The tag hit the mat with a sound that seemed to echo off every wall in the gym.
Tap.
Then nothing.
Kade’s fingers were frozen around the small piece of metal. His chest stopped moving. His eyes locked onto the object in his palm like it was a snake that had just bitten him.
I watched his face transform.
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The arrogance drained out of him in waves. First the smirk disappeared. Then the color. Then whatever was left behind his eyes that had made him think he could take my bag and make me a joke.
“What is that?” the coach asked again, his voice tighter now.
Kade didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
I knew that look. I had seen it before—on my own face, in the mirror, the morning I found my father’s workshop empty. The morning everything changed.
“It’s a tag,” I said quietly. “For a dog. A German Shepherd.”
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The coach frowned. “What does a dog tag have to do with anything?”
I didn’t take my eyes off Kade. “Ask him.”
Kade’s jaw was clenched so hard I could see the muscles twitching under his skin. He still hadn’t moved. He still hadn’t looked up from the tag.
“Kade.” The coach’s voice was sharp now. “What is going on?”
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The second fighter—the one Kade had thrown my bag to—stepped forward. His name was Mateo, I had learned that from the same research that had brought me here.
“Yo, Kade, what’s wrong with you, man?”
Kade finally moved.
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He closed his hand around the tag. Then he looked up at me, and for the first time since I walked into this gym, I saw something real in his eyes.
Fear.
Raw, undisguised fear.
“Where did you get this?” His voice was barely above a whisper.
I took a breath. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, but I kept my face still. I had practiced this. I had rehearsed this moment for six weeks. I had imagined it a hundred different ways.
None of them included the way he was looking at me now.
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“My father had one,” I said. “Just like it. Same name on the back. Same year.”
Kade’s hand tightened around the tag until his knuckles went white.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you were there.”
The gym went completely silent.
Even the students in the back stopped whispering. The AC hummed overhead. Somewhere near the entrance, a door creaked.
Kade shook his head. “You’ve got the wrong person.”
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“No.” I stepped closer. “I checked.”
The coach moved between us now, his hands raised. “Everyone back up. Right now.”
I stopped. Kade didn’t move at all.
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“What is going on?” The coach looked from me to Kade and back again. His name was Marcus, I remembered. Marcus Reeves. Former champion. He had built this gym from nothing.
He deserved to know the truth.
But I wasn’t sure I was ready to say it out loud.
Kade looked toward the exit. I saw it—that quick flick of his eyes, the way his weight shifted toward the door. He was going to run.
“Don’t,” I said.
He froze.
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“I just need some air.”
“You’re not leaving in the middle of this,” Marcus said.
I looked at the coach. “Let him.”
Marcus frowned. “Why?”
“Because he’s going to lead me to the person I’m looking for.”
Kade stared at me. His mouth opened, then closed. Then he laughed—a broken, hollow sound that made the students near the back flinch.
“You don’t know anything.”
I smiled for the first time since I walked in.
It wasn’t a friendly smile. I could feel that. It pulled at the corners of my mouth like a wound that had finally stopped bleeding.
“I know enough.”
Kade looked toward the exit again. His hand was still wrapped around the tag. His breathing was uneven now, fast and shallow.
Then the front door opened.
Everyone turned.
A man walked in.
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He was older—late fifties, maybe sixty. Gray hair cut short. A worn leather jacket that had seen better decades. His face was weathered in a way that told you he had spent a lot of years in the sun.
He stopped when he saw the crowd.
Then his eyes found Kade.
Kade went completely still.
The man looked at the tag in Kade’s hand. His expression changed—not dramatically, not like Kade’s had. But something shifted behind his eyes. Something old and heavy.
“You still have that?”
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Kade looked like he wanted to disappear into the mat.
Marcus stepped forward. “You know him?”
The man didn’t answer. He kept staring at the tag.
I walked closer. My legs felt unsteady, but I forced them to move. “You remember my father?”
The man finally looked at me.
His face went pale.
“Yes.”
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The gym erupted.
Not loudly—not like a football crowd. But a ripple moved through the students. Whispers. Sharp intakes of breath. Someone in the back said something I couldn’t hear.
Marcus raised his hands. “Everybody shut up. Now.”
The noise stopped.
I took another step toward the man. My voice came out low, controlled. “Then tell me what happened.”
The man looked at Kade.
Kade shook his head. “Don’t.”
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The man’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t,” Kade said again. His voice cracked on the word.
I didn’t look away from the man. “What happened?”
He finally spoke.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
Kade closed his eyes.
Marcus looked between them. “What wasn’t supposed to happen?”
Nobody answered.
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I turned toward Kade. “You told me you didn’t know anything.”
He didn’t answer.
“You told me you never met my father.”
Still nothing.
“You lied.”
Kade opened his eyes. They were red now. Wet.
“I was trying to protect someone.”
“Who?”
He stayed silent.
I waited.
