Chapter 835
Melanie’s pride, already shredded, was pricked by this final, casual dismissal. A strangled cry of fury escaped her lips. Her right hand remained splinted, wrapped in thick gauze, and pinned against her chest in a field sling, so the stance she dropped into was only a damaged imitation of the textbook pose she’d learned years ago at West Point. Her left fist came up. Her right side stayed trapped and useless. She tried to channel the memory of her instructors, to find some scrap of technique that might give her a fighting chance.
From her place in the ranks, Caroline observed with the cool detachment of a surgeon. She saw it all. Melanie’s stance was all wrong. Her weight was too far back on her heels. Her shoulders were bunched up with tension, telegraphing her every intention. Her left fist was clenched so tight the knuckles had gone white, while the sling dragged her balance off center and turned every breath into a reminder of the broken bones strapped to her chest.
Caroline made a silent, clinical diagnosis. Melanie wouldn’t last ten seconds.
Then Sloane did something small, almost imperceptible, but infinitely more insulting than her words.
She yawned.
It was a tiny, delicate movement, quickly covered with the back of her hand, but every single person on that field saw it.
She then beckoned to Melanie with two fingers, a gesture one might use for a disobedient puppy. “Come on, champion.”
The word “champion” landed like a drop of acid. It was a direct, mocking reference to Caroline’s nomination.
Sloane’s gaze then lifted, moving past Melanie as if she were a piece of furniture, and locked onto Caroline’s. The silent message was crystal clear, transmitted across the dusty field with perfect, cutting clarity.
This is your chosen representative? How pathetic.
Caroline understood the insult perfectly. She met Sloane’s gaze without flinching, her own expression unreadable. This was part of her plan. Let Sloane underestimate her judgment. Let her believe Caroline had chosen a weak pawn out of desperation. Let her get comfortable.
That silent, intense exchange, that complete and utter dismissal of her presence, was the thing that finally broke Melanie Thorne. She was no longer a participant in this fight; she was an inconvenient obstacle in a conversation happening over her head.
Her training, her discipline, her last shred of rational thought, it all evaporated in a cloud of pure, primal humiliation.
She wasn’t thinking about tactics anymore. She wasn’t thinking at all.
With a raw, animalistic scream that was part rage and part despair, Melanie lunged forward in a one-armed rush, her left fist swinging in a wild, flailing arc while her bound right hand bounced painfully against the sling. It was not a proper attack. It was a collapse with momentum, fueled by nothing but a desperate need to inflict pain on the source of her shame.
Instructor Sharpe, watching from the sidelines, shook her head in disgust.
Brenna grabbed Caroline’s arm, her knuckles white. “She’s lost it,” she whispered.
“She lost before she even started,” Caroline replied, her voice a flat, emotionless murmur.
The fight had not yet begun physically, but psychologically, Melanie had already been torn apart by the combined, unspoken efforts of Sloane and Caroline.
A cruel, genuine smile finally touched Sloane’s lips as she watched the screaming, out-of-control woman rushing toward her. This was what she enjoyed. Not a fight, but a deconstruction.
She didn’t even shift her feet. She just settled her weight, a subtle adjustment of her center of gravity, and waited.