Voltage

Chapter 26

My knuckles scream with agony, the sting now traveling up my arm with each punch. I stare at my blood on the punching bag, watch the blur that's my hand as it collides again and again against the hard fabric of the opponent. My arms feel like liquid agony surrounding the shattered fragments of bones. It's gotten to the point I can feel each punch echoing in my chest as if I'm the one being punched.

I must look ridiculous.

Beside me, Trips hits land square on his own bag to rattle it on its chain, and where his fist is landing countless times there is a dint, an impression of his effort. Sweat drenches him, soaking his shirt all the way to the start of his jeans-how he can wear jeans is beyond me. With every hit the bag rocks back while mine hasn't moved an inch.

Sharp pain ricochets up my pain to splinter through my shoulder. I shrug it off as best as I can, pausing the fruitless assault on the bag. "Remind me again," I pant, "why we are breaking our fists against a bag of cement."

Trip snorts.

Unamused myself, I lean onto the bag and tip my head to look at Dyne. He leans against the wall, causally as if Trips back isn't about to jump from its hook and smack into him any second. "Firstly, it's not made of cement and soft padding. Secondly, this is to build muscle. Even if you know the moves to avoid opponents, or have the power to knock them out before they touch you, accidents happen. You need to be able to break someone's hold."

"In human form?" I groan. I can't even form the energy to be angry. It hurts-everywhere!

Dyne shakes his head. "Keep going."

Weakly I push away from the bag, but instead of returning to tenderizing the 'sand'-I swear they switched it with cement- I make a show of spreading my arms out to take in the room. "Look around, Dyne. Open those eyes, because I see no one else here-no one else!" I complain.

"Actually, there's a guy over there," Trip nods his head to the side, and grazes his thumb over his knuckles. They're red and split in places, but nowhere near as bad as mine. Apparently, Dyne wants us to harden our skin, and the quickest way to do that is the split it. It will be healed by tomorrow, so no real damage will be done.

"That guy," I say in the sharpest tone I can manage at the moment, "is fixing shit!" In fact he is, screwing back together the metal dummies someone's torn apart. Beside him is a stack of foam and fabric material. Two girls are working in the corner to fix the whole in the boxing gloves. "Everyone else has left to eat, and quite frankly, I'm tied, grumpy and above all, starving. I'm not doing this anymore today."

Stubbornly I turn my back to them as –attempt- to march from the room. If I wasn't as tied I may have felt the shift in Trip from calm to aggressive.

A fist hits my ribs hard and a millisecond later a foot knocks my legs out. My knees crack against the floor but before I can even suck in a breath after the last was knocked out an arm circles my neck. The next is nothing but a blur to me as one second I'm vertical and the next a pains exploding against my chest as I lay face first on the carpet.

For a moment I can do nothing but listen to the erratic irregular beat of my heart fluttering wildly. After what feels like an hour in a breathless world of agony I manage to pull in a breath that makes my chest throb. Something squeezes against my sides to keep me pinned.

"You need to get stronger, Kaz," Trip snarls, "you're so weak, so malnourished your nothing but bones-I'm not even exaggerating. Have you looked at yourself? You're a walking skeleton in skin. You need to eat, obviously, but you need to build up muscle more. Fat won't help you."

I suck in a shallow breath, and nearly choke at the pain. "D-did you-" I gasp, swearing I must be delusional "just-pun-ch me, in the chest?"

I can almost feel his eye roll. "You're a waste of time," he grumbles. The weight on my sides shifts and lifts. A moment later I watch his feet move quietly across the room towards the door.