The deputy let out a long, heavy sigh. He unclipped his radio. “Dispatch, we’re going to need a tow for the suspects and run a background for a formal report.” Carlson knelt down next to Trent, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “What are you doing?” Trent screamed, panicking as Carlson secured his uninjured wrist. “I’m the victim here. He attacked me.” Carlson leaned in close, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper that only Trent could hear. “Listen to me very carefully, you stupid kid. You don’t know who you just swung at.”
“He’s a bus driver.” Trent hissed, wincing in pain. “Uh his name is Arthur Hayes.” Carlson said, his eyes hard. “10 years ago, he was Commander Arthur Hayes, United States Navy. He ran SEAL Team Three, Task Unit Bruiser. He spent four deployments in Ramadi clearing houses in hand-to-hand combat against insurgents. The only reason you are currently breathing is because he decided to let you.” Trent’s blood ran cold.
The pain in his elbow suddenly felt secondary to the icy dread pooling in his stomach. He looked past the deputy’s shoulder to the front of the bus. Arthur had taken off his aviators to wipe the lenses. For a split second, Trent saw his eyes. There was no anger in them, no adrenaline, no pride, just the empty thousand-yard stare of a man who had seen the darkest corners of the earth and survived them all. “You’re going to jail, Trent,” Carlson said, hauling the young man to his feet. “And you’re going to pray to whatever God you believe in that Commander Hayes doesn’t decide to press charges of his own.”
The fluorescent of the Oak Creek Memorial Hospital emergency room buzzed with a sickly pale hum. Trent Lawson lay on a stiff gurney, his right wrist handcuffed to the metal bed rail. The adrenaline had long since burned out of his system, replaced by a nauseating throbbing agony that radiated from his right arm to his jaw. His elbow was swollen to the size of a grapefruit, locked at a grotesque angle. Down the hall, he could faintly hear Cody groaning as the orthopedic surgeon explained the devastating reality of a shattered patella and torn ligaments. Cody’s fighting career was over before it had even truly begun.
Deputy Mike Carlson stood by the door, a cup of terrible hospital coffee in his hand, watching Trent with a mixture of pity and disgust. “You know, Lawson,” Carlson said, taking a slow sip. “In a weird way, you should be thanking the man. If he wanted to, he could have driven that strike through your trachea instead of your vagus nerve. You wouldn’t be sitting here icing a hyperextended elbow. You’d be in the morgue on a metal slab.” Trent stared at the ceiling, his jaw clenched tight.
