Page 123 of Kingmakers, Year Three

“I can never tell if they’re mad at me or you,” Kade says, sending a rapid combination my way.

“Both,” I say, blocking each punch in turn. “And they’re not mad. They’re just . . . malevolent.”

Kade laughs. “I’m glad I can always get a vocabulary lesson along with my boxing instruction.”

“Maybe you should be an English teacher, ‘cause you ain’t never gonna be a boxer,” I tease him, sending a combination back at him.

Kade slips the punches with promising speed.

“There you go!” I say. “Not too shabby.”

He fires back at me and I bat his fist aside.

“Not too great, either,” I snort.

I don’t know why I’m laughing. I’ve got a hundred different problems plaguing me, and I’m still fucked in the head from seeing that picture of my mother. But Kade is so easy-going that it lightens my mood to spar with him, even on the worst days.

He refuses to quail under the obvious antagonism of the older students. And he never shirks from practicing with me, even when he can’t land a single hit. His persistence is infectious.

Kade attacks again, even faster. This time he manages to get a rapid jab inside my right glove, and it grazes my chin.

“Oh, you felt that one!” Kade chortles, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Not as much as you will,” I growl.

After class,I help Snow pick up the discarded sparring pads.

He sprays them with sanitizer and wipes them down with a towel.

“Well,” he grunts, throwing another pad on the pile of those that have been cleaned. “What is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re not helping me tidy up out of the goodness of your heart.”

“I could be.”

“You’re not.”

I pick up a sweaty towel and chuck it in the laundry bin, irritated by how easily he sees through me.

“I got in a fight with Cat the other night,” I say.

“What happened?”

“She found my mother. Living in Chicago, under her sister’s name.”

Snow is silent a minute, digesting this.

“Why did that occasion a fight?” he says, at last.

“Cat tracked her down without even asking me. She shoved a picture in my face.”

Snow cocks an eyebrow at me. “And that made you angry?”

“She had no right.”

He makes a dismissive sound. “She has every right.”

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