The address Jun had texted her was a street she half-remembered, somewhere on the South Side where the asphalt split like a scar. A narrow building sat wedged between a tire shop and a liquor store, its faded sign barely legible: DOMINION GYM—the O and second I long since gone dark.

Lia stood across the street for a full minute before crossing. The afternoon had the dull color of steel, and every sound—the hiss of buses, the hollow clack of her boots—seemed louder than it should’ve been.

The gym’s front door resisted when she pulled it. The handle stuck, the metal tacky with years of sweat and neglect. When it finally opened, the smell hit first—iron, mildew, and something faintly sweet, like old blood turned to rust.

Inside, the air was still. The only light came from a single fluorescent tube that flickered every few seconds, giving everything a stuttered, haunted pattern.

Heavy bags hung like bodies, their leather cracked, stuffing leaking in gray tufts. The ring ropes sagged. The mats were patched with duct tape.

The ghosts of impact lived in this place—the way sound clung to walls, the memory of gloves on flesh, the deep hum of exhaustion.

She took one slow step inside. The floorboards creaked.

Cassian was there.

He stood at the far end near the ring, back to her, wrapping his hands. The motion was clean, automatic, precise—the muscle memory of someone who’d done it a thousand times and stopped thinking about why. His hair had gone shorter since she’d last seen him. A streak of silver cut through the dark at his temple.

For a heartbeat, she thought maybe he hadn’t heard her. Then his voice came—low, dry, carrying easily in the empty space.

“You’re early.”

Lia froze. “For what?”

He didn’t turn. “For the part where I tell you no.”

Her throat tightened. “You don’t even know what I’m asking.”

“I do.” He finished the last one, pulled it tight with his teeth, and flexed his hand. “And the answer’s still no.”

The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, making a faint electrical whine.

She crossed her arms, trying to steady her voice. “You don’t train anymore. What do you care?”

He turned then, slow, deliberate. His eyes met hers. Same eyes she remembered—gray, sharp, unreadable.

“I care about not repeating mistakes,” he said.

Something in her chest went tight. “So I’m a mistake now?”

His gaze flicked over her—to the split lip, the bruises along her jaw. “You look like one.”

The words landed clean, no cruelty in them, just fact. That somehow made it worse.

She stepped closer, the floor groaning beneath her weight. “I’m not here for your approval, Cassian. I just need training space.”

“This isn’t a charity.”

“I’ll pay.”

“With what? You couldn’t afford to breathe in this city last year.”

“Things change.”

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Not you.”

For a second, the old between them flickered—the push, the counter, the dangerous ease of knowing how to get under each other’s skin.

She hated that he still knew her tells. The way her jaw clenched before she spoke. The way her shoulders squared when she lied.

“I’m fighting in the regionals,” she said.

That caught him. His head tilted slightly, the faintest shift. “You?”

“Me.”

He didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “That’s a death sentence.”

“I can handle myself.”

He shook his head once. “You always could. That’s the problem.”

He walked past her. She caught the ghost of something else—aftershave, faint, clean, out of place here.

At the counter, he grabbed a clipboard and a pen, flipped through pages yellowed by sweat and time. “No open spots,” he said without looking up.

“You’ve got six empty bags.”

He looked up then. “And a rule about ghosts.”

She frowned. “What?”

His tone didn’t change. “I don’t train ghosts.”

The words hung there, low and even.

For a moment, she didn’t breathe.

Then she laughed once—short, disbelieving. “Guess I came to the right place, then.”

Cassian set the clipboard down. The pen rolled off and hit the floor with a tiny click that sounded louder than it should’ve.

***

The silence in the gym wasn’t empty; it had weight, like air held too long. Lia could hear the hum of the old refrigerator in the back office, the drip of a slow leak somewhere above, and the faint tremor of Cassian’s measured breathing.

She walked toward the ring, boots scraping on the worn floor. The canvas still bore the stains of other people’s stories—sweat, blood, chalk, hope ground down to residue.

“You could’ve told me to leave the second I walked in,” she said.

“I was giving you the chance to change your mind.”

“You should know better.”

“I should.”

Her hands itched to hit something. The need wasn’t anger—it was muscle memory. When she couldn’t make sense of something, she hit it until it made sense.

Cassian leaned against the ropes, watching her move like a teacher evaluating a student he didn’t ask to see again.

“You’re limping,” he said.

“I won a fight yesterday.”

“That what you call winning now?”

She stopped in the middle of the ring, looked around at the cracked mirrors, the dust, the faint ghost of a once-great name still printed on the wall: DOMINION ATHLETICS. The letters peeled at the corners, like they’d started giving up before everyone else did.

“Why did you stay here?” she asked.

“Because leaving looks too much like running.”

“And I’m the ghost?”

He ignored that. “You’re bleeding through your tape.”

