Her left fist shot out. Then her right. A front kick. A side kick. She wasn’t doing the choreography from the video—she was doing something older. Something that felt less like fitness and more like a ritual. Her knuckles ached. Her shins burned. The air in her apartment grew cold, then hot, then cold again.
As Maya threw a knee strike, the video glitched. For a single frame, Rach’s face flickered into someone else. A woman Maya didn’t recognize, wearing the same black Les Mills gear, but with hollow eyes and a split lip. Then it was gone. Les Mills Body Combat Torrent--------
Maya fell into stance. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. The air in her apartment became her opponent. For the first ten minutes, it was glorious. She was sweating, breathing hard, her muscles remembering the choreography she’d loved for years. Her left fist shot out