The challenge in his voice shifted something in my chest. I stopped thinking about the injuries and stopped calculating, and I just moved.
I pressed forward with a combination I'd drilled ten thousand times, jab-cross-hook-cross, each punch thrown with full power and full intention, and felt the impact travel up my arms each time it landed on his guard. Troy gave ground, but only to create space and angles. His counter came fast, a question mark kick starting low and swinging high, and I got my guard up a half-second before it arrived.
His follow-up was immediate, a flying knee that would have ended the round if it had landed clean. I twisted and caught it on my shoulder instead of my face.
We broke apart, both of us breathing hard now, both of us reading the other.
Troy circled left. I matched him.
He feinted high and went low with a leg kick I didn't see coming. My knee buckled and he was on me before I'd recovered, throwing combinations to the body with precision, each punch finding gaps in my guard and landing with weight behind it.
I absorbed it and waited. I saw my opening when he overextended slightly on his fourth punch, slipped inside his guard, and drove an uppercut into his midsection with everything I had. I felt it sink deep and his guard dropped for a split second.
I threw a hook that caught him clean on the jaw and snapped his head to the side.
Troy staggered. He blinked. He smiled wider than before.
“There you are,” he said.
Then he came at me like I'd just unlocked something he'd been sitting on since we started.
His style shifted, grew more unpredictable, strikes flowing from kickboxing to grappling and back without a seam between them, spinning attacks coming from angles I hadn't prepared for, every combination setting up the next one. He moved like gravity was a guideline rather than a rule, and watching him while simultaneously trying to survive him was a genuinely strange experience.
I matched him the only way I knew how, with power and with intent, throwing shots hard enough to change the conversation every time he got comfortable.
I caught him with a body shot that doubled him over and followed with a knee he barely blocked, then swung an elbow toward his head that he rolled away from. He came up behind me and locked his arms around my waist, and before I'd fully registered what was happening he lifted me off my feet.
We hit the mat together in a tangle of limbs and neither of us gave the other an inch. I got my guard up and he tried to pass it. I shoved him back and he came from a different angle. We rolled across the canvas fighting for position, each of us taking ground and losing it again, both of us too stubborn to do anything else.
Finally we broke apart, both breathing hard, both drenched, and grinning at each other like idiots on the mat.
Mara called time.
We lay there for a moment, not moving, not needing to.
“That was incredible,” Troy said finally.
“You're incredible.” I sat up slowly. My ribs were going to make me pay for this for days. “Where the hell did you learn to move like that?”
“Adrian and Luka have very high standards.” He stood and offered his hand. “And I've had a lot of practice staying alive.”
I took his hand and let him pull me up. We stood in the center of the ring while the gym held a beat of quiet around us,everyone having just watched something they probably couldn't fully categorize.
Mara climbed through the ropes and started pulling off our gloves. “Well. That was interesting.”
“Interesting?” I looked at her.
“You two fight like you're trying to kill each other and fuck each other at the same time.” She grinned at her own assessment. “Very entertaining. Also not subtle at all.”
“Mara—”
“Everyone already knows. You're really not subtle, Declan.” She finished with my gloves and turned to Troy. “You're good. Really good. You ever think about competing?”
“Not my thing,” Troy said. “I prefer fights that don't have rules.”
“Fair enough.” She stepped back and looked at us both with the expression she wore when she'd gotten exactly what she came for. “Shower. Both of you. You're disgusting.”
We climbed out of the ring. The gym had gone back to its normal noise, everyone finding somewhere else to look.