She looked down. The knuckles on her right hand had split open again, a thin line of red leaking through the gauze.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Everything matters,” he said. The words came soft, automatic, and then he frowned like he hadn’t meant to say them.

Lia caught it—just the faintest hesitation. A crack, quickly sealed.

“You used to believe that,” he added.

“I used to believe a lot of things.”

Cassian exhaled. “You’re not ready for regionals.”

“That’s not your call.”

“It’s exactly my call if you’re asking for my help.”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling you, I’m doing it—with or without you.”

He looked at her for a long time. “Then it’ll be without.”

The sentence landed like a door closing.

She turned to leave. But her hand brushed the top rope, and something in her stilled. The friction of the rough canvas burned her palm, and the feeling anchored her.

“You don’t even want to know why,” she said quietly.

“I already do.”

“Then say it.”

“You’re fighting for him.”

The air in her chest caught.

Cassian’s gaze didn’t waver. “Your brother’s name has been in Dominic’s ledgers since before you were old enough to walk into a ring. You think a win erases that?”

Her throat went dry. “You don’t get to talk about my brother.”

He stepped closer, but not too close. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

She almost laughed. “You don’t get to say that either.”

He didn’t respond. He just looked at her, steady, as if memorizing the shape of her anger.

For a moment—brief, quiet—there was something else in his expression. Not softness, exactly, but a flicker of recognition. Like he saw the same exhaustion he carried.

Then it was gone.

“You should go,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because this place doesn’t believe in resurrection.”

Lia’s pulse thudded once, hard, against her ribs. She climbed through the ropes instead of walking away. Her boots hit the mat with a dull thump.

Cassian sighed. “Don’t.”

“Show me.”

“No.”

“Show me, or I’ll find someone who will.”

“You’ll find someone who’ll get you killed.”

She smiled, just barely. “Then you better make me worth the risk.”

He shook his head, half in disbelief, half in resignation. “You haven’t changed.”

“You have,” she said. “You stopped fighting.”

The corner of his jaw tightened. He turned, walked toward the office. “Lock the door when you leave.”

***

Lia stayed inside the ring after he disappeared into the office. The echo of his steps faded behind the thin wall, replaced by the hollow groan of pipes. She let her hands drop to her sides, gloves still half-wrapped, blood seeping slowly through the gauze.

The gym smelled the same as it used to—rubber mats, chalk dust, the faint sting of antiseptic—but it felt smaller now, like memory had pressed in from all sides and taken up too much air.

She turned a slow circle, eyes tracking the mirrored wall. Her reflection looked older than it should have—cheeks hollow, bruise shadowing the edge of her jaw.

She left the ring, each step making the boards creak. On a nearby bench lay a stack of towels, bleached gray from overuse. She picked one up, wiped her knuckles until the blood stopped, then tied the rag tight around her wrist.

The office door creaked. Cassian stepped out, a towel over his shoulder, eyes fixed on the floor until he saw her still there.

“I said lock up.”

“I heard.”

He walked to the counter, grabbed a set of keys, started checking the window latches. The movement was mechanical, efficient. She watched the muscles move under his T-shirt, the scars that mapped his forearms—thin white lines, reminders of a career he pretended didn’t exist.

She said quietly, “You built this place.”

He didn’t look at her. “And buried it.”

“Why?”

“Because it stopped saving people.”

“You think you did?”

He finally looked up. “No. But I tried.”

The tone wasn’t defensive. It was tired.

She stepped closer. The air between them held the smell of chalk and sweat and something almost familiar. “You don’t get to quit just because you’re tired.”

“You don’t get to live long if you don’t.”

The sentence landed clean, without heat, but she felt it anyway.

She took a breath. “I’ll train somewhere else.”

He gave a short nod. “Good.”

“But you’ll hear about it.”

That made him pause. “You planning to make headlines?”

“Something like that.”

He almost smiled—an involuntary twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Try not to die doing it.”

“Not part of the plan.”

She walked toward the door. When she pulled it open, the cold air of evening rushed in, sharp and clean. She stepped into it without looking back.

Cassian stood where she’d left him, watching the door swing shut. He stared at the space she’d occupied, then down at the floor, where a single drop of blood had fallen from her hand. He wiped it away with the side of his shoe.

In the stillness that followed, he muttered to no one, “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Outside, Lia paused on the sidewalk, breathing in the city’s chill until it hurt. The ribbon from her grandmother’s medal peeked from under the towel on her wrist. She tightened it.

Her phone buzzed—an unknown number. Just one message:

DON’T TRUST ANYONE WHO WANTS TO HELP YOU.

No name, but she recognized the phrasing. Jun.

She looked back once through the gym window. Cassian’s shadow moved past the light, tall and steady, a ghost walking inside his own ruins.

She whispered, barely audible, “Neither do I.”