Two nights after my shift with Grunt and my return to the yellow house on Seventeenth Street, Blalock drove me and Khajee down into New Cumberland. It’s a sleepy town on the banks of the Susquehanna, not far from Three Mile Island. For a long time, when people moved into the surrounding area, they were given potassium iodide capsules to take in the event of a nuclear accident, something to minimize radiation poisoning. That quick fix always seemed strange to me, a false comfort. Disaster strikes? Take a pill. Then everything will be all right.

I’d told Khajee she didn’t have to come to the fight with Santana, that I could handle myself. But after four days in the hospital, Than wasn’t showing any change, and according to Khajee, he’d have wanted her to be there. “Besides,” she told me, “I could use a good distraction.” Dr. Ngoyo had suggested that sometime soon, they might be looking to transfer him to a hospice. I thought this was a good sign, and said, “That’s great,” but then Khajee explained to me what I guess they explained to her, that hospice care is meant to ease your suffering. No one expects you to leave there alive.

Blalock steered along the quiet main street, where most of the shops were closed at this late hour. We passed an old theater that somebody had converted into a movie house. Out front, on the marquee where there should have been a title, red letters spelled out “For Sale. Great Potential.” To my surprise, we cut down the next alley and parked in the back, amidst a dozen expensive cars that by now were familiar. At the rear entrance, I greeted Grunt with a raised hand and he actually opened the door. If this was a sign of some respect or a sort of mocking gesture, I couldn’t tell.

Before leading us backstage, Blalock offered me a series of clichés, the kind of thing only guys who never fought would say like “Don’t forget how much effort you’ve put forth, how hard you’ve worked for this,” and “Give it your all.” Once he was gone, I said to Khajee, “I’m so glad he said that. Otherwise, I might not have tried.” When she laughed, I realized it had been a while since I’d heard that sweet sound.

The first match was between an unknown guy from Virginia and a jiujitsu artist Khajee had seen around. They were warming up on two-thirds of a mat rolled across the stage, where I suppose at some point people put on plays. Out in the audience, the crowd settled into their seats. Khajee and I were watching from offstage, behind these huge musty curtains. Across the way, on the far side of the mat, I saw Santana and Badder side by side. They were looking at me, and Badder made one of his warrior faces. I hooked my fingers inside my cheeks and puffed them out like a kid, stuck out my tongue and waggled it. Badder scowled and started forward, but Santana held him back. Again, Khajee laughed. “Come on,” she said. “They’ll start soon. You should change.”

“But I’m perfect just the way I am.”

My third-grade joke fell flat, maybe because we both knew how far it was from the truth.

We bumped around backstage, past a paper-mache spaceship, an enormous plywood rainbow, and some old-style garbage cans painted blue. Behind a grand piano covered in dust, we found a quiet corner, and I slipped off my sweatpants, exposing the gym shorts I was wearing beneath. I tugged my shirt over my head and began to stretch. The air was chilly.

“How you feel?” Khajee asked me.

“A little tight,” I said. “But ready.”

“Good,” she said. “Cause I’ll tell you this about Santana. He’s a damn dirty fighter. You’ve got to keep an eye on him.”

“Dirty how?” I asked.

She told me about a time, a few months back, when she’d seen him bend a guy’s fingers until they broke. Also, she warned me that if he was riding on top and could sneak a hand around to the chest, he might jab a finger into the nerve cluster just inside the rib cage. “As for his fingernails,” she said. “He keeps them sharp like that so he can scratch you or gouge your eyes.”

“Nasty,” I said.

“Nasty and quick,” Khajee said. “Santana’s even faster than Dominic. So listen. No games with this guy. Any way you can, get him down. Don’t stand toe-to-toe with him, don’t lock up. Stick and move, glide away.”

“I don’t glide so good, Boss.”

“Just stay out of his range until he gets frustrated, tries a spinning back fist or something fancy. Then shoot in, take out his legs, and bring him to the mat. That’s where you’ll have the advantage. Ground and pound.”

