CHAPTER 124: BLOOD AND SAND

Arlo’s head snapped back, blood blossoming on his lip. He tasted iron on his tongue.

He looked up, taken by surprise, but he didn’t answer. He stepped back in and traded back what he’d gotten.

The ring dissolved into impact. Fist on ribs. Elbow on shoulder. The meaty sound of forearm meeting forearm in blocks and attacks.

Their breathing roughened, less from exertion than from the effort to keep words out of it. They circled, crossed, and collided. Sand puffed up around their ankles in tired halos.

’Don’t stop,’ Noah told himself, the thought sounding like a drum in his head. ’Don’t let him make you listen.’

And every time Arlo opened his mouth, Noah filled it with a fist.

Arlo’s voice frayed, talking even through the blows. "I went to Professor Cecilia. I begged her. I—"

Noah shot a straight at his face. Arlo slipped just enough to save himself from getting his nose broken, but Noah’s knuckles split his cheek.

He drove forward anyways, shoulder checking Noah hard enough to stagger him.

From the balconies came a sound that wasn’t quite cheering. Some students leaned farther over the rails, enthralled. Others glanced away, unsettled.

A girl with ink stained fingers whispered, "Professor Oliver should stop this."

The boy beside her shook his head. "He won’t. Not until one of them can’t stand." They were learning a different kind of lesson.

Arlo dropped down and swept his leg out. Noah hopped over the leg, crashing down with a hammerfist to Arlo’s shoulder, and they separated, chests heaving.

Arlo’s hands trembled once, before he controlled it. He reset his guard, palms open, listening.

"Look at me," Noah said, and the demand wasn’t literal. "Say it straight. Why didn’t you come?"

"I tried." Arlo smiled, a self-lacerating thing. "I failed."

Noah’s laugh was like a knife. "And like I said, almost means nothing."

He surged forward, somehow moving even faster. He sent forward a double jab, not meant to land, but to draw Arlo’s hands high.

The right that followed dipped low and buried itself in Arlo’s liver. Arlo folded in half with a strangled sound.

Noah’s knee rose to meet his face, but Arlo caught it on crossed forearms and shoved away, stumbling sideways, trying to buy a second of breath.

"You could have warned me," Noah said, voice like frost. "About your name. About your grandfather. About everything."

"I thought it didn’t matter," Arlo said, breath ragged. "I wanted to be your friend without the title."

He threw his own combination then, teeth bared. Left hook to Noah’s body, right hook to his head, and bent low to sweep the leg, mixing rhythm to keep Noah off the beat.

The head shot landed cleanly. Noah’s vision sparked, but he blinked hard and kept moving.

"Friends tell the truth," Noah said, and he kicked sand straight at Arlo’s face.

Gasps burst from the balconies. Arlo’s head snapped reflexively away, even though theoretically, his blindfold should have been able to protect him.

But Noah already knew this. He’d long since figured out that it wasn’t that Arlo had another mode of seeing. It was just that he could see through the blindfold.

And since he could see through his eyes, he would still want to protect it instinctively.

Arlo caught most of it on his cheek and the edge of the blindfold, but enough grit found his lashes to make his eyes burn beneath the cloth.

He recoiled and wiped as he moved, and Noah slammed into him, shoulder first, driving him all the way to the chalked edge of the circle.

Oliver’s voice filled the air as the students protested the move.

"It’s legal," he barked. "This is what the world looks like when it wants you dead. Adapt."

Arlo adapted. He ducked under the wild follow-up hook, stepped across Noah’s stance, and hip tossed him clean over the shoulder.

Noah hit the sand hard enough to knock breath from his lungs. Arlo’s knee dropped towards Noah’s stomach, aiming to pin him to the ground, but Noah bucked and rolled, sliding Arlo slid off him, and scrambling to his feet.

They were both panting now. Blood dripped down both their lips, each one sporting forming bruises underneath their uniforms.

’Hit me again,’ Noah told the cold thing in his chest. ’Give me one more reason.’

Arlo didn’t. He raised empty hands. "Noah," he said simply, "I’m sorry."

"Too late," Noah said, and he came like a tide.

What followed was less an exchange than a storm. Noah’s pressure increased. His footwork morphed into something ugly and efficient.

Every time Arlo sought the center, Noah slid in front of it. Every time Arlo turned, Noah’s shoulder was waiting.

Punches thudded in series. To the temple, the ribs, the hip, and repeat. Arlo’s counters landed but they landed under pressure, under constant insistence, and they bled value with each step backwards.

And so, Arlo changed tactics.

He stopped fleeing the boundary and met Noah in the middle. Noah’s fist flashed toward his cheek. He took it on his forearm and answered with a short hook that clipped Noah’s ear.

Noah wobbled for a heartbeat and Arlo pounced, chaining elbows like falling stones. Noah swayed, then drove forward and wrapped his arm around Arlo’s waist.

Before Arlo’s elbow could descend on his back, he lifted and dumped.

They crashed.

Above them, a girl hissed through her teeth.

Someone else said, "Should Professor..." and Oliver’s growl shut him up.

On the ground, neither of them had the luxury of distance. They wrestled, each one jockeying for a more favorable position.

Noah’s palm smashed Arlo’s face sideways and sand ground into the cut along his cheek. Arlo shoved the hand away and braced, rolling them onto their sides.

He tried to post an arm to stand, but Noah chopped it with his forearm and Arlo flopped back down with a curse.

"Up!" Oliver barked. "Break!"

They obeyed reluctantly, staggering to their feet, and facing off in front of each other again.

Arlo flexed stiff fingers. "I didn’t abandon you."

"You did," Noah said, flat.

"I tried to go anyway!" Arlo’s voice cracked, his composure snapping to show the boy underneath. "He locked me in my room. They put two guards outside. I punched a hole in the door. I—"

Noah hit him again.

Arlo caught the tail of the hook, rode it, and buried a counter in Noah’s ribs so hard Noah’s vision salted over.

He answered with an uppercut that snapped Arlo’s head, but Arlo’s hands were already there, cushioning and redirecting the hit.

He stepped in and smashed his forehead into Noah’s cheekbone. Stars burst into Noah’s vision. Noah snarled, teeth bared.

"That’s it!" Arlo snarled to himself. "I’ve had enough of this bullshit."