"Obviously," Ryan said, waving a hand.
"If I say lighter, you adjust your pressure immediately."
Ryan nodded again. "Understood."
"If I say stop, the round ends right there."
Michael looked her in the eye. "Agreed."
Angela looked past the owner, her eyes setting upon the three fighters once more. "Then let's begin."
Ethan hurried across the floor, his voice frantic as he reached her side. "Mom, please don't do this... please."
Angela turned to face him. The fear in his sixteen-year-old eyes was raw and unvarnished. It wasn't the adolescent embarrassment of a boy whose mother was making a scene. It was genuine, protective worry for her safety.
That look told her everything she needed to know. It confirmed the quiet suspicion that had been building inside her home for nearly a month.
Three weeks earlier, Ethan had come home from his evening class at Westbridge with his right shoulder hunched up near his ear, his arm held stiffly against his ribs. He had tried to slip upstairs to his bedroom without being noticed, but Angela had seen him from the kitchen table. She had watched him struggle silently just to lift his school backpack onto the bench by the entryway.
"What happened?" she had asked, setting her reading glasses on the table.
"Nothing," he had replied instantly, avoiding her gaze.
Angela had raised two children while managing a high-stress logistics career; she had learned decades ago that "nothing" was the word people used when the truth was too heavy to explain. "What happened, Ethan?"
"Just training," he grunted, walking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator door. He stood there in the cold light, staring blankly at milk cartons and jars of sauce he had no intention of touching. He simply didn't want to turn around and face her eyes.
"What happened during training?"
Ethan let out a breath. "Ryan went hard."
Angela’s posture had stiffened. "How hard?"
"I don't know," he mumbled. "He was just passing guard and pushing the pace."
"Did you ask him to slow down?"
"Yes."
"And?"
Ethan hesitated, his fingers tightening on the edge of the refrigerator door. "He did."
Angela waited in silence, letting the space sit between them until he was forced to fill it. "For how long?"
Ethan let out a long, defeated sigh. "Like twenty seconds." He snapped the refrigerator door shut, still refusing to look her in the eye.
Angela leaned against the kitchen counter, her voice dropping into a lower, quieter register. "What happened after those twenty seconds?"
"He got faster again," Ethan whispered, staring down at his socks. "He started ripping the grips off my collar and flattening me out."