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Excerpt from CHOKEHOLD:

Chapter 1: Fight or Flight

The irate shopper leaned onto the balls of his feet as he spoke, punctuating each syllable by repeatedly stabbing a dagger-like finger in the direction of the salesman’s face. Although Madelyn could hear the words, she didn’t register their meaning. She didn’t need to, though. The stranger’s tone said more than the words leaving his mouth ever could.

Madelyn held her breath, desperately hoping to slow her pounding heart. When she only succeeded in deafening her ears with the sound of her thundering pulse, she released a gusting exhalation.

The affable store clerk shrank before the aggressor, horrified by the display of dominance. Unfortunately, the posturing man was not deterred by the clerk’s submissive response. He continued to shout about some trivial grievance, vocal cords crackling in a way that reminded Madelyn of a radio with intermittent reception.

Madelyn’s throat constricted, ratcheting her chest tighter with each breath. She associated the violence of the sound with what had always come next. Invariably, violent words led to violent actions.

A spilled smoothie radiated across faux-wood flooring, looking ominously like a pool of blood. Because she’d missed the onset of the altercation, it remained unclear whether the spilling of the beverage had prompted the emotional outburst or if the cup had been spiked in response to the original foul.

“Madelyn, come on,” Patty urged in a hushed tone. “Let’s get out of here.” She grabbed Madelyn’s elbow to guide her away from the man with the acutely short fuse.

As if brushing against the handle of a smoldering cast iron, Madelyn wrenched her arm free. Consciously, Madelyn knew that Patty was trying to help, but the fearful part of her couldn’t accept the friendly touch.

Is this our punishment for playing hooky? Madelyn silently wondered.

The two of them had snuck out of work a few minutes early to pick up a new top, planning to get in and out of the mall as quickly as possible, but on their way to the cashier, chaos erupted. Madelyn never expected to see this sort of thing unfolding in the clothing section of a high-end department store, much less at the King of Prussia Mall. Honestly, though, she never expected to see this sort of thing anywhere.

“Madelyn,” Patty whispered again, this time with more compassionate concern and less frightened urgency. “We can come back for the shirt later.”

Madelyn held up a lone finger. “Wait.”

“What?” Patty asked. “Why?”

Patty wasn’t a fighter; she couldn’t understand. Of course, everything within Madelyn wanted to flee. In fact, she feared confrontation more than the average person, and rightly so, but that only made Madelyn want to stand her ground more. She’d worked too hard for too long to let violent men rule her life any longer – even if this one was a stranger.

Keeping the aggressor in her peripherals, Madelyn scanned the room. The few remaining shoppers hid behind racks of winter clothing, watching the argument edge further-and-further from civilized discourse. None of the surrounding onlookers seemed interested in stepping in on the clerk’s behalf.

“Who do you think you are?” the man barked in a staccato cadence. “I ain’t no child. You think I’m going to let you keep talking to me like that?”

A blur of motion drew Madelyn’s attention back to the aggressor. The clerk stumbled backward under a schoolyard shove, bumping into the counter and knocking the weighty register to the ground with a frightening crash.

An authoritative man, whom Madelyn assumed was the store’s manager, inched toward an ancient, pale phone mounted to the wall. He’d been trying to deescalate the situation but had clearly come to the same conclusion as Madelyn. This would come to violence before it resolved. That shove had only been the beginning.

Finally answering Patty’s question, Madelyn said, “Because someone needs to do something.” Madelyn clenched her fist, feeling it ache and throb under the intense pressure.

“You can’t be serious,” Patty said. “That guy is huge.”

The floor seemed to sag beneath the weight of the aggressor. A pudgy beer gut did little to diminish his threatening physique. In a fight against equally trained combatants, ten pounds made a world of difference, and this colossus easily had twenty to thirty on the next-biggest person in the room.

But we wouldn’t be equally trained, Madelyn thought, wondering how much experience she would need to offset such a radical weight disparity.

Even drastically outclassing the man, inserting herself into the situation wouldn’t come without risks. For all Madelyn knew, this guy had been a state champion wrestler in his youth or was some McDojo karate black belt. Heck, even if he was just as much a bum as he looked, more skilled fighters than her had been brought low by a single, lucky punch.

The manager frantically dialed the phone and, within seconds, began talking hurriedly into the receiver. At their distance, Madelyn couldn’t hear his exact words, but she could imagine. Security would be there in a matter of moments.

“This is none of our business,” Patty said. “Let’s let security handle it.”

She could, maybe even should, listen to Patty, but the crescendoing tone of the aggressor made it clear that the sparkling fuse had burned to its end. This metaphorical bomb was about to go off before security could arrive.

