"No," I say.
My voice is quiet. Very calm. Chad's eyes flick toward me, surprised, like he did not expect me to speak.
"Excuse me?" he says.
I stand up.
I do not rush. I do not lunge. I simply unfold myself from the booth, slowly and deliberately, rising to my full height and letting my shoulders roll back and my spine straighten, andChad's smirk falters as I keep rising, as the shadow of my frame falls over him and blocks out the ambient light from the bar.
I am six feet and nine inches tall. I weigh three hundred and forty-seven pounds. My bone density is approximately thirty percent higher than the average human male, a standard evolutionary adaptation for Orcish physiology, and my skeletal structure is reinforced with additional calcium deposits that make my frame exceptionally resistant to fractures.
Chad weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds.
I tower over him. I let the silence stretch, let him feel my presence, and his throat bobs as he swallows.
"She is not better than this," I say, and my voice is still calm, still measured, but I let it drop lower, let the natural resonance of my vocal cords carry the full weight of my frame. "She is better than you."
Chad takes a small step back. His hand slips off the table.
"I have calculated," I continue, and I tilt my head slightly, adjusting my glasses with one massive finger, "the statistical probability of you surviving a physical altercation with me. The result is zero percent. This is not hyperbole. This is a mathematical certainty. My grip strength is sufficient to fracture your clavicle with minimal applied pressure. My bone density would allow me to break your ribs without sustaining injury to my own skeletal structure. The structural integrity of your spine would be compromised within three seconds of sustained contact."
Chad's face has gone very pale.
"I am not going to touch you," I say, and I keep my voice perfectly level, perfectly polite, the same tone I use when I am delivering quarterly risk assessments to corporate executives. "I am simply providing you with the relevant data so that you can make an informed decision regarding your immediate departure."
"Jesus Christ," Chad mutters, and he takes another step back, his eyes wide. "You're fucking insane."
"I am an actuary," I correct. "I specialize in risk assessment. And you, statistically speaking, are a significant liability."
He looks at me for one more second, and then he turns on his heel and walks away, his stride quick and jerky, he pushes through the crowd and disappear out the front door of the bar.
The ambient noise of the room slowly filters back in. I hear the low murmur of conversation, the clink of glassware, the soft background music that I had stopped registering entirely.
I sit back down.
My hands are shaking.
I press them flat against the table, trying to steady the tremor, trying to force my breathing back into a calm, controlled rhythm, but my heart is pounding against my ribs and there is a sharp, electric heat coursing through my veins that I do not know how to process.
I look at Livia.
She is staring at me, her dark eyes wide behind her glasses, her lips parted slightly, and I cannot read her expression. I do not know if she is frightened or disgusted or simply shocked, and the uncertainty makes my chest tighten with a sharp, aching panic.
"I apologize," I say, and my voice comes out frayed and unsteady. "That was inappropriate. I should not have escalated the situation. I should have remained calm and allowed you to handle it, and I?—"
"Narod," she says.
I stop. I look at her.
Her hand is resting on the table, palm up, fingers slightly curled.
"Thank you," she says.
The words do not make sense. I blink at her, my brain struggling to process the data, to reconcile the expected outcome with the observed reality.
"You are... not upset?"
"Upset?" She laughs, and the sound is breathless and a little bit wild, and she shakes her head. "Narod, I am the opposite of upset. I am—" She stops. She presses her free hand to her mouth, her shoulders shake slightly, and I realise with a sharp jolt of alarm that she is crying.
