Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Marcus' POV
The smell of bleach and blood never really leaves the halls of King’s Dominion.

It clings to the air like the weight of unspoken threats, soaked into the cracked tiles and leather gloves, into the bones of every kid still pretending they’re going to make it out of here. You just stop noticing after a while—like the constant buzz of flies over the dumpsters behind the kitchens, or the way the security cameras always hum louder when you’re thinking about doing something stupid.

First day back, and someone’s already dead.

Freshman. Buzz cut. Probably tried to show off in Poison Lab. Drank his own concoction like a shot of vodka and dropped in convulsions ten seconds later. That, or someone helped it along. No one’s talking. But the smile on Brandy Lynn’s face during breakfast was a little too wide. Her lipstick didn’t smudge even when she bit into her toast.

Marcus watched the cleanup crew drag the body out with zero ceremony. New semester. New body count. Welcome back.

He’s leaning against the cracked wall outside Combat Theory, flipping a butterfly knife between his fingers, listening to the click-click-click of the blade echo through the hallway. He’s not supposed to have it yet—confiscated weapons are stored until inspection’s over—but rules have always been more like suggestions here, especially when you know the right corners to bribe.

Lin’s voice cuts through the intercom, grainy and formal as ever.

“Welcome, students. A reminder: violations of the Code will be met with equal or greater consequence. Attendance in Combat, Stealth, and Poison Theory is not optional. Failure to meet standards in any of these areas will result in immediate reassignment or removal. Welcome back to King’s Dominion.”

The line clicks dead.

"Reassignment" meaning execution. "Removal" meaning something slower.

Marcus snorts to himself. It’s all so dramatic. Like anyone here needs the reminder. They either got the message already, or they’re rotting in the pit.

His hand spins the blade again—loose grip, muscle memory, years of street survival turned into party tricks. He doesn’t notice the girl walking up until she’s standing in his shadow.

“You’re going to drop that and stab yourself in the thigh.”

The voice is crisp. Female. Controlled. Every syllable polished to perfection, like she’s got a dagger hidden in her tongue and enjoys the taste of blood.

Marcus glances up lazily.

Catherine Elliot.

Of course.

The name alone carries weight here, and not just because of the body count she’s built. It’s the way she moves—measured, merciless. Her uniform is tailored, her boots shine like they were polished with someone’s tears, and her posture screams old-money-trained-killer. The silver-on-black pin on her blazer’s lapel? A custom insignia. No club name, just a single crimson fang on a matte crest.

Rumor says she turned down the top three elite clubs before creating her own. Rumor also says she once stabbed a faculty member with a pencil in her second week and got away with it because Lin “approved the initiative.”

Rumors are all anyone has in this place. That, and blood.

Marcus raises an eyebrow. “Are you judging my knife tricks or just looking for an excuse to talk to me?”

Catherine doesn't blink. “Just don't want your blood on my shoes. Leather doesn’t clean easily.”

A few heads nearby turn at the sound of her voice. Everyone knows better than to intervene when Catherine Elliot engages—watching from a safe distance is practically a sport. Someone snickers quietly, and Marcus feels the familiar itch crawl up his spine.

He gives her his trademark smirk, lazy and biting. “Sweet. That your way of flirting? Gonna knock me off the top bunk and call it foreplay?”

She looks him over like he’s something beneath her shoe. “If that was flirting, you’d be on your knees by now.”

Another snicker, louder this time. He recognizes it—Willie’s voice, low and warning. This is Catherine Elliot. You don’t win these conversations. You just survive them.

Marcus flips the knife again, slower now. “You know, I always wondered what the school golden child did when no one’s watching. Guess it’s slumming with charity cases.”

There it is—a flicker of something behind her eyes. Not quite anger. Not quite offense. Annoyance, maybe. Or recognition. It vanishes just as fast.

“You mistake pity for charity,” she says. “You're not here because you're talented. You're here because Lin likes projects. And you’re his latest fixer-upper.”

He’s used to insults. Used to getting under people’s skin. But there’s something about the calm way she delivers that line—like it’s a fact she’s already filed away in his obituary—that makes his fingers still on the blade.

Catherine turns before he can reply, her hair brushing the collar of her uniform as she walks away. Smooth, calculated steps. Not a single glance back.

