Chapter 320: First Match

The fist passed close enough that Liam felt the air of it against his mask.

He had moved back. Not far, not a dramatic leap, just the necessary distance, his feet finding the stone floor and pushing him backward in the half second between seeing the punch commit and it arriving.

His back foot slid slightly on the stone and he caught himself and came up into a stance, his hands raised, his eyes on Marcus.

Marcus had not overextended.

That was the first thing Liam registered properly.

The punch had been fast and it had been heavy but it had been controlled, the weight behind it placed deliberately rather than thrown, and Marcus had come back to standing straight with his hands at his sides like the punch had been a question rather than an attempt.

He was looking at Liam.

Liam was looking at him.

The crowd had a moment of processing what had just happened and then it decided what it thought.

"HE MOVED." Loud, from somewhere in the middle section, genuine surprise in it.

"Lucky." Immediate response, different voice, completely certain.

"That was not luck that was a read." Someone further back disagreeing with the certainty.

"It was luck, he closed his eyes."

"He did not close his eyes."

"I saw him close his eyes."

"DODGE HIM AGAIN." The coaching voice from before, still committed to its role.

"Once is luck. Let’s see twice." A calm analytical voice from the upper section, the voice of someone who had been here many times and was not easily impressed.

Liam held his stance and looked at Marcus standing there, straight and unbothered, his breathing not visibly changed from the punch he had just thrown.

Then Marcus smiled.

It was different from the one in the corridor.

That one had been small and controlled. This one had something genuine in it, the specific expression of a man who had thrown thousands of punches in this cage and had encountered something he had not expected in a while.

"I’ll give you that," Marcus said. His voice carried across the cage floor without effort. "I did not think you would move."

Liam looked at him. "I’m surprised you’re that slow," he said.

The smile left Marcus’s face.

Not dramatically. It just stopped being there, replaced by the same stillness that had been there before the smile, except now the stillness had something running underneath it that was not entirely patient.

His jaw was tight.

He came forward.

Not the same way he had come before.

This time there was more behind it, the controlled question of the first punch replaced by something with a purpose to it, and Liam moved back and to the left and the first strike passed him and then the second came immediately after the first with no gap between them, a combination, and Liam moved right and the second one grazed the shoulder of his suit and he felt the weight of it even in the graze, the specific heaviness of something that carried more than its physical mass.

He moved back further.

Third punch, lower this time, aimed at the body, and Liam twisted and it caught his side, glancing, not clean, not the full contact Marcus needed, but enough that Liam registered it as a serious reminder of what a clean version of the same thing would feel like.

He kept moving back.

Fourth punch, and this one he ducked under, going lower than Marcus had accounted for, the fist passing above him, and he came back up on the other side of it and put distance between them again.

He stopped.

He came back up into his stance.

Marcus stood straight again, same position as before, same stillness, but his breathing had changed slightly now, the first visible change since Liam had entered the cage, the chest moving a little more than it had been.

’He doesn’t like missing,’ Liam thought, watching him. ’Every punch he throws he expects to land. Missing is not something he has extensive experience with and it is costing him something small each time it happens. Small but present.’

He held the stance and watched Marcus and waited.

"This is BORING." Somewhere to the right, loud and entirely committed to the opinion.

"Fight him." Different voice, similar conviction.

"He’s running." The analytical voice from the upper section, neutral and accurate.

"Smart running though." Someone defending the strategy from the left side.

"It’s still running."

"STAND STILL." A new voice, deep, somewhere near the front.

"He’s not going to stand still he’s not stupid." The woman’s voice from before, exasperated now.

"Then what is he doing."

"STAYING ALIVE." Several voices at once, which got a laugh from the people around them.

Marcus looked at Liam across the cage floor.

"Stay," he said. The word arriving flat and direct.

Liam looked at him. "Why would I do that?"

"Stop running," Marcus said.

"I’m not running," Liam said. "I’m waiting."

"For what."

"The right moment."

Marcus looked at him for a long second. Then he looked at the stone floor between them and then back at Liam’s face and something shifted in his expression, the irritation moving aside for something more considered.

"Let’s stop this," Marcus said. His voice had changed register, lower now, the crowd noise around them meaning only the two of them could hear it properly. "I know what you know about me. I know you know about the contact. I know you know what it does." He looked at Liam directly. "And I’m guessing your whole plan is one clean punch to end it. Get inside my range, land it somewhere that matters, game over."

Liam straightened slightly.

He did not confirm it and he did not deny it and the not denying it was its own answer.

