3. Lyrius
I felt him before I saw him, like my body had been waiting for us to exist in the same space again. The air in the room tightened, and my lungs suddenly forgot how to breathe. My eyes flew up to where he was standing.
“Dakota.” I whispered his name under my breath as my eyes scanned him like he was about to disappear.
He still towered over me with broad shoulders and tattoos that climbed his arms and disappeared underneath his T-shirt.
He looked older and harder than he did the last time I’d seen him and more relaxed than he did in the clips I’d seen on social media.
My eyes swept over him. He had a gun hanging in his right hand, his hand placed casually on the trigger.
“Dae-Dae.” I grabbed his backpack strap and yanked him back against me.
My arm wrapped across his chest instinctively, and my body shifted in front of him.
KO’s eyes snapped to us, like he was scanning for threats, like I was one.
His gaze hit my wet hair and shaking hands and then dropped to Dae-Dae’s.
For a split second, I almost blurted the secret I’d been holding on to.
I almost told him he was a father, that his son was standing right here, but I couldn’t.
Not right now, not like this. Not while his eyes shot daggers into me.
“You got a lot of nerve,” he said, and my throat tightened. I’d spent the last five years trying to imagine what he’d say to me if I ever showed back up around here. No amount of imagining could have prepared me for how cold he sounded.
“We just need shelter,” I said. The words came out fast, too fast. “The shelters are full. The roads are closed. I thought this place was abandoned.”
“And you picked here?” His jaw flexed, and the building shuddered. Dae-Dae flinched, and I tightened my grip.
“They told everybody to get to higher ground.”
KO looked past me down the stairs, then back at my face like he could see every lie or half-truth I’d ever told.
“And you chose my building?”
“I chose not to drown with my child in my car.” I snapped, then immediately regretted it. His grip tightened around the gun, like he was going to raise it and shoot me. But I knew he wouldn’t, not even after everything. He stepped forward, stopping just out of reach.
“Get out,” he said plainly.
“What?” My stomach dropped.
“Get out.” His voice sharpened, cutting straight through the storm. “You can’t shelter here.”
His words hit my chest like he’d shoved me in it, and the rejection stung. I stared at him, water dripping off my lashes, my hands shaking around my son’s little shoulders.
“Mom, do we have to walk again?” Dae-Dae asked as the wind slammed against the building. The stairwell shook and rattled me. There was no way I was taking my baby back outside in that storm.
“My baby is wet and cold,” I said, and my voice cracked in a way that pissed me off. “You want me to take him back out in this?”
His eyes flicked to my son again—our son—and something softened in them as he cursed under his breath. “I’ll take y’all.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I’ll take you and your son to a shelter.” The words sounded like they hurt him to say. “I was just heading out. My disdain is with you, not the kid. I’ll drop you off and—”
“But the shelters are full,” I cut in. He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly shut it. I could tell he was thinking, and that gave me a certain level of ease.
“We’ll drive until we find one.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the window beside me blew open, and the board ripped loose, causing glass to scatter across the floor.
“Get back!” KO barked, and my body moved before my mind did. I turned, grabbing Dae-Dae and pulling him into my arms. Cold rain slapped me across the back.
“Stay behind me.” He shoved me further back with one hand as he planted himself in front of us like a wall. He hated me, but he still moved to protect us.
“Okay.” I clutched my son tighter and backed into the stairwell corner.
KO dropped the gun at his waist and got to work covering the window.
I watched as he grabbed a board from the wall and slammed it over the broken window.
Wind pushed against him hard enough to make him brace his feet.
I couldn’t believe that the wind was already this strong.
This was just the outer bands. Hurricane Imani hadn’t even made landfall yet.
Both of our phones buzzed with a loud siren, and I knew what it meant without even looking.
Flood warning. I looked down through the broken space in the boards.
Sure enough, water was now covering the roads.
My stomach dropped as the realization hit that we weren’t making it anywhere.
I was going to be stuck here with KO. He slammed the board into place, and the hammer slipped.
“Fuck!” KO barked, jerking his hand back. A thin line of blood ran from his finger, not bad but enough to make me wince.