It’s a power move. It works.

The hallway buzzes again, murmurs and shifting glances, and Marcus feels heat rise behind his eyes. Not anger. Not really.

Just something else.

Fascination maybe. Or the early stages of a migraine.

“Let her think she’s untouchable,” he mutters under his breath. “Everyone bleeds eventually.”

He watches her disappear around the corner, and for a second, he wonders what her blood would look like on the floor. Then he wonders what hers would look like on him.

He doesn’t like either image. But he can’t shake them.

Chapter Text

Catherine's POV

Catherine Elliot believed in precision.

Not just in knives—though she could sharpen one blindfolded and slit a throat with barely a flick of her wrist—but in everything. Words. Posture. The exact angle at which to tilt her chin so people knew not to approach. She’d spent years perfecting the details that kept others at a distance.

Fear was easier to manage than friendship. Respect is more reliable than loyalty.

She walks the halls of King’s Dominion like a scalpel—clean, cold, designed for damage.

Beneath her boots, the marble tiles echo like a heartbeat. Everything in the school pulses with threat: the glint of hidden blades, the low hiss of whispered schemes, the acidic stink of poison on someone’s breath.

She feels it all. Catalogs it. Controls it.

So she should be able to ignore Marcus Lopez.

And yet.

She keeps hearing his laugh—sarcastic, dry, the kind of sound that makes you want to sharpen a bone into a shiv just to shut him up.

Catherine turns the corner and slips into the upper combat gym, already half-full with students pairing off for warmups. She doesn’t look at anyone. She doesn’t need to. They all step aside anyway.

Even the elite clubs give her a wide berth. Good. It keeps things clean.

She chooses the far mat and begins her stretches—precise movements, spine straight, fingers perfectly aligned. She counts in her head. Five seconds per limb. No wasted effort. That’s what stepmother drilled into her when she was ten and limping through footwork drills with a split lip.

“Grace matters, Catherine. Even when you bleed.”

The voice ghosts through her memory, unwelcome. She pushes it down.

She’s halfway through a reverse pivot when someone drops into a squat beside her without asking.

Of course it’s Marcus.

His uniform is slightly wrinkled, his tie loose. There’s a split along his right sleeve, probably from a hallway scuffle he thought was clever. His eyes are too sharp for someone who doesn’t know how to shut up.

Catherine doesn’t break rhythm. “I didn’t realize this was an open mat.”

He stretches one arm behind his back, grimacing. “Figured I’d warm up near the sharpest object in the room.”

She flicks a glance his way. “If you’re trying to flirt again, I’d recommend not leading with weapons metaphors. It’s cliché.”

“Oh, so you did take it as flirting,” he says, grin widening like it’s some kind of victory.

She stares at him.

A second too long.

He holds eye contact.

Something tightens in her ribs, but she masks it with a perfectly neutral smile. The kind that means I’ve already imagined six ways to kill you before breakfast.

Marcus, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. But he does watch her more carefully now—like he’s trying to solve a riddle no one else is aware exists.

She wonders how much he actually knows. About her. About the rumors. About the truth.

“Have you ever watched someone die when you’re five years old?”

That voice again. Not her stepmother’s this time. Her own. The echo of it from years ago, curled beneath the stairwell with a broken doll and blood on her hands. Her mother’s perfume still lingering in the air, sickly sweet and wrong.

Catherine blinks, and the memory folds itself back into the corner where it belongs.

Focus.

Lin enters the room a moment later, and the buzz of chatter dies instantly. He surveys them all with that calm intensity that always feels like he’s already decided who lives and who dies this semester.

“Pair off. Five-minute drills. I want combat precision, not brawling. Fail to block, you bleed. You bleed too much, you’re dismissed.”

Catherine stands and ties her hair back.

Marcus rises, rolling his shoulders. “Guess that makes us a team.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says, stepping onto the mat. “I just like having a clear line of sight when I hit something.”

He snorts. “You’ve got a charming way with people. Really puts the ‘ass’ in assassin.”

She lunges without warning.

He dodges—barely—but she follows through with a sweep that knocks his leg out from under him. He hits the mat hard, breath knocked from his lungs, but he’s up again fast. Sloppy, but fast.

