Page 29 of Shifting Gears

I glanced up at him, and he chuckled. My stomach did a flip at the way his eyes wandered up and down my body.

That was when everything went to shit.

I knew from the sound of it that it was a devastating blow. Once you heard your first bone snapping, you didn’t forget it.

Touma cried out as he fell to the ground, clutching his knee.

The man he had been sparring against waved over at the resident medic, and I jogged as fast as I could through the crowd to get to them.

“Move! Please get out of my way!” I yelled, pushing through people as they gathered around the scene.

I finally reached Touma, and he was sitting upright, but his knee was bent wrong. If it wasn’t broken, it was dislocated. There was no way we could get this set properly here. It was official; my sisters and I were going to lose everything over a simple accident.

I knelt down beside him and placed my hand on his shoulder.

“What happened?” I whispered to him as the doctor continued his assessment.

“I don’t know. We were warming up as usual when, out of nowhere, he threw an actual jab at my face. When I went to dodge it, he kicked my knee when it was sideways. He’d never done something like that before,” Touma said as he winced when the doctor pushed around his leg.

I looked around for the man he had been sparring with, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Something doesn’t feel right about this.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by the doctor’s voice.

“Dislocated at best, fractured kneecap at worst, I’d say. He can’t fight tonight.”

“I’m so sorry, Sensei. I have let you down,” Touma said as his body tensed in pain.

“There is nothing to be sorry about. This wasn’t your fault. Right now, we just need to get you to the hospital. Think you can get up and walk out with assistance?”

He nodded.

I was about to lift his arm over my shoulders when I felt a warm hand touch my arm.

“I’ve got this.”

It was AJ. He had come over, and with one fast motion, he had Touma up and on his good leg. They exchanged a few hushed words, and AJ eased him over toward an exit.

I stood, and the crowd parted around me, going back to business as usual now that the excitement was over.

It was so damn confusing. These two had sparred with each other in so many matches before without something like this happening. Maybe if fate had decided tonight was the night to have this happen, then it was time to stop fighting the inevitable and have Sydney take Regan and leave the country.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” a strange voice said beside me.

The hairs stood up all over my body, and I glanced to my right. A man, barely taller than me, wearing a white-and-red striped suit and a fedora hat, stood there. His eyes watched my fighter as he slowly staggered over toward the back entrance. His eyes had an eerie red hue to them.

I knew he was a dangerous man as I stood next to him. His presence made Kaito’s feel like a summer breeze. I also knew that not responding to someone with energy like this was a foolish game to play.

“What is?” I asked as I watched AJ help Touma to the door, where he nodded and the bouncer took him from there.

“Just how perfectly timed some accidents are.”

At his words, my eyes darted over to Kaito, who had been watching AJ and Touma, and he had the most vicious smile on his face. Then I watched as he turned to the man next to him, handing him a sum of money, which the man pocketed before bowing and walking away from Kaito.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

This had been no accident. Of course, Kaito wouldn’t take the chance to let my fighter actually fight. When the match started and my fighter didn’t go into the ring, it would be counted as a forfeit. And Kaito had done everything he could to ensure he got his way.

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