Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,65

I slip the bird bones of my hands out of his grip and am down the stairs, running. I feel him behind me as I wrench the door open but pull my bones through his hands again and feel a flare of triumph at my little wrists that can do this, that can slip out of these kinds of traps.

There’s a car coming down the lane toward me, headlights bright in my eyes. Is that Ma? I can’t tell.

I don’t know what makes me do this, turn and run the other way, but I do. Right into the woods behind the parking lot. I just want to get away.

And I think, for a moment, that I’m free. So I stop because my head is spinning. I blink, but everything is hazy. The tree bark is cool against my temple.

I forget where I am and instead replay the events of my tourney fights. Didn’t I relive a fight at Dad’s funeral, too? It’s what I do when my mind goes blank. Then I hear Ravi’s voice in my head, him saying things to me as though I’m Ma. As if I’d ever do the things to him that Ma did. It wasn’t enough for Ma to take everything from me, she had to drag Ravi into it, too.

There’s light somewhere behind me and I remember a car pulling into the lot. Someone’s calling my name but I don’t want to be near anyone right now. I just want to stand here in the dark until morning comes. My phone rings, the sound shattering the quiet around me.

It’s Jason. “Hello?” Jason says, his voice sounding groggy. “Trish, are you there? You butt-dialed me.”

“Come get me,” I whisper.

“Where are you? Trish? I’m at my parents’ place. I can get the car from my dad and drive over in no time. Are you at home?” He’s so freaked out he’s tripping all over his words, tripping all over mine as I try to answer. I guess I sound as terrified as I feel.

I’m about to say yes, I’m at home, but a noise stops me. It doesn’t feel like I’m alone anymore. Jason’s speaking again, messing with my concentration so I hang up the phone.

Looking around, I don’t see anybody, but I feel them.

I feel him.

Ravi isn’t behind me, until he is. I didn’t know he could move like that. With all the drugs Ma’s been giving him he shouldn’t be able to move so fast.

He puts his hands on my shoulders and I can’t slip through this time. I spin, quickly. My hip lifts and torques and my right knee whips into his groin. He screams and falls, taking me with him to the dirt, pinning me there. We’re close to the edge of the ravine, almost too close for me to manoeuvre properly, but I manage to buck him off, push and scrape my body from under him. I’m thanking Imelda now, and the BJJ she introduced us to. My ground game isn’t great, but it’s better than Ravi’s.

Keep running, I think. You’re too fast for him.

His hands close over my ankle and he pulls me back. I kick out—

and this is what it’s like, when all your strength has deserted you and you know the punishment is coming, you know you’re done, all glory lost in this one moment that you weren’t good enough

—but right then I hear a sound, a whoosh of breath, a fierce cry that seems to rise from the earth, a wind whistling through the trees, falling like a hammer from the sky and it’s everywhere at once this sound.

It’s all around me.

It’s Ma.

She’s here with us and her hands are on Ravi. For a moment it looks like she’s hugging him but no, that’s not it. She’s pushing him. Ravi’s hands melt away and I smell her breath, metallic and full of blood, before I realize she’s still screaming, even as she falls down into the ravine, bringing Ravi with her, and now her screams turn from anger to triumph before they die out.

Rain on galvanized roofing. Pansticks on hammered steel. The sound of bones breaking. A skull cracking apart.

thirty-four

Their bodies are twisted, broken. Ravi’s neck is facing a direction it shouldn’t be. His eyes are wide open and blood spews from his mouth. He sputters, chokes.

I’m about to go down to them but I feel a hand on my arm, anchoring me to the spot. “Wait,” says Pammy.

We watch the blood spill from his mouth