Chapter 8: The Punch
Hartley had his footing again when Brennan spun him toward the cruiser parked at the curb. The move was done by the cuffs and one hard grip on his upper arm, and it left him half-turned, shoulders still wrenched, wrists burning where the metal had already left marks he could not see but could feel with every heartbeat.
"Walk," Brennan said.
"I am walking," Hartley said. "Slow down. The cuffs—"
"You walk normal or you get helped."
They had taken perhaps six steps across the playground apron when Hartley stopped, not in defiance but because the right cuff had cut in so sharply during the spin that white pain shot to his elbow. He bent slightly at the waist, breathing hard, trying to ease the angle of his bound hands.
"Do not hit me," he said suddenly.
It surprised even him, the clarity of it. Something in Brennan's stance had changed as he came around to face him, something in the set of his shoulders and the way his free hand had balled, and Hartley's body understood before any thought could form. He said it again, louder, deliberately, so there would be a warning on whatever record existed.
"Officer Brennan, do not hit me. I am handcuffed. I am not a threat to you. Do not—"
The punch landed low and deep in his stomach.
It was not a shove. It was not a guiding strike or a loss of balance. It was a closed fist driven upward under his ribs with Brennan's weight behind it, and it emptied Hartley completely. Air left him in a sound he did not recognize. His knees buckled. Only the grip on his arm and the cruel lift of the cuffs kept him from hitting the concrete outright, and that lift was its own agony, his shoulders torqued as his weight sagged against restraints never meant to hold a man up.
For several seconds he could not breathe at all. The playground tilted. The swings blurred. A thin ringing filled his ears. He retched once, dryly, and nothing came up except a spasm that made the punched muscles seize again.
"Get up," Brennan said above him.
Hartley tried. His shoes scrabbled on grit. Brennan hauled upward on the chain between the cuffs, a savage, impatient hoist that forced Hartley to his feet by pain alone, arms wrenched higher behind his back than joints were built to go. He cried out then, openly, a short, involuntary shout that shamed him even as it escaped.
"Stop," he gasped. "You're tearing my shoulders."
"Should have walked."
"I couldn't breathe. You punched me in the stomach while I was cuffed."
"You went down like you were going for something."
"With what hands?"
The question seemed to infuriate Brennan more than silence would have. He marched Hartley the remaining distance to the cruiser at a pace his bound, breathless prisoner could not match, half-dragging him by the arm. Hartley's shoe caught the curb. He lurched. Brennan did not slow. When they reached the rear door of the car, Brennan turned him with a forearm and Hartley's head struck the edge of the cruiser's roof frame with a dull, sickening crack.
Stars burst. A warm trickle began above his left eyebrow almost at once. He felt it reach the brow and veer toward his eye, and he blinked rapidly, unable to wipe it away.
"Head injury," he said, thickly. "I'm bleeding. I need—"
"You walked into the car."
"I did not. You turned me into it."
"Say that again at the station. See who they believe."
Brennan opened the rear door and shoved him in sideways. Hartley fell across the hard seat on his bound hands, the full weight of his body driving the cuffs deeper. Pain flared white and total, from wrists to shoulders to the bruising core of his stomach where the fist had landed, and he lay there for a moment simply trying to draw a full breath without his ribs protesting.
Sit up, Brennan ordered through the open door. Hartley rolled with agonizing care until he was upright, hunched, hands trapped between his back and the seat. Blood ticked from his eyebrow onto the gray hoodie in small, dark spots.
"Call a supervisor," he said. "Right now. And medical. Those are not requests you get to skip after force on a restrained person."
Brennan leaned in, one hand on the doorframe, face flushed, breathing quick. Hartley saw calculation begin behind the anger, a man glimpsing what he had done and choosing to double down instead of stopping.
"You resisted," Brennan said. "You fought me at the fence. That's what happened."
"No camera will say that."
"Guess we'll see."
He slammed the door. Through the glass, Hartley heard the radio chirp as Brennan began, in the flat voice of official business, to invent the version of the morning he intended to survive. Hartley leaned his uninjured temple against the cool window and counted his breaths until the car moved.