Her Broken Pet Bites Back

Summary

I was born with the kind of unnatural, freakish strength that makes diplomats shudder and barflies pray.

Growing up, whenever a pack of neighborhood bullies tried cornering me behind the bleachers, I didn't cry or tell a teacher—I put all seven of them in the dirt. Years later, when an armed predator tried snatching a kid off my block, I snapped his femur with two bare hands like a dry piece of kindling. I became a local urban legend.

The trouble with becoming a neighborhood folk hero for hand-to-hand violence is that your romantic prospects dry up overnight.