CHAPTER 17: THE TEST
The van came out of nowhere.
One moment I was walking home from Fogwell's, muscles aching pleasantly from another training session with Matt, running through his corrections in my head. Drop your elbow. Rotate your hip. Keep your guard up. Simple things. Fundamentals. The building blocks that would keep me alive.
The next moment, tires screeched and six men in tracksuits were piling onto the sidewalk.
Russian. I caught fragments of their conversation as they surrounded me, cutting off escape routes with practiced efficiency. Something about "the rich man" and "sending a message" and "what happens when you interfere with our business."
My heart rate spiked. My palms went slick. The street was empty—wrong side of Hell's Kitchen at the wrong time of night. No witnesses. No help coming.
Three weeks ago, it was three of them. You barely survived. Luck and power and desperation.
Now there were six. Bigger. Meaner-looking. One of them had a knife already out, blade catching the streetlight.
But three weeks ago, I'd been operating on pure instinct. No training. No understanding of what was happening to me. I'd flailed and gotten lucky.
Now I knew the rules. Or at least, I knew my theory about the rules.
Six opponents. Genuine threat. Real hostile intent. My power should scale to match.
Should.
"You've been busy, rich man." The leader stepped forward—a big guy with a shaved head and a scar running down his cheek like someone had tried to open his face with a broken bottle. His accent was thick, his English careful. "Buying properties. Asking questions. Making problems for people who don't like problems."
"I'm just an investor." Keep them talking. Feel for the surge. There—warmth spreading through my limbs, like hot water pouring into cold veins. "Real estate is a solid investment in this market."
"Investors don't hire private investigators to dig into construction companies." Scarface took another step closer. His men tightened the circle. "Investors don't fund security for witnesses who should have stayed quiet. You've been very inconvenient, Mr. Smith."
They knew my name. Knew what I'd been doing. This wasn't random violence—this was targeted retaliation.
And the power was building. Stronger than before. Much stronger. My senses sharpened. The world slowed down around me, individual moments stretching like taffy.
Six opponents. The power scales with numbers. More enemies, more strength.
"Last chance," Scarface said. "Walk away from Hell's Kitchen. Sell your properties. Forget everything you've learned about Union Allied. Do that, and you get to keep your kneecaps."
"And if I don't?"
He smiled. It wasn't pleasant. "Then we'll have to be creative."
The first punch came from my left—a heavyset guy who'd been circling around while Scarface talked, using the conversation as distraction. Classic technique. I'd have missed it entirely three weeks ago.
But Matt had trained me to watch peripheral movement. And my enhanced perception caught the shift of weight, the coiling of muscles, before the punch even launched.
I stepped back. The fist sailed past my face, close enough to feel the wind.
Keep your guard up. Rotate your hip.
My counterpunch connected with his jaw. The impact traveled through my arm—solid, powerful, nothing like the weak strikes I'd managed in training with Matt. I felt bone shift under my knuckles.
The heavyset guy went down and didn't get back up.
One.
The rest came at me together.
I'd never felt anything like it.
The power roared through me like wildfire, enhancing every movement, every reaction. Matt's training had given me the basics—the stances, the strikes, the footwork patterns he'd drilled into my muscle memory. But the enhancement turned those basics into something devastating.
Two attackers threw punches at once, coordinating like they'd done this a hundred times. I slipped between them, feeling their fists pass within inches of my face. Time stretched. I could see their movements before they happened, read their intentions in the tension of their shoulders, the shift of their weight.
My elbow caught one in the temple. Hard. His eyes rolled back.
My knee drove into the other's stomach. He folded, gasping.
Three.
Scarface was shouting orders in Russian—harsh, barking commands that meant nothing to me. The remaining three spread out, trying to flank me, learning from their friends' mistakes. Smart. Against a normal person, it would have worked.
But I wasn't normal. Not anymore.
I closed the distance on the nearest attacker before he could set himself. A combination—jab, cross, hook—landed in rapid succession. Matt's voice in my head, counting the rhythm. The man crumpled.
Four.
The fifth one pulled a knife.
Something shifted inside me. The enhancement intensified, responding to the increased threat like a thermostat turning up the heat. My perception sharpened further. The knife seemed to move in slow motion as it slashed toward my midsection, streetlight gleaming on the blade.
I caught his wrist. Twisted. Bone cracked with a sound like breaking celery.
He screamed and dropped the blade.
Five.
Scarface was backing away now, fear replacing confidence in his eyes. His hand moved toward his waistband—a gun, had to be—but I was faster. So much faster than I'd been three weeks ago. I closed the distance in two steps, drove my shoulder into his chest, and slammed him into the side of the van hard enough to dent the metal.
He slumped to the ground, conscious but dazed.
Six.
I stood in the middle of six unconscious or incapacitated men, breathing hard, fists bloody. Some of the blood was mine—split knuckles, maybe, I couldn't tell—but most of it wasn't.
The power still surged through me, demanding more enemies, more threats, more violence. It wanted to keep going. Wanted me to finish them.
No.
I forced myself to step back. To breathe. To remember who I was.
But the moment I registered that the threats were down—that there were no more enemies to fight—everything changed.
The crash hit like a freight train.
My legs buckled. The world spun around me like I'd been drinking for hours. I caught myself against the van, palms flat against cold metal, trying to stay upright as my enhanced strength drained away like water through a sieve.
Not here. Not in the open.
I fumbled for my phone. My fingers felt thick and clumsy, uncooperative. I managed to unlock it on the third try, nearly dropping it twice, and pulled up Claire's number.
"Roy?" Her voice was concerned, instantly alert despite the late hour. "It's almost midnight—"
"Forty-Third. Between Eleventh and Twelfth." The words came out slurred, tongue too heavy in my mouth. "Six of them. I'm going to pass out."
"Wait, what—"
My knees hit concrete. The phone clattered somewhere nearby. I was vaguely aware of the dirty alley, the unconscious Russians, the distant sound of traffic.
The cold ground pressed against my cheek. Dirty. Wet. Strangely comforting.
Six opponents. Power confirmed. Scaling theory validated.
I was unconscious before I could appreciate the irony.
The last things I registered came in fragments.
Headlights. A car screeching to a stop.
Footsteps approaching, quick and light. Running.
Claire's voice: "Jesus Christ."
Hands checking my pulse. Steady pressure on my neck. "He's alive. He's alive."
More sounds—her moving among the Russians, checking them too. A string of Spanish curses I didn't quite catch.
"What did you do?" she muttered. "What did you do?"
Then nothing.
Nothing but darkness and the distant memory of power, and the knowledge that I'd finally proven what I could do.
The cost would come later.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them . No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1