Angel Born - D. R. Rosier Page 0,2

gripping onto the large trash bin for leverage and support. Then they glared at me, and I think one of them actually growled.

I shrugged and held up my hands in a peaceful gesture, “Sorry man, just taking out the trash. You guys should be careful, running so fast in the dark.”

I mean, why fight them if I didn’t have to? The girl had to be out the other end of the alley by then, right? Plus, despite my martial arts training, that bullshit you see in the movies is just that, bullshit. Three on one odds, chances are you’re going to get your ass kicked, unless they have no clue at all how to fight. Which could happen, but these guys looked tough.

The one that didn’t growl said, “You’re going to regret that, meat.”

Meat? That didn’t seem like much of an insult, but at the time I didn’t believe in the supernatural yet, and I had no idea what I’d just stumbled into.

The one in the bin went crazy then, or at least at the time I thought he was going crazy. I could hear the few trash bags in there getting ripped apart, the sound of smushing things that really shouldn’t be smushed. Not without a few hours for a decontamination shower, at any rate.

The growler grinned at me, with death in his eyes. Apparently, we were going to fight anyway. They were also between me and the back door of the restaurant, so the only way out was through. Rather than trade anymore wiseass remarks, I did what any outnumbered person should always do. I attacked before they could.

And it was a good thing I did too, because as I rushed forward and to the side as I snapped my arm out, a big furry dog the size of a damn pony leaped out of the garbage bin. Their huge ass mouth snapped where my face was a second ago.

That would’ve made this account a very short story, if the pony sized dog had bit my face off. Of course, as you’ve probably guessed by now reading pop fiction it was really a pony sized wolf. But at the time I didn’t know shit about the real world, and the alley was very dimly lit and the lunge had been very fast. Perhaps amusingly, since it missed me it kept going and slammed into the wall and then fell into the dumpster with a terrifyingly pissed off growl.

The last thing the growler, the human one I mean, had been expecting was for me to take the offensive. So, my first punch actually landed, despite being totally outclassed in that moment, far more than I’d realized. It felt a little like punching a brick wall, anyone that’s done that will know what I mean. His head hardly moved at all, but his nose did make a satisfying crunching sound as it broke under the assault. Although, part of that crunch might have been my knuckles.

Pony dog was fixing to jump out the dumpster, and there was a very pissed off growling man with a face like a brick wall. Well, I did what any thinking person would at that point. I ran for it. I even managed to take a step before the large man punched out. I suspect he aimed for my chest, but that single step meant he hit my shoulder, and I went flying back into the edge of the dumpster like a damned truck had hit me. My body kind of spun around the edge and then slammed into the wall.

A second later the pain caught up to those events. My shoulder, back, and head felt raw, and there was a throbbing pain in my hand that matched the speed of my hammering heart. I jumped up, or staggered, probably staggered but this is my story. I jumped up heroically, only to get kicked in the chest so hard I got the breath knocked out of me as I slammed into the alley wall back first then my head rang like a bell. I hadn’t even seen the bastard move, and he’d just rung my bell hard.

I tried to stand up again, but my body totally ignored all direction from my brain. That was the rule, right? Get knocked on your ass, you get back up. My spirit was willing, but my flesh was definitely too weak.

The other man had a smirk on his face, and he patted the growly man’s shoulder like they’d just