Page 57 of Forever Relentless

I drove forward again, harder this time, my mind still racing.

They knew about Tiffany’s death. They had to have known. People you pay off don’t just disappear without someone noticing.

They just hadn’t wanted it to be their problem.

If the system hadn’t been a pile of shit, would she still be here? If someone had stepped in instead of stepping aside? My jaw tightened. That was the part that made my hands shake. Not the fact she’d died. That someone had known she was drowning and let her sink quietly because it was easier than admitting something was really fucking wrong.

Back at the starting line, I dropped into a low stance, fingers brushing over the turf, knowing to an onlooker I’d look calm and steady, but inside my head was spinning.

Growing up, the first lesson I’d learned was that size changes rooms. At fifteen, I hadn’t known what to do with that. Didn’t know why teachers stopped arguments when I stood up. Didn’t know why the boys, who were twice as loud, got quiet when I stepped closer.

It hadn’t taken long to figure it out.

I pushed off from the starting line again, sprinting to the forty this time. Not full speed — eighty percent. Enough to feel the stretch in my hamstrings, the pull through my hips.

The stadium lights flickered slightly, breaking my concentration. I didn’t like that. I turned and set up for pursuit angles next. An imaginary running back breaking outside.

Open hips. Run. Cut him off.

I hit the angle hard and decelerated just before the sideline; my cleats tore at the turf, and pellets sprayed everywhere.

I stayed standing. My old coach used to say I had the temperament of a surgeon. Calm. Measured. Efficient.

They didn’t know about the garages.

They didn’t know about the heavy bag.

They didn’t know how easy it was to lean into someone and feel them fold.

Anger doesn’t disappear. It waits.

Another thing I’d learned early on.

It waited in your chest. In the set of your jaw. In the space between what you could do and what you are allowed to do.

My legs burned, and I welcomed it. Pain is simple. Pain makes sense. You overwork something, and it hurts. You rest, and it heals.

Systems didn’t work like that.

People didn’t.

In the end zone, I dropped to the turf. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the empty stands — rows upon rows of metal and shadow. They’d cheer in the fall. They’d chant my name. They’d never know how close I’d come some nights to letting my anger run wild, or how close I’d come to exposing everything. Because that’s what I felt like. If the system wouldn’t protect innocent people, then maybe it didn’t deserve to be protected at all.

That was a dangerous thought.

Not the sorrow. Or the guilt. But the decision on what to do with it all.

I sat up and wrapped my hands with athletic tape that I’d dropped here earlier, exactly for this purpose. Keeping it tight around the knuckles. An old habit.

I needed to spar. The last few weeks had been building up inside me, and I needed to let it out before my control started to slip.

There was a heavy bag in the auxiliary gym. I could go there next. Hit until my shoulders burned or until my thoughts stopped looping.

I flexed my fingers instead.

Not tonight.

If I let myself lean into it — really lean. I knew how easy it would be to stop asking permission. To apply pressure where it hurt and to make people uncomfortable enough to move.