(Length: 4,020 words)
The twins were screaming behind him.
He felt a crunch deep inside his face, and knew that his nose was broken. Everything jarred slightly, as a sharp wave of nausea rippled through him. His right hip and elbow impacted hard on the asphalt, grinding off a deep gouge of skin there. The grimace of pain and fear on his face made him look like a possum cornered by a pack of dogs, and his feet and hands came up like claws, ready to fend off the next assault by instinct, while his head was still rattled.
The guy who had laid him out wasn't falling on him though. The thug stood there, right arm cocked back displaying the impressive meat of his biceps, an ugly bawl of triumph across his spittled mouth. Six of his friends stood behind him, calling encouragement and boxing off the only exit from the lane that Jase knew of. The only way out for him and his two siblings.
And that's when Jase knew that he had beaten the man.