Their next exchange is cleaner. Punches blocked, counters landing. He’s agile, unpredictable. She’s faster. Smarter.

Still, he’s not bad.

They circle, fists half-raised, breath coming faster.

For a split second, Catherine feels something she doesn’t expect: adrenaline that isn’t tied to control.

Excitement.

This idiot actually makes her work for it.

She catches him across the ribs with a low hook. He grunts, sidesteps, and feints a hit that almost lands against her cheek.

Almost.

She twists, pivots, and sweeps his legs again—this time pinning him with her knee on his chest.

His breath comes out in a winded laugh. “Are you always this friendly?”

“Only when I like someone,” she deadpans.

Their eyes meet again.

Something passes between them—not quite understanding, not attraction, not yet—but a flicker of mutual interest. A truce drawn in bruises.

She lets him up, deliberately slow, and turns before he can speak.

Lin’s voice interrupts over the intercom.

“Field assignments will be announced this evening. All students are expected to comply without complaint.”

Catherine freezes.

Assignments already?

She doesn’t like unpredictability. Especially not in group work. Especially not if she ends up with—

No.

No way Lin would be that cruel.

Right?

She doesn’t look at Marcus as she leaves the room.

But she feels his eyes follow her the whole way out.

Chapter Text

Marcus’ POV

Marcus should’ve known better than to think Lin was bluffing.

He’s read enough of the man’s files—slipped into his office more than once, dug through old records for the hell of it. Lin doesn’t bluff. He moves pieces until you’re exactly where he wants you. And Marcus?

He’s apparently about to spend the night in a stolen sedan with Catherine goddamn Elliot.

Their assignment packet is thin: single target. Extraction complete. Clean-up crew failed to retrieve the body. They’re the second wave. A mop-up job.

Simple, Lin said.

Which is why Catherine is already pissed off.

“This is beneath me,” she mutters as she slams the passenger door shut, legs crossed, expression locked in full “this is a waste of my time" mode.

Marcus shrugs and turns the key in the ignition. The car—an ancient Chrysler with bloodstains under the floor mat—rattles to life. “Aw, come on. Think of it as community service.”

She doesn’t dignify him with a response. Just pulls out a pair of leather gloves and starts wiping down her combat knife like it’s a nervous tic.

He watches her from the corner of his eye as they speed down I-880, Oakland’s city lights bleeding orange and red through the windshield.

“So,” he says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “What club do I have to sell my soul to for gloves like that? Or do they hand them out with your daddy’s kill count?”

Catherine turns her head slowly. Her look could peel paint. “You’re very eager to die, Marcus. Is that what this is? A slow suicide?”

He smirks. “I’m just trying to make conversation. You’re the one turning it into a eulogy.”

“I don’t waste time on corpses.”

Cold.

It’s not even the words. It’s the way she says them—like it’s not even meant to be mean. Just… fact.

He wonders what her voice would sound like if she was angry.

They don’t speak again until they reach the warehouse.

~~~

The body is already starting to stink.

Middle-aged man. Navy suit. Gunshot wound to the head, execution-style. Throat sliced open for good measure. No wallet. No ID. Just a keycard to a hotel and a small vial of clear liquid clutched in his hand.

Marcus crouches beside the corpse and waves a hand in front of the guy’s face like he’s expecting a last breath. “Damn. You think we should at least pretend to give a shit?”

Catherine is scanning the perimeter, not even glancing at the body. “No.”

“You ever crack a joke?” he asks, standing up.

“I did once,” she says. “The body count was three by the end of it.”

He huffed a laugh. “Jesus.”

“Don’t invoke names you don’t believe in.”

He turns and looks at her. Really looks this time. Her stance is perfect—like someone taught her with rulers and bruises. Her face is unreadable. Masked. Not emotionless, but honed.

And for just a second, he wonders what it costs to be that precise.

Then he catches the look she’s giving him.

“What?”

“You’re staring.”

He shrugs. “Just wondering what happens when the ice cracks.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Everyone cracks eventually.”

“Then they’re weak.”

He almost says That’s not true. Almost.

Instead, he turns back to the body and mutters, “Hope you like lifting dead weight.”

