Perfect Opposite by Zoya Tessi

If I hadn’t known who this man was, I might have thought the devil himself had arrived in town.
    “Oh, I would love to see you try, pretty boy.”
    “ You asked for it!” Tyler motioned to the back door and started to move towards it.
    Alex gave a barely perceptible nod and followed him out without a word, and I realized the night was already ruined. Tyler was the sort of guy who knew only one way to leave an argument – standing over another guy bloodied on the floor.
     
    Ignoring Paolo, who was shouting behind me, I rushed after them, trying not to trip over my own feet on the way. On the other side of the door I found myself in a small yard used for deliveries. I leaned back against the door we’d passed through and felt it click behind me.
    Regaining my balance, I looked up in time to see Tyler swing a powerful fist towards Alex’s head and shut my eyes tight, afraid to witness what was bound to follow. I prayed that Tyler wouldn’t go too far and imagined the drive to the emergency room with Alex bleeding in the back. Tyler was known to be an animal in a fight.
    When the crack of Tyler’s fist against bone hadn’t reached my ears, I cautiously let my eyes open again, blinking to clear the image before me. It took a few moments to process what was happening, my eyes now wide open in disbelief, mouth hanging open.
    Tyler was swinging punch after punch, purposefully and with aim, but found only air with every swing. With stunning agility, Alex somehow avoided every blow in a display that ought to have been impossible for someone his size. Not only did he avoid the punches, he appeared completely nonplussed by them. Even his mohawk was unruffled.
    “Stop it!” I yelled, hoping that by some miracle this fight might end without any blood getting spilled.
    “Go back inside. ” Alex said under his breath, glancing over at me but also, somehow, dodging another mighty swing. I was pretty sure I caught a slight smile on his face, like all this somehow amused him.
    The last person who’d got into a fight with Tyler had ended up a real mess, in hospital for several days with concussion and a broken jaw. He’d literally never come off worse in a fight and yet, as I watched, he was growing more and more frustrated, hotter and sweatier with every swing that failed to find its mark. With cat-like grace, Alex moved swiftly to duck or swerve everything Tyler could throw at him. And all the while, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might be just playing with Ty.
    A fter dogging a couple more swings, Alex seemed to decide that the ‘fight’ had gone on long enough. I noticed a change in his posture as his back straightened and a force seemed to gather within him, propelling him forwards.
    One fast, hard punch was all it took. Alex shot out one fist, bringing with it a loud, dead thud as it made contact with the middle of Tyler’s face. I watched in horror as Tyler fell to his knees and brought both hands up towards the bloody mess on his face. Bright red blood flowed through his fingers and quickly started dripping down onto the ground. A lot of it.
    When Tyler raised his eyes to look over at me, Alex grabbed the back of his shirt collar and yanked it roughly, so that their eyes met.
    “Look at her one more time and you’ll wish you’d never been born.” he barked, clenching his jaw, the bones flexing to become pronounced on the side of his face.
    “Are you crazy?” I shouted, “You broke his nose!”
    “He’ll survive.” Alex let go of Tyler, who collapsed on the asphalt and doubled up.
    “You... you're insane!”
    “I hear that a lot. Come on, get inside,”
    “And leave him like that? No way!”
    “Are you fucking deaf? Inside, now!”
    “We need to call the doctor. What if...”
    Without any warning, Alex bent down, grabbed me around the thighs and lifted me up over his shoulder, leaving my head to hang down over his back, the way a fireman might bring someone out of a burning building. At first I