I twisted and felt my spine crackle. In the back of my head, I wondered if Khajee knew how Santana earned those scars crisscrossing his face, but it seemed an odd thing to ask. “When are you going to let me box?”

Khajee rolled her eyes. “When you face a wrestler. If you find yourself up against Badder, box all you want.”

I swung my arms in great loops, cracking my shoulders loose. Khajee trailed a finger along the dusty top of the piano. “That was Marco’s problem,” she said quietly, her voice little more than a hush. “He didn’t know the kind of fighter he was.”

I’d never heard this name before, and I gave it some thought before speaking. “Marco was Blalock’s last fighter,” I guessed.

Her finger came to a dead stop, and she nodded once, heavy.

“You trained him like me?”

“Pretty much.”

“And he stayed with you and your uncle.”

“He did. Same couch and everything. You get exactly one more question.”

This whole time, Khajee avoided eye contact. I wasn’t sure of the source of tension in the air, but I decided to take a stab at it. “You and this Marco guy, you were kind of … special friends?”

Khajee’s eyes flashed to mine, and her face looked incredulous. “Like I was his girlfriend or something?” She was smiling coyly. “I’ll tell you, Mac, you’re not so good at reading people, are you?”

“What?” I asked. “What am I missing?”

She shrugged and told me, “I don’t like boys like that. Do you understand?”

The truth dawned on me. “Oh,” I said. “Oh. Oh. Sure, right. Great. Yeah, I wasn’t up to speed on that. Sorry and all.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “Not like lesbians all wear a big sign or anything.”

I chuckled uncomfortably, not because it was funny but because it felt like I was trespassing suddenly. “Course not. So like, are you seeing anybody right now?”

She grinned a funny grin. “Nah. I broke a girl’s heart last summer. Or she broke mine. I guess both.”

She was quiet then, and I turned to the wall and started doing a little shadowboxing, in part to move us back to safer ground. But Khajee didn’t seem to feel awkward. She set a hand on my bare shoulder, causing me to pause. “I’m glad you know,” she told me.

“Me too,” I said, not sure how else to respond.

“You didn’t get mixed up with Sunday’s side work because you … thought there was something between us, did you? A couple times lately, you seemed —”

“No way,” I said, facing her as I fudged the truth a bit. “You’re my boss,” I said. “My coach and my friend. I’m glad to help.”

She seemed relieved by this, for a moment. Then she bit her lip and said, “But you shouldn’t keep doing this. Sunday is dangerous. He’s worse than crooked. He’s malevolent.”

I thought about this, then said, “Your SAT vocabulary’s impressive, but I think I’m pretty clear on who I’m dealing with.”

“I’m not kidding around,” she protested.

“Me neither,” I said. “And I’m not just doing it for you.” Long term, I still hoped for a payday to change Mom’s life, but for now, Than came to mind, the way he’d just taken me in without asking any questions, accepted me into his home. The guy fed me and sat with me for hours trying to share what he knew about fighting. “I haven’t known him long, but Than treated me good. Like a father really. I owe him.”

I fell quiet and felt heat rise across my neck.

Khajee said, “When you talk about your dad, you seem so angry.”

“I am angry,” I snapped. “Want to know something I never told anybody before? Sometimes during a match, when I’m pounding somebody good, I imagine it’s my old man. Some of those kids I hurt on purpose — not to get points, just to inflict pain — it was my father I was thinking about.”

Khajee considered this, didn’t take her eyes off me. “You realize how messed up that is, right?”

“Why do you think I haven’t told anybody?” Ms. Flintock, our school counselor, would crap herself with joy at details like this.

Khajee stepped closer, took my hand in both of hers. “I was mad at my father. My mother too. I was mad at them for leaving me alone, for dying.”

I turned to her.

“I know,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense. But I was a kid. For all his faults, Than helped me let go of that. You’ve got to let go too, Mac.”

Sunday’s voice came booming from the stage area, and soon the gong sounded with the now familiar opening. The first match was about to begin. I pulled my hand away and said, “We should get going.”

