Vito got back up, more slowly this time. He scrubbed at his eyebrow and his hand came away bloody. His eyes, filled with loathing and rage, rose to take in Hax. Hax lowered himself in preparation for another charge, but then Vito slowly stood up straight. He stared at Hax for a good fifteen seconds, then growled, “You’re gonna regret that…” He stalked up the stairs toward the building, violently shoving a kid who didn’t get out of his way.
Hax hadn’t felt worried during the fight. He’d simply responded as he’d learned to react in his martial arts class. By now he’d been the recipient of thousands of attacks in the class and had learned to control his emotions and counter assailants by rote.
Now that it was over, and especially because of the threat Vito had uttered while leaving, Hax felt a visceral reaction shudder through him. He stood up, taking a slow deep breath and shaking out his hands to still their trembling. He looked for Hallie and saw her staring at him wide-eyed. Hax stepped toward her and she surged the rest of the way in under his outstretched arms. She threw her arms around his chest and hugged hard. With a wobbly voice she spoke into his shirt, “Oh, God! What’re we going to do?”
As Hax watched Vito jerk open the door and step into the building, disappearing down the hall, he realized he had no idea.
He looked around at the other kids, all of them staring at him. Some looked like they were filled with admiration, some with respect, and some with disbelief. Some looked sad, like they’d look at a kid just diagnosed with cancer. Way off to the side he saw his sister. She was frowning at him. After a moment, she shook her head disbelievingly and started up the stairs toward the doors.
***
After school, walking to his martial arts class, Hax felt elated. The things he’d been learning in the self-defense class had worked. For the first time in his life, he felt like he’d successfully defended himself from Vito, the bully who’d humiliated him so many times.
So what if Vito had told him he was going to regret it. The more Hax thought about it, the more one-sided the fight seemed. Hax had never really been in danger. If Vito attacks me again, I’ll just deal him more of the same.
Practically bouncing as he entered the studio, Hax was dying to tell someone how he’d defended himself. He knew Master Akita wouldn’t want to hear about it. The master said a fight was never anything to brag about. If you wanted to brag, he said, you should brag about the fights you’d avoided. For a moment, Hax looked around for one of his classmates to tell, but then resolved to follow Master Akita’s wishes.
The class went well, Hax feeling more confident than usual now that he’d used what he’d learned in real life. At the end of the class, Akita had them spar. Hax won a bout against an older, larger boy who usually defeated him.
In the second sparring match, Master Akita pitted him against Aaron, a bigger boy with a more advanced belt. Aaron had started training with Master Akita after Hax but quickly passed him. Because of his clumsiness, Hax hadn’t moved up through the belts like other kids. Despite Hax’s recent improvements, when he stepped into the ring with Aaron and bowed, he expected to be quickly defeated. Certainly, given some of the advanced techniques Aaron had presumably learned that Hax hadn’t even been exposed to yet Hax didn’t think he’d be able to hold his own.
Aaron evidently expected the same, moving quickly toward Hax and beginning from a stance Hax hadn’t seen. Hax did manage to evade Aaron’s grasp. He replied with one of the simple beginners’ moves he’d been so endlessly drilled in.
To Hax’s complete astonishment, he found himself spinning in quickly. Positioned more perfectly than he’d ever achieved before, Hax surged, and Aaron went flying.
When Aaron stood back up, embarrassed disbelief writ large on his face and determination for revenge evident, Master Akita clapped his hands for attention. “Aaron, you were overconfident and trying to show off.” Akita turned to the class, “Now you see that it’s not the technique you use… no matter how sophisticated… but the implementation that matters. This is why I constantly criticize sloppy execution. Aaron clumsily initiated an advanced technique he’d just learned, while Hax perfectly executed a simple technique he learned months and months ago. You can see for yourself which was the most effective.” Akita turned to Hax and made a little bow, “Hax, you’ve been improving rapidly. I would like to invite you to represent the studio at the winter martial arts challenge. You’d be sparring against other third-year students.”
