PDF

this for lunch, or breakfast in this
case.” And with that, I stepped out of the car and started walking
directly towards them.
    Pedroza and his crew saw me heading in their
direction and immediately stopped their chatter and turned their
eyes towards me as though they could sense the danger I
represented. So it appeared that sneaking up on them wasn’t going
to be an option. Oh well, I guess I was going to have to do things
the hard way. Fine by me.
    We continued moving steadily but unhurriedly
towards each other, my mouth affixed in an subconscious smile, my
mind planning out the first couple moves in advance.
    I was thirty feet away and closing when
Pedroza whispered something to his friends, who both nodded. All
three men stopped. Pedroza was standing half a step back from his
friends.
    “And who the fuck are you supposed to be?”
Pedroza said.
    I didn’t answer. Nor did I slow down. I just
kept on moving towards the three of them like an unstoppable engine
of destruction. I was within fifteen feet of them now.
    “Oh, so it’s gonna be like that,” Pedroza
said.
    I nodded, my smile growing wider. I’d
forgotten how much I enjoyed stuff like this. My body was singing
in anticipation, begging for action, longing for the dance to
begin. The hundreds upon hundreds of hours spent training for
battle had conditioned me to feel no fear, consider no doubt. I was
completely focused on the task at hand. I was in the zone.
    “Fucking come and try it,” the blonde-haired
guy on Pedroza’s right said. He clenched his fists and stepped
forward to meet me, his arm already in motion.
    Without breaking stride, I slid gently to my
left, easily avoiding Blondie’s wild swing. Before he could regain
his balance I cracked him with an overhand left to the jaw followed
immediately by a right elbow to the back of his head. As Blondie’s
upper body leaned forward from the blows I grabbed the back of his
neck in a Muy Thai clench and pulled his head down with both my
hands and blasted my knee up into his face, breaking his nose and
sending him to the ground in a heap, unconscious.
    I was turning back towards the other two
before Blondie had even hit the ground. Pedroza’s other friend—a
tattooed bald dude—was nearly upon me and moving quickly, his arms
spread as though he was going to tackle me to the ground, leaving
his chest wide open. Stupid.
    I finished my turn, and using my back
shoulder as a counterweight, took one step forward and hit him with
an open-palm strike to the center of his chest.
    The blow cracked Baldie’s sternum and
stopped him dead in his tracks. I kicked him on the outside of the
knee, buckling him, sending him down to one knee, then onto the
ground. Both hands were over his chest and he was wheezing like a
deflated bagpipe.
    I could sense Pedroza nearby, and turned
just as he was throwing a right-hand at my face. I shifted my
weight to better absorb the blow and turned my head. Instead of
connecting solidly, Pedroza’s blow glanced off the side of my head.
Juiced on adrenalin, I barely even felt the blow at all.
    Pedroza followed his first punch with an
overhand left, but I was ready for it. I stepped in towards him,
and turned my body into the blow, rendering it essentially
harmless.
    Pedroza backed off quickly, perhaps sensing
he was outmatched. For a moment, I thought he was going to run.
Then his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared and it was obvious
he wasn’t going anywhere. He spread his feet out to shoulder length
and raised his hands in a classical boxer’s stance.
    “You should have followed your first
instinct and started running,” I said.
    “Run from a douchebag like you?” he said.
“Not a chance. I’m gonna fuck you up, bro.”
    “You think so, huh?”
    “Better believe it, bitch.”
    “Then let’s see what you got,” I said,
squaring up with him, mimicking his stance, making him think this
was going to be a boxing match. A fair fight.
    He quickly learned there was no such