Gray crept into the edges of my vision.
Then black.
My last thought wasn’t noble.
It wasn’t brave.
It was simply:
He’s going to kill me.
Then the world vanished.
I came back coughing.
Air tore into my lungs.
I was lying on my side with my knees drawn toward my chest. The mat felt cool against my cheek.
For a few seconds I didn’t know where I was.
Then sound returned.
Shoes squeaking beyond the mat.
Somebody breathing.
The timer beeping.
And laughter.
Derek’s laughter.
I rolled onto an elbow.
My throat felt like I had swallowed broken glass.
Derek stood three feet away, calmly retightening his belt.
“You gotta tap earlier, Sarah,” he announced.
A couple of people looked down.
One guy suddenly became very interested in adjusting the tape around his fingers.
Derek shook his head with the patience of a disappointed teacher.
“Don’t let your ego get in the way. In a real fight, nobody stops.”
For a second, I honestly wondered if I had imagined it.
Maybe I hadn’t tapped hard enough.
Maybe I had panicked.
Maybe this was somehow my fault.
That was Derek’s real talent.
Not hurting people.
Making them question whether they had the right to be angry about it.
I pushed myself upright.
My hands were shaking.
Then I saw Cole.
He was standing against the cinderblock wall beside the cubbies.
Plain black rash guard.
Gray athletic shorts.
Bare feet.
No uniform.
No tattoos announcing what he did for a living.
Nothing dramatic.
He must have changed in the locker room, probably thinking he could get a little exercise while waiting for me to finish class.
His gym bag sat near the wall.
His arms were folded loosely.
And he was looking at Derek.
I knew that look.
Most people would have missed it because Cole didn’t look angry.
That was the problem.
As kids, I had seen him mad plenty of times. He’d yelled when I stole his CDs. He’d slammed doors after fights with Dad. Once, when I was eleven, he threatened to throw my bicycle into the swimming pool because I kept leaving it behind his car.
Normal anger had movement.
Normal anger made noise.
This was different.
Cole looked completely still.
Derek cracked his knuckles.
“Who’s next?”
“I am.”
Cole didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
Something about those two words cut through the room.
Even the people still rolling stopped.
Derek looked toward him.
My brother stepped away from the wall.
“Sorry, buddy,” Derek said. “Class is full.”
Cole walked onto the edge of the mat.
“She tapped.”
Derek’s expression changed slightly.
“What?”
“She tapped,” Cole repeated. “You held it after she tapped.”
A few people shifted uncomfortably.
Coach Martin finally looked over from the timer desk.
Derek gave a short laugh.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Her brother.”
That seemed to amuse him.
“Oh.”
He looked at me, then back at Cole.
“Okay. That explains it.”
Cole said nothing.
Derek opened his hands.
“Look, man, I get it. You see your little sister get put to sleep, you get emotional. But this is a combat sport. People get caught.”
“She tapped three times on the mat.”
Derek’s smile tightened.
“Were you counting?”
“Yes.”
The answer came instantly.
Cole took one more step forward.
“Then she tapped your shoulder. You looked at her and kept squeezing.”
Nobody moved.
I could hear the air conditioner humming.
Derek glanced around the room.
His audience was watching.
That mattered to him.
It always mattered to him.
He couldn’t back down now, not after years of being Apex Grappling’s unofficial king.
“You know anything about jiu-jitsu?” he asked.
“A little.”
I almost laughed.
Cole had trained in various forms of grappling for years, though he never talked about belts. His work required a different relationship with physical confrontation than anything practiced under fluorescent lights and a digital timer.
Derek looked him up and down.
My brother was about six feet tall and maybe 180 pounds.
Lean.
No bodybuilder muscles.
Nothing about him screamed dangerous unless you knew where to look.
Derek saw thirty fewer pounds and an unfamiliar face.
He saw an opportunity.
“You want to roll?” Derek asked.
Cole looked at him for a moment.
“Sure.”
“Cole,” I managed.
My voice came out raw.
He glanced at me.
That was the only time his expression changed.
For half a second, he was just my brother again.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
It hurt.
His eyes returned to Derek.
Coach Martin stepped forward.
“Guys, maybe we should just cool this down.”
Derek laughed.
“Why? He wants a round.”
He pointed at Cole.
“I’ll give him a round.”
Martin hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything I needed to know about Apex.
He owned the place.
He was supposed to keep people safe.
And he was afraid of Derek too.
“All right,” Derek said, lowering himself into a wide stance. “Timer’s running. Let’s go.”
Someone started the clock.
Six minutes.
Derek charged.
What happened next took less time than it takes to unlock a phone.
Derek came forward hard, expecting Cole to retreat.
Cole didn’t.
He shifted.
Derek’s momentum carried him past the point where he could recover.
There was a blur of arms, hips, and feet.
Then 210 pounds of Derek Mason left the floor.
He hit the mat so hard the wall mirrors rattled.
The sound changed the room.
All the swagger went out of Derek’s face.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked confused.
Then scared.
He tried to scramble away.
Cole followed.
There was nothing flashy about it.
No wasted movement.
No celebration.
It looked less like a fight than a door closing.
A second later, Cole was behind him.
Derek bucked violently.
Cole stayed attached.
Derek threw an elbow backward.
Cole moved his head a few inches.
Derek twisted.
Cole moved with him.
The difference between them became obvious almost immediately.
