Dean finally looked up. He didn’t glare. He didn’t scowl. His eyes were completely, terrifyingly blank. They were the eyes of a man looking at a piece of furniture. There was no anger in them, and that lack of emotion caused a sudden cold hitch in Trent’s chest. For a microsecond, the black belt felt a primal urge to step back, but his ego quickly swallowed his instinct. “We’re going home,” Dean said. He guided Leo off the mat, past the whispering parents, and out the front glass door. The little bell above the door jingled a cheerful mocking tune as it swung shut.
In the parking lot, the night air was cool. Dean opened the passenger door of his rusted Ford pickup. He helped Leo inside, grabbing a half-empty roll of paper towels from the back seat and handing it to the boy. “It hurts, Dad,” Leo mumbled, pressing the wad of paper to his face. “I know it does,” Dean said softly. He shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. He got in, put the keys in the ignition, but didn’t turn them. He sat in the dark for a long time. He looked at the neon sign of the dojo glowing through the windshield. Trent’s Elite Martial Arts. Dean had spent twelve years in the SEAL teams. He had seen violence that would crack a normal man’s mind in half. He had fought men who were starving, men who were dying, men who fought with rusted blades and bare teeth because survival was the only currency they understood. He had spent the last decade trying to unlearn that violence. He had buried the monster in the deepest, darkest vault of his soul, pouring concrete over the door. He just wanted a quiet life. He just wanted to be a father.
He looked over at Leo. The boy’s white uniform was painted red. His spirit was crushed. Not by an enemy, but by a man he trusted, a man he paid to guide him. Dean reached out and put a heavy, warm hand on the back of his son’s neck. “You did nothing wrong tonight, Leo,” Dean said. “You hear me?” Leo nodded slowly.
Dean started the engine. He drove his son home in silence. He made sure Leo’s nose was iced, made sure he ate something, and tucked him into bed like he was a little kid again. Then Dean walked into the kitchen. He poured the last two fingers of a cheap bourbon into a glass, drank it neat, and looked at the clock on the stove. It was nine forty-five p.m. The dojo closed at ten. Dean picked up his keys. The strip mall was mostly dead by the time Dean pulled back into the parking lot. The dry cleaner had been dark for hours, and the vape shop’s open sign flickered before finally shutting off. Only the dojo remained illuminated, a beacon of fluorescent white light bleeding out onto the cracked asphalt.
