I’ve been making her write my papers for me. I could easily do it myself, but it’s tedious to write out the paragraphs by hand. I get a perverse pleasure watching her pause between sentences, shaking out her cramped fingers. I’ve spent hours watching her work, tilted back in my chair while she sits on the other side of the library table, her delicate neck bent over the page, her dark curls covering her angry expression.
I want to push her further. I’m craving it.
I’m consumed with dark fantasies of what I could make Cat do . . .
Meanwhile, I’ve returned to Snow’s boxing class.
That Wednesday after I tried to fight him with humiliating results, I entered the Armory gym with shoulders back, head held high. I was daring the other students to say one fucking word about that fight. I planned to put them in their place before the sentence left their lips.
But Snow was already standing in place on the mats, silencing even Vanya Antonov with his formidable bulk.
He gave us a lesson on footwork, then split us up once more to practice.
This time, he paired me with Kade Petrov.
I had to swallow my irritation, knowing that he was testing me to see if I would use excessive force against a Freshman again.
I certainly was tempted. Kade was only a little better than Tristan Turgenev—quick and eager, but sloppy, undisciplined. He’d keep his head for a couple of rounds, then get over-confident, leaving himself wide open.
I popped him a few times as a reminder, but under the watchful eye of Snow, I was careful not to exceed the bounds of the exercise.
“Zaebis, you’re good,” Kade said admiringly.
“You could be, too, if you kept your focus,” I muttered.
“How long have you been boxing?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “All my life.”
I learned how to fight as soon as the boys at school got a look at my father. They already mocked me for my accent—I spoke English too much at home with my mother. They called my father a monster, and my mother an American whore. I fought three, four, five of them at once, coming home every day with bloody noses and blackened eyes, until I learned to do enough damage to shut their fucking mouths. Some of those boys became my friends. Some fought me in the underground matches years later.
One is at Kingmakers with me now—Pasha Tsaplin. He’s Bratva too, though his father is a drunken disgrace. He only got into school on the strength of Danyl’s recommendation, same as me. He owes Danyl four years’ service for that favor. I suppose I got off lucky with only two.
“My brother taught me to box,” Kade said.
“Adrik is famous at Kingmakers,” I said.
“I know,” Kade sighed.
I supposed it was a lot to live up to. But that’s the nature of our world—you must surpass the achievements of your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather. That is empire building.
After class, Snow clapped me on the shoulder.
“You did well today,” he told me.
“You mean I was a better babysitter,” I snorted.
“If you can’t teach something, then you don’t know it very well yourself,” Snow said.
I nodded, struggling against my residual resentment over how easily he’d beaten me.
As he was about to tidy up the gym, I burst out, “What was it like fighting Rueben Hagler?”
Snow turned back, cocking one graying eyebrow.
“It was one of the hardest fights of my life,” he said, his gravelly voice heavy with exhaustion just from the memory of it. “Hagler was known as an intelligent and adaptable boxer. No matter how you tried to change your strategy in the fight, he would match it. I was past my peak at that point. Defending my belt against the up-and-comer—”
“I know!” I interrupted, unable to help myself. “I watched the fight live on TV. My father let me stay up—we were in Moscow, so it was late, almost two o’clock in the morning before it even began.”
Snow shook his head. “You must have been a baby . . .”
“I was four. I did fall asleep, but my father woke me up when you walked out to the ring. Hagler had played his fight song, like boxers always do, but when you entered, the lights went down until there was only this pale white beam on the ring, and no music, only a soft, whispering noise like snowflakes falling down . . .”
Snow chuckled. “He hated that sound. All the boxers did. They were trying to amp themselves up before the fight. The quiet took the heart right out of them.”
“It was mesmerizing,” I said, fully immersed in the memory of sitting on my father’s lap, heavy with sleep, but glued to the television screen where the powerful boxer stepped into the ring, pale and blond just like me, with eyes of glittering ice. I’d never seen anyone more terrifying.
“The fight started out rough. I tried to keep my distance. I had a good reach, and Hagler was known for using lateral movements, working the body. But it was no good. He kept the pressure on me, finding the perfect moment to throw his power blows right to my fuckin’ liver. I had never taken hits like that. They bent me over.”
Snow winced, as if he could still feel the phantom blows.
“God, he was quick, too. He frustrated me. He would hit me with a punch, I’d try to return one, and I couldn’t fucking find him, it was like he’d turned to smoke. He was damaging me. I couldn’t feel all the hits, but I felt myself getting slow and stiff.”
I remembered all this. How the older champion had been attacked again and again by the vicious young phenom, who had double the odds at the bookies. Everyone said Hagler would be the man to take Snow down.
“Did you think he would win?” I asked Snow, watching his face closely to see the truth, whatever he might reply.
“No,” Snow said, firm and decisive.
“Not even for a minute?”
“No.” Snow shook his head.
“But . . . how? How did you know you’d come back and win?”
Snow smiled to himself.
“I knew I would win because I promised Sasha I would,” he said. “And I’ve never failed her yet.”
I looked at him narrowly, thinking he was joking.
It was a ridiculous answer. No boxer could win a fight just to please his wife.
Snow could see my incredulity.
“A fight isn’t won by belief. But once you’ve done all you can in the gym . . .” He tapped my chest once more, reminding me of our previous conversation. “The last bit is in here. You’ll know that it’s true. Once you’ve found it yourself.”
I found it infuriating that Snow kept talking about boxing as if it had anything to do with emotion. Yet I kept thinking over what he said as I ran to my next class.
I’d already missed Cat, who must have gone on without me when I failed to appear. I also missed International Banking, Professor Graves having already shut and locked the door.
I ended up walking through the greenhouses, wondering if there was any truth to Snow’s ideology. I had always thought of him as the ultimate machine, fighting with what looked like cold logic and unfailing brilliance. I thought it was his wit and nerves that sustained him.
He was trying to tell me it was what . . . love?
The idea was laughable.
Still, I lingered after class to talk with Snow several more times. And I began to enjoy his sessions more and more, as the intricacy and difficulty of the instruction increased.