And it shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
A counterstrike came, and she dodged, breath steady, body moving on instinct.
Because she understood what it meant to have something stolen.
Not land.
Not wealth.
But choices.
Stability.
A future that wasn’t shaped by someone else’s destruction.
Another strike. Another impact.
Sweat beaded along her temple.
She wanted to ask if it ever felt like drowning. Dragging the weight of sins you didn’t choose. Sinking slow. Breathless.
If he ever wondered whether he’d claw his way out of it, or if it would swallow him whole.
She wanted to ask him a lot of things.
And that was becoming a problem.
“Alright, Rivers, let’s wrap it up.”
She dropped her hands, stepping back, breathing deep through the burn in her muscles.
Her instructor nodded in approval, tapping the pads together. “Good work. You come at it with a lot of focus.”
Arden huffed a quiet breath, reaching for her water bottle. “That’s one word for it.”
“Whatever’s driving you, don’t let it go,” he said, watching her with a flicker of something unreadable. He glanced toward the entrance, sunlight slanting in. A stark contrast to the weight she carried in every movement. "Just make sure it doesn't burn you out from the inside."
She didn’t answer.
Maybe she didn’t know how to survive without burning.
?
A muted clink of glass splintered the silence, a whisper against polished wood. The club rested in its pre-opening hush, its usual opulence holding its breath.
Above, the chandeliers hung quiet and golden, waiting as if the room itself were holding its breath until night gave it back its pulse.
Behind the bar, Arden moved with a steady focus, her cloth sweeping the counter in clean, unhurried strokes. It was more habit than necessity—an outlet for the tension coiled in her shoulders from that morning’s session.
She’d come straight from Krav Maga, muscles still charged from the session. That edge of energy? That was part of what she liked about this place. The focus it demanded. The rhythm. The people. Well. Some of the people.
She wasn’t even aware she’d started humming, not at first. The melody eased from her lips without thought—low, instinctive, drawn from somewhere deep in her bones.
Almost heaven, West Virginia...
Her voice barely stirred the air, more breath than sound.
