HIT ME HARDER

Chapter 6: The Wall

The wall cracked on the seventh punch.

Not a big crack. A small one. A thin one. A crack that said, "I was a perfectly good wall and now I am slightly less perfectly good." Kai pulled his fist back. Looked at it. Looked at the wall. Looked at his fist again. His knuckles were red. Not bleeding. Red. Warm. The warmth was spreading. Up his wrist. Up his forearm. Not hot. Not painful. Just warm. Like holding a mug of tea in a cold kitchen. Like putting your hand on a radiator in November. Like the hand of a father you don't remember, on the top of your head, in a house that burned down twenty years ago.

He hit the wall again. ×8. The crack grew. ×9. A piece of plaster fell. Hit his foot. His bare foot. His sockless foot, because Greg's grey socks were in the wash, because Greg had put them in the wash, because Greg was a man who washed socks, who owned a washing machine, who understood the basic human concept of "clean clothes," which Kai did not, because Kai's washing machine was a bucket and a prayer and a general sense of optimism.

×10.

The wall broke.

Not cracked. Broke. A chunk of it. A fist-sized chunk. Fell. Hit the floor. Bounced. Rolled under the bed. Under the bed where Greg was sleeping. Greg, who was snoring. Greg, who snored like a man who had been personally offended by the concept of silence. A wet, rattling, chip-adjacent snore. A snore that said, "I ate chips at two in the morning and I will pay for this, but not tonight. Tonight, I snore."

Kai stood in the dark. In his pyjamas. Penguin pyjamas. The same ones. He had not changed. Changing required effort. Effort required ribs. Ribs were currently on a four-day strike with the possibility of extension.

He looked at the hole in the wall. At the chunk under the bed. At his hand. At the glow. Faint. Amber. Dying. Like a coal. Like a nightlight. Like a penguin-shaped nightlight, which would be on brand.

"Sorry," he said. To the wall. To Greg. To the chunk. To the concept of structural integrity. "I'll fix it. Tomorrow. After the tournament. After I get broken by Dante Vane in front of three thousand people. I'll come back. I'll fix the wall. I'll fix the toaster. I'll fix my ribs. I'll fix my life. I'll fix everything. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is a very productive day. Tomorrow is the day I fix everything. Today, I punch walls."

Greg snored.

Kai sat on the floor. Back against the bed. Head against the mattress. He could feel Greg's weight above him. Greg's warm, chip-fed, snoring weight. The photograph was in his hand. He'd been holding it for an hour. His father. Twenty years old. In the ring. Glowing. Smiling. *Don't stop.*

And the word on the tile. *Don't.*

Not *don't stop.* Just *don't.*

Don't what? Don't stop? Don't go? Don't trust? Don't look? Don't eat cold toast? Don't wear penguin pyjamas to a meeting with a man who eats steak with his fingers? Don't register for a tournament you didn't register for? Don't talk to a girl who was alive in 1991 and looks twenty?

"Don't what?" he whispered.

Greg snored.

The photograph didn't answer. Photographs never answer. They just sit there. Smiling. Glowing. Being dead. Being twenty. Being in a ring in 1991 while you sit on a floor in 2026 with a hole in your wall and a snoring roommate and four broken ribs and a tournament in seven hours.

Kai stood.

He didn't know why he stood. His body just did it. Like a man getting up to go to the bathroom at three in the morning. Like a man who has decided, subconsciously, without consulting the rest of himself, that he is going to do a thing. A thing he cannot name. A thing that is pulling him. Like a thread. Like a wire. Like a hand, warm, on the back of his neck, saying, "This way. This way. This way."

He walked. Out of the room. Into the corridor. Bare feet on linoleum. Cold. July. Cold linoleum. The building was dark. The building was always dark at three in the morning. The building was a building. It did not care about his feet. It did not care about his ribs. It did not care about his pyjamas. It was a building. It had walls. Walls that he had not punched. Yet.

He walked. Down the stairs. Three flights. Past Gerald's booth. Gerald was asleep. Gerald was always asleep at three in the morning. Gerald's tea was cold. Gerald's thermos was the same thermos. 1987. The thermos that had outlived three relationships, two jobs, and one small dog named Derek. Not the crack. A different Derek. A dog Derek. A small, yappy, ankle-biting Derek who had died in 1994 and whom Gerald still talked to occasionally, in a low voice, when he thought no one was listening.

Kai walked. Out of the building. Into the night. The academy grounds. The grass. Cold. Wet. July dew. July dew on bare feet in penguin pyjamas at three in the morning. He looked down. Little wet penguin-shaped footprints. Again. Always. He was leaving a trail. A trail of penguins. A trail of blood and dew and poor decisions.

He walked. Toward the old building. The one at the back. The one nobody used. The one with the boarded windows and the locked door and the sign that said "CONDEMNED" in letters that had been there so long they had become part of the architecture. A landmark. Like the gym bag. Like Derek the crack. Like the toaster. Like the wobbly table. Like the thermos. Like the penguins.

