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check the damage—hoping for the best from Malik.
    But the rest of the class had sensed there was nothing of the best in Malik this day—no one was practicing. They’d dropped their ready stances and turned to the back corner of the gym. Even Lucia grew distracted as Steve checked her eye, transferring her attention outward. “Dammit,” Steve muttered, savoring the impulse to toss Malik out for a week. He turned to see the last thing he’d expected.
    Mickey Finn was the one who faced Malik. Clinton stood uncertainly to the side, torn between the visible impulse to offer Mickey his manly protection and the obvious wisdom of staying as inconspicuous as possible. Steve checked his own impulse to rush in; Malik was obsessed with proving his own virile young manliness, but his goal would be to show up Clinton, not to hurt Mickey. And Mickey herself didn’t look the least worried. Huh.
    “Of course she’s getting away,” Malik said, lacing his words with scorn. “The way you holding her? You gotta get all up in her grill, a’ight?”
    Clinton, wisely, said nothing. For one thing, his mother had been an English teacher and he couldn’t match Malik’s street-smart talk on his best day. For another, Malik didn’t leave him the opportunity. He stepped forward to grab Mickey’s arm, setting himself against her inevitable resistance—the instinctive shove and ineffective wiggling of any untrained victim.
    Except Mickey didn’t shove. While the other kids gathered around Steve, reacting with various disapproving noises, Mickey set her own feet in a perfectly balanced stance—and she pulled. Malik staggered forward in astonishment, and Mickey was the one who stepped into the movement, driving through with a fisted blow that came from the center of her body. Precise, driven, full of all the power left in that exhausted body—
    By the time Steve realized she’d aimed that blow at the kid’s throat— a killing blow —it was too late even to cry out a warning.
    The sound of that impact generated a tangible knot of dread. Steve had known it would come one day, that this intersection of haven and violence, teens and street people, would produce injury. But he hadn’t expected this clean efficiency … he hadn’t expected it would come from a woman who’d seemed quite nearly sane.
    And then he realized that Malik was still standing. Coughing, choking, his eyes wide with astonishment and his hands gone to his throat … but still standing. And that Mickey had returned to a poised ready stance so balanced it could bring tears to a trainer’s eyes, her blow pulled with the precision of a surgeon—but with enough power remaining to give the young man a wake-up call.
    Steve didn’t for a moment think it was accidental.
    And then the authority flowed out of Mickey’s body and she staggered slightly, rising from the ready stance to look down at her hands with no less astonishment than Malik. The kid backed away from her with a wary eye, rubbing his throat. The others could have jeered at him then, but that wasn’t the way of Steve’s classes. The gym wasn’t a dojo; wasn’t structured over centuries of tradition and procedure. But Steve did demand respect—for himself and for the other participants. So while part of him watched Mickey waver, the rest of him caught Malik’s attention. “You know the rules,” he said. “You just messed with Clinton and Mickey both. Another time, I’d put you on notice. This time … I think you’ve taken enough of a hit.”
    “Don’t even ask if I’m good,” Malik muttered. His voice came out mildly hoarse.
    “Son,” Steve said, “there were two ways you could have come out of that one. I can see which way it went. You’re good.” He glanced at Mickey, found her looking over with hair hiding most of her face—everything but those eyes, and the pale white skin around them. Mickey … not so good.
    Served him right, letting her mix it up in class only hours after she’d