“Okay,” Khajee said, and we headed that way. We joined a small huddle of folks off to the side, right where we’d been before. Khajee fitted my gloves on and I slid off my sneakers, just so I was ready to go. Across the way, Santana and Badder hadn’t moved. Next to Khajee, some senior citizen in a Hawaiian shirt was applying tape to a kid’s shoulder. The kid had sideburns and a somber face. I took him to be Badder’s opponent. Khajee and I found a good spot to watch the opener from just behind a tripod camera. Since we were around people now, I realized I couldn’t ask a question that had cropped up in my mind. Where was Marco now?

The first match went long, like fifteen minutes. The two guys locked up and spent a lot of time trying foot sweeps as setups, basically kicking each other in the ankles and shins. They’d break, box a bit, then lock up again and go back to it. A handful of rowdy fans in the balcony began to boo, and finally, out of desperation, the shorter brawler tried a hip toss that failed miserably. The thing about wrestling is that every offensive move, if done poorly, exposes you in some way. In this case, after the kid missed his throw, he basically dropped facedown with his opponent riding him to the mat. After a lame attempt at a choke, the brawler on top turned and went to work on one of his legs. He folded it up, heel to butt, then wrapped it inside a double arm lock and cranked the leg back into his spine. It looked like he’d snap him in half. The kid on bottom howled and slammed the mat with both hands, signaling his submission. The fans suddenly were in love again. They applauded and cheered and cried out for more. In this case, more meant me and Santana.

After the mat was cleared, Sunday didn’t waste much time getting out there into the spotlight. He worked the crowd a bit, then swept a hand toward stage right, where Santana was waiting in the wings. He bellowed, “Bow your heads and put your hands together to welcome … the Saint!” Not one to miss his cue, Santana tore onto the stage executing his favorite kata, more choreography than fighting, but still, he was impressive. From his performances at the gym, I recalled the routine’s moves — the opening punch, the elbow strike, the leg sweep and front flip, all with the same battle cries. Maybe he thought he’d intimidate me, and Lord knows the audience ate that crap up, but I wished I had a scorecard from Dancing with the Stars so I could hold up a 6 and frown.

Khajee slipped in my mouth guard, retightened the Velcro straps on my gloves. Sunday waved an arm in my direction and yelled, “And fresh off the hottest debut in Brawlers’ history … the unpredictable Wild Child!”

I had no fancy entrance prepared, and I considered doing a moonwalk just to mock Santana. But I figured Sunday might not like it, and besides, I’d never tried it in my bare feet. So I plodded toward center stage without fanfare.

At the mat’s edge, Santana took a long draw from a blue water bottle, and I noticed he didn’t wear a mouth guard. Maybe he figured he wouldn’t get hit. Anyway, he joined me in the center, and accompanied by the gong, the audience cried out, “No mercy! Prepare! Brawl!”

Instead of a full-out assault though, Santana greeted me with a gesture I recognized. He held one hand flat like he was praying and set his other hand, locked in a fist, into that palm. Like this, he bowed at me deeply, showing respect. Caught off guard and not thinking, I echoed his movement. For this courtesy, I was rewarded with a whipping front kick right to my face, and I snapped back just in time to miss a follow-up spinning back fist, which slid within inches of my chin. Santana took an angular fighting stance and raised his eyebrows. Game on, I thought.

He orbited me, arms constantly windmilling, staying out of range. Every time I advanced, he retreated. I tried stepping side to side to cut off the mat, but he was too quick, and he just slid away. This went on long enough that the rowdy balcony bunch began to complain. Antsy from the previous bout’s absence of action, they wanted us to mix it up.

But Santana reacted in a way that shocked me. He stopped moving, stood totally still, and waved me in. This was a trick, I thought, but he adopted a standard wrestling pose and came slowly forward, arms extended and hands out. Cautiously I slid into the lock up, each of us dipping forward. Our heads rested on the other guy’s shoulder, one hand gripping a neck, the other cupped to a tricep. We tugged each other and I began to probe for my opening, which I could feel would come quick from this familiar position. Santana shoved his cheekbone into mine, nothing more than irritating but enough of a distraction that I shoved back. We were crouched low, eye to eye and nose to nose. He lifted his chin, pursed his lips, and I had the absurd thought that he was about to kiss me. One of my prophetic flashes rushed over me but made no sense, because all I saw was pitch black. How could the future be only darkness?

