Then I pushed it down and hit the bag again. I let him hold it while I worked through combinations that were getting sloppier with exhaustion and pain. My hands were a mess. I could feel the damage in my right knuckles, deep and structural, the kind of hurt that would make itself known tomorrow in ways I couldn't ignore.
Troy held the bag steady and watched me destroy myself without trying to stop it.
That lasted maybe another minute. Then he moved.
He came around the side of the bag while I was mid-combination and caught my wrist on the cross. His handwrapped around my forearm firm enough to stop the momentum but gentle enough that it didn't make it worse.
“Declan.” His voice was quiet and steady, the tone he used when he was talking me down from bad decisions. “Stop.”
“I'm fine. Let go.”
“You're not fine. Look at your hands.”
I looked down. My knuckles were shredded with skin hanging in strips and blood everywhere. The right hand was already swelling in a way that meant real damage.
“I said I'm fine.” I tried to pull free. He held on.
“You're going to wreck your hand before the fight.”
“Maybe I want to wreck it.” The admission came out before I could stop it. “Maybe I deserve to.”
Troy's expression shifted. His grip on my wrist tightened fractionally. “That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard you say.”
“Is it?” I laughed, bitter and sharp. “Rafael was my friend, Troy. I brought him into this. I trusted him. I gave him access to everything and he used it to hunt you. So yeah, maybe I deserve to feel this.”
“Declan—”
“He could have killed you. Any of those attacks could have been the one that worked. You could be dead right now and it would be my fault for not seeing what he was.”
“That's not?—”
“It is my fault.” I pulled my wrist free and stepped back, putting distance between us because being close made the guilt worse. “You came back here and I should have protected you better. Should have seen the threat. Should have done something other than just let him walk around my life like he belonged there.”
Troy crossed his arms and watched me with those dark eyes that saw too much. “You couldn't have known.”
“I should have known. I pride myself on reading people and on understanding threats. And I missed the biggest one standing right in front of me for years.” I turned back to the bag and raised my ruined hands. “So don't tell me to stop. I need to—I need to?—”
I didn't finish the sentence. I just went for the bag again.
Troy moved faster. He got behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides before I could land another punch.
I struggled, not hard but just enough to test his grip, to see if he'd let me go and finish what I'd started.
He didn't let go. He just held me there with his chest pressed against my back and his arms locked around me like a restraint that felt more like an anchor.
“Stop,” he said again, quieter this time. “Just stop, Declan. Please.”
The fight drained out of me all at once and left me standing there shaking while everything I'd been holding back came rushing up my throat in a wave I couldn't swallow down.
“I'm so fucking angry.” The words came out broken. “I'm angry at him, at Rafael, at the fact that he was right there and I didn't see it, at the fact that I let him in, at the fact that?—”
I stopped and couldn't finish.
Troy's arms tightened around me. “At what?”
“At you.” The admission tasted like acid. “I'm angry at you too and I know that's not fair but I can't help it.”
He went very still behind me. “Okay.”
