Chapter 16: Fist

Diana's POV

I heard the punch from the porch.

It was a flat, wet sound, and it carried across the road.

Boone went down on one knee in the gravel.

He did not put his hands up.

"Dad!"

I was off the steps before I knew I'd moved.

Dex and Emmett were ahead of me, running.

My father pulled his arm back for a second swing, and Boone just knelt there and let him.

Dex caught the arm at the elbow.

"Gil, Gil, that's enough."

"Let go of me, Dex."

"Not until you breathe."

"I said let go!"

Emmett stepped between them and Boone with both hands open and his back to my father.

"You'll have to go through me," he said calmly. "I've set a lot of bones. I'm good with the aftermath."

"Emmett, I swear to God."

"I know."

By then I had reached them.

Boone's lip was split, and blood ran down his chin onto his jacket.

He looked up at me from the gravel.

"Don't," he said. "He's owed that."

"He's not owed anything."

"Di," my father said.

I turned around.

All along Twenty-Sixth the doors were opening.

A man had come out onto his lawn with a rake in his hand.

My landlady stood on her back step with her clipboard against her chest.

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