Dark Wolfe

28- A chivalrous misogynist

(Song of the chapter: 'Spaces' - One Direction)

RHYS

The three of us exchanged glances. I turned back to the assclown and raised a brow.

"And just what do you mean by that?"

A cocky smirk reappeared on the bastard's face. He crossed his arms, eyeing us speculatively.

"I don't think she's weaker than me."

His gave a dismissive shrug. "I think she acts whiny and pathetic and gets on my nerves, but I don't think she's weaker than me. You do see what she did to my face right?" He drawled.

The words were apparently sincere, but it was his eyes that betrayed him. I saw a flash of tyrannical anger, an obsessive need to control and dominate that made my skin crawl.

So he didn't believe Avalon was weaker than him... but he desperately wished she was.

Briefly, I let myself consider what the consequences of the hit she'd landed on him would've been if we weren't here.

I stopped the thought in its tracks before I let fully myself go down that road.

"In fact," the Joker was still talking, "I think it's you people who think she's weak, since you're all so gung-ho to protect her."

He clearly intended to sound hurtful and mocking, but the words fell way off their mark. For a moment, we all just stared at him in confusion.

"What?" Brandon asked, completely baffled.

"Ah. So you view yourself as a chivalrous misogynist?" Jasper adopted a clinically curious tone, like he would have liked to take the conversation further while sitting in a comfy armchair and writing down notes.

"What I'm hearing is," I said slowly, "you still think it's okay to hit girls."

He opened his mouth, and in a rare moment of intelligence, immediately closed it. His body language stated that whatever he'd been about to say was more likely an insult than a denial.

I laughed humorlessly. "You are gonna make this so much easier for me."

His eyes flashed. "Make it easier to what, beat me up?" He retorted hotly, edging away a few steps.

I calmly raised a brow.

"That's why you're here isn't it?" He barreled on, holding his pathetic self rather protectively. Despite the heated words, I detected more than a hint of barely restrained fear in his tone.

Pointedly, I swept a gaze across my friends.

"Three to one," I mused, tossing the basketball. I caught it and resumed spinning.

"That's not very fair, is it?"

My mind flickered back to another time, in another basketball court. We'd all met there and collectively decided to take her under our wing, even though she'd been screeching like a banshee and acting generally ungrateful.

It had been three to one then – and she'd been tied up.

I let the memory rise into my eyes, let him see it.

"Is it?" I repeated deliberately. The dangerous edge to my voice had him backing away.

His throat bobbed. "No," he said quietly.

I relaxed my jaw. "Good." I spoke to him like he'd just been a very good dog.

I dribbled the ball with one hand for a moment before I said, "I'm here to challenge you to a fight. It'll be fair – one-on-one, no interference, no weapons."