“Dakota—”
“Don’t,” he snapped, not even looking at me. “Get him upstairs. There are no windows up there.”
“But you—”
“Go, man,” he ordered just as another window down the hall shattered, making wind and rain tear through the lower level.
“Shit!” he cursed under his breath and grabbed another board. I started up the steps with Dae-Dae but hesitated halfway up. I walked away from him while he was bleeding once. I wasn’t doing that again. I turned back, sitting Dae-Dae down in the stairwell.
“Stay right here, baby. I’m going to go help,” I told him. “Do not move.” He nodded, and I stepped forward and grabbed the loose end of the board KO was fighting with. He shot me a look.
“I told you to get upstairs.”
“You needed help.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” I rushed out.
“You care?” He cut his eyes at me, and I blew out a deep breath. I’d seen too much of his blood for it to ever be nothing again.
“Yeah, I do,” I replied, taking another step forward.
He didn’t argue. He didn’t look at me. He just reached into his pocket, grabbed a nail, and handed it to me.
Our hands brushed for a quick second, and I could feel the last five years collapse between us.
Then his face tightened, and he looked at me like he hated me again.
“Hold it steady,” he muttered, and I tightened my grip on the board. He drove the first nail in harder than necessary and then another. Neither of us said anything, just kept moving.
“All done.” I could barely get words out before another window burst somewhere behind us, and glass flew everywhere as the wind screamed through the building.
“Upstairs,” he said finally. “Now!”
“What about the rest—”
“I’ll reinforce what I can,” he cut in. “Go get the kid somewhere safe.” He didn’t look at me when he said it.
He looked at Dae-Dae, who had peeked his head around the corner.
I knew he was the only reason he was giving me grace.
I grabbed my son and ran for the stairs.
Halfway up, I looked back. He was already boarding another window, rain hitting his back, shoulders flexing under the wet shirt.
“Go!” he called to us, and we started up the stairs again.
Dae-Dae’s arms looped around my neck as I climbed the stairs, one flight at a time.
My legs burned like I’d been running for hours.
I’d climbed these stairs multiple times in the past, back when coming to see him practice was the best part of my day.
When we finally reached the upper level, the space opened onto the training floor.
The boxing ring was still there. Same place.
Same ropes. My eyes scanned the room as I placed Dae-Dae on his feet.
Weight benches still lined the far wall where the heavy bags hung from the ceiling.
It looked different from what I remembered.
It was cleaner, more organized. But it was still the same place.
The same training facility where I used to cheer him on.
Where he’d grin at me between weights, and I’d giggle.
My chest tightened as I walked deeper into the space.
Pictures were hanging along the wall now.
Fight posters. Polaroids of him with raised belts and trophies, all serving as proof that he survived.
My eyes landed on one picture longer than the rest. It was of him lying in a hospital bed.
He was bruised and hooked to machines. Something twisted in my stomach.
I’d quietly followed the ambulance that night and stood behind a wall in the hospital hallway long enough to hear a doctor say he would live.
“Windows are reinforced. Back door is chained.” KO’s voice came from behind me, breaking me from my thoughts.
KO came up the stairs and moved past me without saying a word.
He reached for a small weather radio sitting on a shelf and flipped it on.
Static filled the room. Then the alert tone started screaming.
“Roads are impassable . . . Emergency services have pulled back . . . Shelters at capacity . . . Move to higher ground . . . Do not attempt travel . . .”
KO turned it off like he couldn’t stand hearing somebody else confirm what he already knew. He looked at his phone again, then at me. The room went quiet except for the wind rattling the boards downstairs. He checked his phone again, jaw tight, then looked at me.
“Looks like we stuck here.” His voice was flat.
“Looks like it,” I said quietly. The silence that followed stretched too long as KO made his way over to a locker that sat in the corner.
He pulled the wet shirt he had on over his head.
I shifted my weight and glanced around the room, pretending to take in the space again, anything that didn’t remind me whose building this was, whose life I’d walked out of.
I could feel him watching me, but not the way he used to.
This was different. My eyes caught his, and for a second, my brain forgot how to think.