~~~

They get the guy in the trunk with a lot of grunt work and not a lot of cooperation. Catherine insists on keeping the limbs intact—"if it leaks, Lin notices"—and Marcus doesn’t argue. Not because she’s right (she is), but because he doesn’t want to admit she knows this better than he does.

She moves like someone who’s done this a dozen times. He’s only cleaned up his messes. Not someone else’s.

By the time they reach the quarry, the body’s leaking out the corner of the trash bag. Catherine glares at it like it’s personally offended her.

Marcus kicks the trunk closed and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Are we burying or burning?”

“Burn. Faster.”

He grabs the gas canister from the trunk’s false bottom while she arranges the body in a neat position—arms crossed, eyes closed. Not out of respect. Out of habit.

She’s done this a lot.

He doesn’t say anything until the fire starts. The flames spit and hiss, devouring fabric and flesh in uneven bursts.

They stand in silence.

Orange flickers off her cheekbones, casting long shadows over her face.

Marcus glances sideways. “You ever think about the people we’re torching?”

Catherine doesn’t even blink. “Thinking gets you killed.”

“Cold.”

“Smart.”

He waits a beat.

Then, quietly: “You always like this?”

This time, there’s a pause.

Her jaw tightens, just slightly. A long silence stretches between them, and for a moment he thinks she won’t answer.

Then-

“My stepmother used to say kindness was the slowest form of suicide.”
“And she was rarely wrong.”

She turns away from the flames.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

The target’s house is painted the color of dry blood.

Not the glossy red of warning signs or the cheerful crimson of fresh roses. No, this red is old. Weathered. Rusted and dried into the boards like something rotting underneath. A dying thing pretending to be a home.

Catherine studies it from the rooftop across the street, crouched low in the shadows. One knee pressed tight to the rough shingles, the other propped just enough to keep her stance loose. Balanced. Ready to move.

The house looks like it’s trying to shrink into itself. Narrow. Two stories. Wedged between a liquor store with bulletproof glass and an abandoned laundromat that’s more rats than floor at this point. Its shutters hang at odd angles, wood warped from rain and neglect. A gutter dangles like a broken limb, twitching in the wind.

But it’s the door that sticks in her brain.

Peeling. Warped. Red.

A cracked, veiny red that makes her think of scabs. Of blood caked into floorboards. Of the way dried wine looks when it’s been left too long in a glass someone abandoned in the middle of a screaming match.

She hates it.

Not the sight—she’s seen worse. Lived worse. But the feeling it gives her. It’s like a cold weight pressing between her ribs. Something wired wrong. Electric and sharp and ancient.

Her skin itches, even under the gloves.

Something is off.

She presses the binoculars tighter to her face, forcing her breathing to even out. The mission’s simple: observe. The target is a black-market tech broker selling off stolen government intel—military schematics, surveillance bypasses, AI prototypes. A buyer is expected tonight. Catherine and Marcus aren’t here to take him out.

Just recon.

Clean. Quiet. Efficient.

The kind of mission she should be perfect at.

But of course, Marcus is with her.

So naturally, it’s going sideways.

“You ever think about how fucked it is that some people choose to live like this?” His voice cuts through the night, low and drawling, like he’s commenting on a new café instead of surveilling a federal traitor.

He’s sprawled out beside her on the roof like it’s a damn picnic. Hands behind his head. One leg crossed over the other. Relaxed in the way only someone deeply broken or deeply reckless could be.

Catherine doesn’t look at him. “Shut up.”

“I mean, come on. That fence? It’s made of shopping carts. And one of them still has a fucking baby seat in it. I don’t know whether to be depressed or impressed.”

“Shut. Up.”

He’s unfazed. “And the porch cryptid hasn’t moved in like forty minutes. That’s either drugs or death. Either way, ten bucks says it smells like piss and broken dreams under there.”

She lowers the binoculars long enough to glare at him. “Say one more word and I swear to God I will stab you in the throat and frame the corpse as part of the intel ring.”

Marcus flashes a grin. “Now that’s the spirit.”

She rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch. Just a flicker. Just enough to betray that he’s almost gotten to her.

Almost.

The truth is, Marcus’s bullshit is like white noise—annoying, ever-present, but oddly comforting in its consistency. He doesn’t know when to shut up, but sometimes that helps. Sometimes his relentless commentary is the only thing that keeps her from spinning into darker places.

