The state champion, the arrogant apex predator who had walked through the front doors acting as if he owned the city, was now completely incapacitated.
He clutched his solar plexus, his face contorted in a horrifying mask of purple desperation, desperately fighting to force oxygen back into his paralyzed lungs.
“Get him out,” Chloe repeated, her voice barely a whisper, yet it commanded the space with the terrifying gravity of a collapsing star.
She didn’t take a fighting stance.
She didn’t look angry.
She looked completely, utterly bored.
Cameron finally broke out of his paralysis.
He scrambled backward, nearly tripping over the overturned chair, and frantically waved at the remaining cornermen.
Together, they hooked their arms under Bradley’s armpits, dragging the heavy, groaning champion across the floor like a sack of wet cement.
As they hauled him out the glass double doors, the cold Chicago rain instantly soaked them.
Cameron paused for a fraction of a second, looking back through the rain-streaked glass.
Chloe was already turning away, her posture returning to that of the invisible, exhausted waitress.
Cameron shuddered, shoved Bradley into the back of their luxury SUV, and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the gaudy gold championship belt abandoned on the diner table.
Back inside, the quiet hum of the refrigerator seemed deafening.
Toby, the young busboy, still clutching his bruised shoulder, stared at Chloe with wide, unblinking eyes.
His favorite martial arts T-shirt was wrinkled, but his posture was completely transformed by awe.
Arthur, the elderly grill cook with a face weathered by decades of grease fires and night shifts, slowly pushed open the swinging kitchen door.
He held a heavy cast iron skillet in his hand, ready to defend his staff, but lowered it slowly when he saw the empty room and the championship belt resting next to a half-empty ketchup bottle.
“Chloe,” Toby stammered, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and absolute reverence.
“How did you… You didn’t even wind up. You just broke him.”
Chloe closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering sigh.
The icy demeanor melted away, replaced by the crushing exhaustion she had carried for 3 years.
She walked over to the cash register, picked up her stained white apron, and carefully slipped it back over her head.
She tied the strings around her waist, pulling the knot tight as if trying to bind the monster back inside its cage.
