The halls felt smaller now.
Not because they'd changed—but because I had.
After what I did in that underground ring, after feeling the weight of a grown man crumple beneath a single strike, walking into Eastwood High was like stepping back onto a sandbox.
Only now, I was the storm.
Devin Trask was slipping.
Hard.
The whispers weren't whispers anymore—they were full-on discussions behind half-closed lockers and buzzing phone screens. Teachers were calling him in for "conversations." Girls who used to giggle at his compliments now walked the other way.
He still tried to swagger.
Still wore his jersey. Still smiled like a politician in front of cameras.
But the cracks were showing.
The locker room was colder when he walked in.
The chess club—yes, the same one—had filed an anonymous complaint with the administration. Something about "years of inappropriate comments."
But no one said his name.
They didn't have to.
I walked by him in the hall.
He looked up.
His jaw clenched.
"You," he growled under his breath.
I stopped.
Looked him straight in the eye.
He tried to stare back, but I could see it—the hesitation, the flicker of what the hell is he now?
"Something wrong, Trask?" I asked quietly.
His mouth opened.
Closed.
Then he shoved past me, muttering something weak and venomless.
I didn't follow.
He was already falling.
Later that day, I met Mira in the library.
She was sitting near the window, sunlight tracing a thin line across the scar on her wrist. She wasn't hiding it anymore.
I liked that.
She didn't look up when I sat down.
"Rumor is, Trask's being called into admin again," she said.
I nodded. "I know."
"You leaked those messages, didn't you?"
I didn't answer.
But I didn't deny it.
She looked at me finally. "He's scared."
"Good."
"Is it enough?"
I looked past her, out the window where Devin was pacing the courtyard, barking into his phone.
"No."
I didn't want just ruin.
I wanted recognition.
I wanted him to know exactly why this was happening. To feel every ounce of humiliation he once forced on others—and know it was deliberate.
Calculated.
Fair.
The final step was public.
I waited until Friday.
Devin always gave the morning announcements with the student council.
That day, I hacked the projector system with a flash drive—timed to activate right at the 8:30 bell.
The screen flickered.
The school's morning logo disappeared.
In its place: a video.
Clips.
Screenshots.
His texts.
His threats.
A photo of Mira's burned wrist… next to the yearbook image of him holding a lighter, mid-laugh.
Then, a final message:
"You don't get to rewrite the past. We remember."
The screen cut to black.
Gasps filled the building.
Then silence.
Then chaos.
Devin stormed out of the office two hours later—suspended, maybe worse.
I caught his eyes across the hall.
There was no rage.
Only fear.
And buried beneath it—recognition.
He knew now.
And that was the end of him.
Mira found me that afternoon, outside the gym.
She didn't say anything.
She just stood beside me, watching the sunset.
After a while, she whispered, "He was the first person who ever made me feel powerless."
I nodded.
"Now?"
She looked down at her hands.
"Now I think I can breathe again."
That night, I didn't go to the underground ring.
Didn't train.
I just sat alone in my room, staring at the ceiling.
I'd ruined a second monster.
And somewhere deep inside, a part of me that still resembled the boy who'd died in the alley asked—
How far will I go before there's nothing left to come back to?
I closed my eyes.
Took a breath.
And answered myself:
"As far as I have to."