Eight Gyms vs. The Useless Heiress The Masked 10-0 Underground Queen Just Came Downstairs novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Pad Work

Dev drags Birdie to the gym to hold pads, and a feint at her face makes her hand move.

Dev's idea of helping me was to drive me to the flagship gym at six in the morning.

"Dad says you need to move," he said, holding the door. "You haven't hit a bag since you were seventeen."

"I've hit lots of bags. I've hit the grocery bags."

"Birdie."

"It's a bad time of year for my wrists."

Cal came in behind us with my sweatshirt over his arm.

His bruise was a shade less yellow than yesterday.

The flagship smells like leather and old rope and floor cleaner.

Fourteen heavy bags hung in a row, and every fighter in the gym stopped to watch the useless heiress approach the first one.

Finn leaned over the ropes of the ring. "Eighty dollars says she doesn't move it."

"Taken," Dev said.

"Nobody is betting on my bag," I said.

"Everyone is betting on your bag," said a man from the speed bag.

I stood in front of the heavy bag and shook out my hands.

I threw an open-handed slap at it, as gently as I could manage.

The bag swung an inch. I said "ow" and held my palm to my chest.

"Closed fist, Bird," Dev called.

"Closed is where the injuries are."

I tried again with my right hand and hit it with the soft part of my fist.

The bag moved two inches. Finn paid up with a groan.

"She moved it," Dev said, delighted. "Look at her! Cal, wrap her hands, I'm getting her a pair of gloves."

He went off toward the equipment room, and Cal came up with a roll of gauze and a roll of white tape.

I held out my right hand.

"Left," he said.

"I'm right-handed."

"I know. Give me the left."

I gave it to him.

He wrapped around the wrist, across the palm and between each finger, without a single wasted turn.

His thumb passed over my second knuckle, which was thick with callus.

"What's this?"

"Piano," I said.

"You play piano."

"I did. For a week. It was an intense week."

He tied off the tape.

Then he lifted my wrapped hand and looked at it for a moment before he gave it back.

Dev came back with a pair of pink gloves.

"Pads," he said. "Quick and easy. You hold, I hit. Nobody's going to ask you to be good."

I held up the pads with my elbows tucked in, the way you hold a pizza box that's too hot.

Dev tapped them left, right, left. It was a warm-up. I let my arms go soft with every tap.

"Hold them up, Bird. Hold them like you mean it."

"I mean it from here."

"Higher."

I raised them four inches.

Dev bounced on his toes, grinning, and threw a fake at my face.

It was a feint, nothing more. His fist stopped a foot away.

I flinched, and he laughed.

He did it again, a little faster. I turned my head and squeaked.

He did it a third time, fast, from his shoulder, with his whole champion's speed behind it.

My left hand came out from behind the pad.

It went up one inch, palm out, exactly where a guard goes.

I made it stop. I let it drop and let the pad fall off my other arm.

"Sorry," I said. "Spasm."

"She's a mess," Dev said happily. He ruffled my hair. "I love it."

He went back to the ring. I turned to find my sweatshirt, and Cal was holding it out with both hands.

He waited until Dev was far enough away.

"Your hand moved," he said quietly.

"It's a reflex. Everybody has reflexes."

"Yes," Cal said. "Good ones."

He put the sweatshirt over my shoulders and wrote something small in the notebook he keeps in his back pocket.

I didn't get to see what.

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