“Back up!” I yelled again with more balls behind my tone, pissed beyond reason that this kind of shit would even be happening in my neighborhood.

There was a single harsh whisper, and then one of attackers took a step back toward the man on the ground and kicked him hard before pointing. “This isn’t over, motherfucker!” he hissed.

As cowardly as it was, I couldn’t help but feel more than a little thankful when two of the jerks jumped into a car together and the other got into the second vehicle without a second glance in my direction, tires peeling onto the street.

The man on the ground barely stirred as I stepped closer to him, my legs trying their best to imitate noodles. The guy was on his back, his heels dragging back and forth across the grass as he writhed in pain, silently. His arms, both covered in tattoos to the wrist, were around his head. I was crossing on to the yard when his head tipped up. He didn’t take much time rolling onto his side, then finally to his hands and knees, pausing in that position.

I dropped the bat on the lawn. “Whoa, buddy, you all right?” was the only thing I could think of to ask as I went to my knees right next to my more-than-likely neighbor. His attention was still focused on the ground. His breathing was choppy and uneven; a line of saliva and blood trailed from what I could only assume was his mouth to the grass. He coughed and more rose-colored fluids dribbled out.

Distracted and, honestly, pretty damn close to panicking, I noticed the hands holding him up were covered in tattoos too, but it was the splotches covering both sets of his knuckles that were a telltale sign he’d tried to fight back at least. Maybe he didn’t know how to fight, but he could get an E for effort.

“Hey, are you all right?” I asked again, slipping my gaze over him, searching for some sign that said he was okay even though chances were he probably wasn’t. I’d seen how much they had hurt him. How could he be fine?

His choppy breathing got even rougher before the man bowed his back and spit; his exhale afterward rattled and sounded painful.

I looked him over; the fluorescent street light made his hair look dark blond. The T-shirt he had on was spotted with blood. But it was his bare feet that said everything; he had to be my neighbor. Why else wouldn’t he have on shoes? Had he opened the door expecting everything to be okay and then gotten jumped?

“What can I help you with?” My voice was shaky and low as he started trying to get off his hands and solely onto his knees, either not realizing I was there or not caring. I moved closer and was caught off guard when an arm reached up toward me.

I only hesitated for a second before taking his wrist, sliding my shoulder under his arm as the blades of grass rubbed against my bare knees. His weight came down on me as his inner elbow settled around the back of my neck. A hint of some kind of liquor hit my nostrils as I slung my arm around his lower back. Anxiety prickled my belly at his closeness. I didn’t know this fool. I had no idea what he was capable of, or what kind of person he was. I mean, who got jumped outside their home? That wasn’t some random, being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time crap. It was personal.

It didn’t matter. At least a small part of me recognized that it shouldn’t matter. Three against one were shitty odds even if they were deserved.

When he tried getting to his feet, I did too, huffing and struggling a lot more than I’d like to admit as he used me for support. “Pal, I need you to tell me if you’re okay or not,” I told him, swallowing the heartbeat knocking around in my throat as I pictured him keeling over on me from internal bleeding. That would make my night. “Hey, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

“I’m fucking fine,” was his wonderful answer as he spat out more saliva.

Uh-huh, that wasn’t really believable when he sounded like he’d tried running a marathon he hadn’t trained for and bailed halfway through. But what was I going to do? Call him a liar even as he leaned half his weight on me? “Is this your house?”

“Mm-hmm,” the man grumbled the response deep in his throat.

Keeping my gaze low, I glanced around the lawn, trying to ignore what was probably close to 200 pounds using me as a crutch. Just like nearly every other house in the neighborhood, the one we were in front of had a deck built three steps up leading to the front door. I raised my free hand and pointed toward it. “I need you to sit down for a second, all right?” My back was about to give out.

Out of my peripheral vision, he seemed to nod or gesture in agreement, but I only caught a glimpse of a jawline covered in a thick beard that belonged on a hipster or a lumberjack. Thankfully, he must have sensed my spine was about to snap in half because he took weight off me as we walked forward ten feet that felt like half a mile. His body was slightly hunched, his breathing rattled. At the steps, I turned to lead him down so he could sit, letting me get a good look at him up close.

At first glance, I realized he was older than me. Maybe ten years, maybe twenty years, some men were hard to guess, and he was one of them. His cheeks had pink-colored patches highlighting spots across them. There was a big split along his eyebrow, and a smaller but just as bloody cut on his bottom lip. I couldn’t put my finger on what shade his skin tone was with only the crappy night lighting to illuminate the area we were in, but it was obvious he was a little pale. He was good-looking under normal circumstances, all right. But it was his eyes that had me staying in a crouch just a foot or two away from my new neighbor. Red streaks stretched out along irises whose color I couldn’t figure out, a sign that he’d been drinking.