The next instant, something splashed across my eyes. A stinging burn forced me to wince, and I took a knee. I blinked back the tears and looked up, but my vision was engulfed in a sightless sea. Instinctively, I tapped my hands together in a T shape, signaling the ref that I needed an injury time-out, but all that came from the black void around me was a chuckle. Santana said, “You forget where you are? This is Brawlers, and there’s nobody here to save you.”

The first shot was a foot or a fist smashing my cheek with enough force that I dropped to all fours. In the next instant, something sharp and hard — an elbow? a knee? — ignited my ribs, and I rolled sideways. On my back, I tucked into my guard position, but I kind of played possum a bit, acting more hurt than I really was. I even moaned. I was hoping to lure him into attacking me on the mat. If he came down here, tried to get an arm bar or something, I could get hold of him. And once I had a good grip, even in the dark, I had no intention of letting go.

But Santana didn’t press his advantage. Instead of grappling on the ground, he circled me, swinging a foot into my arm, my thigh. All I felt were the impacts, and I just did my best to protect my head. This whole time, my vision didn’t clear at all, and I wondered what the hell he spit at me — lemon juice? Whatever it was, my world was nothing but darkness. In that blackness, I could sense the fear taking shape. It was right on the edge of the dark, eager to swarm in, consume me as it had my boyhood self. Knowing it was all in my head didn’t make it easier to keep it at bay.

Another blow to my head brought me back to reality. Somehow, maybe because I wasn’t tracking Santana’s movements as he took his cheap shots, the fans caught on to my predicament. Somebody yelled, “Hey! Wild Child can’t see!”

This brought a mixed reaction from the audience. There was scattered applause and a few whoops, I guess of excitement, but there were more than a handful of serious boos. Santana was losing the crowd. He stopped kicking at me, and I thought maybe there’d be an official break in the action. But then I remembered what Khajee had told me. Once a brawl began, it only stopped when one fighter submitted or was unable to continue. It occurred to me that in my state I might be disqualified, so I rolled my arms toward my chest and yelled, “Come on! Come get some!” just to let them know I still had fight in me. The crowd responded with a surge of clapping, and somebody called out, “Saint sucks! Can’t finish off a blind man?”

“Keeya!!!” cut through the crowd’s banter, and things got quiet. I realized that, angered by the crowd, Santana had decided to go for a kill stroke. He was going to focus his chi by executing his kata and finish me off. I was in the dark, helpless, and sure that childish dread wanted to flood my world with terror. My heartbeat sharpened. But also, on the fringe of that abyss, I thought of something Than told me — that sometimes you see things better in the dark. With this thought, I relaxed, focused, and a new future took shape.

I could hear Santana’s feet stomping the mat, then his screams of “Hu! Hu! Hu!” In my mind’s eye, I pictured him doing his kata, now retreating after the front kick and elbow blows. Moments later, I heard the silence that meant the foot sweep, and sure enough something cracked into my head, a worthwhile substitute I guess. Dazed and groggy, I managed to get to all fours, and I knew the finale that was coming — that front flip into a downward stomping kick. And I tried to gather myself, thinking if I timed it right I might explode upward, arms extended, and catch him in midair. But in that split second, the darkness surged, and doubt dragged me down, dragged me back — into the mothball closet, huddled in the corner listening to my mom cry out for help while I did nothing. While I did nothing.

Santana’s blow landed like the judgment of a just and angry God, and my head nearly came off. I collapsed, curled up on my knees with my forehead on the mat, and he began pounding my back and ribs — with elbows or knees I couldn’t tell, but it felt like my organs were being grinded. Somehow these blows mirrored the beating I imagined my mom took while I hid in safety.

I tried to calm myself and clear my mind, tried to think of Than and just breathe, but I couldn’t stop the images, couldn’t help but hear her wailing, and the pain of this was more than I could bear, worse by far than any beating. Right there on the mat, I began to weep, and I covered my face to hide that shame.

