He let the silence stretch. He let the reality of the situation burn itself permanently into Trent's ego. Then abruptly, Samantha let go. She stood up, taking his weight off Trent's ribs. Trent gasped, rolling onto his side, coughing violently, clutching his chest.
He didn't try to get up. He just curled into the fetal position on the cold linoleum, shivering. Samantha didn't look at him again. The switch flipped. The ghost faded back into the dark.
She reached down, favoring his bad leg once again, and picked up his red toolbox. The adrenaline was fading and the sharp familiar ache in his knee was returning with a vengeance. Samantha turned and looked at the row of students. They were plastered against the wall, staring at him as if he were a demon that had just materialized from the floorboards. Richard was sitting upright now, his mouth hanging open in sheer shock.
"Class is dismissed," Samantha said quietly. She turned around and limped out the front door, stepping back into the cool, dark drizzle of the sulten night. She had a clogged urinal to fix in the morning. Adrenaline is a short-term loan with a predatory interest rate. When the debt comes due, it takes everything you have left.
Samantha woke up at 5 in the morning to a deep, throbbing ache radiating from his right hip down to his ankle. She sat on the edge of his mattress in the dark, staring at the faded pattern of his cheap rug, waiting for his brain to fully sink with his body. Her knee was swollen, hot to the touch, and stiff as rusted iron. The sudden violent pivot he had used to throw Trent to the linoleum had torn at the fragile scar tissue webbing his joint. He didn't regret it, but he hated the reminder.
She limped into her cramped bathroom, swallowed three ibuprofen dry, and wrapped her knee tightly in a frayed ace bandage. She dressed in silence, heavy canvas pants, a faded olive drab henley, scuffed boots. By 6:30, he was back at Westridge Plaza. The strip mall was completely abandoned, sitting quietly under a low ceiling of bruised gray clouds. Samantha unlocked the back door of Apex Tactical.
The air inside was stale, holding the ghost of yesterday's sweat. The blue mats looked exactly the same. The cheap plastic trophies on the front window sill hadn't moved. The room held no memory of the violence that had occurred 12 hours prior. Buildings don't care about human pride.
She walked past the main floor and pushed into the men's locker room. It smelled faintly of mildew and cheap deodorant. Samantha opened her red toolbox, pulled out a heavy pipe wrench, and went to work on the backed up urinal. This was where she belonged. Cold porcelain, rusted pipes, problems that had logical mechanical solutions.
You turn the valve to the left, the water stops, you clear the blockage, the drain empties. There was a beautiful mindless honesty to plumbing. It didn't ask her to be a hero. It didn't ask her to pretend she was normal. It just required a tight seal.
He was up to his elbows in a mixture of bleach and stagnant water when he heard the locker room door squeak open. Samantha didn't look up. She kept her grip on the wrench, tightening a brass fitting. "Jim doesn't open until noon," Samantha said, his voice flat, echoing slightly off the tiled walls. I know, Samantha paused.
The voice was quiet, lacking the aggressive cadence of the usual meatheads that frequented the morning sessions. Samantha wiped her hands on a shop rag and turned around. Richard was standing in the doorway. He looked terrible. The entire left side of his jaw was painted in ugly shades of violet and yellow.
His nose was swollen, slightly off-center. He was wearing an oversized gray cardigan and clutching two paper cups from a local bakery chain. He looked out of place against the backdrop of lockers and MMA posters. Richard offered one of the cups forward. His hand was shaking slightly.
Black? Richard said softly. I figured you for a black coffee kind of guy. I'm sorry if I'm interrupting. The property manager, Gary.
He told me you usually get here early. Samantha looked at the cup then at Richard. She didn't want the coffee. He didn't want the conversation. She wanted to finish the pipe, pack his tools, and go check the roof drains over the laundromat.
Interactions meant attachments, and attachments meant complications. But he also saw the deep, hollow exhaustion in Richard's eyes. It was a look Samantha knew intimately. It was the look of a man who had suddenly realized how fragile he was. Samantha sighed.
She reached out and took the cup. The cardboard was hot against his calloused skin. "Thanks," Samantha muttered. She took a sip. It was bitter and burnt.
It tasted perfect. Richard stood awkwardly for a moment, looking at the half-disassembled urinal. "Did you did you fix it? " "Almost," Samantha said, leaning back against the row of sinks. Flange was cracked. Someone kicked it.
A heavy silence stretched between them. "The only sound was the faint hum of the building's HVAC system kicking on. "I canceled my membership this morning," Richard said finally, staring down at his own coffee cup. sent Trent an email. I don't think he's coming in today anyway. A guy from the evening class texted me.
Said Trent posted on Facebook that he had a severe training injury and had to suspend the adult sessions for a week. Samantha took another sip of coffee. She felt nothing. No triumph, no smugness, just a weary resignation that the world was full of men like Trent. And sometimes you had to break their ribs to get them to shut up.
You shouldn't have been on the mat with him in the first place, Samantha said. He's an insecure kid playing a dangerous game. Richard looked up. I thought he could teach me how to fight. He teaches people how to score points in a cage with a referee, Samantha corrected bluntly.
He teaches a choreographed dance. That's fine if you want to work out, but it's useless if you're trying to survive. I know that now, Richard said. He swallowed hard. I saw what you did to him.