HIT ME HARDER

Chapter 5: The Girl in the Third Row

The fifth rib went on the third punch.

Not broken. Cracked. A different sound. Broken was a pop. Cracked was a whisper. A little thin whisper inside his chest that said, "I was already having a bad week, and now this." Kai felt it go. Felt the whisper. Felt the hot needle of it, deep, under the muscle, under the four ribs that Silas Vane had already rearranged in the dark.

He spat blood on the white tiles. Looked up.

Dante Vane stood in front of him. Marcus's brother. Silas's son. Alpha-rank. Twenty-two years old. Hair slicked back. Uniform clean. Not a wrinkle. Not a stain. Not a single thread out of place. He looked like he'd ironed his socks. Kai had never ironed a sock in his life. Kai had never ironed anything. Kai owned one shirt that was technically ironed, and that was because it had been ironed by a woman at a laundrette in 2019 who had taken pity on him and said, "Love, you look like you slept in a hedge," and he had said, "Technically it was a bus stop," and she had said, "That's worse," and she was right.

"Your brother," Kai said, "hits like a man who has never done his own laundry."

Dante didn't smile. Dante didn't frown. Dante just hit him again. Fourth punch. Kai's sixth rib whispered. Fifth and sixth. A little choir now. A little duet. A little "we are ribs and we are suffering."

Kai hit back. Right hand. ×1. ×2. ×3. Dante took them. Took them like a man taking mail. Like a man accepting a delivery he hadn't ordered but would deal with later. ×4. ×5. Dante stepped back. Half a step. Not a full step. Half.

"Better," Dante said. "Marcus said you hit ten times. I count five."

"I have four broken ribs."

"I know."

"And a cracked collarbone."

"I know."

"And a jaw that clicks. And bare feet. Well. Not bare. Socks. Greg's socks. Grey socks. Very warm socks. Greg has very warm feet. You don't want to know about Greg's feet."

Dante hit him. Sixth punch. Seventh. Eighth. Kai took them. Took them with his body because his body was the only thing available. His ribs sang. His collarbone conducted. His jaw kept time. His right hand glowed. ×6. ×7. ×8. ×9.

He swung. ×9. Dante caught it. Not with his fingers. With his palm. Open. Flat. Like stopping a door. Like catching a ball. Like a man who had done this a hundred times and found it slightly tedious.

The glow dimmed.

"Nine," Dante said. "Not ten."

"I was saving one."

"For what?"

"For later. For a special occasion. For a birthday. For a wedding. For the heat death of the universe. I'm flexible."

Dante let go. Kai stumbled. Fell. Not hard. Just down. Knees. Tiles. Blood. The little cartoon penguins on his pyjama waistband, because he was still in the pyjamas, because he had not changed, because changing required standing and standing required ribs and ribs were currently on strike.

Twenty minutes ago, he had been eating toast.

Cold toast. Because the toaster was broken. Because the toaster would always be broken. Because the toaster was a small grey rectangle of spite that had decided, in March, to stop participating in society. He had been sitting in the canteen. Third table from the window. The one with the wobbly leg. The one he'd been meaning to fix for six months. The one he would never fix. He had been eating cold toast and thinking about the photograph. About his father. About the glow. About the words on the back. *Don't stop.*

And then she had sat down.

Lena. The girl in the third row. The girl who had dropped her phone. Who had not dropped her phone. Who had placed it. Deliberately. On the floor. Of an arena. While three hundred people watched a boy in penguin pyjamas get his jaw rearranged.

She had sat down. Across from him. At the wobbly table. She had looked at his toast. At his pyjamas. At his bare feet in Greg's grey socks. At the blood on his chin that he had not washed off because washing off required standing and standing required ribs.

"You look," she had said, "like a crime scene that got lost on the way to the police station."

"Thank you. I've been going for 'dignified survivor.' But I'll take 'crime scene.' It's more honest."

"I put the photograph on your nightstand."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're sitting here. And you have the face of a person who put a photograph on a nightstand. It's a very specific face. Very 'I have done a thing and I am now going to watch you react to the thing.' It's a face I've seen before. On cats. On small children. On my roommate Greg when he hid my shoes and watched me look for them."

She had smiled. Small. Sharp. The kind of smile that cut.

"Your father," she had said, "was in that ring. In 1991. Round seven. He hit twenty-three times. In a row. No breaks. No pauses. The man across from him was a Throne. A actual Throne. And your father hit him twenty-three times and the Throne fell."

