She was not ready for the shot that put her down.
She was trying to get her right hand home after a punch she thought had worked, and Celia made her wrong.
Celia touched high first. Rae raised the glove. Celia changed the level before Rae's elbow returned, stepped close enough that the left had almost no distance to travel, and put it under the ribs.
For an instant nothing happened.
Then Rae's body folded around a place she couldn't reach.
Her right knee hit the canvas. The glove followed. She tried to draw breath and got a small useless piece of one. Noise came down from above. The referee sent Celia away, and Rae saw the younger woman's feet go toward the neutral corner without knowing why she'd chosen to notice them.
One.
The canvas smelled of heat, leather and something clean laid over older sweat. Rae's forehead was close enough to touch it if she let the neck go. She could stay. She would not have to invent a face for the cameras. Her body had already provided everything the ending needed.
Two.
Ninety-five on the building. People paid. The loose floorboard still hers to fix. Nobody telling Flo it was her job to come back and save anything.
Three.
She could hear Jun. Not the words. The voice trying to reach the part of her that could use them.
Four.
Across the ring Celia stood waiting. Rae lifted her head enough to see her face. Not triumph yet. Concentration. The woman expected her to rise and was preparing what to do if she did.
Five.
Rae wanted to hit her again.
Not give her a worthy opponent. Not repair the story. Hit her, make her miss, find the next opening. There were things left Rae hadn't done. The fight had not finished using her, and she had not finished with it.
She put the left foot under her.
Six.
The first lift failed. Her weight was in the wrong place and she had to move it. She kept the right glove on the canvas a fraction longer, brought the foot closer and rose.
Seven.
She was standing. The pain didn't go away because she'd made a decision. It stayed exactly where Celia had put it, hot and sick and demanding the rest of her attention. Rae held her gloves up. The referee continued the mandatory count to eight, looking at her, not at her history.
He asked her to show him she was ready. Rae looked directly at him and answered. Feet under her. Hands where they needed to be. She could see, could understand the instruction, could protect herself. He held her gaze, watching the feet as well as the hands.
He let it continue.
Celia came from the neutral corner with time still to work. A rise was not survival. Rae could stand up and still be stopped in the same round, collect the money inside a story about trying. The thought came and she hated how readily it found another chair.
Celia jabbed high. Rae covered without letting the elbow travel too far. The next body punch hit her arm. It hurt through the guard. She wanted to run backward, make distance large enough that nobody could reach the place again. The ropes were behind her. Backward was the wrong kind of room.
Close.
She stepped in. Celia's next punch lost some of its length against Rae's shoulder. Rae made the space ugly, weight low, hands working only enough to stop being a target. Celia tried to turn her. Rae moved with it, not fighting for the privilege of staying where she could be hit.
Feet.
One step, then another, the small turn Jun had made her hate. She came out along Celia's shoulder instead of backing into the ropes. A breath arrived without being dragged. It was not enough. It was something.
Look.
Celia was already turning. Rae put a jab in her way and made her blink and reset. Rae used the fraction to move again.
The crowd was roaring. It sounded pleased, alarmed, hungry, all the things a room could be while a person inside it tried to get one useful lungful. Rae could hear someone shouting for Celia to finish. Someone else shouted her own name as if the name might lift her elbows.
She kept the elbows herself.
The next exchange was worse. Celia found the body around the edge, not clean like the knockdown but enough to make Rae's breath go ragged. Rae tied her briefly, obeyed the break, and came out ready instead of admiring the seconds she'd stolen. The referee watched closely. She could feel him looking for the point at which she stopped answering. She gave him answers small enough to afford: a jab, a turn, a blocked right, feet leaving before another body shot arrived.
She wasn't winning. She knew that without anyone having to tell her. The round belonged to the woman who had put her on the canvas and made her work for each inch afterward. She kept moving, jabbed again and let Celia follow.
Celia pressed once more. Rae saw the shoulder, caught the punch on the tight side of her guard, and put a short left back. It landed. A little thing. Celia registered it, enough to make her next step careful.
Rae moved off the ropes.
The bell came while she was still moving.
For half a second she did not understand the sound. Then the referee stood between them and Celia turned away, breathing hard herself, the round finished without the official stoppage somebody had paid for.
Rae walked to her corner. Each step made the pain pull at a different angle. She sat when Jun told her, and the ordinary sensation of a stool beneath her was so welcome she could have cried from it.
He took the mouthpiece out. "Look at me."
She did.
