Cole closed his eyes for a long second. He let out a slow, trembling breath. He opened his hand. The tightly balled fist hovering over Isaac's face relaxed, the fingers uncurling.
Slowly, methodically, Cole removed his thumb from Isaac's neck. He lifted his knee from Isaac's chest. He didn't say a word as he stood up.
The physical toll of the violent explosion immediately demanded payment. As soon as Cole put his weight on his left leg, his bad knee buckled slightly, sending a sharp spike of pain up his thigh. His degenerated shoulder throbbed with a dull, heavy ache. His hands began to shake—the inevitable physiological crash of an adrenaline dump. He balled his hands into fists and shoved them deep into the pockets of his sweatpants to hide the tremors.
On the floor, Isaac rolled onto his side, coughing violently. He curled into a fetal position, cradling his right arm against his chest. His pristine gi pants were scuffed with black rubber marks from the floor. The heavy black belt had come untied, trailing limply across the mat like a dead snake. He wasn't an apex predator anymore; he was a boy who had touched a hot stove and was now weeping from the burn.
The sound of Isaac's wet, gasping sobs echoed in the quiet gym. It was a pathetic, deeply human sound.
Cole didn't look down at him. The disgust he felt wasn't directed at Isaac anymore; it was directed at himself. He had let the lock slip. He had allowed this idiot to drag him down into the mud.
He turned toward the bench. His green resistance band lay on the floor where he had dropped it. He bent down slowly, keeping his back straight to protect a fused lumbar disc, and picked it up. He wrapped it neatly, slipping it into his gym bag. He zipped the bag with quiet, deliberate movements.
The students parted like water as Cole turned to leave. They pressed themselves against the racks of dumbbells and the walls, giving him a wide, fearful berth. They didn't want to make eye contact. They didn't want to draw his attention.
Cole slung his duffel bag over his good shoulder. He stopped. He looked at the six men standing around the mats. He looked at their expensive rash guards and their eager, naive faces.
"You want to survive a violent encounter?" Cole asked. His voice was no longer flat and dead. It was just incredibly tired. It held the cynical weight of a man who had seen the worst of humanity and found nothing glorious about it.
The students stared at him, paralyzed. Gary nodded slowly, swallowing hard.
"Put your ego in the trash," Cole told them, his eyes scanning their faces. "If someone insults you, you walk away. If someone bumps into you, you apologize and you walk away. If someone asks for your wallet, you hand it to them and you run."
He gestured vaguely toward Isaac, who was still on the floor, hyperventilating as shock set in.