It started with the sound of glass. Not breaking — shattering. That clean, almost surgical snap that makes your gut drop before your brain even catches up.
Coach's office window blew out behind me.
I didn't even flinch.
Aamir did.
He spun toward it, half ducking, like someone had just tossed a grenade into the gym. Shards clinked to the floor, skittering under the heavy bags. And then came the voice — low, smooth, soaked in menace like it had been aging in a basement barrel for years.
> "Still hiding in this roach box, Malik?"
Junaid.
I hadn't heard that voice in six years. And still, somehow, every cell in my body remembered it. My knuckles went cold. My chest tightened, but not in fear — something darker. Something I couldn't name.
He stepped into the light like a movie villain, wearing a fitted black shirt like it was tailored for war. Two men followed him. One held a tire iron. The other was younger, twitchier — nervous violence in his shoulders. All three carried the same crooked grin. Like they'd been waiting for this.
Coach yelled from the hallway, "Malik! You alright—"
But I held up a hand. "Stay out."
He stopped. He knew the tone.
This wasn't a gym fight.
This was a reckoning.
Junaid walked across the mats like he owned them. "You got my messages, huh?" He smirked. "Rayyan's a bitch for leaking early. Guess I'll just have to slit his throat too."
Aamir stepped forward. "You talk too much."
Before I could stop him, Aamir rushed in.
His heart was in it. His hands weren't.
Tire iron guy caught him in the side of the face mid-swing. The crack echoed like a gunshot. Aamir's body hit the floor hard, convulsed once, then went still. Blood pooled instantly beneath his ear.
I saw red. Real red.
The kind that takes over everything. Smears your vision. Makes you deaf to logic, blind to survival.
I charged.
Junaid stepped aside. I didn't care. I swung at the twitchy one first — caught him in the throat with a left hook. He gagged, stumbled, then took my elbow across his nose. He dropped.
The one with the iron came next. He swung high. I ducked, caught his ribs with a gut punch that made him wheeze, then kicked his knee inward. It popped loud. He howled.
I turned to Junaid.
And he was smiling.
> "That's what I wanted to see," he whispered. "That monster in you."
He threw the first punch — wild, untrained. I stepped into it, let it glance off my jaw, then drove my head into his nose.
Crack.
He staggered.
But he didn't fall.
He laughed. "You still fight like you got nothing to lose."
"I don't."
> "Wrong," he hissed. "You got **him** now."
I froze.
He looked down.
Aamir. Still not moving.
I felt something inside me split.
Junaid took the chance — uppercut to the chin. My head snapped back. I tasted blood. My knees dipped, but I stayed up.
He lunged.
I caught him mid-charge, lifted him by the waist, and slammed him straight through Coach's wooden desk. Wood splintered. Papers flew.
Junaid coughed blood.
> "You killed Khalid," he gasped.
"I ended a mistake," I growled.
He spat. "He was my brother."
"Yeah. And he was gonna kill me first."
Junaid reached into his waistband.
Gun.
I stomped his wrist before he could pull it.
Once.
Twice.
I felt the bone crack.
He screamed.
I picked up the tire iron.
Swung it once into his gut.
Twice across his shoulder.
He shrieked, rolled, tried to crawl.
I didn't stop.
It wasn't a fight anymore.
It was a purge.
And I was done carrying the weight.
I stood over him, chest heaving, iron in hand.
Blood ran from his mouth, his ear, his knuckles. He blinked up at me.
> "Do it," he croaked.
I raised the iron.
Coach's voice cut through the fog. "Malik!"
I turned.
He stood by Aamir — his face pale, hands shaking. "He's breathing."
Everything froze.
I looked at Aamir's body.
Still. But rising. Falling.
I dropped the tire iron.
The clang echoed forever.
---
We didn't call the cops.
We called silence.
Coach locked the gym doors. We dragged the bodies out back. The twitchy one and the guy with the broken leg — they hobbled off, bleeding and cursing, promising revenge. Junaid didn't say a word.
He just stared at me.
"I should kill you," I said.
He smirked, teeth red. "You already did."
Then he passed out.
---
We dumped him two blocks from the river.
Coach didn't speak the whole ride back.
Aamir sat in the back seat, wrapped in a towel, eyes swollen half-shut.
"I'll handle the hospital," Coach said. "Tell 'em he fell during sparring. You... you go home."
I nodded.
But I didn't go home.
I walked the streets for hours.
Wrist bleeding, knuckles raw, shirt still soaked in someone else's blood.
I ended up on the roof of a building I hadn't seen since I was seventeen.
The roof where I first fought Khalid.
The night this all started.
---
It's funny.
People think fights are about anger. Power. Ego.
They're not.
They're about **weight**.
How much you can carry.
How much you've buried.
And how much you're willing to lose just to feel light again.
Tonight, I lost a piece of myself I'm not getting back.
I crossed a line
— not in the ring, but outside of it.
And now, the city knows.
Word spreads fast.
Rayyan's silence didn't matter.
Junaid's silence won't last.
I made a body count.
And someone's gonna make one back.