Maybe I thought about giving up, it’s true. Maybe I deserved to be hurt, and this punishment was my penance. But something else happened because of those tears. My vision came back to me. It was blurry, sure, but as I blinked I realized I was looking at a fuzzy Khajee, just off stage kneeling down, yelling, “Mac! You’ve got to get up! Get up!” Yet with the darkness dispelled, I was back in control and my mind had cleared, so I knew her advice was wrong.

Instead, I slumped down, flattened out, and even extended my right arm as bait. Santana saw his chance and halted his assault. Faced with a defeated opponent, I knew he’d gloat, and sure enough he stood over me, considering his next move, which I’d already planned for him. He couldn’t resist the arm bar, and when he leaned down and reached in, I was ready. I sprang to life and spun, snatching his hand and yanking him down. As he fell, I drove an elbow up to meet him, and it caught his jaw flush. It didn’t suck to hear that popping sound.

We traded places as his body collapsed to the mat and I rose to my feet, never releasing his arm. Lazily, he kicked up at me, and I decided to upgrade. I let go of his hand and snagged an ankle, tight in my grasp.

Santana flopped around like a fish on the rocks, desperate to get back to the creek. I worked my way down that leg and once I saw my opening, I dropped heavy and hard on his back. He let loose a “whumpf!” and I wrapped a thick arm around his waist. I had him now.

He reverse–head butted me, which stung my nose good but also got me focused. I needed to quit screwing around. Time for ground and pound.

With my left forearm, I pinned his neck to the mat, and with my right fist, I began to hammer on the back of his head. When he tucked his arm up to deflect my blows, I snuck in a few punches to his temple and cheekbone, nailing his ear a couple times too for good measure. At least, that’s what it felt like. My eyes were streaming tears, but my vision wasn’t totally clear.

Now that I’d taken the fight out of Santana, I shifted my chest so it rested on his head and dug my right arm under his neck, all the way through to the other side, so my radius pressed into the artery that runs under the ear. People think you choke somebody by squeezing their throat, and while that might hurt like hell, the throat’s for eating. You want somebody to go lights out, you need to cut off the blood supply to their brain. So with my right forearm in place, I scooped that fist with my left hand and began to tug. You don’t need to do it all at once. It can be slow, gradual, like an anaconda squeezing its prey. Patience is key with a chokehold, Khajee had helped me understand. And so I was patient.

Beneath me Santana bucked and fought. Following a standard defense, he tried getting purchase on my elbow to tug it off his neck, just release a little pressure, but my choke was set deep, and he knew he couldn’t last more than thirty seconds. In desperation he rocked back and forth, and I rolled with him, tumbling us sideways. From my back, with him splayed out on my belly, I actually had even better leverage, and now I could really apply pressure. I also hooked both his legs with mine, secured him tight. I was in total control.

Me and Shrimp used to mess around before practice with chokeholds, arm bars, other things we’d seen on MMA. Coach Gallaher had some judo training and showed us a few techniques after practice, just monkeying around with moves he warned us never to use in a real match. Mostly he used to always demonstrate on me, because I was the toughest SOB in the room. In my stubbornness, I refused to tap one time when he had me in a rear naked choke. It’s a crazy feeling, having your brain shut down like that. The edges of your vision go dark first, and then you have a tunnel you can see through. All the sounds of the world go quiet, and you can only hear your heart. Then the tunnel begins to narrow until there’s just a pinpoint of light, and when it goes out, you’re gone. The party’s over.

I could tell Santana was close. He’d stopped flailing and I expected at any second to feel his tap out. I was surprised when he twitched with a last surge of energy, made one last grab at my elbow with both his hands. He didn’t really weaken the choke, but he did manage to make enough space so he could turn his head, tuck his chin down into the crook of my right elbow. I was impressed but hardly concerned. I just had to work the radius back to position, return pressure to that vein, and finish him off.

Santana had other plans.

