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“Fighting,” Saff answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“What, like a fight club?” Maddie asked with a chuckle. She actually couldn't imagine anything more fitting for Saff. Even in the few days she'd known her, she easily struck her as that type.
Saff snorted a laugh. “No, but I guess kind of close. Mixed martial arts.”
Yeah. That definitely seemed on-brand. “So does that mean you weren't very good then?” Maddie asked with a smirk. “Or did you give more concussions than you took?”
Saff chuckled. “I give a lot more than I take.”
Something about the way she uttered those words made Maddie's stomach instantly burn. Her brain froze up for a moment, searching for a response, not ready to let the conversation end just yet.
She cleared her throat. “How—how did you get into fighting?”
“Ready for your backpack?” Saff asked.
Maddie held out her hands, and Saff placed the straps on them.
“My dad made me start when I was a kid,” Saff answered. Maddie was surprised by the answer. Actually, she was surprised by any answer that wasn't just Saff changing the subject.
“Why?” she asked, swinging the backpack up onto her shoulders before finding Saff’s arm.
Saff shrugged beneath her hand. “Make me strong, I guess.”
Maddie considered that for a moment. “Did you want to do it?”
Saff went quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know. I was a kid, so I probably would’ve rather been doing something else. She paused, clearing her throat. "But that’s why you have parents, I guess. They make you do what’s best for you when you’re too young to know.”
Maddie didn’t know why, or how she could tell, but she knew those words didn’t seem like they were Saff’s. As if she could hear them leaving someone else’s mouth. Something that’d been ingrained in her, and now she was repeating them like she’d been taught.
And Maddie didn’t like it.
She lowered her hand on her arm down to the bracelet, tracing the beads in her familiar, calming way as they walked.
“And your mom was okay with that?” Maddie asked. She couldn’t imagine any mother easily watching their young daughter fight and get hurt.
Saff cleared her throat lightly. “She convinced him to stop once for a few months. After the first time I really got hurt.”
The anger in Maddie’s chest eased slightly, knowing that she had at least one person looking out for her. “Surprised she let him start again after a few months,” Maddie muttered.
Saff went quiet again. Then she cleared her throat once more. “It was really just me and him. She wasn’t around for long. Left when I was a kid and re-married.”
“I’m—sorry,” Maddie whispered, the quiet rage rebuilding within her
She wondered if the way Saff was now had always been there, or if it had grown over time through circumstance.
She could see it clearly then. A child left behind, forced to build those walls of protection around herself.
Saff didn’t say anything more, but Maddie ran her thumb over the bare skin on her wrist in a light, deliberate circle. It wasdifferent from any way she’d touched her before, and she hoped Saff would understand the meaning behind it.
***
Maddie made her way down the narrow, steep set of stairs into the bunker, then easily found her way to the cot and sat down, already exhausted from the day.
“What time is it?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
“Almost four,” Saff answered from across the room. “You hungry?”
Maddie leaned back against the wall. “Not really. Just tired.”