Hax felt euphoric, nonetheless he tamped down his jubilance. He made a small bow in return and said, “It would be my honor.”
Akita was watching the students put away their gear and pondering the changes he’d witnessed in Hax Buchry. It seemed hard to believe that the boy had been so clumsy when he arrived. Akita had feared he’d never be able to defend himself from a toddler. However, in recent months he’d gained coordination. He’d begun to roll with attacks and occasionally throw his opponent. Over the past few weeks though, Akita shook his head. Suddenly Buchry was moving more gracefully than any student Akita had ever had.
Akita was good, and there was no doubt he had much yet to teach Buchry, but Akita could see that this student, if he kept at it, would pass the master.
Akita briefly pictured himself coaching Buchry at the world championships.
As if he’d called him with his mind, Akita looked up and found Buchry in front of him, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Yes?”
“Master Akita…” Buchry said, stopping uncertainly.
Akita nodded to encourage the boy, “Go on.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding brokenhearted, “but I can’t represent the studio this winter at the challenge. My family… we’re having financial trouble. I’ll… I’ll have to stop taking classes at the end of the semester. Um… I’m paid up that far, but I can’t continue after that.”
For a moment a great sadness came over Akita, to see such promise, then see it mislaid. He opened his mouth to wish Buchry well as he had many other young students who’d left without completing their training for any of a number of reasons. But then he heard himself saying, “I’ll continue to train you.”
Buchry shook his head, “But we can’t afford…”
Akita interrupted, “I will teach, you will learn. You will enter tournaments. My reward will be the pride I feel in what you’re able to do. If you don’t have the potential that I believe you do, we can part ways later.”
Buchry looked stunned, “I can…” He looked around the room, “I can… clean up, or something. Whatever you need me to do.”
“We’ll see,” Akita said, thinking he would rather the boy spent his time training, not wasting effort sweeping.
***
Walking home, Hax daydreamed about Hallie. He worried that she’d only been interested in him for his ability to program. But he kept coming back to the fact that she’d come to tell him as soon as she’d learned his program had worked. She’d sat down next to him. She’d hugged him after his fight with Vito.
Especially, Hax kept thinking about that hug.
Then someone stepped out in front of him. Hax looked up from his daydream and found Vito standing there. He immediately thought of that time, years ago now, when Vito had caught him walking home after school. Roni’d rescued him back then, but back then she’d been bigger than Vito.
Though his heart had skipped a beat, Hax focused on the fact that he was bigger than Vito this time. At least, he was taller.
Hax had stopped as soon as Vito appeared. Hax didn’t say anything, just widened his stance and bent his knees a little, shaking his hands out to the side for balance.
Cheerfully, Vito said, “Well, if it isn’t the wise-ass spaz.” To Hax’s surprise, Vito pulled out a pair of heavy leather gloves and started pulling them on. It was cold, but if Vito wanted to wear gloves instead of keeping his hands in his pockets, Hax had no idea why he didn’t already have them on.
“What do you want, Vito?” Hax asked warily.
“I want you,” Vito said, stepping towards Hax, “to stay away, from my girl.”
“She’s not your girl,” Hax said hotly, “she despises you.”
Hax expected Vito to attack or to say something else. Hax would’ve bet on Vito continuing to talk. Vito liked to hear himself and Hax expected him to brag a little about what he was about to do to Hax.
What Hax didn’t expect was the pair of big arms that suddenly encircled him. Stunned, he realized Vito had only been talking to distract him from whoever’d been coming up behind him.
Vito stepped toward Hax, but Hax bent his knees and flexed forward, intending to throw the guy behind him forward over his body. The man didn’t budge, instead, when he tried to bend forward Hax’s feet came off the ground. Shocked, Hax realized the man was huge. Man being the operative word, he certainly wasn’t a teenager like Hax or Vito.
Hax only had a moment to be appalled at the fact that a grown-up had inserted himself into this dispute between a couple of kids.
