The betrayal settles in my back like a knife.
Art’s far more complicit than I had imagined.
The bell rings.
Graves comes in fast. The first hit catches me in the ribs, and I let it land, because that’s the job.Take what’s coming. Go down in the third.The second hit finds my jaw, and my visiongoes white at the edges. I taste copper. My ears ring. Somewhere in the VIP section, Myrddin is probably sipping his drink. I wonder if Art’s hurting or satisfied watching me get the shit beat out of me.
The next few minutes come in violent flashes.
Graves hits me in the stomach, and I double over, breath leaving in a rush.
An uppercut snaps my head back, and I stumble into the cage wall, the chain-link biting into my shoulders.
He drives a knee into my side, and something pops.
Fuck, that hurt.
I’m on one knee. The crowd is screaming. I spit blood onto the mat and think about Genevieve’s face in the morning when she’s half asleep, the sunlight casting little sparkles on her freckles.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
I get up.
Graves hits me again and I take it. And again. And again. Each impact is a specific, located thing. Not the blur I’m used to. Not the numb machine absorbing damage on autopilot. I feel every knuckle, every point of contact, every rib bending under the force. I feel it because I can’t turn off the part of me that feels anymore, and that part has her name written through it like letters carved in stone.
This is what you wanted, right?I think at Art, at Myrddin, at the whole sick circus.A show?
The third round starts. This is where I’m supposed to drop. Take a clean hit, drop, stay down. Convincing enough for Myrddin’s big players, and pathetic enough to satisfy whatever point Art’s trying to make.
I set my feet to take the fall.
And then I see her, and everything else falls away.
Genevieve’s at the back of the room. On the left side, near the tunnel entrance nobody uses, pressed against the wall in one of my hoodies with her hair tucked away. Blending the way you can only blend when you know a space well enough to understand its blind spots. She bartends above this room. She’s mopped these floors. She knows the rhythm, the crowd, the noise. She’s not a stranger here.
And then I see Bors.
My heart stops.
He’s moved from VIP. He’s at the edge of the crowd, making his way toward the left wall with the calm, deliberate pace of a man who’s spotted prey. His eyes are fixed on the same point mine just were, and his hand is reaching into his jacket.
Everything after that is very simple.
Graves swings. I catch his fist.
The confusion on his face lasts about a second. Long enough for me to register that Myrddin is on his feet in VIP, that Art’s mouth is open, that Benny is shouting something I can’t hear over the blood rushing in my ears.
I don’t become Excalibur.
Excalibur is cold and sharp, and has, apparently, been wielded by Art for longer than I knew.
What I become doesn’t have a name because it operates below language, in the part of the brain that existed before humans learned to speak, where the only thought isherand the only directive ismove.
I break Graves in three strikes. Throat. Temple. Jaw. He hits the mat and stays there.
The crowd goes insane. They think it’s part of the show.Let them.
I hit the cage door with my shoulder. It’s locked from the outside, because of course it is, so I climb. The chain-link bites into my fingers, my taped hands slipping on the metal, and I haul myself over the top and drop to the concrete on the other side. My ribs scream, and I’m pretty sure a few are broken, but I don’t care.
