Derek’s glove cracked against my cheekbone, snapping my head sideways beneath the fluorescent lights of Apex Predator Martial Arts.
The crowd erupted.
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Someone whistled.
Someone else yelled, “Welcome to the real world, old man!”
I tasted blood where my molar had cut the inside of my cheek.
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Across the blue mats, Claire stood with her arms folded beneath her chest, watching the man she had been married to for fourteen years get punched by the twenty-eight-year-old man she had been sleeping with.
She didn’t look frightened.
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She looked relieved.
As if Derek’s fist had confirmed something she had been telling herself for months.
That I was weak.
That I was finished.
That whatever man she had married was gone.
Derek bounced backward, grinning through his mouthguard.
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“Come on, HVAC,” he said.
Laughter rolled through the
gym.
My left knee throbbed where his kick had landed seconds earlier.
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That knee had
been rebuilt twice.
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Once in Germany.
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Once in Virginia.
Doctors had told me I would never run normally again.
They had been right.
What they hadn’t said was that a man didn’t need to run to remain dangerous.
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I raised my eyes to Derek.
He misunderstood my silence.
Most arrogant men do.
He thought silence meant fear.
It usually means calculation.
Derek stepped forward again and threw a fast right hand followed by a left hook.
This time, neither touched me.
I slipped the right by less than an inch, shifted my weight onto my good leg, caught his wrist as the hook came around, and redirected his momentum past me.
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Derek stumbled.
Not much.
Half a step.
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But enough.
The crowd grew quieter.
His eyebrows tightened.
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He came again.
Harder.
That was what I wanted.
I had learned a long time ago that angry men become predictable.
