He drove the stick downward with everything he had. A hand caught his shoulder from behind.
Female. I saw the fingernails in the split second before the momentum redirected. She forced him into a turn and drove the stick through his back in the same motion, clean and deliberate, the specific targeting of someone who had done this before and knew exactly where to put it.
The wood punched through muscle, bone, and dead flesh with a thick, wet crunch, erupting from his chest in a violent spray of dark, almost black blood that splattered across the leaves.
Vince coughed hard. A wet, gurgling explosion of dark fluid burst from his mouth, spilling down his chin and dripping in heavy ropes onto the forest floor.
He didn't fall immediately. He went to his knees, which was its own kind of statement, something that old and that strong going to its knees in a forest outside School Central.
