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The gesture is so small half the crowd probably misses it.

Russ doesn’t.

His face twists, and then he charges.

The mall erupts again.

Russ comes in swinging like rage can save him. Leon lets him close, then pivots at the last second. Russ’s fist cuts through empty air, and Leon drives a knee into his ribs, hard and clean. Russ stumbles but doesn’t fall. He twists fast and elbows Leon in the mouth.

Leon’s head snaps to the side. Blood spatters from his lip, bright against his beard. The crowd screams approval, stomping and banging on the railings until dust shakes loose from the ceiling.

Leon turns back slowly.

Russ swings again.

This time, Leon catches his wrist.

The sound of bone grinding wrong carries even over the crowd.

Russ snarls and drives his head forward. Their skulls crack together. Leon staggers one step, and Russ uses it, shoving him into the broken fountain hard enough that stone chips scatter across the tile.

“Leon!” I shout.

Jacob shifts beside me like he’s about to step in.

Leon ducks under Russ’s next punch and slams his shoulder into Russ’s middle. They crash together across the blood-slick floor, boots skidding through red smears and bits of broken bone. Russ grabs Leon’s hair and yanks hard enough to make my own scalp sting in sympathy.

Leon answers with a short, brutal punch to the kidney.

Russ grunts.

Another punch.

Another.

His grip loosens.

Leon hooks an arm around Russ’s waist and drives him backward. Russ’s spine hits the fountain rim, and his mouth opens around a sound I have heard before.

Pain.

Real pain.

Russ claws at Leon’s face, catching skin beneath one eye. Blood opens in thin red lines down Leon’s cheek, but Leon doesn’t flinch. He grabs Russ by the shirt and throws him down. Russ hits the tile on his back, the impact knocking the air out of him in a wet grunt.

Then his body jerks wrong.

His face changes.

He tries to move both legs.

Only one answers.

The other lies twisted beneath him, useless.

Russ flips onto his stomach and tries to crawl away with only his arms, fingers slipping through blood as panic finally eats through the hate on his face.

“Kill that piece of shit, Leon!” Joanie screams from the second level.