Kai had stopped chewing. The toast had stopped being toast. It had become a thing in his mouth. A cold, butterless, toaster-less thing.

"How do you know that?" he had asked.

"Because I was there."

"You were not there. You are twenty. Maybe twenty-one. 1991 was thirty-five years ago."

"I was there."

She had said it flat. No explanation. No apology. No "let me explain." Just "I was there." Like "I had eggs for breakfast." Like "it is Tuesday." Like "your toast is cold and your pyjamas have penguins and your father hit a Throne twenty-three times and I watched."

And then she had stood. Picked up her bag. A small bag. Brown. Leather. The kind of bag that had been expensive once and was now just old.

"You're registered for the tournament," she had said.

"I'm not registered for any tournament."

"You are now."

"I have four broken ribs."

"You have four broken ribs."

"And a cracked collarbone."

"And a cracked collarbone."

"And a clicking jaw."

"And a clicking jaw. And you're registered. Tomorrow. Nine AM. The big ring. Not this one. The big one. The one with the cameras. The one with the stands that hold three thousand instead of three hundred. The one where they put the fighters who are supposed to die entertainingly."

She had walked away. Three steps. Four. Five.

"Lena," Kai had called.

She had stopped. Not turned. Stopped.

"Who are you?"

She had turned. Half. Just enough for one eye. One sharp eye. One eye that had seen 1991 and 2026 and probably several things in between that she was not going to talk about.

"I'm the girl in the third row," she had said. "I've always been the girl in the third row."

And then she had gone.

And twenty minutes later, Kai was in the ring. In his penguin pyjamas. In Greg's grey socks. With four broken ribs and a cracked collarbone and a clicking jaw and a right hand that was warm and a left hand that was empty and a brother of Marcus Vane who was looking at him like he was a math problem that wasn't quite adding up.

"Get up," Dante said.

"I'm considering it."

"Get up."

"I'm considering it from multiple angles. The angle where I get up and you hit me again. The angle where I stay down and you hit me anyway. The angle where I get up and hit you and you hit me and we both hit each other and it becomes a whole thing. A whole hitting thing. A hitting festival. A hitting parade."

Dante grabbed his collar. Lifted him. Kai's feet left the ground. His ribs screamed. His collarbone filed a formal complaint. His jaw clicked seventeen times in rapid succession, like a little wooden bird having a seizure.

"Tomorrow," Dante said. Close. Close enough that Kai could smell his breath. Mint. Expensive mint. The kind of mint that came in a tin. The kind of mint that said, "I have never eaten a kebab at two in the morning and regretted it immediately." "Tomorrow, in the big ring, I will break you. Not because I hate you. Because my brother asked me to. And there is a difference."

He dropped him.

Kai hit the tiles. Penguins up. Socks up. Ribs down. Everything down.

Dante walked away. Clean uniform. Clean shoes. Clean hands. Not a mark on him. Not a drop of blood. Not a whisper of a rib.

In the stands, in the third row, Lena sat. Watching. Her brown bag on her lap. Her sharp eyes on Kai. She was not smiling. She was not frowning. She was doing the thing. The face. The "I have done a thing and I am now going to watch you deal with the thing" face.

Kai lay on the tiles. Looked up. At the ceiling. At the lights. At the three hundred empty seats. At the girl in the third row who was twenty and had been alive in 1991.

"Right," he said. To the ceiling. To the penguins. To the ribs. To the toast that was still, technically, in his mouth, because he had not swallowed it, because the conversation had interrupted the swallowing, and now he was just a man lying on a floor with cold toast in his mouth and four broken ribs and a girl who was older than she looked and a tournament that was tomorrow and a brother who hit like a man who ironed his socks.

"Great. Cool. Love this. Very excited. Can't wait. Ten out of ten. Would recommend."

He swallowed the toast.

It was cold.

It was always cold.

And in the back row, in the very last seat, in the shadow where the light didn't reach, the old man sat. Hands in pockets. Long coat. July. Smiling.

He had been there the whole time.

Kai hadn't noticed.

The old man stood. Turned. Walked away. His shoes made no sound.

And on the tile where Kai lay, where the blood was, where the penguins were, where the toast had been, a single word was scratched. Small. Thin. Scratched by a finger or a nail or something that was not quite a finger and not quite a nail.

*Don't.*

Just that.

*Don't.*

Not *don't stop.*

Just *don't.*