"So now that you know I know," Marcus said, "what do you think your move is?"

Liam looked at him.

"I think," Liam said, "that knowing what my plan is and stopping it are two different things."

Something moved in Marcus’s expression.

"Show me then," Marcus said.

Liam looked at the stone floor.

There were small pieces of stone near the base of the cage to his left, fragments from the floor where years of use had taken their toll on the edges of the space, small and loose and sitting there being irrelevant until this specific moment.

He moved to the nearest one and picked it up.

He looked at Marcus.

He tossed it at him.

Not hard. Not fast. An easy underarm toss, the kind of throw that communicated nothing threatening, the stone tumbling through the air between them.

Marcus put his hand up and caught it in front of his face and looked at it.

Then he looked at Liam.

"What is this for," he said. Flat. Genuinely asking.

The second stone hit him in the forehead.

It had left Liam’s other hand while Marcus’s eyes were on the first one, a sharper throw this time, and it connected with a small solid sound against Marcus’s head before he had processed that it was coming.

The crowd reacted.

"HE THREW A ROCK." Pure disbelief, from somewhere in the middle.

"Why did he throw a rock." Genuine confusion from the upper section.

"IS THAT ALLOWED?" Someone near the front.

"He caught the first one." Laughter building underneath the voice.

"THE BIG MAN FELL FOR IT." Loud and delighted, from the left side.

"That’s the plan? Rocks?" The analytical voice, somewhere between dismissive and impressed.

More laughter rolling through the crowd, the specific laughter of a room that has just watched something it did not expect and has not yet decided whether it is brilliant or ridiculous.

Marcus lowered his hand from his forehead.

He looked at Liam.

He looked at the small stone he was still holding in his other hand from the catch.

Then he came forward.

His feet found the stone floor and he moved across it and the crowd noise shifted immediately from laughter to something with more urgency in it, the energy of the room recognizing that whatever had just happened had changed the temperature of what was about to happen.

Liam watched him come.

’Got him,’ he thought.

Marcus stopped.

He planted both feet on the stone floor and went completely still, the forward momentum of his charge simply ceasing, and then he started bouncing on his heels, small and rhythmic, his knees bending and releasing with each bounce, his whole body finding something through the motion, a frequency, a specific resonance between his feet and the stone beneath them.

Liam watched it.

The crowd watched it.

Nobody said anything for about three seconds which in a room this loud was its own kind of statement.

Then Marcus moved.

Not the controlled walk of before and not the committed charge of before.

Something else entirely, something that had no adequate word for the speed of it, a flash of dark and white crossing the stone floor between them that Liam’s eyes registered as motion without being able to track the individual components of it, and then Marcus was beside him, right there, inside every distance that should have given Liam any kind of warning, his fist already coming around in an arc that had started before Liam’s brain had finished processing that Marcus was no longer across the cage.

Liam’s body moved.

Not a decision. His arm came up from somewhere below the level of thought, his forearm crossing the path of the incoming punch, the block happening in the same instant that his other hand was already moving forward, his fist driving out from his body with everything Wrath had put into his training behind it.

Both things happened at exactly the same time.

Marcus’s punch connected with Liam’s forearm and the force of it ran up the bone and into his shoulder and registered as something significant that he was going to think about later.

Liam’s punch connected with Marcus’s chest.

And then Marcus was not beside him anymore.

He was across the cage.

Not having walked there or stepped there but having arrived there, the punch having made the decision about where he went and his body having followed the decision, and he hit the cage bars and the sound of it rang through the arena and then he was on one knee on the stone floor with one hand pressed flat against it and his head down.

The crowd produced a sound that had no clear individual components, just the collective reaction of several hundred people processing something simultaneously.

Liam stood where he was.

His forearm was burning from the block. He did not look at it. He kept his eyes on Marcus.

Marcus’s hand pressed against the stone floor.

He pushed.

He came up slowly, his body finding its way back to vertical with the specific deliberateness of something that was choosing to stand rather than being helped to stand, his spine straightening one section at a time, and when he was fully upright he turned and looked at Liam from across the cage with the same eyes he had walked in with.

Not finished.

Not close to finished.

"You’re not winning," Marcus said.

His voice was level. Not strained. Not the voice of someone who had just been hit hard enough to cross a cage.

Just the information, delivered plainly, like he was correcting a misunderstanding before it went any further.

Liam looked at him standing there.

At the size of him still filling the same amount of space it had always filled.

At the expression on his face that had absorbed what just happened and had not changed its fundamental assessment of the situation.

Liam’s jaw tightened.

"Fuck!."