Episode 223 · From Below

Bull raised his knife again in the middle of the training hall. The bench was clear of them, and the men by the doors had pressed back against the walls.

Soles had given the officers every chance to intervene. Now he intended to stop the hand coming toward him.

Bull widened his stance. A different steadiness entered his shoulders, and he advanced without the hesitation that had followed the first wound.

Soles waited for him to commit.

The trainer had spent weeks making him leave an attack’s path without turning his back. Bull gave him the same reaching thrust, harder this time, trusting his grip and weight to finish it.

Soles used the brief slowing as the shoulder moved.

There was a little more room in the moment than there had been before the factory. Enough to recognize that his first step was too short and move his foot clear.

Then the room rushed back around him.

Bull’s free fist caught his cheek. Soles stayed on his feet, pressed the knife arm aside with his left forearm and drove the dark blade into Bull’s side.

Pain flared along his own cut. He withdrew the blade and let Bull stumble away.

The new steadiness vanished in the middle of Bull’s next step.

He caught himself with one knee on the floor. His knife remained in his hand, but he was staring beyond its point.

— It’s empty.

Warmth spread beneath Soles’s ribs. His breath came easier, though blood still ran from his sleeve.

Bull put his free hand against his chest again.

— I know where he was. There’s nothing there.

The first absence had frightened him. This one left him searching with his mouth open, unable even to find the thing he was trying to call.

Whatever the blade had taken, it was not coming back. Soles could see that much in his face, without knowing how.

Bull came up from his knee with a hoarse breath and a straight thrust.

His own strength remained. The point would have reached Soles’s stomach if he had stood still to watch it.

He moved outside the arm and struck it across Bull’s body. Bull’s grip had weakened enough for the knife to leave his hand; it hit the floor and slid toward the stacked mats.

Both men heard where it stopped.

Soles could have backed toward the office doorway. The men who had blocked it were already making room. Bull stood bent in front of him, one hand pressed against his side.

For a moment all Soles could hear was his own breathing.

The officer remained where he had stood while the knife cut Soles’s arm. He was waiting to see what happened next.

Three months of swallowing an answer. Hands turning him back toward a bench. The certainty that if he finally struck first, every man watching would remember only that.

Bull tried to straighten.

Soles put his dark knife into its sheath inside his coat.

He wanted both hands free.

Bull’s eyes went once to the stacked mats where his knife lay. Then he began backing toward the yard door, leaving it.

Soles stepped into his path.

The decision felt cold enough to make each small thing distinct: the space between Bull’s elbows, the weight on his back foot, the doorway Soles could still choose.

— You couldn’t nourish anything above ground. You will do it from below.

Bull lifted his hands.

Soles drove a short left into his abdomen. Bull folded around the wound in his side, dropping an elbow to protect it, and Soles put his right fist into the opening beside his mouth.

The blow turned Bull’s head. He brought both hands up too high.

Soles struck beneath them with his left, into the ribs, and stayed close as Bull’s breath went out. His own cut pulled open against the sleeve. He felt it and kept his feet set.

Bull tried to lower a forearm across his body. Soles’s right reached his cheek before the arm could return.

A short combination. Simple punches he had practiced against a pad until the trainer could make him lose the sequence by stepping sideways.

Bull tried to step sideways now, but his heel dragged and his guard remained caught between his face and his wounded side.

Soles saw his weight settle badly and bent his knees.

The left uppercut rose through the middle.

It lifted Bull onto his toes and knocked him backward. His feet came down out of order; he staggered two paces, head tipped back, trying to find the floor with his heels.

Soles drew the dark knife into his right hand.

Then he drove off his planted foot in one short, violent burst. His boots crossed the floor; the strain pulled through his back and calves. He reached Bull before the second stumbling step had settled.

His left hand closed on the nape of Bull’s neck.

He pulled him forward to hold him and brought the blade across his throat.

Someone shouted from the office doorway as the cut opened.

Soles held Bull while his knees gave way. Blood ran over his left wrist, warm against the older blood from his own wound. He let the weight go only when Bull could no longer stand.

The body struck the floor at his feet.

The room was quiet. Nobody moved for the door.

One of the men at the yard door had a hand pressed over his mouth. Another kept trying to move farther back, though his shoulders were already against the wall.

The man in uniform had unfolded his arms. His hand hung beside his holster without touching it.

Soles stood in the open floor with the knife in his right hand.

He had chosen every part of the last few seconds. The knowledge remained as his breathing began to shake.

The man in gray took a step back from the doorway.

Whatever he had intended to measure, he wanted more distance from it now.

Soles lowered the knife. The pressure behind his eyes had returned, and his calves trembled when he tried to shift his weight. His left forearm was still bleeding.

Behind the officers, somebody knocked against the doorframe.

The sound brought the uniformed man forward.

— Everybody out.

He was looking at Soles when he said it, and only at Soles.