Chapter 12
Twelve
Aria
There is no preamble, no circling. The echo of the clanging bell is still hanging in the hot, foul air when the Minotaur charges. It’s not a strategic advance; it’s a stampede. He crosses the canvas in three massive strides, his only strategy to crush what’s in front of him.
Cassian… Cassian is smoke.
He pivots on the ball of his foot, a fluid movement that seems impossibly fast. The Minotaur, committed to his forward momentum, plows past him and crashes into the ropes, which groan in protest. The giant roars in frustration, a wounded, bestial sound, and turns, his face already flushed with anger.
Cassian is already on the other side of the ring, light on his feet, his green eyes narrowed and analytical.
He is a matador, and the fight has just begun.
I try to disconnect, to become the scientist from the rooftop, observing a phenomenon from a safe distance; Fact: One man is larger. Fact: The other is faster. Fact: The crowd is a single, roaring entity, hungry for violence. I try to reduce it to data, to strip the emotion from it.
It’s impossible. The noise is too much, the heat is too much.
The raw, palpable desperation in the air is a poison I’m breathing in.
My knuckles are white where I grip the railing, the heavy leather of his jacket draped over my other arm a dead weight, its familiar scent a dizzying, intimate thing in this place that reeks of sweat and blood.
For the first few minutes, it’s a macabre ballet.
The Minotaur attacks, a flurry of wild, powerful haymakers that whistle through the air with enough force to kill.
Cassian evades. He ducks, he weaves, he slips away from the blows with an almost supernatural grace.
He hasn’t thrown a single punch. He’s just watching, learning, letting the beast tire itself out.
The crowd is getting restless, booing, hungry for contact.
“Fight, Wraith!” a man near me screams, his voice hoarse. “Stop dancing!”
Cassian seems to hear him, or perhaps he’s just finished his calculations.
As the Minotaur lunges again, Cassian doesn’t retreat.
He flows forward, inside the giant’s guard.
There’s a series of short, sharp sounds, like a butcher striking a side of beef.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Three lightning-fast punches to the Minotaur’s ribs.
They don’t look like much, not compared to the wild swings of his opponent, but the giant grunts, a pained exhalation of air, and falters for a half-second. It’s the first crack in his armor.
Cassian is gone again before the man can retaliate, circling, always circling.
My hands are slick with sweat. I feel sick, but also I feel…
electrified. It’s a horrifying combination.
A part of me, the part that still remembers being a person, is screaming in revulsion.
But another part, a new and terrifying part that Cassian has woken up, is utterly captivated.
The sheer, breathtaking skill of it, the intelligence, the control. He is the master of this chaos.
The Minotaur, enraged, finally gets lucky. He traps Cassian in a corner, cutting off his escape. He doesn’t throw a punch, he simply brings his massive arms together, catching Cassian in a brutal bear hug, lifting him off his feet.
A collective gasp ripples through the crowd.
Cassian’s face is inches from the giant’s, his body caught, his arms pinned. The Minotaur squeezes, a cruel grin spreading across his face. I can see the muscles in Cassian’s neck straining, the color draining from his face. He is trapped.
My breath catches in my throat. A cold, sharp, and utterly alien feeling lances through me. It’s not just fear, it’s a hot, possessive rage. It’s an involuntary, primal scream in my own mind. No. Let him go. Get your hands off him.
Just as I think I’m about to watch him be crushed, Cassian’s head snaps forward, delivering a vicious, desperate headbutt to the Minotaur’s nose.
There’s a sickening, wet crunch that is audible even over the roar of the crowd.
The giant screams, a high-pitched sound of pure agony, and his grip loosens.
Cassian drops to the canvas, landing on his feet like a cat. He stumbles back, creating space. He raises a hand to his mouth and spits a stream of blood onto the canvas.
He’s hurt.
The sight of his blood, dark and real under the white lights shatters the last of my detachment. He is not a concept, he is not a force of nature. He is flesh and bone, and he is bleeding.
Cassian looks up, and the change in him is terrifying.
The analytical calm in his eyes is gone.
It’s been replaced by something else, something flat, dead, and utterly merciless.
It’s the same emptiness I saw in his eyes at the bar, just before he threatened the drunk.
The switch has been flipped, the man is gone. The Wraith is here.
He stops evading.
He moves forward. The Minotaur, his nose a bloody ruin, throws a wild punch. Cassian ducks under it and drives his fist forward, not into the man’s face, but into his knee. The joint buckles with a sound like a branch snapping. The giant howls and stumbles, his leg giving way.
The fight is no longer a ballet. It’s a dissection.
Cassian moves with a brutal, terrifying efficiency.
He’s not trying to knock the man out. He’s taking him apart, piece by piece.
A sharp kick to the back of the other knee.
A series of precise, punishing blows to the ribs he’d targeted earlier.
An elbow to the side of the head that sends the giant staggering, his eyes glassy.
The crowd is a single, bloodthirsty beast, screaming for the kill. They are roaring his name. “Wraith! Wraith! Wraith!”
I am screaming with them, but my scream is silent, trapped in my throat.
I am no longer watching a fight, I am watching an execution.
It’s the most horrific thing I have ever seen, and it is beautiful.
The terrible, undeniable beauty of perfect control, of absolute power, of a creature so perfectly suited to its purpose.
He is a storm, a scalpel. He is the answer to the chaos that destroyed my life.
Cassian is not a victim of violence. He is the violence.
The Minotaur is on his knees now, barely conscious, his massive body trembling.
He is broken. Cassian stands over him, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths, his own face bruised, a cut bleeding freely over his eye, his blood mingling with his opponent’s.
The crowd is begging him to finish it. To deliver the final, devastating blow.
Cassian looks down at the broken man at his feet. He raises his fist. The crowd holds its breath.
Then, he lowers it.
The deadness in his eyes recedes. The man comes back. He looks at the pathetic, beaten figure, and there is something like pity in his gaze. He turns his back on the Minotaur and walks to the center of the ring, raising a hand not in triumph, but in a gesture that simply says, It is done.
The announcer rushes in, grabbing his hand and holding it high. “Your winner, and STILL the undefeated champion… THE WRAITH!”
The roar of the crowd is absolute, a physical force that shakes the entire warehouse, but Cassian doesn’t seem to hear it. He ignores the announcer, ignores the men trying to slap his back.
Cassian’s head comes up. His chest is heaving, his body is a canvas of bruises and blood. His green eyes, blazing with pain, adrenaline and exhaustion scan the crowd. They pass over the screaming faces, the grasping hands, searching.
Then they find me.
His gaze locks onto mine from across the cavernous space.
The roar of the crowd fades to a dull, distant hum.
The heat, the smell, the people—it all disappears.
There is only him, standing broken and victorious in the center of the ring, and me, standing in the shadows, holding his life in my hands.
He doesn’t smile he doesn’t gloat. He just looks at me, a raw, desperate, questioning look. His eyes are asking the real question. Not “Did I win?” but “Did you see? Did you finally see what I am? Are you still here?”
My heart is a wild, frantic drum against my ribs. My throat is raw from a scream I never uttered. I can’t speak, I can’t move. I can only stand there, caught in his gaze, the world spinning around me.
Slowly, almost involuntarily I give a single, tiny nod.
It’s an answer. It’s an admission. It’s a confession.
Yes. I see, and I’m still here.