Knockout (Gaslight spin-off)

6| First rule of fight club

As soon as I hang up, I sneak through the entrance in the hopes of avoiding drawing too much attention and briefly look around. I'd expected uneasiness after last night, but everyone is at their stations' training as normal; there's no sign of Hayden or Nico.

I'm about to slink toward a heavy bag when Coach's head swivels like a possessed Chucky doll. His long stare stops me dead in my tracks. After saying something to the boy beside him, he walks over and stops abruptly in front of me. "Detention again?"

"No, I joined Robotics club."

He glances at my reddened knuckle and says, "What's that from?"

"Fighting."

He doesn't say anything for a good few seconds, but he gives me that look that all dads have perfected – the slight furrow of the eyebrows, the downward tilt of the mouth – the look they pull out whenever they want to show their disappointment. The look of death.

"I have one rule," he says.

"No fighting outside of the gym," I finish. This isn't the first time I've heard this, either.

"That's strike two," he says.

I'm about to protest my innocence, but then I recall the incident just after I'd started here, where one of the younger boys taunted me for being unable to throw a hit. I'd let his comments simmer until I was ready to burst, and after my session, when I'd seen him outside, I punched him in the face. He didn't say a word to me after that, but the next day, Coach dressed me down so badly that the shame followed me around for weeks.

"One more, and you're out," he says. "I mean it, Masterson."

"Sir, yes, sir."

He cocks his head, unamused. "You've got an attitude problem."

"You sound like my mom."

"Your mom sounds like a smart woman. Don't mess up again."

With a ruffle of my head, Coach walks toward the ring to assist a boy stuck between the ropes. The tiniest lump starts to form in my throat. Knowing Coach is disappointed in me feels worse than when my parents are, and the anger taking shape in my stomach is not anger at him – it's at me.

For the next hour, I go to town on one of the heavy bags and pretend it's Danny's face. I get so lost in my music, in the rhythm of my gloves as they pound against leather, that at first, I don't notice everyone has stopped.

That's when I see Nico standing in the archway of the gym, with his gym bang casually slung over his shoulder. His gaze roams the gym, over the several hardened faces staring back, and settles on me. 

My heart pounds the way it had when I'd watched him defeat Hayden. He raises an eyebrow as a sign of acknowledgment before making his way to Coach. The others return to training again, but there is a shift in the atmosphere, a tension that hadn't been present before, and I realize I'd been right; something has changed. 

Turning back to the heavy bag, I force myself to focus. It works for a little while. I manage to burn off most of my anger before stopping to drink. Over in the corner, Nico and Coach are standing beside the ring, talking. Coach mutters something, Nico agrees, and the pair disappear into the office.

It's not long before Nico walks out. Eyes follow him again – including mine – as he heads toward a nearby heavy bag and removes the gloves from his neck. Carefully, he grabs some tape from the equipment box and begins to wrap his knuckles. There is a gracefulness to the way he does it, the white gauze light fluttering gently under the breeze of the aircon. He slips his gloves on, turns to the heavy bag opposite mine, and hits.