KNOCKOUT

VII: GO THE DISTANCE

TO COMPLETE THE SCHEDULED DURATION OF THE FIGHT

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A MAN OF PARTICULAR HABITS, the senator likes three sugars in his coffee, an omelet for breakfast, and his wife's sister out of his bed before eight in the morning. Zenon learns all of this and more in the three hours she's been following him, but what she doesn't learn is where it would be easiest to kill him.

Now ten paces behind him as he crosses the street, flanked on both sides by his bodyguards and some pedestrians, his phone rings (for the nineteenth time since 7 AM) and he answers before climbing into a glossy black car and driving away.

Zenon curses. Great—today's going really fucking great. She still has a history paper to write for school and she's just lost her mark. She's so focused on feeling sorry for herself that she almost doesn't notice the car barreling down the road, straight towards a pedestrian a few feet in front of her.

"Hey!" Zenon yells. "Watch out!"

She whips towards the car. It doesn't seem to be slowing down. "HEY!" Zenon shouts.

Still no response as the car draws nearer and nearer. The vehicle is close enough that she can see the driver's eyes aren't on the road ahead of him, but engrossed with his phone.

Zenon breaks out into a sprint and tackles the unaware boy, just as the car whizzes by. They land in a pile of tangled limbs.

"Hey! What the hell?" A voice vibrates from under her.

Zenon pushes herself up and brushes some dust off her shoulder. "You're welcome," she grumbles.

"Zenon?"

Zenon freezes. "Aelius," she says, smiling grimly.

"What—? What happened?"

"You were about to get run over by a car. I pushed you out of the way." Zenon crosses her arms and raises her brow. "You should be more aware of your surroundings."

Aelius laughs, sounding a little bit hysterical. He combs his hair back from his face. "Yeah - sorry I'm just a bit out of it today—my boss—he's being a —" He sighs. "Anyways, thank you—so much. I guess I owe you my life."

"Don't mention it." Zenon squints. It all happened so fast—the senator's car is still stuck at a red light. She could go write down the license plate number—it's better than nothing. "Hey," she says to Aelius, distracted. "You should sit down—you're in shock. I have to go."

The situation doesn't fully hit her until she's at least fifty feet away. Did she just save the life of a Valerius? Damn it, is her first thought. Should've let him get run over.

       Zenon's phone rings. "What?" She snaps irritably.

"Ooo, someone's in a mood!"

Zenon rolls her eyes. "What do you want, Doris?"

"I'm here, too!" Dion calls out.

"Nothing, Zen," Doris replies casually. "We just wanted to check in on you—see how the job's going."

Zenon grits her teeth. The license plate was a bust—the light turned green before she could even get close to the car. "It's going fine," she spits out—a little too aggressive. "Everything's fine."

"Really?" Dion asks. "Wow! Because we just found out where dear ol' Dence's going to be tonight."

"But you already know where, right?" Doris asks. "Because everything's going fine."