CHAPTER 15

"S-s-sam?" Miguel stammered, his eyes wide in disbelief at the sight of his girlfriend and his friend. At the sound of his voice, not only Sam and Hawk looked at him, grinning in relief as they saw him, the four men also turned around and look at him. Seeing that he looked more like one of the locals than the two foreigners, they merely nodded at him in greeting.

"Hello." One of them grunted in Spanish.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Miguel shouted, seeing his friends absolutely immobile in terror, their backs to the wall. The men looked at him and chuckled.

"Easy, my friend. After we have our turn with her, she's all yours." One of them told him. Anger immediately erupted inside him and he stormed over to them in fury, unable to contain his emotion.

"Okay, assholes, you listen carefully because I'm only going to say this once. For your own safety, I'm going to give you 5 seconds to turn your asses around and walk away." Miguel snarled, in a voice extremely similar to his father's. It had been something his father had taught him, giving them a time limit to get out of his sight. It made the threat seem more genuine, Manuel had told him. However, Miguel knew that there was only so much to a threat when it was a 1 on 4 and the men knew that too. They chuckled as they raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, so you're with them? White on the inside, huh?" One of them remarked. Miguel felt his hands ball into snow-white fists and rage boiled up inside him. He knew that these men weren't going to back down in a hurry, and he knew that a fight was inevitable. A fight for survival. Miguel, who was standing between Sam and Hawk and the thugs, turned to Sam and Hawk for the first time and saw the sheer terror on their faces. Both were still trembling in fear. Though Miguel, having been in Juarez for just over a week had gotten used to the violent city by now, the same couldn't be said for the other 2.

"You guys okay?" Miguel murmured to them. Neither responded, still motionless. It looked like he would be fighting this one 1 on 4 after all. His father's advice suddenly echoed through his head.

"When fighting for your life, you can't let them set the tone of the fight. You must attack first, put them on their back foot, and force them to just respond to your assault and not be able to plan one of their own."

Channelling these words, Miguel, who was still facing his friends, suddenly spun around sending a ferocious side kick at the front man's abdomen, followed by a crushing axe kick when the man keeled over in pain, causing him to go crashing head-first onto the side of the street. A sickening CRACK filled the air as skull connected with asphalt and the man went down like a stone. At that moment, a mere few seconds lasted an eternity as the men's jaws dropped at Miguel's sudden attack, but their surprised looks were quickly replied with hungry, angry ones.

"Oh, we're going to enjoy this now." They growled, preparing to lunge at Miguel but unluckily for them, it wasn't like they had a still target to aim at. Miguel met them before they could charge at him, he prepared to strike them again. Once again, his father's words filled his mind…

"Joints. Always joints. That's what you aim for when you're fighting for your life. If you take away his ability to stand, you take away his ability to move, you take away his ability to fight. You'll have him at your mercy and then you can deliver a final blow to the head to knock him out."

So that's exactly what Miguel did. He slithered around the various strikes the men threw at him and he sliced a leg right at one of their kneecaps. As expected, the man let out a girly shriek in pain and went down in an instant. Miguel was about to land the finishing blow to decrease the number of enemies left to just 2, but before he could, he felt two large arms wrap around him from the back and drag him away, tossing him to the ground. Miguel's head shot up and he looked up to see the three men standing over him. The teenager forced himself to stay calm despite being in an extremely dangerous position as he knew that he had a mere few split seconds before the men would kick the crap out of him and he'd be defenseless to stop them. Then only God knows what would happen to Sam and Hawk. Thank God Miguel had been training Karate for so long that he knew how to react quickly when his back was against the ropes. Before the men could land a single kick, Miguel used his low position to strike his leg against one of their legs and sweep them to the ground. They toppled over, temporarily out of the fight, but just as Miguel was about to do that to the two other guys, he felt his hair being roughly grabbed and pulled as he was yanked to his feet, and then he felt himself being thrown against the wall with a massive THUD. He stumbled backwards and winced as his back smacked against the wall and he bounced back right into their path. It was all Miguel could do to dodge their blows as the impact of the shove ricocheted him right at them.

"Hey, are you guys going to help or what?!" Miguel shouted as he parried and dodged all of the ferocious punches and kicks that were being sent his way, occasionally sending a few of his own but none connecting. He was well and truly on the back foot now and needed a miracle now if he wanted to win this fight. Luckily, a miracle was exactly what he got.

Hearing Miguel's voice snapped Sam out of her daze. It was like hearing him recharged her entire body, starting at the tips of her toes and working its way up until it finally hit her brain. It was like her whole body had been trapped immobile in a massive block of ice, and she had finally managed to melt it, the heat rejuvenating her whole body and unshackling her limbs. Her eyes immediately locked on Miguel being beaten up by the three guys and both her and Hawk jumped into action, sprinting at them and flying at them. Now that there were 3 of them in the fight and 3 enemies too, it didn't take too long for them to dispatch the thugs, at least temporarily. A few well-placed punches, kicks and takedowns dropped the men to the floor and once they were down, the teenagers stepped back. Well, Sam and Hawk did. Miguel, however, went over to the biggest of the thugs, by the looks of things their leaders, and he crouched down so the two were face to face as the man lay on the ground, extremely dazed.

"Now… let me repeat what I said earlier. Get out of here. Now." Miguel growled at him. The man scowled daggers at him and shook his head.

"American piece of shit. You won't leave Juarez alive, you understand me?" The man snarled at him. Miguel chuckled and rolled his eyes, perfectly relaxed now that he had the upper hand.

"You think I'm American?" Miguel laughed. "Do I look American? I'm from Ecuador, genius."

The man shrugged.

"Ecuador, America, whatever. Doesn't change the fact that you're not one of us." He snapped. Miguel nodded.

"Sure, I'm not Mexican. And I'm not one of you. But I suggest that you act a bit nicer towards me. Even someone as stupid as you lot must know who my father is."

The man looked at Miguel, confusion flashing in his eyes for a moment.

"And who's that?" He asked. Miguel smirked at him, eagerly awaiting the man's reaction as he replied.

"Manuel Diaz…"

As expected, Miguel watched as a combination of fear, confusion and disbelief flooded through his face. Eventually, after pondering this for a while, the man shook his head.

"No. You're kidding." He stated, but his voice filled with uncertainty.

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Miguel murmured, his tone dead even and looking the man right in the eye. "Now… you want to lay a hand on me or my friends again and It'll be you who are in for a world of pain. So just turn around and walk away. Now."

There was a long silence that befell everyone, the men stewing on what Miguel had to say and Sam and Hawk not understanding a word of it as it was all in Spanish, but after nearly a minute of not talking, one of the men beside him replied.

"Don't listen to him! He's lying!" The man exclaimed, propping himself on an elbow and wincing in pain as he did so. Miguel turned to him and once again, leaned real close so their faces were merely a couple of inches apart. Not showing any emotion on his face or in his voice, Miguel responded.

"You really want to take that risk?" Miguel asked him. The men then seemingly had a silent, telepathic conversation with each other, their eyes shooting each other various messages before they all came to a consensus. They stumbled to their feet, Sam and Hawk immediately tensing up and running over to stand Miguel as they did, preparing for round 2. However, that's thankfully not what they got. Instead, after shooting them one final dirty look, the four turned around and scampered away, tails between their legs.