Madelyn didn’t know what training mall cops received, but they were unlikely to be more qualified than her at deescalating or subduing the man anyway. She held no fear of standing her ground against men twice his size. She’d done it before, and she’d do it again.

“I’m serious,” Madelyn said. “Someone is going to get hurt if nobody steps in.”

“Maybe,” Patty said in a tone that implied she didn’t disagree, “but I’d rather it wasn’t you.”

“He’s not going to hurt me.” Madelyn shook her head dismissively. “I won’t let him hurt me,” she amended.

Despite her confident words, Madelyn still wasn’t sure if she could bring herself to do something. Two forces battled within her, and until one won out, she could not be sure how she’d proceed. On one side, fear restrained her. The darkness of her past lent power to this dread, making it more visceral and real.

Opposite this fear, she felt a deep and intrinsic drive, one that she’d cultivated over the past five years. It was the drive to prove that the fear could no longer hold her back. Together, these opposing forces collided and held her at a point of indecision.

“I don’t know what you people do at that gym of yours,” Patty said, “but that guy means business. He’s not going to pretend-fight with you.”

Madelyn’s cheeks burned, and she vented the heat with blistering words, “It’s a good thing we don’t train for pretend fights then.”

Are you upset because you’re worried that she’s right? a discordant voice inside Madelyn asked.

Patty’s words were meant to give Madelyn pause, but they had the opposite effect. They urged her forward, giving strength to the part of herself that needed to prove she was stronger.

Madelyn took a deep breath to build her resolve and stepped forward. “Excuse me, sir.”

Patty gasped. “Oh god.” She groaned, stepping away to disassociate herself from what was happening.

The aggressor whipped around to glare at Madelyn. He wagged a pudgy finger at her in warning. “Stay out of this, lady, and mind your own damn business, or you’re going to get what’s coming to you too.”

Familiar tension ran through Madelyn’s body. She’d anticipated that the overt hostility would prompt a stress response, but this wasn’t the type of tension she expected. Her boiling muscles didn’t feel quite as she’d hoped. The fight, designed to overcome whatever was before her, didn’t coursethrough her veins, but neither did she feel the surging warmth of flight urging her to instinctually retreat.

No, the feeling in her muscles was not warmth at all. Chilling frost scorched Madelyn, locking her in place. She froze. Sour saliva fouled her mouth, and she couldn’t even manage to choke it down.

When Madelyn continued to stand tall before him, the man took her inaction as a sign that she wasn’t backing down, rather than the paralysis it was. He balled his fist and stepped forward.

“Hey, lady,” he shouted, “did you hear what the fuck I said? Mind your own damn business.” Spit flew from his lips with each throat-rending word.

Madelyn finally forced the lump down her throat, but words still eluded her. Though she found herself mute, the voice inside her head was anything but. It told her she’d wasted years training if she couldn’t employ the techniques she’d practiced. The voice was right. She was no stronger than she’d ever been. Her ragged breath raced in-and-out as fast as her pounding heart could muster.

“Sir,” the clerk said, “I think you should leave the lady alone.”

To Madelyn’s relief, the man spun away from her to return to his original confrontation.

“Oh, is that what you think?” the aggressor asked. “I already told you to keep your damn mouth shut. You think you can keep disrespecting me, boy?” Without further provocation or warning, the man cocked his balled fist and struck the store clerk with an unpracticed haymaker.

Madelyn blinked, caught as off guard as the clerk. She watched as the young clerk fell, almost too slowly, to the hard ground.

The manager rushed in and grasped the attacker from behind with a bear hug. They struggled for a moment. The manager’s untrained grip broke, and he was knocked to the floor, slipping in the icy puddle of smoothie. The attacker turned on the downed manager, drawing a leg back to soccer kick his vulnerable head.

 Before she knew what was happening, an overweight man in a security uniform had tackled the man to the ground. Madelyn took a step back, finally released from her paralysis.

Could I have stopped all that? Madelyn asked herself. She knew the answer, and it haunted her. She possessed the capacity to stop the man, but not the will.

The clerk sat on the hard ground, clutching his bruising eye in one hand.

Staring at the poor victim, Madelyn quietly said to Patty, “Let’s get out of here.”

“It’s safe now,” Patty said, turning to where the security guard had restrained the attacker. “Shouldn’t we stay and give a statement?”

“No. Let’s go.”

Madelyn longed to comfort the injured clerk and commiserate over what an ass the man had been, but she couldn’t bring herself to look the young man in the eyes for fear that he’d call her out on what she was. Instead, she simply turned and left. The shame of it was enough for her to live with. Madelyn didn’t want anyone else to see how terribly powerless she was.