Ivy tugs at my fingers, hard. When I cut my eyes toward her, she jerks her head downward and to the left, like she’s trying to call my attention to something. I look at the space between us, but there’s nothing except our interlocked hands.
“No time to waste, then,” Lara says. “What’s in the duffel bag?”
Coach Kendall’s smile hardens. “Everything we need to get started.”
Ivy yanks my hand more insistently and jerks her head again. Frustration builds in me, because she’s obviously trying to tell me something and I have no idea what. Her head dips more deeply to the left as she squeezes my hand, and then—I get it. Your left.
I glance down while letting my fingertips brush the floor, seeing and feeling in an instant what Ivy has been trying to point out. There’s a crowbar on the ground beside me; I must have stepped right over it without noticing. But Ivy did.
Coach Kendall and Lara are still talking as I close my fingers around the metal bar. “…help you get it ready,” Lara is saying.
Coach Kendall narrows his eyes at her. “I’m not trusting you with a syringe full of fentanyl, Lara. But you can restrain this one.” He jerks his head toward me. “There’s duct tape in the side pocket. Take it out.”
My hand flexes on the crowbar as I gauge the distance between me and Coach Kendall. His gun hand is within reach, if I can get a good enough swing in. The thought freezes me with self-doubt and fear, and I really wish I’d used that baseball bat in my trunk for more than just a prop at some point. Even once would’ve helped.
Coach Kendall’s attention is fully focused on Lara as she unzips one side of his duffel bag, the gun pointed toward the ground. Ivy is almost crushing my hand, her nails biting into my palm with rhythmic, frantic pressure like she’s chanting the word out loud. Now. Now. Now.
She’s right. There won’t be a better time.
I lunge forward with the crowbar in my grasp and swing it with all my strength toward Coach Kendall’s hand. Lara screams and ducks as I make contact, and a shocked thrill of triumph surges through me when the gun goes flying toward the wall and Coach Kendall howls with pain and rage. I did it, I can’t believe I actually did it, I—
And then I’m flat on my back, the entire right side of my head on fire from the impact of Coach Kendall’s fist. The element of surprise ended way too fast.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lara scrambling on the floor, going for the gun, until Ivy leaps at her and drags her back. They’re a tangle of motion, all blond hair and flailing limbs. Ivy manages to sweep the gun away from them, and I watch it skitter beneath a rusted lawn mower. Then I can’t pay attention to them anymore, because there’s a fist headed my way again. If I could talk, I’d tell Coach Kendall to think twice about beating me senseless, since it doesn’t fit the framing scenario all that well. But my mouth isn’t working, and from the look on his face, he’s snapped beyond the point of reason. So I try to squirm out of the way instead.
And fail.
My skull explodes in agony as Coach Kendall connects again, only I moved just enough that it’s not quite the knockout punch he was going for. I reach a hand out convulsively, grasping for anything that might help me, and my fingers brush rough fabric. Despite the pain radiating across every inch of my head, my thoughts are clear enough to know it’s Coach Kendall’s duffel bag. And to remember that he has a syringe full of…something.
Something that would help, if I could only get to it.
I twist and thrash beneath Coach Kendall as his hands close around my neck, inching myself closer to the bag until my fingers brush the hard edge of a zipper. I tug at it and can feel it start to give way, creating a small opening at the top of the bag. It’s getting difficult to breathe, but I strain harder until I can slip my hand into the top of the bag. I flex my fingers, searching for something, anything, inside, when suddenly the pressure on my neck eases, only to be replaced with an agonizing twist at my wrist as Coach Kendall yanks my hand out of the bag.
“Nice try,” he says, and this time, I don’t have enough strength to even try to move when he hauls his fist back.
Then I feel white-hot pain, and stars erupt in front of me. They’re bright orange, flashing and dancing, and it occurs to me hazily as viselike pressure returns to my neck that they’re the last thing I’ll ever see.
I never did learn how to fight.
My hands curl into fists as I try anyway. I swing at whatever part of Coach Kendall I can reach, but it’s like punching a wall—painful for me, and nothing to him.