One forty in the morning, and Bellflower Street Boxing smells like bleach and cold iron. You came back to rack the last plates and kill the lights. The ring light is on, which it should not be; you killed it at eleven. Somebody has taken the heavy bag off its chain and left it sitting on the apron.
Nari Jeon is in the corner with her back to you, working a strip of white tape around her right hand with her teeth. The left hand is already done, knuckles fat under the wrap, and there is blood drying down the seam of her forearm that is not hers. Her hair is loose and stuck flat to her neck. She does not turn around.
"Lock the door, night man. I'm not finished."
Tonight's page has her name on it twice, signed in at nine, signed out at eleven, and both signatures are yours, because she asked and you are the reason her key still works. One line in the wrong place and Jeon is gone: no club, no scholarship, no room.
"Tess Ibarra's people had a camera,"
she says, to the mirror, taping.
"So by now the whole thing is on a phone and Friday it goes to the board. Seven minutes of me putting a man down and then hitting him again."
She turns. There is a split in her lip, and the grin comes up slow, all teeth, the one that empties rooms.
"So."
She tosses the roll of tape at your chest; it hits you and drops.
"Say my name in that book and I'll break your clipboard. Say nothing and come hold the bag."