Read No Pit So Deep: The Cody Musket Story for Free Online Page B

the carpet.
    “Sit and don’t move! Drop the knife and kick it away or I’ll make you eat it!” The wide-eyed would-be slasher backed away, kicked the knife, and fell backwards to a sitting position.
    The third man pulled his victim to her feet with a chokehold. His cold eyes snarled at Cody through the slots in his mask. He was tall and muscular, towering over her. She tried to free herself but couldn’t. Struggling just to draw a breath, her urgent gasping silenced all gathering witnesses.
    What remained of her Coco shirt was dangling from the front of her neck like a limp dish rag. The thin, stretchy left shoulder strap of her workout bra had been torn loose from behind and was swinging back and forth in front.
    Bystanders watched in disbelief as this large man, while holding his prey by the neck with his left arm, pulled a knife from his vest and cocked his right hand back to throw the weapon. Cody was a sitting duck.
    With the quickness of a cat, he sidestepped to his right to force the assailant to hit a moving target, but unexpectedly, the traumatized woman, with enough awareness, lunged slightly with all her might, threw back her right hand, and interfered just enough to misdirect the toss of the knife. It sliced a two-inch-long flesh wound one quarter inch deep into Cody’s left arm, but missed his heart by twenty inches.
    The big man then made a mistake. He backed up, used his victim as a human shield, held her at arm’s length, and forced her into Cody’s path. This allowed Cody to maneuver in between and administer a stunning right palm to the nose.
    The assailant lost his grip and staggered backward, his nostrils spewing blood and his ski mask turning scarlet. Cody followed with a left elbow to the throat, an excruciating kick to the groin and a brutal takedown. The large attacker wailed in agony, and bystanders could hear the gruesome sound of ribs cracking and air rushing from his lungs as he crashed to the floor.
    The instant this third man hit the carpet, several witnesses shouted, “ Look out!”
    The perpetrator sitting had retrieved his knife while Cody’s back was turned. He charged, hoping to blindside Cody, who turned just in time to relieve the would-be backstabber of his weapon. He slammed him to the rug, retracted the knife blade, and then forced the handle into the mouth and down into the throat of this man to whom he had promised to feed his own knife.
    Now that all three assailants were down, Cody saw red flashes. Holding the knife, hearing his defeated foe choking, a bitter taste formed in his mouth. His veins protruded and his teeth clenched. These guys deserve to die.
    But just as suddenly as it had come, the rage passed. He pulled the knife handle away and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He had wanted to kill the three men. What had stopped him? Never had anger overtaken him so quickly and then let go of him so soon.
    He took a step backward, then collapsed into a sitting position. The nerve endings in his right foot and lower leg were on fire, but that also passed within seconds. Thank God I didn’t kill ‘em all.
    Cody dragged all three perpetrators, barely conscious, into one pile. He pulled off their masks, checked them for more weapons, and then screamed into their faces a warning loud enough for everyone to hear.
    “I could have killed you, but after Afghanistan I swore I’d never take another life. Nobody dies tonight, but if I ever hear that you’ve bothered this woman again, you will never even see me coming, and no one will ever know I was there. Do you copy?”
    The witnesses stood in stunned silence and then broke into applause. Cody's eyes scanned the hallway until he spotted her. The badly bruised but gutsy woman who had narrowly escaped a violent end was now crouching in a corner near the entrance to Theater Five.
    Her neck and shoulders were dappled with red streaks — brush marks left by the ends of her blood-spattered hair. Tearfully attempting to compose