“Sorry I’m late!”
They turned, and Layne stumbled into the hallway. The door caught the hem of her shorts, and she had to turn around and tug it back to herself. For some reason, Layne always treated these classes like they were make-up days in some long-ago gym period. Like Hwa, she’d quit high school years ago. Her parents figured it was for the best, after her second suicide attempt. They sent her to an in-patient hacklab in Toronto run by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, instead. In the city, she’d had her gender confirmed. Now she ran tech support on the Belle du Jour system.
“How come we’re not in class?” Layne asked.
Hwa looked at the door. “That’s a good fucking question.”
Calliope heaved a massive sigh that caused the huge Greek cross tattooed across her ponderous cleavage to stretch and bounce. “I knew I should have scheduled my tattoo appointment for today, and not next week.”
From behind the door, Hwa heard a heavy thud and a high, surprised yelp. The other women all froze. Hwa held up a hand. “Get someone,” she said, in a low voice.
She pulled open the door quietly and slipped inside. Inside the studio at the far end of the room, a well-built man stood with his back to her. Before him stood a skinny teenaged boy. The boy was white. The man wasn’t. The wing tattoo across his broad shoulders fluttered slightly. Hwa recognized it, and him. His name was Angel.
Angel had thrown her through a glass coffee table, once, when the choking game he was playing with Connor Donnelly got too rough. Connor tapped out—made the emergency call—and Hwa burst in. She’d jumped on Angel and he’d thrown her off. The moment the glass shattered, he’d come back to himself. But by that time, it was already too late. The union blacklisted him. His money was no good in the New Arcadia sex trade.
Apparently, Angel still liked hurting men who looked like boys.
“Get up!” He bounced on his toes. Moved his fists. “Come on. No rest for the wicked, son.”
The kid shot him a mutinous look from his position on the floor. Then his gaze fell. He saw Hwa. Hwa saw him seeing her; he quickly checked the mirrored wall behind Angel and then she knew he saw her face, too. In the mirror, she lifted a finger to her lips. Slowly, awkwardly, the boy got to his feet. His movements were messy. Loose. Gangly. He focused on the man in front of him. On his face, not his shoulders. Beginner mistake.
“Now, you come at me this time,” Angel said.
“You’re supposed to be teaching me self-defence,” the kid said, wheedling. He was playing for time. Hwa took off her shoes. “Shouldn’t you be teaching me blocks and stuff?”
No, Hwa thought. Survival and escape techniques first. Then posture and breathing.
Angel brought up his fists and exposed his forearms. His right arm was heavier than his left. The grip in the fingers a little softer. He’d had the nerves cut and sewn, then. Probably by a poor tailor. Good. “This is a block.”
The kid jabbed out at a weak angle. He drove from the elbow, not the torso, with no pivot in the toes or hips. Terrible form. No power. Angel slapped his little fist away with his left arm and pulled a punch with the right. His fist hovered just above the kid’s left ear. The boy didn’t flinch. He just stared at Angel’s fist like he was waiting for it to tell him something. Like they were playing a game whose rules he didn’t understand.
“Gotcha,” Angel said, and Hwa didn’t need to check the mirror to see his shit-eating grin.
Hwa padded up behind him swiftly and silently. “Hi, Angel,” she said, just to be nice, and drove a back kick straight into his right knee from behind. He fell down and twisted to the right, left arm up, right arm reaching for her legs. She quickly swung a leg over him and trapped the right arm between her knees at the elbow.
“You fucking crazy bitch!” His left fist hammered her in the thigh and the stomach. “Get the fuck out of here, this is my gig—”
“It’s my class time, Angel.” She pivoted away from his swinging left fist, grabbing his right hand and stretching his right arm and feeling it twitch between her legs. Squeezing it, she could feel the machinery at work. Off-brand, she decided. Maybe secondhand. So to speak. “And that means it’s my studio. And I don’t like it when people use my studio to pick on people smaller than them.”
“I’m gonna fuck up the other side of your face, you useless cunt,” Angel said.
“And I’m gonna break this arm,” Hwa said. “I’d turn it off, if I were you.”
“Fuck you,” he spat.