“Corporal,” Silva’s voice rang out, sharp and low.
Vance froze, looking toward the instructor.
“The mat wasn’t slick,” Silva said, stepping slowly into the circle. He didn’t look at Vance. He kept his eyes entirely on Hayes. “She baited your hook, disrupted your base, and used your own momentum to put your face in the dirt. It took her three seconds.”
Vance swallowed hard, his jaw tight. “With respect, Staff Sergeant, she caught me cold. It won’t happen twice.”
Silva finally turned his gaze to Vance. “No, it won’t. Because you’re done for the day. Fall back into the perimeter.”
Vance opened his mouth to argue, saw the warning in Silva’s eyes, and snapped his mouth shut. Furious, he turned and marched toward the metal benches on the perimeter to grab his water bottle. In his haste and blind anger, he kicked the leg of the bench.
The heavy metal frame shifted violently. Hayes’s duffel bag, resting on the seat, tipped over.
Her worn green notebook spilled out onto the concrete floor, sliding open across the ground.
Vance bent down to grab it, intending to toss it back onto the bench dismissively. But as his hand touched the cover, he paused. The notebook was open to a middle page, entirely covered in dense, precise handwriting and geometric diagrams.
Vance stared at the page. The color drained from his face.
“What is this?” he muttered, the anger in his voice suddenly replaced by a strange, creeping unease.
He stood up, holding the notebook in both hands. The spine was cracked, the pages weathered from weeks of use. He looked up at Hayes, who was standing quietly in the center of the mat, her hands still wrapped, watching him.
“Give her the book, Vance,” Silva ordered, his voice suddenly sharp.
Vance ignored the instructor. He read aloud, his voice echoing in the quiet gym.
“Subject: Corporal D. Vance. Stance: Orthodox, heavy front-foot dependency.” Vance’s voice wavered as he read the meticulously documented text. “Strike pattern: Drops left guard before extending right cross. Vulnerability: Refuses to distribute weight to left knee due to historical injury. Ego-driven. Will commit fully to a forward lunge if taunted by silence.”
The soldiers in the circle looked at each other. Coram shifted uncomfortably.
Vance flipped the page, his hands gripping the paper tight enough to crumple the edges. There was a hand-drawn diagram of human footwork, with exact angles of leverage calculated next to a sketched stick-figure that was unmistakably meant to represent his own massive frame.
Beneath the diagram, written in bold red ink, was a single concluding sentence.
Action: Do not retreat. Step inside the guard. Three-second neutralization.
Vance looked up, staring at the quiet, eighty-pound-lighter sergeant standing on the blue foam. The realization hit him like physical force.
She hadn’t been ignoring him all week. She hadn't been scared of his size or intimidated by his loud mouth.
She had been mathematically dismantling him.
“You weirdo,” Vance breathed out, holding up the book. “You’ve been stalking me?”