Then Vito’s right fist pounded into Hax’s cheek. In the moment between the arrival of Vito’s fist and the onset of the pain, Hax realized that the gloves were to protect Vito’s hands. Agony lanced through his face. then Vito’s left fist arrived.
Somewhat distantly, Hax heard the man behind him bellow, “Hold his damned feet!”
Hax realized that, out of instinctive habit rather than conscious thought, he’d stamped down on the guy’s instep like he’d been taught. The big man had Hax around the elbows. Hax’s fists flailed, mostly ineffectually, into the big guy’s sides. Hax started trying to pull his arms up out of the bear hug, but Vito’s continuing blows to Hax’s face were starting to make it difficult to focus.
Someone else grabbed Hax’s ankles, pulling them back and to the sides so he couldn’t stamp the big man’s feet. Suddenly, Vito stopped punching Hax in the face and stepped up, hurtling his knee up into Hax’s crotch. Hax wanted to curl around his injuries, but Vito sent another punch into his face.
Then, behind him, he heard another voice, “That’s enough.”
Vito said, “No! I’m just getting started!”
Whether Vito was done or not, the big man let go of Hax.
Hax fell to the ground, curling into a ball, one hand on his face the other on the misery radiating from his crotch. A couple of hard blows thumped into his back. Hax thought they were probably frustrated kicks from Vito. They ordinarily would have hurt a lot, but given how bad his face and crotch hurt, he barely noticed being kicked.
Distantly, Hax heard Vito and the two men moving away. He lay unmoving, waiting for his agony to dissipate.
Hax thought it might have taken an hour to get home. When he pulled open the door and staggered inside, he heard his dad, “Hax, is that you? Where the hell have you been?”
Hax tried to say something, but his foot caught on the entry rug and he fell. His father said angrily, “What’re you playing at?!”
Then Hax heard his father’s footsteps rapidly approaching, “Oh… Shit! Tansey! Hax’s hurt!”
Finally, feeling safe, Hax felt consciousness slipping away.
When Hax woke back up, he cracked open his right eye—the left one wouldn’t open—and found his family around his bed. Tansey was gently washing the left side of his face, her eyes red and her expression sad. Ravinder looked angry though horrified. Seeing that Hax was awake, he demanded, “Who did this?”
Before he answered, Hax turned his eye to look at his sister. Roni had her arms folded across her chest and looked as if she was positively seething with fury. Hax figured she already knew what’d happened.
Hax looked at his father, “Vito Castano,” he croaked.
Looking appalled, Ravinder said, “I told you to stay away from the Castanos!”
Tansey held up a glass with a straw and gave Hax a sip of water. Hax thought back. He didn’t actually remember his father telling him to stay away from the Castanos, but he figured it’d been implied in other conversations the family’d had about the organized crime family. Hax thought about trying to explain what’d happened, but didn’t think he felt up to moving his mouth that much.
Tansey said, “Roni told us you got in a fight with him yesterday and won. What happened today?”
“I…”
Ravinder interrupted. “Yeah, all those martial arts classes didn’t count for much, did they?” he said disdainfully.
Anger flashed over Hax, “Two guys held me,” he forced out. His words were muffled, but he thought they could be understood. He wanted to explain more, but his mouth didn’t feel up to it.
Roni exploded, “I told you! I knew Vito couldn’t do this by himself, Hax is…” Roni paused as if uncertain how to say it, then continued, “Hax’s been amazing Master Akita. Actually, I’m surprised three guys were enough.”
“One guy… really big,” Hax said around a tongue that felt too big for his mouth.
Roni’s eyes widened and she clapped a hand to her mouth, “Mario…” she breathed.
Tansey said, “We need to take him to the hospital.”
Hax mumbled, “No, I’m okay,” though he wasn’t sure anyone understood him this time.
“We can’t afford it,” Ravinder said. “He’ll get better whether he sees a doctor or not. If something seems to be going wrong, then we’ll take him… But then we might not be able to make the payments.”