And then—

A porch light flicks on.

The shift in her body is immediate. Controlled. Predatory. She raises the binoculars again, adjusting the focus in two practiced clicks.

Target acquired.

A man in a fitted gray suit steps onto the porch, moving with the crisp precision of someone who’s lived by a schedule their whole life. Clean shave. Neatly combed hair. A faint scar on his cheek that catches the light. Catherine watches him check his watch, shift his stance.

Military. Definitely. Maybe ex-CIA. His posture screams years of discipline he never learned to shake.

Another figure emerges behind him.

Shorter. Hooded. Carrying a briefcase like it weighs more than it should. No visible weapon, but that doesn’t mean much. Catherine clocks the way they move—tight, deliberate. Balanced on the balls of their feet.

They meet halfway down the steps.

No handshake. No words at first. Then, just a phrase, muttered under breath.

“Enjoy the flight.”

She memorizes it.

Catherine doesn’t write things down. Doesn’t need to. Her brain is a filing cabinet locked in steel and barbed wire. She files the phrase next to the license plate of the black sedan idling two houses down. The tattoo on the target’s inner wrist—three vertical lines, like claw marks or tally marks. And the way his right hand hovered near his belt, just above the hip.

Gun? Taser? Backup comm?

She catalogues it all.

Beside her, Marcus has finally sat up, watching with a focused frown.

“Briefcase has to be data,” he mutters. “Cash would’ve gotten him gutted by now.”

“He’s not that stupid,” Catherine agrees. “Not in this zip code.”

They fall quiet.

Watching. Memorizing.

And Catherine does what she always does—compartmentalizes. She splits her brain into grids. Keeps the physical separate from the emotional. The past from the present. The job from the blood still drying on her boots from two weeks ago.

But tonight—something cracks.

She doesn’t realize her hands are clenched until the porch light flicks off again.

And then, too late, she feels it: her nails digging into her palms, enough to pierce the skin.

The moment stretches.

Because something’s wrong. Not with the scene, but inside her.

It’s the porch. The sound the boards made under his shoes. The way the light flickered just before it died. The smell of mildew in the breeze, or maybe just the idea of it.

And suddenly she’s not on a rooftop anymore.

She’s under a bed.

Eight years old. Knees pulled to her chest. Shaking so hard her teeth ache. There’s blood in her mouth from biting her tongue to stay silent.

The door crashes open.

Boots. Heavy. Loud.

A woman’s perfume—jasmine and something sharp. It slaps her across the face before the hand does.

Then nails in her hair. Fingers like iron. A voice dripping poison.

“Stop crying, you little freak. You think they’ll go easy on you just because your mother’s dead?”

Catherine jerks, barely suppressing a gasp.

The binoculars slip from her fingers, landing on her thigh.

Her breath shortens.

The memory is too real. Too loud. It’s wrapped around her like a noose, and she can’t claw free. Her lungs won’t expand. Her brain won’t switch back. Everything is then—not now.

Marcus notices before she speaks.

He doesn’t joke this time.

“Hey.” His voice is low. Careful. “You good?”

She doesn’t answer.

Can’t.

Her heart’s a jackhammer against bone. Her vision is pulsing at the edges. Her muscles are clenched like she’s bracing for impact.

Marcus shifts beside her. Doesn’t touch her. Doesn’t crowd. Just enough movement to let her know he’s watching.

The silence stretches.

“You’re pale,” he says eventually, softer than she’s ever heard. “You need to sit down?”

Catherine turns toward him like she’s waking from a dream—or a nightmare. The look on her face is wrong. Not sharp. Not calculated.

Raw.

“I said I’m fine,” she snaps.

It’s too loud. Too harsh. It cuts through the night like glass breaking.

But it snaps the moment in half. She forces her shoulders back, straightens her spine, inhales through her nose and locks her expression into place.

Mask on.

Just like always.

Marcus raises his hands in mock surrender. “Alright. Damn. Just saying. You weren’t fine. For like—longer than you think.”

“I was distracted.”

“By what? A ghost?”

She doesn’t answer.

Just stares.

He watches her with that infuriatingly perceptive gaze of his. The one that sees more than it should. More than she wants anyone to.

And he doesn’t say anything else. He just sits there, letting her feel the weight of his silence.

