Norman spun, his free hand going to his gun.
"Get back on the hood. Hands where I can see them."
Taylor raised his hands slowly, palms out.
But he didn't move back to the vehicle.
"You're about to make a mistake that will destroy your life. I'm begging you to stop and think."
"The only mistake was me wasting time talking to you."
Norman turned back to the window, his baton cocked.
"Well, you had your chance."
The glass shattered with a sound like a gunshot.
And somewhere in the vehicle's hidden systems, a silent alarm began to scream into the night.
The moment the glass shattered, Taylor moved.
Not toward Norman.
Away from him.
Hands still raised, backing toward the shoulder's edge.
His face had gone carefully blank, but his eyes tracked Norman's every movement with the focus of a man calculating trajectories.
"Get back here."
Norman's voice cracked high and sharp.
The baton was still in his hand, adrenaline singing through his veins like voltage.
"I said get back here."
"I'm not resisting," Taylor said, his voice maddeningly even as broken glass glittered on his vehicle's interior. "I'm creating distance to de-escalate."
"You're fleeing."
"I'm standing still."
Norman closed the gap in three strides, his baton raised.
"Hands behind your back. Now."
Taylor's hands stayed up, palms out.
"Officer, if you put your hands on me, this situation will escalate beyond your control."
"You don't get to tell me what to do."
Norman grabbed Taylor's right wrist and yanked it down.
It was like trying to move a steel beam.
The man's arm didn't budge.
Not from active resistance, but from pure structural strength.
Norman pulled harder, his face flushing red.
Taylor let his arm drop slowly, controlled, moving with Norman's force rather than against it.
"I'm complying. There's no need for violence."
But Norman was past hearing.
He wrenched Taylor's arm behind his back.
And that's when he felt it.
The coiled power in the man's frame.
The sense that he was trying to restrain a machine that was choosing not to activate.
Taylor's other hand came back on its own, assuming the position for cuffing.
And somehow that submission felt more threatening than if he'd fought back.
When Norman slapped one cuff on, the metal biting into Taylor's wrist, he sneered.
"You think you're tough? You think your muscles scare me?"
"I'm not trying to scare you."
Taylor's voice was strained now, tight with effort.
"I'm trying not to hurt you."
The words detonated something in Norman's chest.
He drove his baton into Taylor's kidney, a sharp jab that should have dropped any normal person to their knees.
Taylor grunted, his body tensing, but he stayed upright.
His legs didn't buckle.
He absorbed the blow like it was an inconvenience.
"Get down!"
Norman hit him again, harder this time.