HIT ME HARDER

Chapter 2: Penguin Pyjamas

The man sitting next to Kai in the back of the car breathed through his mouth.

Loud. Wet. Like a dog. A very large dog in a three-thousand-pound suit who had forgotten, somewhere between the tailor and the car, that humans were supposed to inhale through their noses. His name was Greg. Not Kai's roommate Greg. A different Greg. A bigger Greg. A Greg with a neck that had its own postal code.

Kai sat between Greg and another man whose name he hadn't been given. The second man didn't breathe at all. Or did it so quietly that Kai couldn't tell. He just stared at the window. At the streetlights passing. At nothing. His hands were on his knees. Very still. Very clean. Manicured nails. Kai looked at those nails and thought, "those are not fighting nails. Those are 'I have never washed a dish in my life' nails."

The driver had a name. Terry. Terry had introduced himself. "I'm Terry." Then he'd driven. That was twenty minutes ago. Terry had not spoken since. Terry drove like a man who had been told to drive and would drive until the car ran out of fuel or the world ended, whichever came first.

Kai was wearing pyjamas. Penguin pyjamas. Little cartoon penguins on a dark blue background. He'd been asleep. Or trying to sleep. His jaw was still clicking. His right hand was still warm. And then the door had broken. Not opened. Broken. The lock had simply decided to stop being a lock, and three men had walked in, and Greg the Big one had said, "Mr. Vane would like to see you," and Kai had said, "Mr. Vane can see me tomorrow. I'm in pyjamas. Penguin pyjamas. I don't receive formal visitors in penguin pyjamas. It's in the contract." There was no contract. There had never been a contract. Greg had not cared about the contract.

So here he was. Penguin pyjamas. No shoes. Bare feet on the leather seat. His feet were cold. The leather was cold. Everything was cold except his right hand, which was warm, which was annoying, because he couldn't figure out why, and not knowing why made his teeth itch. Not his actual teeth. His remaining teeth. The ones that hadn't been knocked out by a man who breathed through his mouth.

"Where are we going?" Kai asked.

Greg breathed. In. Out. Wet.

"Where are we going," Kai repeated. "I'm asking the car. The car can answer. The car has a steering wheel and a man named Terry. Terry knows things. Terry, where are we going?"

Terry drove.

"Right. Secret. Love that. Very mysterious. Very 'I'm in a movie and nobody told me I was in a movie.' Can I at least know if I'm going to die? Because if I'm going to die, I'd like to not die in penguin pyjamas. I'd like to die in something dignified. A bathrobe, maybe. A nice bathrobe. Hotel quality. The kind with the little belt."

Greg turned his head. Looked at Kai. Breathed.

"Shut up," Greg said.

"I'm just saying. If I die in penguin pyjamas, my ghost will haunt you. Specifically you. I'll stand at the foot of your bed. Breathing. Loud. Wet. Like a dog. And you'll never sleep again."

Greg stared at him.

Kai smiled. His jaw clicked. "Sorry. Bad joke. I have a lot of those. It's a condition. Medical. Very rare. Doctors hate me."

The car stopped.

Kai looked out the window. A building. Tall. Dark. Glass and steel and no lights except on the top floor. One window. One light. The rest of the building was black. Like a dead thing standing up.

"Northside," Kai said. He hadn't meant to say it. It just came out. He'd seen this building before. On the news. In papers. In the kind of articles that used words like "alleged" and "reportedly" and "sources close to the family." The Vane building. The Northside headquarters. The place where Silas Vane cut things with his fingers and the napkins stayed white.

Greg opened the door. Got out. Stood. Waited.

Kai didn't move.

"Out," Greg said.

"I'm in penguin pyjamas."

"Out."

Kai got out. Bare feet on cold pavement. July night. Warm air. Cold ground. His toes curled. He looked up at the building. At the one lit window. At the top floor.

"Does he have a dress code?" Kai asked. "Should I have worn the other pyjamas? I have ones with little ducks. More formal. Very distinguished."

