NOVA
The shower was the first good thing in two days.
Hot water, real pressure, nobody needing anything from her. She stood under it with her eyes closed and let it run over the cut on her lip and the bruise building along her left shoulder and told herself she'd earned this ten minutes.
The problem was that the ten minutes kept filling up with things she hadn't invited.
His weight.
That was what kept coming back. Not the technique, not the footwork, not even the part where she'd dropped him in front of sixty witnesses. Just the moment after. Ground under her spine and his body across her chest, and that face close enough that she could see the exact grain of his jaw. The way he'd looked at her mouth. The half second where neither of them moved, and the whole training ground ceased to
