Win's body barely moved. Just his leg. He snapped a kick at Coach Pat's left knee. The joint bent sidewise, in a way it was never supposed to. Pat screamed and dropped to the dirt as though he'd been shot.

Win smiled and arched his eyebrow toward the other two men. "Next?"

Neither man did so much as breathe.

My rage dissipated all at once. Coach Bobby was on his knees now, cradling his nose as if it were a wounded animal. I looked down at him. It amazed me how much a beaten man looks like a little boy.

"Let me help you," I said.

Blood poured from his nose through his fingers. "Get away from me!"

"You need to put pressure on that. Stop the bleeding."

"I said, stay away!"

I was about to say something in my defense, but I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Win. He shook his head as if to say, No use. He was right.

We left the woods without another word.

When I got home an hour later, there were two voice mails. Both were short and very much to the point. The first was hardly a surprise. Bad news travels fast in small towns.

Ali said, "I can't believe you broke your promise."

That was it.

I sighed. Violence doesn't solve anything. Win would make a face when I said that, but the truth was, whenever I resorted to violence, which used to be fairly frequently, it never just ended there. Violence ripples and reverberates. It echoes and really never seems to go silent.

The second message on the voice mail came from Terese:

"Please come."

Any attempt at hiding the desperation was gone.

Two minutes later my cell vibrated. The caller ID told me it was Win.

"We have a small situation," he said.

"What's that?"

"Assistant Coach Pat, he of the need for orthopedic surgery?"

"What about him?"

"He is a police officer in Kasselton. A captain, in fact, though I won't ask to wear his varsity jacket to the prom."