Inktober 2026 - 31 - Flex

“Don’t move! Don’t you move a muscle, or she dies!”

There we five thugs surrounding him, one of them holding a knife to his wife’s throat, the rest pointing their own weapon at him. He had to hand it to their adversary in this quest: the guy was resourceful. Where did he keep finding goons to send their way? None of them ever looked very bright, but that alone could not explain why they kept agreeing to do this job. Word to mouth should be a thing regardless of intellect. Surely their reputation preceded them, by now, and anyone remotely connected to the treasure seeking business knew how they dealt with people standing in their way. Surely every mercenary or dive bar patron had a story about them, from firsthand experience or through a friend or an acquaintance.

“Hand over the bag,” ordered another one of the miscreants.

“I’m confused: do you want me to move, or stay still?”

“Don’t try to be a smart arse. Set it down slowly, and kick it towards me.”

He sighed. His eyes locked with those of his wife. As usual, she seemed more angry than scared. Force of habit and complete trust in him helped with that, and he preferred it that way, to be honest.

As if cooperating, he slowly raised his hands in front of him, palms forward, before using one of them to grab the strap of his satchel and bring it up over his neck, taking it off. He then laid the bag on the ground at his feet, but made no move to kick it in any way, and did not let go of the leather strip either.

“That’s it. Now, towards me.”

It all happened very quickly after that. He tightened his grip on his bag with one hand, and flipped a short blade out of his sleeve with a flick of his other wrist. Swinging the satchel around by its strap, he first used it to catch the weapon of the man closest to him and make him let go of it, before wrapping it around his neck. At the same time, he sent his knife flying into the thigh of another goon. Meanwhile, his wife had stomped on her captor’s foot, elbowed him in the guts, and rear head-butted him. The two remaining guys considered him a priority, but she extended her leg to trip one of them. For the last one, after having pushed aside the man he had had in a chokehold, he simply crouched as he charged to send him tumbling above him. Finally, all it took was a punch to make the stabbed man join his friends in unconsciousness.

“Are you all right, honey?”

She nodded in confirmation but could not get the words out because she was laughing.

“This isn’t funny! It’s actually getting tiresome.”

“I know! It’s quite a workout, right? It’s only just now occurred to me why early twenty-first century slang might have called what we just did ‘a flex’.”