Now, he understood it just made him an athlete who played a very aggressive game with rules, mats, and referees. He didn’t know the first thing about being a warrior. It was a bleak overcast Thursday morning in late February. The snow was beginning to melt into a gray, gritty slush that coated the streets of Oak Creek. Trent Lawson stood outside the heavy chain-link fence of the municipal transit depot. His arm was still in a sling. He’d officially closed Apex Striking and Grappling the day before. The lease was broken, the heavy bags were sold off, and the mats were rolled up in storage. In 3 days, he would stand before a county judge and plead guilty to two misdemeanors, effectively ending any chance he had at a professional athletic career.
He waited by the employee entrance. At exactly 6:15 a.m., a battered silver pickup truck pulled into the lot. Arthur Hayes stepped out. He was dressed in his familiar gray uniform, carrying a battered metal thermos. He walked with that same slow, mechanical limp, a souvenir from a rooftop in Fallujah, though Trent hadn’t known that at the time. Trent’s heart hammered in his chest. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around and walk away to avoid the humiliation of facing the man who had destroyed his life. But Trent forced himself to step forward.
“Mr. Hayes,” Trent called out, his voice hoarse. Arthur stopped. He turned slowly, his expression entirely unreadable. He looked at Trent, his eyes dropping briefly to the sling, and then back up to Trent’s face. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t take a defensive stance. He just waited. “I’m not here to start anything,” Trent said quickly, holding his good hand up in a gesture of peace. “I just I needed to talk to you.”
Arthur took a slow sip from his thermos. “You’re trespassing on city property, son. The bus terminal doesn’t open for another hour.” “I know. I’ll leave in a second,” Trent said, swallowing hard. He had rehearsed a dozen different speeches in his head, but all of them felt hollow and pathetic now. “I just I wanted to ask you a question.” Arthur didn’t say yes, but he didn’t walk away. “Why didn’t you warn me?” Trent asked, the frustration and confusion leaking into his voice.
“On the bus, when I was running my mouth, when I threatened you, why didn’t you just tell me who you were? Tell me you were a SEAL? Tell me you could snap my neck? I would have backed down. Why did you let me walk into a wood chipper?” Arthur looked at Trent for a long agonizing moment. The silence between them was heavy, broken only by the hum of the diesel engines warming up in the garage. “A man who has to tell you what he is usually isn’t it,” Arthur said quietly. His voice carried the rough texture of crushed gravel.
