Chapter 2 - The Wrath of an Uncle
Inside the master bedroom, the air tasted like dust and copper. Noah was curled into a tight, trembling ball in the corner near the walk-in closet, clutching his left arm, which hung at a sickening, unnatural angle. His face was stained with tears and snot, his little chest heaving with every ragged gasp for air.
Standing over him with a dented aluminum Louisville Slugger was Travis, his face flushed with booze and unbridled rage, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
When Derek kicked the bedroom door off its hinges, sending the heavy oak panel crashing across the hardwood, Travis spun around, swinging the bat wildly in a blind panic.
“What the—who the hell are you?” Travis stammered, trying to steady the heavy metal cylinder.
Derek didn’t answer with words. He answered with violence.
Years of intense mixed martial arts training and underground ring brawls had forged my older brother into a precision instrument of destruction when provoked. As Travis brought the bat down in a vicious, horizontal arc aimed straight at Derek’s head, Derek simply ducked beneath the swing with practiced grace, stepped inside Travis’s guard, and drove a devastating, bone-crushing right hook straight into the bouncer’s solar plexus.
The air exploded from Travis’s lungs in a loud, wet wheeze. He staggered backward, his eyes rolling back in shock as he collided heavily with the mirrored sliding doors of the bedroom closet, shattering the glass into a thousand glittering shards.
Before Travis could even begin to regain his balance, Derek closed the distance like a starving wolf. He grabbed Travis by the collar of his grease-stained t-shirt, hoisted the larger man off his feet with terrifying strength, and slammed him down onto the splintered remains of the closet door.
“You hit a four-year-old child,” Derek whispered, his voice dangerously low, vibrating with a cold, murderous intent that made Travis’s knees buckle beneath him. “You broke his arm. You threatened to kill him.”
“I—I didn't mean—he was crying, he wouldn't shut up!” Travis choked out, blood bubbling from the corner of his split lip as Derek’s fist pinned his throat against the floor.
“You’re going to be crying in a minute, asshole,” Derek snarled, drawing back his fist for a blow that would have permanently rearranged Travis’s jaw.
“Uncle Derek! Stop! Don’t look at me!”
A tiny, terrified voice pierced through the adrenaline-fueled chaos of the room. Derek froze mid-swing. He snapped his head around, his ferocious expression instantly melting into agonizing tenderness as he spotted Noah huddled in the corner, shaking like a leaf in a autumn storm.
“Hey, buddy. Hey, Noah-bear, it’s okay. Uncle Derek’s here. I got you,” Derek murmured, releasing Travis’s collar and dropping instantly to his knees beside my boy, ignoring the unconscious coward sputtering on the floor.
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Derek scooped Noah up into his strong, steady arms with infinite gentleness, pressing the little boy’s face into the crook of his broad shoulder, whispering soft, comforting reassurances while using his own body to shield Noah from the broken glass and blood surrounding them.
“He’s okay, Mark,” Derek shouted into the active phone connection on the floor, where my frantic voice was still screaming for updates. “I’ve got him. Noah’s in my arms. But we need an ambulance here right the fuck now. His arm is broken badly.”
