Six Against One
“Walk away. This ain’t your business.”
The voice came from behind the convenience store, low and threatening beneath the dying orange light of the Arizona evening.
Casey Marlo stopped walking.
She had been thinking about a hospital bill.
About forty-one dollars in her wallet.
About the twenty dollars her grandmother had tried to refuse that morning.
She had been thinking about nothing more complicated than getting home.
Then she heard the voice.
“Help me, please.”
Casey looked toward the gas station.
Six young men surrounded an old biker.
The old man was on the concrete.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
His motorcycle stood several feet away beneath a flickering light, an old black-and-chrome Panhead that looked like it belonged in another era.
One of the young men stood over him holding a rusted pipe wrench.
Another had just kicked the motorcycle's rear tire.
The others laughed.
Casey knew immediately that she should keep walking.
Every reasonable thought in her head told her so.
She was twenty-six years old.
She was five-foot-four.
She was wearing work boots and mechanic's coveralls beneath a faded jacket.
She had grease beneath her fingernails.
She had no weapon.
No training.
No backup.
And six men stood between her and a situation she had absolutely no business entering.
Her grandfather's voice came back to her.
If you were the one standing on the side of the road, you'd want forty people to have a reason not to stop and one person to stop anyway.
Casey swallowed.
She looked at the old man again.
He was trying to get his feet underneath him.
One of the boys shoved him back down.
“Stay down, old-timer.”
The others laughed.
Casey's fingers curled.
She could walk away.
She could call the police from somewhere safe.
She could tell herself that someone else would handle it.
But she already knew what would happen if she kept walking.
She would hear the sound of that man's voice in her head every night.
Help me, please.
Casey set her grocery bag on the pavement.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Then she looked around.
Near a dumpster lay a bicycle chain.
It was rusty and greasy.
She picked it up.
The chain felt cold in her palm.
Six against one had already become six against two.
The men simply hadn't realized it yet.
Brody Kane, the largest of them, was still talking.
“Eight grand, this bike. Maybe ten.”
He kicked the Panhead again.
“Grandpa here probably won't even remember where he parked it tomorrow.”
The old man looked at him.
There was something strange in his eyes.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
Brody didn't notice.
He raised the pipe wrench.
Casey moved.
She didn't scream.
She didn't announce herself.
She threw her water bottle.
It struck Brody across the back of the head.
He stumbled forward.
“What the—?”
All six men turned.
Casey stood twenty feet away with the chain in her hand.
For one second, the parking lot was completely silent.
Then Brody charged.
He grabbed a cracked plastic chair from beside the convenience store.
“Crazy girl!”
He swung.
Casey moved toward him instead of away.
The chair passed over her shoulder.
She drove into his ribs.
The air exploded from his lungs.
The chair hit the ground.
Cody reached for her arm.
Casey spun and snapped the chain low.
It struck his legs.
He collapsed onto the gravel.
Two down.
Four standing.
Brody recovered.
His face had changed.
The laughter was gone.
Now he was angry.
He grabbed the pipe wrench.
Casey saw it coming.
She ducked.
The wrench cut through the air where her head had been.
She stepped backward.
Her heel caught the curb.
For half a second, she lost balance.
Then the old man moved.
He came off the pavement with startling speed.
He swept one man's legs out from underneath him.
The boy crashed down.
Casey stared.
The old man wasn't helpless.
He had been waiting.
Brody charged again.
Casey looped the bicycle chain around his wrist.
She pulled.
The wrench flew from his hand.
It struck the concrete.
Brody stared at his empty fingers.
The old man stepped beside Casey.
He placed one heavy hand on her shoulder.
Then he looked at the remaining boys.
“Walk away while you still can.”
His voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
Brody stared at him.
Something in the old biker's face made the young man's confidence disappear.