Burn (38 page)

Gian pulled Cory aside when he returned to their sta
tion to rest before his round three match. “We have a
problem.”

Zae’s smile melted. “What’s the matter?”

“Cory’s next opponent scratched,” Gian said.
“What does that mean?” Cinder asked.

“The kid pulled out with an injury,” Chip said.
“Although he looked fine when Karl was talking to him
after his second round fight.”

“So my fight is cancelled?” Cory fretted.

“The meet organizers found an alternate,” Gian told
him.

“Who?” Cory asked.

Duff Brownley answered. “Viper is out of the tourney
with a back injury. He will be replaced in round three by
last year’s IMA middle-weight champion, Karl ‘The
Caveman’ Lange!”

“Crap,” Cory muttered.

“
It gets worse,” Gian went on. “Since Cinder won her
match, she’s in the final. She’ll have to fight whoever wins
your match, Cory.”

“No pressure then, huh?” Cory laughed uncomfortably.
“I could go in for Cory,” Chip offered. “I’ll get the
three off Karl.”

“These are friendlies,” Cory reminded them. “He’s
not gonna try anything in front of twenty-five thousand
witnesses. If I can beat Zae, I can beat Karl. He’s not as
strong as she is. Besides, I’ve never scratched or forfeited
in a tournament. I’m not about to start now.”

Gian spent a moment thinking. “Keep it super clean,
Cory. Karl is a man without a dojo out there. The audi
ence will automatically be on his side because he’s solo
and a past champion. I don’t want the energy of the
crowd giving him an advantage.”

“Sure,” Cory agreed.

Cinder remained on the bleachers while Gian paced
near mat six, where Karl “The Caveman” Lange stood
toe-to-toe with Cory “Widowmaker” Blair. Darkly
impressive in his
gi
, Karl stood several inches taller than
Cory, whose sinewy forearms seemed to dangle from his
wide sleeves. Cory’s
gi
was printed with characters from
The Simpsons
and tied with an
obi
the bright blue of
Marge Simpson’s hair.

Cinder’s spine stiffened at the sound of the fight buzzer.
With each punch and kick, she expected Karl to do some
thing cruel. He fought clean and hard, and emerged the
victor twenty-six minutes later. Cinder was convinced that
had Cory been fresh, like Karl, he would have taken him.

A
s apprehensive as she’d been for Cory’s fight, Cinder
was doubly so for her own. She had fought one man and
two women to earn her way into the Exhibition final, and
none of her opponents had been terribly challenging. Her
longest match had lasted seven minutes; she spent more
time waiting between matches than she had in combat.

Walking to the center mat when her fight name was
called, she understood that fighting Karl would be dif
ferent. Everyone else she had fought had taken the mat
for fun. She wasn’t sure what Karl’s motives were.

“I don’t like this,” Gian said quietly, accompanying
her on her last few steps to the mat.

“I’ll be fine,” Cinder assured him. “Cory was right. What’s he going to do in front of all these people?”

Gian fiddled with her collar to buy another moment
with her. “I can call this off. I’ll scratch you.”

“Don’t you dare. I’m the best example of the Sheng Li
technique and style. I can’t walk away from this match. Every rookie watching me is a potential Sheng Li student if Pritchard Hok likes what he sees today. Kuriko told
me—”

“Too much, evidently,” Gian interrupted.

“I won’t let you down, sensai.” Cinder executed a neat bow toward Gian and another toward the mat. She didn’t
look back at Gian before climbing onto the dais.

The glare of the bright spotlights obscured the crowd.
The pounding of a Kid Rock song drowned out all noise
but for Duff Brownley’s voice as he told the audience that
the championship exhibition round would last until one
fighter scored three points on his or her opponent.

W
hile Duff introduced the judges and thanked the
event sponsors, Cinder tried to acclimate. She saw only
Karl, standing tall and impassive before her like a live
oak. A barefooted referee wearing a whistle stood at one
edge of the mat.

She took a few deep breaths, exaggerating the move
ment of her diaphragm. Pulling back her shoulders to
breathe in, she flexed her abdominal muscles to force the
air back out. She replayed in her mind everything Gian taught her. Envisioning Chip, Sionne, Cory, and Zae in
their matches, she recalled what worked for them and
what hadn’t.

Breathe,
she told herself.
Concentrate. Focus.

The buzzer sounded.

Roaring, Karl came at her hard. His big feet flying,
his spinning kicks drove her to the out-of-bounds line at
the far edge of the mat. The referee’s quick reflexes
stopped her from hitting the floor two feet below the
fighting area.

“You okay?” the ref asked, ushering her back into the
fighting circle. “You want to go on with this?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted a bit too strenuously. She
straightened her tunic and returned to the center of the
mat, urged on by light applause.

One side of his mouth hooked in a sinister grin, Karl
struck his fighting stance, flexing his arms so that his
veins stood out against his muscles. “Having fun yet?”

Cinder answered with the twitch of an eyebrow. She
silently vowed to wipe the smirk off his face.

A
short blast from the referee’s whistle restarted the
match. Again, Karl threw himself at her in full attack.
She stood her ground against a string of quick, hard
punches, blocking them or dodging them entirely. Karl
dropped and swept out his leg, tripping her to the mat.
She rolled clear of a stomping kick that would have won
Karl his first point and possibly broken one of her ribs.

