Ziggy Malone's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The night before the bracket, Ziggy could not sleep. Jade's words stuck in her: pay it back the hard way. Tomorrow they fought. Ziggy had trained eleven months, but she had never seen Jade throw a punch. Walking in blind meant Jade landed the first hit while Ziggy still guessed. So Ziggy left her cot and went to find her rival before the sun beat her to it. She found Jade near a fire ring below the summit camp. Jade sat with her back to a slim tree, its long branches hanging over her like a curtain. She was wrapping her hands with slow, even loops of tape. She did not look up. "You want something," Jade said. Not a question. "I want to know how you fight," Ziggy said. "I'm not going to pretend. You beat me before. I never saw why." Jade tore the tape with her teeth. "Bold. Asking your enemy to hand you the map." "You lent me your name. That's already handed." That landed. Jade's mouth twitched. She stood, all six feet of her, and rolled her shoulders. "Fine. Watch." She threw a jab at the air, fast, then stepped back light on her feet. "I don't brawl. I don't trade with short girls. I keep you at the end of my reach and pick you apart. You come in, I move out." Ziggy watched her feet, not her fists. "You always circle left." Jade froze mid-step. "What?" "Just now. And when you jab, you drop your back hand." Ziggy tapped her own ribs. "You leave this open when you reset." For a long moment Jade said nothing. Then she laughed, short and sharp. "You didn't come to learn my fight. You came to steal it." "Both," Ziggy said. Jade sat back down under the hanging branches. She stared at Ziggy with new eyes, the way you look at a problem you underrated. "You're smarter than I thought. That's worse for me." She jerked her chin toward the camp. "Go sleep. You'll need it. Reach beats brains until brains gets inside. And getting inside on me hurts." Ziggy walked back up the slope. Her chest was tight from the thin air, but her legs felt light. She knew it now. Jade circled left. Jade dropped her hand. Jade wanted distance, so Ziggy had to close it and eat pain to do it. She stopped and looked back once. Jade was still watching her go, hands wrapped, jaw set. Ziggy had traded away her surprise to buy the same from Jade. Now neither of them would land the first hit blind. Tomorrow it came down to who could take the beating in close and keep coming. Ziggy smiled. That was a fight she was built for.