He sank his teeth into the fleshiest part of my forearm. I heard myself scream and head-butted him from behind, tugged even tighter on the chokehold. But because I wasn’t on the right part of his neck anymore, it didn’t have the effect I was looking for. He didn’t let up. Indeed, I could tell my yell had given him some hope, and he ground his teeth hard on my muscle. Because of how we were positioned, the crowd could see what he was doing. I shouldn’t have been surprised when this schoolyard tactic was met with thunderous applause.

It took every bit of willpower I could muster to not release my grip. Above us, the stage lights were clear now, and I could see the hazy shape of his head, my bicep. Was that blood trickling down it? I couldn’t be sure.

Just offstage, I could hear Badder hollering, “That’s the way! Chew your way to the bone!”

The pain was rising, like a white-hot knife. And damn I needed to wipe the cleansing tears flooding my eyes. But they were clearing out whatever crap Santana had spit. I flung my head around, found the outlines of the group watching from the other side of the stage. There, in the front, the small shape that could only be Khajee. I spit my mouth guard clear and yelled, “Son of a bitch is biting me!”

Khajee’s voice was calm and quiet, yet it pierced the crowd and reached me with crystal clarity. “Bite him back.”

I blinked away the tears, rubbed my eyes into my shoulder the best I could without losing the grip, and tried to focus my vision. Though it was still a bit hazy, I could see the side of Santana’s head now — and there, right in front of my mouth like a prize — was his ear.

I snapped down hard and fast, taking in about half that curvy flesh. Like an animal, I chomped and I gnawed, and I could feel my top and bottom teeth nearly meeting. While holding Santana’s head fast in the remnants of my choke, I yanked my face away, still gripping his ear. A chunk of it came with me, a meaty little oyster in my mouth. I turned toward the sound of the cheering crowd and spit it in their direction as tribute. They roared.

Santana let loose a sound I’d never heard before, something between a painful banshee wail and a defeated battle cry. His hands were slapping the mat, my arm, everything, but I held on to him for another few seconds, just to display his helplessness and be sure everyone watching was clear that he’d surrendered, that I, Wild Child, was in control.

When I did release him, he slumped away off the mat. I could see colors now but not faces. I rose and rubbed at my bicep, came away with a thick swab of blood from where he’d bitten me. With my other, I wiped my face and again found more blood, though this was my enemy’s. I could taste it on my lips. I lifted my arms over my head, both palms bloody as if I’d been crucified, and I screamed to the cheering mob, “Who’s next?! Who else you got for me, Sunday! Who? Who?”

I bathed in their applause, and I heard a few folks holler out “Badder! Badder!” One voice from the balcony cried, “Badder versus Wild Child!” I thumped my fists into my sweaty chest, whipping the congregation into a fury. And maybe I’d have stayed there longer, drinking in their adoration, but Khajee appeared at my side, touching one elbow gently. “Mac,” she said, “let’s take care of your eyes.”

She led me backstage, and unknown hands slapped my shoulders in admiration. Unknown voices congratulated me. In a bathroom she had me bend into the sink and ran the faucet, splashed water over my face. It was cool and cleansing, and I dropped to my knees and cupped my hands, doused my eyes until I was no longer blinded. My vision fully restored, I looked up at Khajee and said, “So tell me again why you think he’s a dirty fighter?”

She laughed and Blalock pushed in through the door. “Edward!” he said, hands raised. “Most impressive exhibition!” He swooped in as I rose and embraced me in an awkward hug. “This is an occasion for celebration! Santana was sixteen and three, and your victory was decisive.”

Khajee added, “Also kind of gross, you know?”

I told them both, “I didn’t have many options.” I considered making a tasted like chicken joke, but decided against it.

“Well the fans adore you. Badder’s contest is about to commence. I’ll secure an audience with Sunday. We need to have a constructive dialogue about how best to proceed.”

“Just get our money,” I said, and he left us.

After I slid back into my T-shirt, Khajee and I roamed through the labyrinth until we found the stage, where the main event was well under way. Badder and his opponent were trading playful jabs, bobbing and weaving, dropping head feints. We went out onto the floor with the crowd, standing off to the side. A few folks saw me and there was a bit of a commotion as those nearby applauded and chanted “Wild Child! Wild Child!”

