Chapter 3 - The Catch
Briggs didn't hesitate. He wanted a quick, brutal knockout—something flashy that would go viral on the base intranet and humiliate her permanently in front of the Pentagon brass.
He stepped forward, sneered, and shouted loud enough for the first three rows to hear: “You’re just a little girl pretending to be a soldier!”
In the same breath, Briggs drove a heavy, bone-crushing low kick straight toward Avery’s lead knee. It was a vicious, dangerous technique designed to hyperextend the joint and end the fight instantly.
The crowd gasped in horror.
“Watch her knee!” someone screamed from the stands.
Avery didn't panic. She didn't even blink.
Instead of retreating or trying to block with her shin, Avery stepped seamlessly into the arc of the blow, lowering her center of gravity by three inches. Her right hand swept down like a trap, catching Briggs’ heavy ankle under her armpit, while her left foreleg clamped firmly down on his shin.
THUD.
The impact vibrated through the mat, but Avery didn't budge. She held his thick leg locked tightly against her ribs.
Briggs’ confident, arrogant smirk vanished in an instant. His eyes went wide as he found himself balanced precariously on one foot, his momentum completely checked by a woman sixty pounds lighter than him.
For four days, he had mistaken her quiet demeanor for weakness. He had thought her silence meant fear.
He was dead wrong.
Avery looked up into his stunned eyes, her face cold as glacier ice.
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“My name isn't 'little girl',” Avery said, her voice dropping into a deadly whisper that sent a shiver down his spine. “It’s Petty Officer Mitchell.”
Before Briggs could yank his foot back, Avery drove her hips forward, rotating her torso with terrifying speed and leverage.