The door was open.

Not broken. Open. Ajar. A crack. A thin line of dark. Like a mouth. Like a mouth that had been waiting. Like a mouth that had been waiting for twenty years.

Kai pushed it.

The door opened.

Stairs. Down. Stone stairs. Old stairs. Stairs that had been here before the academy. Before the city. Before the families. Before the ranks. Before the thrones. Before the first. Stairs that smelled like wet earth and old iron and something else. Something warm. Something familiar. Something like a hand on the top of your head.

He walked down.

One flight. Two. Three. Four. Five. He counted. He didn't know why he counted. He counted because counting was a thing you did when you were walking down stairs into a hole in the ground at three in the morning in penguin pyjamas. You counted. Because if you didn't count, you had to think. And thinking was worse. Thinking meant ribs. Thinking meant Silas. Thinking meant *asked me to kill him.* Thinking meant a girl who was twenty and had been alive in 1991. Thinking meant a word on a tile. *Don't.* Don't what? Don't think? Too late.

Six flights. Seven. Eight.

The stairs ended.

A room.

Not a big room. Not a small room. A room. Stone walls. Stone floor. Stone ceiling. No windows. No lights. No furniture. No nothing. Just stone. And marks.

Marks on the walls.

Not scratches. Not carvings. Marks. Impacts. Dents. Holes. Shapes. Shapes that looked like fists. Like elbows. Like knees. Like heads. Like a hundred fights had happened here. Like a thousand. Like ten thousand. Like the room had been a ring, once. A long time ago. Before rings had ropes and tiles and stands and cameras and three hundred people clapping when a boy in penguin pyjamas got his jaw broken.

Kai walked. Into the room. Bare feet on stone. Cold stone. Cold stone that was not cold. That was warm. Warm in one spot. One spot. In the center. In the middle. A patch of stone, the size of a hand, that was warm.

He knelt.

He put his hand on it. His right hand. His warm hand. His glowing hand. His father's hand. His hand.

The stone glowed.

Not bright. Not loud. Not a flash. Not a burst. A glow. Soft. Amber. Warm. The same glow. The same warmth. The same stupid stubborn light that was in the photograph. That was in his fist. That was in the ring. That was in the wall. That was in the chunk under the bed. That was in the penguin-shaped nightlight that he did not own but wished he owned.

And a voice.

Not a voice. A sound. A sound that was not a sound. A sound that was a memory of a sound. A sound that had been here for twenty years, waiting, in the stone, in the warm, in the dark, in the room that was not a room, in the place that was not a place.

Two words.

His father's voice. He knew it. He didn't know it. He knew it. He had never heard it. He had heard it. Every night. In the hand. In the warm. In the dark. In the space between sleeping and not sleeping. In the space between a toast and a cold toast. In the space between a punch and the next punch. In the space between ×9 and ×10.

Two words.

*Keep going.*

The glow went out.

The warmth went out.

The room was dark. The room was cold. The room was stone. The room was nothing.

Kai knelt on the floor. In the dark. In the cold. In the nothing. In his penguin pyjamas. With his bare feet. With his four broken ribs. With his clicking jaw. With his photograph. With his word. *Don't.* And now this. *Keep going.*

Don't. Keep going.

Don't keep going? Keep going don't? Don't stop? Keep going stop?

"Make up your mind," he whispered. To the stone. To the dark. To the father he didn't remember. To the voice that wasn't a voice. To the hand that wasn't a hand. To the twenty years. To the penguins. To the toaster. To the wall. To the chunk under the bed. To Greg, snoring, three floors up, in a bed with a hole under it. "Make up your mind. I'm twenty. I have four broken ribs. I have a tournament in six hours. I have a girl who is older than she looks. I have a man who eats steak with his fingers. I have a brother who irons his socks. I have an old man who smiles in tunnels. I have a wall with a hole in it. I have a toaster that doesn't work. I have cold toast. I have penguin pyjamas. I have bare feet. I have a word that says don't and a voice that says keep going and I don't know which one is you and I don't know which one is me and I don't know which one is the toast."

He stood.

He walked. Up the stairs. Eight flights. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Out the door. Into the night. Into the grass. Into the dew. Into the penguin-shaped footprints. Into the building. Into the corridor. Into the room. Into the bed. Under the covers. Next to Greg. Next to the snoring. Next to the chips. Next to the frog bowl. Next to the crack named Derek.

He closed his eyes.

His hand was warm.

Still warm.

And in six hours, three thousand people were going to watch him get broken by a man who ironed his socks.

And he was going to let them.

And he was going to hit back.

And he was going to keep going.

Or not.

He didn't know.

The toast was cold.

It was always cold.

And the penguins stared at the ceiling. Happy. Unhurt. Wearing their little scarves. In July. In the dark. In the room with the hole in the wall.

Waiting.