Chapter 30
The first kilometer was a war. Elijah's legs screamed with every step.
The weights strapped to his arms and legs twenty kilograms each, eighty total pulled at his joints like anchors.
The vest added another thirty, pressing down on his shoulders, compressing his chest against the breathing mask that let through barely enough air to keep him conscious.
He had run this route before. Ten kilometers from his house to the gym on the 8th District border.
A route that had been hard before. Now it was torture. His vision tunneled. Each breath was a battle, the mask stealing the air before he could use it, his lungs burning, his chest heaving against the vest.
His legs trembled with every step. Don't stop. His Iron Mind held. The panic was there, but distant. Something he could feel without being controlled by.
He kept running. By the fifth kilometer, he stopped thinking. By the eighth, his body moved on instinct alone.
When he reached the gym door, his hand shook as he pulled the key from his pocket.
He got it in the lock on the third try. Inside, he tore the mask off and leaned against the door, gasping.
His lungs pulled at the air like starving things. He stayed there for a long moment, bent over, hands on his knees, waiting for his body to remember how to function.
When he straightened, he moved to the equipment. The workout was simple. He did it anyway. Each rep was a war. Each set left him trembling.
His body had nothing left to give, but he gave it anyway. When the last exercise was done, he removed the weights and vest, storing them in the system's inventory.
His arms hung at his sides. His legs shook. The door opened. A young man stepped in. Black hair, dark chocolate skin.
His eyes were green—deep, vivid green, the color of old forest, of moss on stone. He was lean but built, the kind of body that came from years of fighting.
Elijah didn't know him. But he had heard the name from Kai, once or twice. "Henry," Elijah said. Henry nodded. "Kai told you about me?"
"He mentioned you." Henry looked around the gym, at the equipment, at Elijah standing in the middle of it.
"You the one using this place?"
"Yeah, Kai brought me here, saying it belonged to someone he knew."
"That someone was me" Henry moved to the heavy bag, touched it.
"Won it in an underground fight. This guy bet the deed and he Lost to me. It was funny how his face was filled with anger."
Elijah watched him. There was something in the way Henry moved, the way he held himself. "You grow up around here?" Elijah asked.
"No, I grow up in the 5th District and You?"
"8th at the time it was extremely dangerous. Then we moved to the 7th."
Henry smiled. "The 8th, that Makes sense."
"What's that mean?" Henry's smile widened. "People from the 8th always Love fighting."
Elijah snorted. "People from the 5th always think they're harder than they are." Henry laughed, "Yeah. We do."
The silence that followed was easier. "So," Henry said, "what's the plan?" Elijah frowned. "Plan?"
"For the gang, ain't you the leader and Kai also said you were building something. That's why I'm here." Elijah's frown deepened.
"What do you mean, that's why you're here?" Henry's expression shifted. "You don't know."
Henry chuckled and he added, " He told you about me but didn't tell you this."
"Tell me what?" Henry studied Elijah's face for a moment. Then he laughed.
"Kai never told you I was part of your gang, did he?" Elijah stared at him.
The words settled slowly. Kai had recruited him. And of course he hadn't said anything.
That was how Kai love it, and that's also why he took Elijah to this gym beside the advantage of it being free.
He wanted to create drama between him and Henry. Revealing things at exactly the right moment.
Elijah sighed. "No, He didn't tell me."
Henry was still laughing. "That man loves his secrets. Always has. When I first met him, he spent an hour telling me about a fight he was in without once mentioning his own name. Just 'someone I know' this and 'a friend of mine' that. Drove me crazy."
Elijah couldn't help it, He laughed too. "He did the same thing with me."
"Sounds like Kai." They stood there, both of them shaking their heads, the shared frustration of knowing Kai settling between them like something familiar.
"How did you meet him?" Elijah asked. "In the fight clubs. Underground rings in the 8th. I was running through everyone they put in front of me. Thought I was something."
Henry touched the scars on his knuckles. "Then Kai stepped in, and Beat me like a child. First person who ever put me down like that."
"He's good."
"He's better than good." Henry moved to the weight rack, leaned against it.
"We fought three more times after that. He won twice, I won once. After that, we started training together. He'd come by this place, we'd spar, talk about things."
"What things?" Henry looked at him. "He talked about you. Said you were creating a gang. Said you were the person he'd been waiting for, someone worth following."
Elijah didn't know what to say to that. "When he asked me to join, I said yes,"
Henry continued. "I wanted to meet you. That was a week ago."
"So now you've met me," Elijah said. "What do you think?"
Henry was quiet for a moment. His green eyes studied Elijah—the exhaustion in his frame, the way he was still standing after whatever training he'd put himself through, the fact that he was here at all when most people would be in bed.
"I'm not sure yet," Henry said finally. His voice was honest.
"Kai talks about you like you're something. I wanted to see for myself." He pushed off from the weight rack.
His hands hung loose at his sides. His weight shifted slightly, almost unconscious. "Fight me."
Elijah blinked. "What?"
"You heard me." Henry's voice was calm, steady. "I'm a fighter, It's what I know. If I'm going to follow someone, I need to feel it, See it. Also you get to know a lot about someone by just fighting them."
Elijah's body was empty. His arms were dead. His legs were still shaking from the run. Henry had walked in and seen the equipment.
He knew what Elijah had been doing. He knew Elijah had nothing left. But there was something else.
Something stirring in Elijah's chest when Henry said fight me. Something that had been there in the ring with Marcus. Something that had been there in the park with the big man.
He looked at Henry. At the lean muscle, the scarred knuckles, the green eyes that held nothing but the quiet certainty of someone who had fought and won more times than he could count.
"Okay," Elijah said.