Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,11
entire obstacle course of tractor tires was laid out when they arrived and they had to leap over them with their legs bound, pull themselves into the ring, and try to land a punch on Logan, who shouted them all on with throaty curses. Another day giant bolts of fabric had been stretched across the room, effectively dropping the ceiling to five feet off the ground, and they had to do the entire session in a squat. Nora couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs for two days afterward, taking elevators everywhere and tracing the outline of wasted muscle in bed at night.
Nora knew she wasn’t the only devotee in the Logan Russo cult. A sea of eyes followed Logan’s every move, and peals of sweat-flushed laughter echoed when she told stories about the absurdity of having a doorman (“The building says he can curate our mail upon request. Isn’t that the fanciest fucking term for a felony you’ve ever heard?”) or being invited to a gala for the mayor’s urban outreach initiative (“My shoulders have hulked through more sleeves than Marvel could CGI-imagine. I’m having nightmares of reaching for a meatball and spraying sequins into some senator’s drink.”). She drew them in with the illusion that they were all friends chatting on some rooftop bar, before annihilating them with a drill that brought them gasping to their knees.
Nora thought of dozens of responses, witty things she could say to Logan as she walked by, but none of them made it past her lips. Instead she threw silent punches and kicks and hurried to the locker room afterward to change. Because what could an accountant ever say that would interest someone like Logan Russo?
Now Nora stood in the skyway, staring at Strike. Her muscles should be aching and sore, humming from the noon class she’d missed. Instead they felt empty, restless, inadequate. She brushed the spot on her elbow where Logan had once corrected her form and tried to feel the skin as Logan would have, wondering whether the fighter had sensed an opponent, a creep, or a friend. Whether she’d sensed anything at all.
She was nothing to Logan Russo. And yet.
In the meeting, Gregg said something had happened in their marriage recently, something Logan blamed him for. A flush of guilt rose up as Nora realized he might have been talking about Atlanta. She might be the thing that had disrupted their marriage. Backing away from the glass, Nora retreated across the skyway and into the Parrish building. It wasn’t rational, this feeling. She’d done nothing wrong, but right and wrong never mattered when things became personal. It was messy, dangerous ground.
I need you, Nora.
It was the same thing Sam White said when he’d pleaded with her to save his company, to put her friendships and her heart first. And Sam White had ended up dead.
GREGG
THREE HOURS later I walked out of downtown in the company of the smartest, most driven women in the world. The senior managers of Strike all marched ahead of me, eager to get their steps in and reach the towering glass of U.S. Bank Stadium, site of the Strike Down tournament.
Our last order of business for the day was a preliminary walk-through of the stadium, but that didn’t stop Brennan, Director of Events, from doing a mobile rundown of where everything stood.
“All the staffing is confirmed for security, ushers, and concessions. Merch is arriving today and tomorrow. The vStrike prototypes are en route. The last box for the preliminaries has been taken, so we are officially sold out on all nights. I’ve notified—”
“Brennan.”
She paused, fingers hovering over her tablet.
“We’re four days away.”
“Right. Four days.” She flipped the tablet to show us a countdown clock in the bottom corner of the screen. Laserlike concentration. No detail too small to be noticed and handled. But underneath that, buried in the lift of her eyebrows and rush of her vowels—excitement.
“You’re going to have to breathe at some point between now and the start of the tournament.”
Laughter erupted through the group and even Brennan smiled as we crossed an intersection. “It’s one of the bullet points.”
“Good.” I held up my hands. “Sold. Out. Congratulations, everyone!” I shouted over the clapping and cheering that erupted around me. I tried to feel it with them, to take in this moment that we—that Strike—had created, but the weight of the missing prize money still churned in my gut. When I turned toward C.J., the Director of Marketing, she waved me off,