He asked the questions. She answered accurately. The hurt had a place. Her head was clear. The breath was returning. Jun looked at Len, then back at her, judging what he had in front of him rather than what the crowd wanted.
"You can continue?"
"Yes."
"You can protect it?"
"I did."
"You did. I need you to keep doing it."
Jun showed her the angle with his hand. Rae followed it, then looked across the ring. Celia was listening to Nita, both of them bent over the same problem from the other side.
She looked past Jun once.
Mick had risen from his seat. One hand held the chair in front of him, the other hung at his side. Dorian sat still. Rae could not read either face from here. She didn't need to. The promised result had gone with the bell. The remaining one hundred and forty thousand dollars would not arrive because she found the rest of the fight honorable.
Jun brought her gaze back with a touch to the glove.
"Four left," he said.
Rae caught his wrist between her gloves.
"They paid me to stop in six."
His hand stayed against hers. The noise from the room seemed to go on for a long time before he moved.
"What?"
"Forty already. One-forty after. I agreed."
Jun pulled his wrist free and turned. "Inspector. Here. Now."
Len stopped with the towel raised. Jun pointed toward Roberts and called again, louder. The referee came across as Roberts stepped up. Jun repeated what Rae had said, gave his own name, and the referee turned toward the timekeeper with both arms lifted.
No bell.
Celia had stood up in the other corner. Nita reached for her glove and kept her there. Across the room people who'd been shouting began asking one another what was happening.
The referee crouched in front of Rae. "Say it to me."
She did. Forty paid, an official stoppage in the sixth, the rest conditional. Her own yes. Her own money spent. He asked who. She named Dorian and Tess, then Mick. Jun stepped back when she said Mick's name, catching Len's arm to keep him outside the small circle of officials.
"Vega knows?" Roberts asked.
"Not about this. The forty came from her company. She paid for event preparation. They moved it to me."
"You saw that?"
"An account sheet. My transfer. I checked her payment later. I've got the dates."
Roberts asked where. Rae told her about the notebook, the phone in her bag. There was no room to make the account careful enough to protect Celia. Across the ring the referee was now speaking to Nita. Celia shook her head once, then stared directly at Rae.
The doctor took the place in front of her. Rae answered the questions again, followed his finger, stood when asked. Her legs worked. The pain beneath the ribs had become an ache she could breathe around. He watched her breathe, pressed where she indicated and asked the referee for more room.
"I got up because I wanted to fight," Rae said.
"I'm checking whether you can," he said. "Hold still."
Rae stood still. Jun had taken a place outside the ropes. He wasn't looking at her. Len held the water, waiting until someone told him whether he could give it.
Down at ringside Tess had risen. Roberts went toward her with another official. Tess started along the row toward Dorian, then stopped when the official put a hand across the opening. Mick stood on the far side of the aisle. Rae could see his mouth moving. She couldn't hear what he was saying.
The doctor finished. Across the ring another doctor was speaking to Celia, Nita waiting just behind him. The referee spoke briefly with a gray-haired supervisor beside the timekeeper, then went to Celia's corner. Rae watched Celia listen. Nita said something fiercely and pointed across the ring. Celia took the mouthpiece out of her glove and shook her head, this time at Nita. The supervisor spoke to both of them.
The supervisor came back with the referee. He spoke close to Rae, over the noise.
"The sixth-round stoppage you described can’t happen now. We’ve watched you compete, and the doctor’s cleared you to continue. That’s why I’m allowing it. The commission can still make this a no-contest after inquiry. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
He turned toward the other corner to give the same decision there. The referee made Rae look at him.
"Vega's been told. She wants to go on. I've seen you boxing. I've seen you defend yourself. We're continuing under observation. If I don't see an honest effort, I stop it. If you can't protect yourself, I stop it. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Your purse and this result are under inquiry. You aren't settling anything by going out there."
Rae nodded. He waited until she said yes again, then stepped aside for Jun.
Jun came through the ropes. For a moment Rae thought he would take his things and leave her in the light.
"You've put me in the middle of this," he said.
"I know."
"No. You don't."
He put the mouthpiece in her hand instead of her mouth. She had to lift it herself. In the other corner Celia was ready, bouncing once on her feet, all the rest she'd been given looking like energy Rae would have to answer.
"She's open when she steps after the body," Rae said.
Jun looked across the ring. "Then look for it. And listen when I say break."
He took the stool. Rae stood beneath her own weight while the referee checked the opposite corner. Celia would not stop looking at her. Rae brought both gloves up and waited for the held bell to be allowed to ring.