Greg grabbed his arm. Pushed him toward the door. Kai walked. Bare feet. Penguin pyjamas. Jaw clicking. Right hand warm.

The lobby was marble. White marble. Clean marble. The kind of marble that cost more than Kai's entire education. His feet left small wet prints. He looked back at them. Little penguin-shaped wet footprints. Because his pyjamas had penguins on them and his feet were wet and the marble was very, very clean, and now it wasn't.

"Sorry," he said, to the marble. To nobody. To Greg, who was not listening.

The elevator took forty seconds. Forty seconds of Greg breathing and the second man not breathing and Terry, who had followed them in, staring at the elevator numbers like they were personally offending him.

The doors opened.

One room. One window. One desk. One man.

Silas Vane sat behind the desk. Eating steak. With his fingers. No knife. No fork. Just fingers. He pulled a piece of meat from the bone and it separated cleanly, like the meat wanted to leave. Like the meat had been asking for it. He put it in his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. Wiped his fingers on a white napkin.

The napkin stayed white.

Kai stared at the napkin. At the fingers. At the steak. At the man.

"You broke my son's jaw," Silas said. His voice was quiet. Polite. The voice of a man ordering tea. "And three ribs. And his left orbital bone. And his dignity, which, I'm told, was the one he cared about most."

"Technically," Kai said, "he broke my jaw first. I just returned the favour. With interest. Compound interest. Very generous of me. I could have charged a flat rate."

Silas smiled. Small. Thin. The smile of a man who had smiled at many things and found very few of them funny.

"Sit," he said.

Kai sat. The chair was leather. Cold. His bare feet dangled. He was twenty years old and his feet didn't touch the floor and he was in penguin pyjamas and a man was eating steak with his fingers and the napkin was still white and his right hand was warm and he didn't know why and his jaw clicked when he swallowed.

"Who taught you?" Silas asked.

"Nobody."

"Everybody is taught by somebody."

"I taught myself. By getting hit. A lot. By your son, mostly. He was very generous with his time. Very committed to my education. I should send him a thank-you card. To the hospital. With flowers. Cheap flowers. Gas station flowers. The kind that smell like regret."

Silas put down the steak. Picked up a glass of wine. Red. Very red. The kind of red that wasn't quite wine red.

"Ten punches," Silas said. "In a row. Each one stronger than the last. No breaks. No pauses. My analysts watched the footage fourteen times. They can't explain it. I can't explain it. And I don't like things I can't explain."

"Join the club. I can't explain my toaster. It stopped working in March. No reason. No warning. Just stopped. Like your son's face. Just stopped being a face."

Silas drank the wine. Put the glass down. Looked at Kai. Really looked. Not at his face. At his right hand. The warm one. The one in his lap. The one that was glowing, very faintly, in the dim light of the office. A soft amber. Like a coal that wouldn't die.

"Your father," Silas said, "had warm hands."

Kai's jaw stopped clicking.

"Your father," Silas said again, "could hit ten times in a row. Each one stronger. No breaks. No pauses. I know because I was there. I was in the room. I was in the room when he did it. I was in the room when he did a lot of things."

Silas picked up the steak again. Pulled a piece. Ate it. Chewed. Swallowed.

"I was in the room when he died."

The napkin stayed white.

Kai's right hand was warm. Very warm. Warmer than it had been in the car. Warmer than it had been in the arena. Warm like it was listening. Warm like it remembered a voice it hadn't heard in fifteen years.

"And now," Silas said, wiping his fingers, "you're in my room. In penguin pyjamas. With his hands."

He smiled.

"Interesting."

The lights went out.

All of them. The desk lamp. The window glow. The little green light on the smoke detector. Everything. Black. Total. The kind of dark that has weight.

And in the dark, Kai heard Silas Vane stand up. Heard the chair slide back. Heard fingers, clean precise fingers, flex once.

"Let's see," Silas whispered, "if you can do it again."