Only vaguely aware of Gian protesting at the judges’
table, Cinder shoved a foot between Karl’s legs, sending him
crashing to the mat. In a showy move she’d seen only on
dance floors, he flipped back onto his feet as she regained her
own footing. Dropping into a crouch, she awaited his next
volley, more comfortable on defense rather than offense.

Sneering, Karl signaled his next combination with a
loud cry. A series of kicks flew at Cinder, all of which she
deflected. He surprised her with a vicious strike to her
midsection, earning his first point. Duff Brownley was
still announcing the point to the polite applause of the
crowd when instead of stopping the fight to reset in the
center of the mat as Cinder had, Karl delivered one more
punishing kick.

She caught his huge foot right in the face.

Horrified gasps rose from the stands. Cinder clumsily
fell to the mat on her elbows and knees, her hands
cupped over her bleeding nose. Writhing in pain, she
heard Gian shouting at the judges to stop the match. The
referee leaped between her and Karl, backing him away
from her. First aid personnel reached her as she rolled off
the dais, but Gian was there first with a white towel to
press to her nose.

D
uring the two-minute injury timeout, the crowd
quieted. Pumped up on adrenaline, Karl traveled over the
mat as if he owned it, bouncing on the balls of his feet
while Duff Brownley announced the loss of Karl’s point,
the penalty for a dirty blow.

“That son of a bitch,” Gian growled in hushed tones.
“He can’t beat me so he goes after you? I’m stopping this
right now.”

“No,” Cinder said. “I’m ready to fight him.”

Gian gave his head a little shake, grimacing in confu
sion.

“I never really fought him before,” she quietly
explained. “I’ve got a feel for the way he moves now.”

His jaw firm, Gian said, “Baby, he’s a third-degree
black belt. You can’t—”

She grabbed his wrist and pulled down the towel.
“Watch me.”

“Do you think you can go on?” asked the paramedic
who’d come to her aid.

“Absolutely.”

Gian’s heart pounded painfully hard. Cinder climbed onto the dais, and while the crowd cheered, it took every
bit of willpower Gian possessed to stop himself from grab
bing her and pulling her into the shelter of his embrace.

He moved back a few steps at the referee’s bidding,
but he had no intention of straying too far from the mat.
He didn’t care if he got kicked out of the venue or risked
everything with Pritchard Hok. If Karl drew one more
drop of her blood, Gian would hop onto the mat and
finish what he’d started at Grogan’s Superette.

O
n the mat, Cinder faced off with Karl, who stared at
her while the referee sternly warned him to keep the fight
clean. The ref’s whistle sounded, and the fight resumed.

“How’s your nose, little girl?” Karl taunted, circling her.

Cinder stood her ground, her weight low but cen
tered, her fists at the ready.

“Gian’s crazy to let you back on the mat,” Karl
chuckled. “He’s so whipped.”

“So are you,” Cinder said. “You just don’t know it.”

She didn’t give Karl a chance to digest her reply. She
spun, turning her back to him as she raised her leg. As her
body rotated, she took a quick jump on her second step,
propelling herself into a flying roundhouse kick. The tor
nado kick was one of her favorites for its beauty and
power, and it hit its target—Karl’s thick neck.

Both hands clutching his throat, he fell to the mat,
noisily gasping for air. On his elbows and knees, he scut
tled away from Cinder. The audience roared and cheered as Duff Brownley announced, “Point, Vixen!”

“Ten seconds, Caveman,” the referee told him. “Get on your feet or forfeit the match.”

Karl used every one of his ten seconds to recover
before regaining his footing. His upper lip curled into a
snarl. He breathed in short, hard snorts, like an angry
bull. He seemed to shudder with anger in the center of
the mat, and when the referee restarted the match, he
lunged at Cinder.

She calmly ducked under his right arm. His
momentum carried him forward, but she helped him
along with a jab to his back from her right elbow.

“Point, Vixen!”

Duff Brownley’s excited cry riled the audience.
Cheers and applause shook the venue.

Gian, one hand cupping his elbow, the other covering
his mouth, allowed himself a very brief moment of relief. “One more point, baby,” he whispered. “One more point
and you’re outta there.”

On the mat, the fighters reset. Karl’s arm muscles
hardened, his knees seemed to bounce in his eagerness to
resume the fight. At the ref’s whistle, he bellowed and
charged. He threw his punches faster, mixing in kicks
that Cinder barely avoided. His longer arms and legs gave
him an advantage, but she negated it with her calm focus.

Karl’s blows crashed into her forearms, his vicious
kicks glanced hard off the outside of her knees and hips.
The angrier he got, the sloppier he fought. He was taller,
heavier, more determined to hurt her. Cinder fought
back with speed, agility, and unerring focus. She prowled,
taking advantage of every opening Karl gave her. The
complicated dance of battle lasted for six full minutes
before Karl ratcheted up his intent. Arms upraised, he
brought both hands down in a strike meant to hit both
of Cinder’s shoulders at the same time. Such a strike would have brought her to the mat, where she would
have been within range of a dozen debilitating strikes
from Karl’s feet.