“More like a brat!” came from the stage, and when I looked, Badder was staring our way. He was ticked that I’d distracted his audience, but he was the one who should’ve worried about distraction. His opponent executed a textbook front snap kick, planting all his weight on his left leg and extending his right, driving that foot into the side of Badder’s turned head. It’s the kind of blow that’ll typically knock a guy out, maybe even cause a concussion. Badder took a half step back.

He turned away from me, stone-faced, and I saw his opponent’s eyes go wide. Badder charged like a bull, wild and blind — something I took note of — and his opponent retreated, circling backward and to the side. When he stumbled, Badder collapsed on him, unleashing a flurry of elbows and hammer fists to his face. The guy was taking a beating, and taking it badly. This went on for a minute, and Badder only stopped because he was sucking wind. He spat into his opponent’s bludgeoned face, raised a victorious fist, and contorted his expression at the crowd and me, tongue lolling, eyes crazed. I figured the match was over, but Badder had other ideas.

He bent down and hoisted up his opponent’s limp body, cradling him like some gigantic sleeping baby. The guy must’ve gone 250, and deadweight is damn hard to lift, but Badder strode across the stage like he was carrying a bag of groceries. That old guy in the Hawaiian shirt, a trainer, a manager, ran out to block him, and Badder swung up a front kick that dropped him too. Once the path was clear, he made his way right to the edge of the stage, standing above me not five feet away. I pulled Khajee behind me but didn’t retreat.

Without saying a word, Badder shifted his grip and pressed the other brawler’s body up over his head. I’d seen muscle boys before, various impressive feats of strength, but this stunned me, nailed my feet to the ground. Badder’s arms trembled at the strain, but he managed to take one huge step forward and heave his cargo in my direction.

The defeated brawler’s body landed on my feet with a crash, and I tumbled into Khajee. As I scrambled to get up, Badder leapt down and drove into me. He slammed my back into a wall, and I banged my open palms together like cymbals on both his ears. That tends to get a guy’s attention, and Badder was no exception. He staggered back, shaking his head and getting his bearings. All around us the crowd scattered. Even Khajee bolted for cover. Badder and I squared off, but then a huge shape stepped into the space between us, dark and blocky. It was Grunt, who crossed his arms and eyed us each in turn.

Above us on the edge of the stage, not far behind him, Mr. Sunday appeared, looming. “At ease, gents,” he calmly ordered. Sunday waved one of the cameramen to get in position in front of him, and then he addressed the lens and the theater crowd simultaneously. “We’ve just witnessed some savage brawls, and I know you’d like to see these guys tear each other apart. Well, I’m a man of the people, and I’ll give the people what they want!” This announcement was met with enthusiastic cheers, fists pumping the air. Sunday glanced at Badder, then me, grinning, before going on. “I’m hereby setting a championship match for three nights from now. Then we’ll see who brawls supreme.”

As the applause rose, he nodded at the cameraman, who lowered his lens. The crowd around us shuffled away, and Sunday descended the stage stairs. Grunt stepped out from between me and Badder, and Sunday took his place. He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Badder, drawing us together. “You boys both made me proud tonight, and you’ll be rewarded.” Badder kept scowling at me, and I was ready for him to make a move. In a lower, nontheatrical voice, Sunday continued, “Come Monday, you can kill each other, but you’ll do it in front of a new paying audience, understand? Hands off till then. For now, this show’s officially over.”

Sunday swooped one arm around Badder’s neck, maybe holding him back, and the two of them turned away from me and walked toward the door that led backstage, trailed by Grunt. Sunday was still talking to Badder, but I could no longer hear him.

I looked around and found Khajee on the ground behind me. She was kneeling over Badder’s opponent, who I’d forgotten about completely. His face was pulverized, with blood oozing from his lips and nose, and an open wound around one eye. Across from Khajee, the guy in the Hawaiian shirt was cradling the brawler’s limp head. “Oh, son,” he said. “What did they do to you?” I realized then how much the two of them looked alike. And this bothered me more than anything else.