Maya immediately flowed with his resistance, trapping his extended arm. She stepped one leg over his face, isolating his shoulder, and figure-foured her grips around his wrist and forearm.
She locked in a Kimura.
Brad froze. His massive bicep was rendered completely useless by the leverage she had just created against his rotator cuff. She hadn't wrenched it. She hadn't cranked it to tear the joint. She simply locked it perfectly into place and held it at the absolute edge of his flexibility. One millimeter more of pressure, and his shoulder would pop out of its socket.
“You’re muscling your escapes,” Maya said quietly, her face inches from his. She wasn't even breathing heavily. “You’re relying on your weight because your technique is lazy. Your hips are completely dead.”
“Get off me!” Brad screamed, his voice muffled by her leg draped over his face. He thrashed his lower body, but she had pinned his hips with heavy, paralyzing pressure.
“Tap,” Coach Vic called out, leaning against the cage wire. There was no alarm in the old man’s voice, only a stern warning. “Tap now, Brad. She’s got you dead to rights.”
Brad’s ego screamed at him to fight out of it. He gritted his teeth and tried to rip his arm free by pure force.
Maya shifted her weight just a fraction of an inch, tightening the torsion on his shoulder joint.
A sharp, agonizing spike of pain shot through Brad’s collarbone. The reality of his physical vulnerability suddenly overriding his pride, he frantically slapped the mat with his free hand.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
The second he tapped, Maya instantly released the lock. She stood up fluidly, untangling herself from him without a single wasted motion, and walked back to her starting corner. She kept her hands up, her eyes locked on his chest, waiting to see if he would honor the tap or try a cheap shot.
Brad stayed on the mat, clutching his right shoulder, panting heavily.
The gym remained dead silent. The heavy bags had stopped swinging. The treadmills in the back had been turned off. Every fighter, every trainer, every amateur in the building was staring through the chainlink fence.
Brad slowly got to his knees. The sting of the physical pain was nothing compared to the absolute, crushing humiliation burning in his chest. He looked at his three friends, who were now awkwardly looking at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but at him.
“What the hell was that?” Brad yelled, pointing a trembling, taped finger at Maya. He turned his fury toward the edge of the cage. “Vic! Who is this crazy bitch? She tried to snap my arm in a sparring session!”
“You threw a kill-shot at her head, Brad,” Vic said calmly, picking up a white towel and throwing it over his shoulder. “She gave you a lesson in physics. You should be thanking her for not actually breaking it.”
“I’m the star prospect of this gym!” Brad roared, climbing to his feet and storming toward the cage door. He shoved it open, ignoring Maya completely now that he was safe from her grip. “I bring the cameras in here! I bring the money in here! You let some random housewife walk off the street and assault me on the elite mat?”
“You challenged her,” Vic replied, entirely unmoved by the tantrum.
Before Brad could scream another excuse, the heavy metal door at the top of the gym’s wooden bleachers banged open.