Alan, the Champion — Chapter 17 — The Panther Unleashed
Kim drops to all fours. What Alan had been holding back for years breaks loose.
Before he was King, he was cannon fodder, a convict, a killer. At thirteen, he ran grown men.
Kim dropped onto all fours. Hands and feet on the ground, like an animal.
It wasn't the wild style from the beginning, two years earlier, which was just instinct with nowhere to go. This one carried the two years of fighting with it. It was wild with technique. Trained wild.
He came at me like a madman.
He bit my leg. Like an animal, teeth clamping onto my calf. I kicked him away and he was already rolling across the ground, coming back, coming from another side. Attacking, running, circling. Every shot I landed on him — and I was landing them — made no difference. He rolled, took it, got up, came back. All of it real fast.
He tore my shirt into strips. Managed to climb up. Latched onto my back like a monkey and sank his teeth into my neck while he pounded my chest and my face with both hands at the same time.
The kid was out of his mind.
I yanked him by the hair and slammed him to the ground hard. He came back. I hit him. He came back. I hit him till my arm was tired, and nothing had any effect — he was numbed by his own madness, in a place where pain doesn't reach.
Then he jumped straight at me. Headbutt dead center on my forehead, hanging onto my shirt so he wouldn't fall.
When he came again, I figured it was another headbutt. I braced to take it.
He turned his head sideways and bit my ear.