Page 10 of Hell and Halos

He comes up fast and hard, drives his shoulder into my ribs, and we go into the bookshelf together, the whole thing crackin' off the wall, books and binders rainin' down. Cash is bigger than he looks under all that ranch polish, I'll give him that. He gets his forearm across my throat before I can reset, leans his weight in.

"Would you stop⁠—"

I headbutt him.

He staggers back, both hands goin' to his nose, and I use the shelf to push off. He catches me mid-lunge, gets a fist into my ribs, right where they're still not fully healed from the last time he put his boot there back in that hunting cabin, and the pain lights up white behind my eyes.

I get my hands on his shirt again but Cash is done bein' handled.

He twists hard at the hip, breaks my grip, and comes around with an elbow that catches the side of my head. The ringing is immediate, deep, the kind that makes the floor tilt. I catch the edge of the desk, use it, push back into him before he can reset his feet.

We go into the wall. Cash gets a knee up into my gut and it doubles me, real and ugly, the air emptying out of me in a grunt I can't stop. He follows it with a hard right that catches my jaw and sends me sideways into the broken bookshelf again, the wood edging diggin' into my spine, pain stackin' on pain.

Cash is breathin' hard now. Both of us are.

He moves in fast and I let him get close enough before I shoot my elbow up into his throat. Not full force. Enough. Cash chokes, steps back, hand goin' to his neck on instinct.

I grab him by the collar and the belt and I run him into the far wall. He goes through the framed photograph there. Glass everywhere. He gets a hand up into my face, thumb findin' my eye socket, and I jerk back just in time but his other fist is already movin', hammerin' into my ribs twice, three times, workin' the same spot like he knows exactly where it's weakest.

Because he does. He put the boot there himself.

Black spots in my vision. I drop to one knee before I can stop it.

Cash grabs the back of my neck and drives my face toward the floor, but I get an arm across in time, take the impact on my forearm instead of my nose. The floor's cold and hard, glass from the picture frame biting into my palm.

I sweep his legs.

Cash hits the floor hard, air coming out of him in a bark. I'm on top of him before he can roll, knees on his arms, one hand in his shirt and one fist drawn back.

He looks up at me.

Blood running from his nose. Eye already swellin'. Jaw startin' to bruise where I hit him first.

He doesn't look away.

Neither do I.

My fist is shakin'. Not from fatigue.

The fury in my chest is still there. It hasn't gone anywhere. It's got nowhere to go.

I don't swing at him again. I just hold my fist at the ready.

Then I let it go.

I get up off him and walk to the door.

But I don't leave. I don't have anywhere to go that can fix this. So I just stand there, facin' it. My forehead finds the wood and I let it rest there, eyes closed, breathin' through my nose. Every inhale pulls at the ribs on my left side where he worked them, slow and deliberate, like he had a map to every old break.

Behind me I hear Cash pickin' himself up off the floor. Muttered curses, low and continuous, the specific inventory of a man assessin' damage point by point. A grunt when he gets vertical. The sound of glass shiftin' under boots.

Neither of us says anything for a while.

The office settles around us. The lamp's still on the floor, throwin' light sideways across the wall, the broken shelf, the scattered books. That framed photograph in pieces. Whatever it was, it's face-down now and I don't look to find out.

I breathe.

Cash breathes.