It’s almost worse than if he’d pushed.

The porch stays dark.

The target’s gone. The deal is over.

Mission accomplished.

But Catherine is still frozen in that moment. In that house. On that floor. Back pressed to cold wood. Breath held. Counting the seconds between her stepmother’s rants and the slaps that followed.

She can still smell the perfume. Still hear the rasp of a match being lit—not for a cigarette. For the stove. The punishment. The warning.

“Weapons don’t cry. You want to be useful? Then shut up and fight.”

She clenches her fists again.

This time, deliberately.

This time, the pain grounds her.

And this time—she doesn’t flinch.

Chapter Text

Dual POV's Catherine, then Marcus

Catherine's POV

Combat Theory is half full when she arrives.
Catherine enters like a storm front: sharp movements, no wasted breath. Her boots hit the mat with a clean rhythm, the sound of someone who never loses. Students already warming up shift their weight when they notice her. Nobody wants to make eye contact. Nobody wants to be first in her line of sight. The reputation she’s carved for herself at King’s Dominion has teeth, and everyone knows she doesn’t bluff.
She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t acknowledge anyone. Just drops her bag on the edge of the mat and begins stretching in silence, pulling her body through the same fluid routine she’s repeated every morning since she was a child. Ankles, knees, hips. Wrists, shoulders, neck. Her movements are mechanical, but not careless; she bends like steel warmed over fire—flexible, but unbreakable.
Her shoulders ache from the night before. Surveillance had gone longer than expected, the rooftop colder than she’d anticipated. She could have gone home. She could have slept in her own bed. But beds are treacherous things. They remind her too much of things she’d rather forget—too soft, too still, too full of memories. Beds are for people who can afford to feel safe. She isn’t one of them.
Beds feel like memories.
Untrustworthy.
Unclean.
The gym doors squeal open exactly on the hour. Lin strides in, his black shoes silent against the polished floor, his face a mask of detached cruelty. He doesn’t need to command the room; his presence is enough. The chatter dies instantly.
“Today,” Lin begins, his voice flat but sharp enough to cut through the still air, “you spar until I say stop.” He scans the rows of students like a butcher looking over cuts of meat. “I want bruises. I want blood. I want someone on the floor questioning their life choices.”
A pause. Students exchange uneasy glances. A few straighten their spines, as though preparing themselves to be chosen. From the back, someone snorts, trying to mask nerves as humor.
Lin’s eyes flicker briefly toward the sound. “And I want it done without killing anyone.”
That lands like a challenge. Half the class shifts uncomfortably. The other half smirks.
“Pair off,” he orders.
The mats rustle as students move, whispering quick negotiations about who will fight whom. Catherine doesn’t move. She doesn’t have to. She knows who’s going to walk up to her, like he’s been waiting for the cue.
Marcus.
Of course it’s Marcus.
He approaches with the crooked swagger of someone who knows exactly how irritating he is. There’s a bruise on his jaw—yellow, edged with green. She can’t tell if it’s from their last mission or from some other poor bastard who lost patience with his mouth. Either way, it suits him.
He gives a mock bow, hand sweeping theatrically. “Milady.”
She ignores him, turns her back, and steps onto the mat. His grin widens like he expected nothing less.
“Aw, you wound me,” he says, following close behind. “And here I thought we were trauma-bonded now.”
Her foot snaps up in a blur, aimed for his head.
He barely ducks in time.
“No talking,” she says, her voice cool and sharp as glass.
“Right,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “Forgot I was partnered with the Ice Queen of Oakland.”
She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t even blink.
She lunges.
The clash is instant. Fists flying, feet shifting, bodies colliding with controlled violence. Marcus is quicker than usual, sharper, like he’s been studying her. She notices the difference in his rhythm. He isn’t just flailing and hoping for a hit anymore. He’s adapting. Watching her tells. That makes him dangerous.
He lands a palm strike to her ribs. Not hard enough to break anything, but enough to sting. She exhales sharply and pivots, snaring his ankle mid-motion. His balance slips, and they crash to the mat together in a tangle of limbs, breath, and snarling insults.
Marcus’s POV
