HIT ME HARDER

Marcus's knee hit Kai's jaw.

Not a punch. A knee. From above. While Kai was on his knees on the arena floor, blood running from his nose onto the white tiles, and three hundred students in the Thornwall Academy stands were clapping. Clapping. Like he was a dog doing a trick. Like he was something you'd film on your phone and send to a group chat with the caption "lmao look at this F-rank garbage."

Marcus grabbed his hair. Yanked his head up. Spat in his face.

"Stay down, F-rank trash. You're embarrassing the floor."

Kai spat blood. A tooth. A whole tooth. Molar, actually. Lower left. He looked at it in his palm. Small. Yellowish. A little piece of him that used to chew toast every morning because the toaster in his dorm was broken and he couldn't be bothered to fix it. He'd been eating cold toast for three weeks. And now this tooth would never chew cold toast again.

He looked at Marcus. Smiled. Red teeth.

"Again."

Marcus hit him. Second time. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Seventh.

And on the eighth, Kai hit back.

One punch. Right hand. Into Marcus's jaw. Times one. Normal. Marcus barely moved. Laughed. "That's all you got, you little—"

Second punch. Times two. Marcus stepped back. One step.

Third. Times three. Another step.

Fourth. Times four. Marcus stopped laughing.

Fifth. Times five. Sixth. Times six. Seventh. Times seven. Eighth. Times eight. Ninth. Times nine.

Tenth. Times ten.

Marcus flew. Across the arena. Through the ropes. Through the first row of the stands. Hit the back wall. The wall cracked. A chunk of plaster fell on some kid's shoe and the kid screamed like he'd been shot. Marcus didn't get up.

Silence.

Three hundred mouths open. Zero clapping.

Kai stood there. Breathing hard. His right hand was warm. Not burning. Not broken. No scars. No blood that wasn't already there. Just warm. Like it remembered something. Like it had been waiting a very long time for someone to give it a reason.

He looked at his hand. Looked at Marcus on the ground. Looked at the stands.

"Ten punches," he said. His voice was hoarse. His jaw clicked when he talked. Probably broken. Probably not. Hard to tell. "That's all it took. And you hit me seven times first. Mathematically, you owe me three punches. I accept payment in apologies. Or cash. Preferably cash. I need to fix my toaster."

Nobody laughed. Nobody moved.

A girl in the third row dropped her phone. It hit the floor. The sound was very loud in the silence. She was pretty, in a sharp sort of way, the kind of pretty that made Kai think stupid thoughts at stupid times. Like right now. Bleeding. Jaw possibly in two pieces. And his brain goes, "she'd probably ruin your life and you'd thank her." Priorities.

Kai picked up his tooth from the ground. Put it in his pocket. His pants pocket. The left one. The right one had a hole in it and he'd lost two coins and a receipt for a sandwich he didn't even finish eating last Tuesday. The sandwich was ham. Bad ham. The kind that smells like it was sliced by a man who hated you personally.

"Souvenir," he said, to nobody. To the tooth. To Marcus. To the three hundred people who had been clapping four minutes ago. "First tooth you ever knocked out of me. I'm framing it. Hanging it above my bed. Gonna look at it every morning and think, that was the day Marcus Vane, son of Silas Vane, heir to Northside, got knocked through a wall by a kid who eats cold toast."

He walked toward the exit. His legs were shaking. He hoped nobody noticed. They probably noticed. Three hundred people. At least one of them was looking at his legs. At least two were filming. By tomorrow there'd be a video online. Someone would put dramatic music over it. Someone else would comment "bro got folded like a lawn chair" and get four hundred likes.

His jaw clicked again. He pushed it with his fingers. It clicked back. Or maybe it didn't. Maybe it was just making a noise now. A new noise. A Kai noise. His own personal jaw soundtrack. Coming soon to a dorm room near you.

In the tunnel leading out of the arena, it was dark. Smelled like sweat and old rubber and someone's forgotten gym bag. The gym bag had been there since October. Nobody claimed it. Nobody opened it. It had become part of the architecture. A landmark. "Meet me by the bag." "Which bag?" "The bag, Greg. The only bag. The bag that has been here longer than some of our friendships."

Kai leaned against the wall. Slid down. Sat on the concrete floor. His back was cold. His hand was still warm.

He pulled out his phone. Cracked screen. Always cracked. Had been cracked since September when he dropped it in the toilet. Not the bowl. The tank. Behind the toilet. In the dorm bathroom. He'd had to reach in up to his wrist and the water was cold and his roommate Greg had stood in the doorway eating chips and watching. Greg hadn't helped. Greg had said "that's disgusting, mate" and eaten another chip. Greg was a man of limited utility.

He typed a message. To himself. His own number. He did this sometimes. Texted himself. Like a diary but lazier. Like a diary for people who couldn't be bothered to buy a notebook.

"Day one. Lost a tooth. Won a fight. Jaw might be broken. Toaster still broken. Cold toast situation unchanged. Girl in third row: 8 out of 10, would let her ruin my life. Overall: a good Tuesday."

He hit send. Put the phone away.

And that's when he saw the old man.

Standing at the end of the tunnel. In the dark. Hands in his pockets. Long coat. Too long for the weather. It was July. Nobody wore a coat in July. Not in Ashgate. Not unless you were hiding something under it. Or you were old. Or both.

The old man was smiling. Not a nice smile. Not a mean smile. A smile like he'd just watched something he'd been waiting fifteen years to see. Like Kai was a TV show that had finally gotten good in season four and he was the only one who hadn't canceled his subscription.

Kai stared at him.

The old man stared back.

"Who are you?" Kai asked.

The old man didn't answer. Just smiled. Turned. Walked away. His shoes made no sound on the concrete. None. Kai listened. Nothing. Like the man was floating. Like the man wasn't quite there. Like the tunnel had invented him for thirty seconds and then changed its mind.

"Hey," Kai called. "Hey, old man. You can't just stand in a tunnel and smile and leave. That's not how this works. You either talk or you don't stand there. Those are the rules. I'm making them up right now but they're very good rules. Solid rules. Legally binding in at least two countries."

The old man didn't turn around.

Kai sat on the cold floor. His jaw clicked. His hand was warm. His tooth was in his pocket. His toaster was broken. The girl in the third row was probably already posting the video. Greg was probably eating chips. The gym bag was probably still there. Still unclaimed. Still a landmark.

And somewhere in Ashgate, in a building Kai had never seen, in a room Kai would never enter, a man named Silas Vane put down his tea and picked up his phone.

"Get me the file on the Ashford kid," he said.

The voice on the other end said something.

Silas smiled. Cut a piece of steak with his fingers. No knife. No fork. Just fingers. Clean. Precise. The meat separated like it wanted to. Like it had been asking for it.

"All ten?" he said. "In a row? No breaks?"

The voice said something else.

Silas put a piece of steak in his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. Wiped his fingers on a napkin. The napkin stayed white. Not a mark. Not a smear. Fifteen years of cutting things and the napkins always stayed white.

"Interesting," he said. "Bring me the file. And bring me the boy."

He hung up. Looked at his hand. At his fingers. Clean.

Not yet.