Shawn’s movements became more calculated, which ironically made them easier for her to read. She could feel it in every sway as he tried to figure out how quickly she could track him. Barely contained feral energy and grief that had been honed to a fine edge. Sheathed until the moment it was useful and drawn like swift lightning. When he next dove in, she could feel it again. The way his movements were inviting attack. Not just feints meant to pull a careless foe into action, but movements so aggressive that it took active will for Anisa not to lash out in reflex. She would flip away only to have him move swiftly into yet another blind spot as if he was a living jump scare. But she had seen what he was after already. In order to fully commit, he needs the opponent to give him something to work with… or that was how he was approaching it for now. She knew him too well to think this was a mistake. She had seen herself how at his most effective, he his style was more suited to bars after a few too many drinks and an insult to someone’s mother.
Still, it gave her something to work with, “Well well, one little throw and Hemmingway starts to play the coward. I thought you were the baddest son of a bitch in space. What happened to not holding back?”
He said from behind his guard, “You say that while you stand there like a statue. Not a single survival instinct in your head. I could have taken your head clean off five times already.” She wasn’t sure how much of what he just said was a bluff. Shawn wasn’t beyond them to leave a mark on someone.
But instead he made Anisa reflect some and then slowly laugh. When she finally stopped herself she admitted, “You are right. I haven’t really been giving you the ass kicking I promised… but I’m starting to wonder if I even CAN kick your ass harder than you’ve already beaten yourself.” When his muscles tensed and she heard him grit his teeth, she knew she had hit the mark. He had already given his sob story, but her words landing meant something more than that. It meant that he knew. And in that moment of insight, she teased, “Then again, now that I’m thinking of it… I don’t have to beat your ass at all.” He seemed to soften his guard some in confusion, so she pressed the advantage, “I think you misread the room. I’m just hear to stop your stupid plan and bring you home. That means if you want to erase yourself, you are the one that has to beat me.”
A flash of rage in his eye was her only warning of what came next. He punched the roof beneath them, the tiles cracking and sending debris up into the air, the sky darkening for only a moment, as though there had been a passing thunderstorm. But within the shadow of that storm was something else. For only a flicker a familiar figure appeared at the edge of the roof, vanishing as swift as it arrived. Before she could process what he was doing, he had grabbed the bits of stone from the air and threw them with surprising force.
Anisa felt as each stone was driven home, her ribs cracking and her shoulders aching. He even landed a hit square on her knee that made standing on it ache. But her mind was elsewhere, looking past him to where that figure had appeared. It was only then that she realized where this roof was. “This is where Katsi almost-” She turned in surprise as she realized he had already circled behind her to capitalize on her lapse of focus. And yet the same breath of surprise that ceased her sentence was the same breath that Shawn himself seemed to realize she had seen more than he had intended her to. His stance snapped from an uppercut poised to take her head off back into his closed guard as he quickly retreated from the proximity.
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She could hear her heart in her ears and feel the ache from his attack… but more she couldn’t shake what she had seen, her tone shifting low as she spoke. “How did you know about that day?” She wasn’t asking. There was only one way he could have known and the way he pulled his guard tighter in response confirmed it again. She she continued to speak of it, to say for him that which he was clearly trying to hide. “So, that’s why Katsi had her little crush on you.” She could see the corner of his mouth twitch into a snarl despite his best attempt to hide it and it propelled her to push ahead, a soft smile appearing on her face as it all began to click. “She told me that she was sorry for even thinking about it. Came home in tears and crying into my hoodie for an hour, but you… You had gone up there to do the same damned thing, didn’t you?”
His fury exploded from behind his guard, the sky darkening again as he charged her. He tried to throw less committed punches, staying on his back foot as he tried to overwhelm her with a flurry meant only to stop her from talking. But even as it did, she saw it like a series of still frames. Shawn walking with slow purpose only to see the young Katsi at the edge and rushing to pull her away from the edge.
Despite the pain from his earlier attack, Anisa had no problem staying ahead of him. The benefit of formal training, she imagined. “So you did what you always do. You ran to her rescue and then sat with her. Talked her down and made her realize how precious her life was.” His teeth grit, fury and anger at hearing this coming to his face even as his scarred eye began to cry, not relenting in his flurry desperate to stop her from talking and driving her even harder to finish her thought. “That is the same crap that made you harass me for my smoking back then. You just couldn’t help yourself. Hate your life all you like, but that’s at least two lives you saved without hurting anyone.”
As Anisa sidestepped Shawn’s punch, she watched the impact send the door to the stairs down from the roof fly off its hinges… and instead of stairs she saw a place she didn’t know. It looked like an old cabin in the woods, but there was medical equipment scattered about. Shawn froze, a moment of hesitation and regret on his face. Realizing this was another space like what had happened to her at the arena, she recognized these as Shawn’s memories. A gallery of grief. One that she resolved to explore as she dove past him and through the doorway. He ran after her instinctually and before he knew it the doorway had vanished behind him. He cursed under his breath as Anisa began to sort through the tools on the table, the doorway vanishing behind him.
He growled with venom, “What the hell do you think you are doing, Ani?” His movements were tender, as though he was on holy ground, but his muscles were still coiled and ready to strike. His arms at his sides as he tried to pull his emotions in, as if a child insisting the fight had to be put on hold due to some low blow or unfair hold.
And yet Anisa walked around this cabin as though she had been invited as a house guest, opening the fridge to find what looked like foraged rations befitting a medieval society, even if some of the berries or cuts of meat looked unfamiliar to her. Her response was cold and firm, “Reminding you of what you are doing. What you have always done. The thing you pretend has never happens keeps happening. And I won’t let you pretend you don’t know better. So you can stop me or you can sit there and watch me. Either way, I’m not going anywhere.”