The wind blasts out of him when he hits the ground. Catherine lands above him like a blade poised to strike. Her elbow digs into his throat, her knee pressing dangerously close to pinning his wrist. She’s leaner than him, faster than him, and somehow meaner than anyone else he’s fought all year. He can’t decide if he admires her or if she terrifies the living hell out of him. Probably both.
He grins up at her, half-choked. “Usually girls buy me dinner first.”
Her eyes narrow.
And then—he sees it.
The slip. Not big, not obvious. Just a flicker of something raw behind her stare. For the first time, her control cracks. Her breathing stutters, grip tightening too much, too fast. It’s like she isn’t here anymore. Like she’s been dropped into another time, another body beneath her hands.
Marcus freezes. He knows the look. He’s seen it before—on people who’ve survived too much. People who can’t always tell past from present.
Her vision clouds. She blinks but doesn’t see him. Her stepmother’s voice thrums in the back of her skull: Faster. You want to live? Then kill like you mean it.
The memory hits her like cold water. White light sears her vision. She flinches.
“Catherine,” Marcus says, voice low, careful.
No response. Her body locks, frozen for a second that stretches too long. At King’s Dominion, one second is enough to die.
He shifts under her, not to fight back but to move her off—give her space, maybe break whatever’s gripping her.
But before he can, she snaps back. And she’s brutal when she does.
Her hand slams his shoulder into the mat, twisting his arm until his bones scream. Her weight pins him again, harder this time, her eyes suddenly blank, colder than before.
Then she blinks. The haze clears. She’s back.
Marcus coughs, clutching his throat. “Jesus.”
Her grip vanishes instantly. Too fast. Like his skin burned her. She stumbles off him, retreating a step, then another. Around them, the rest of the class has stopped pretending not to watch. Half are laughing. Half look spooked.
Willie whistles from the corner. “Y’all need to get a room or a therapist.”
Laughter ripples across the mats. Maria leans toward Saya, muttering something. Saya doesn’t respond, just arches a brow, studying Catherine with that unnerving calm of hers.
Marcus pushes himself up, rubbing his throat where her elbow had pressed. “You okay?” he asks, quieter now, no sarcasm, no smirk.
Catherine doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look at him. She turns on her heel and walks away, each step clipped, purposeful, like she’s marching into battle. The locker room door swings behind her with a hollow slam.
Later
The fluorescent lights of the locker room buzz overhead, too harsh, too white. Catherine peels off her gloves at the sink, fingers stiff from gripping too hard. Blood seeps through the seam where her knuckles split against Marcus’s jaw or shoulder—she can’t even remember which. The skin is raw, angry, but she doesn’t flinch. She never flinches.
She doesn’t look at her reflection. The mirror is cracked anyway, but even if it weren’t, she wouldn’t. She doesn’t want to see her own eyes, doesn’t want to risk catching that flicker of someone she swore she buried years ago. Not again. Not that.
The water runs cold over her hands, streaking pink as it carries blood away. She watches it spiral down the drain, hypnotic, easy, gone.
She wraps her hands in silence, tight, precise. Each layer of gauze like armor, binding the weakness until it’s invisible. Nobody can know. Nobody can see. At King’s Dominion, a single mistake—one flinch, one pause—is a death sentence.
Outside, voices echo in the hall. Laughter, the clatter of boots, someone mocking Willie’s comment from earlier. Catherine tightens the bandage until her fingers go numb.
When she finally shuts off the tap, she still doesn’t look up.
Marcus Again
Marcus lingers outside the locker room, leaning against the wall with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He tells himself he’s just waiting for Lin to call class again, but that’s a lie. He’s waiting for her. He can’t shake the look in her eyes—the blank, frozen second where she wasn’t here. He knows what it means, even if she’ll never admit it.
When the door creaks open, Catherine strides out, already armored in silence. She doesn’t glance at him. Doesn’t acknowledge him at all. But he falls into step beside her anyway.
“You fight like you’ve got ghosts,” he says casually, as if it’s just banter, just another one of his digs. His voice is light, but the weight behind it isn’t.
Her jaw tightens. She doesn’t answer.
Marcus smirks, but it’s softer this time. “Guess we’re all haunted, huh?”
Still nothing.
But he notices the way her hands curl into fists at her sides, bandages hidden beneath her sleeves. He doesn’t push. Not today.