Ravinder didn’t specify which payments he was talking about, but everyone understood he was talking about whether they’d be able to pay the Castanos.
There were worse things than getting the crap beat out of you.
They brought Hax some Aleve, more bags of ice, and Tansey said she’d wake him up several times during the night to make sure he was okay. He didn’t like it, but it made him feel loved.
In the morning, he couldn’t open either eye. It was Friday, so it did get him out of one day of school—but it also ruined his weekend.
***
Roni’d felt exhausted that day at school. After what’d happened to Hax, she’d lain awake much of the night, alternately fearful, then enraged. Then, after school, Master Akita had worked them really hard in their self-defense class. Now, walking home, she was hoping that business would be slow in the store. If so, she might be able to put her head down and sleep at the counter.
But I’ll bet Dad wants me to work data entry on the computer, she thought. It wouldn’t be anything hard, but he hadn’t had her do data entry for a few days, so it’d probably stacked up.
Of course, she could easily doze off in her dad’s office, but if she slept at the counter, no one would notice and no work would be left undone. If she slept in the office, her dad might step in and find her sleeping and the work’d still be there when she awoke.
Thinking wistfully about a nap, she almost didn’t see Nick and Mario coming down the street toward her. When she did notice them, they’d gotten close enough that Nick had already seen her. Panicked, she almost tested the theory that people wouldn’t notice it if she disappeared in front of them. Instead, she turned and walked across the street to the opposite side, something she didn’t think they’d find remarkable in view of the way she and Nick got along.
When a glance showed her Nick crossing the street after her, she entered a small department store that she knew had an exit onto the next street. She walked in a little ways then she disappeared. She waited to see what Nick would do.
Sure enough, he walked into the store. Looking all around, he walked through it almost to the other door. Apparently deciding that she’d gone out the other side and that it wasn’t worth his time to try to keep chasing her, he turned around and came back looking frustrated. He went back out onto the street through the door he’d come in. Mario was waiting for him and they crossed the street to enter a leather goods store.
Roni looked around, wondering if they extorted the department store she was in like they did smaller places. It was part of a regional chain and presumably it’d be hard to hide payoffs
from their accountants. It seemed unfair though, if the Castanos taxed the small individual stores, but not the bigger chains. That might be even one more reason why the little mom-and-pop operations were going broke.
If I’m ever going to pick Nick’s pocket, this seems like as good a day as any. Even though no one could see her, she felt oddly embarrassed about wrapping herself up in her sheet poncho out in the middle of the store. She stepped over to one of their little dressing rooms and put the poncho on. That made it worse because she could see just how ridiculous she looked in the mirrors.
She glanced around, On the other hand, at least there aren’t any security cameras back here to record me putting this ridiculous get up on. She’d been thinking she’d wait until she got out to the street to put on her balaclava, but she didn’t want there to be any possibility of a camera recording her face while she was in her bizarre disguise. She put the mask on in the dressing room.
Roni waited until she heard a couple of other women getting ready to leave the dressing room. Then, tugging on the balaclava, she walked out just behind them. As she left the store, she looked around for security cameras. Damn! There’s quite a few of them.
Presumably, they were there to catch shoplifters. If somebody actually reviewed the video record and saw her walking around in this sheet and balaclava… Or, she thought, if some security guard somewhere is actually watching the video feeds live! Just as she was thinking that, a door opened and a man in a security guard’s blazer stepped out, his head swiveling around.
He’s looking for me!
Roni frowned, the man looked frightened. He lifted a radio to his mouth and said something. Suddenly she realized that someone in a sheet and balaclava looked more like they might be about to carry out an armed robbery than a shoplifting. That should frighten a store guard who probably didn’t even have a weapon. Roni turned to run out the front of the store, then spun and headed for the back. To her horror, before she got far, she realized that they could walk the videos back from when she’d entered, through her visit to the changing room and back out in this get-up.
The Girl They Couldn’t See (Blind Spot #1) (Blind Spot Series) Page 10