SEPARATE WAYS

  Jacob

  October 17th, 2025

  "Go!" I shouted.

  My knuckles were white from the death-grip I had on the black leather steering wheel. Glaring through the back window of the blue Tesla in front of me, I could clearly see that the reason the driver hadn't gone–even though the light had been green for almost twenty seconds–was because he was holding up his phone and watching videos. I slammed down on the horn.

  "Move, you asshole!" I shouted again as the light turned yellow. The driver put down their phone, and as the light turned red, he and his passenger reached out of their windows and flipped me off as they drove through the intersection.

  “God damnit!” My car inched up to the limit line while I dove into some yoga breathing to calm down and hopefully not punch my dashboard. The day started well, but ever since I'd left work, it hadn't been going my way. First, I was almost in a bad accident as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot. Next, it took me nearly two hours to go six fucking miles on the freeway. Then I had that jacked-up panic attack half an hour ago, which was the icing on the cake. It was the first time an attack ever made me feel like I'd been dunked into an ice bath. So that was tons of fun.

  Only a few more blocks to go and I’d be free of this sluggish hell, cutting loose in the advanced classes with some of our senior students and pros. Letting out another slow, controlled breath, my body finally relaxed. I glanced out the window at the adorable little, blue-haired old lady who was stopped next to me at the light. She could barely see over her steering wheel, and there was a figure of Jesus on the cross hanging from her rearview mirror.

  The woman must have felt me watching because she looked back at me. I smiled and raised a hand, giving her a friendly wave. She gave me the finger and looked away.

  I hate Los Angeles, I thought as I restarted my yoga breathing.

  A few minutes later, I pulled into the dojo's back parking lot with Five Finger Death Punch blasting from the speakers.

  “Friday night beatdowns, baby! Let’s go!” I shouted as I stepped out of my Corolla.

  A few students shouted and greeted me while I opened the trunk, claiming they were finally going to beat me tonight. I just laughed and told them that they had a better chance of growing assholes on their elbows than putting me down. My laughter continued as I grabbed my gym bag. The small black duffel was relatively empty since I kept my gear in a locker at the dojo like Ash does. All the bag contained was Muay Thai shorts, a small jar of freshly ground weed, some rolling papers, and clean clothes for tonight's festivities.

  Ash had already been briefed that after we finished with classes and got cleaned up, it was straight to the bars with some friends. I'd invited Cassie, the girl who works the front desk, to come out with all of us. She's been trying to get in Ash's pants for like two months now, and finally asked me for some assistance. Tonight, I am going to Cupid the shit out of those two. So help me God, I will get my brother laid.

  He'd been celibate for far too long already. The poor guy needed to get his mojo back. It ain't healthy for a guy our age. Who knows, maybe if he hooks up with Cassie, it'll jumpstart that killer instinct he used to have, and he'll get back in the cage.

  He didn’t even compete anymore, but my brother was still somehow the best fighter in our gym, with me coming in close second. I hated admitting he’s better since I’m the bigger and stronger one between us. But pound for pound, he’s better than me…barely.

  I pushed open the glass entry door and let it all wash over me. The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, people clinching up and throwing knees, the hard slap of gloved hands hitting heavy bags, the rattle of their chains, and the smell of blood mixed with sweat. Every time I opened the doors to this sacred shrine of violence, that combination of stimuli purged me of every last bit of pent-up anger that I had accumulated throughout the day and replaced it with endless excitement. Every day I was here, it was another chance for me to better both my skills and myself as a person. Something I was painfully aware I needed to do...at some point.

  God, I love this place.

  “Welcome home, Jacob. How was work today?” Cassie smiled from behind the glass desk. The wall behind her was covered in pictures of Ash, me, and several pro-fighters from our dojo, our hands raised in victory.

  “Work was good. A lot of sales and the new herb, one of my favorite growers just gifted me…” I gave a little chef’s kiss with my hand and then flashed her a mischievous grin while patting my gym bag. One of the perks of being the manager at a cannabis dispensary was that I had a bunch of contacts in the industry who grew better stuff at home than what was sold in any of the shops around here.

  “I can’t wait to try it,” she said with a beaming smile.

  The gorgeous girl with ocean-blue eyes and golden-blonde hair that fell just below her shoulders was easily one of the coolest women at the dojo. She was smarter than half the people I knew and a blast to hang out with. I could tell that in anticipation of her planned takedown of my brother tonight, she had put some serious time in on her hair and makeup. She'd also chosen to wear a fairly revealing top for the occasion. Maintaining eye contact was proving to be a serious challenge.

  “Oh, Jacob, before you get changed, Sensei Kirk said he wants you to meet him and DC on the roof.”

  She tapped her pen twice on the desk, and I hung my head, instantly deflated.

  "God damnit," I groaned and whimpered, turning to walk back outside.

  “Good luck, Silver Back!” she yelled as the door closed.

  I shouldn’t be overly surprised that Ash was up in his thinking chair since the anniversary of his wife’s death was coming up. He finally seemed to be moving forward with his life, going out and socializing again, but now I was getting the impression that I'd been overly optimistic.

  I climbed the roof access ladder and found Ash and our dad sitting in two of the three lawn chairs we kept up there. Dad raised a can of coconut water to me as a silent hello, and Ash raised his eyebrows while slouching in his chair. My brother was wearing his favorite AC/DC shirt.

  “Afternoon, ladies,” I said, walking across the gravel-covered roof to sit next to Ash. We were fraternal twins, so we weren’t identical—thank God—but you could see the resemblance. Ash stood only about two inches shorter than me, but we had the same muscular build. Our eyes were the same dark-brown, and our hair was the same shade of light-brown. But I kept mine in more of a short military cut compared to his crappy crew cut. We had no clue who was the older one between us, though. Our parents had never told us because they thought it would create some sort of false hierarchy. We thought about looking at our birth certificates, but that would have required effort.

  Come to think of it, where the hell is my birth certificate?

  “Okay,” I groaned as I sat down, “before we begin this meeting of the minds, I’d like to once again state for the record that Back In Black was a better album than High Voltage.” I pointed at the picture of Angus Young next to a lightning bolt on Ash’s dark grey shirt and watched my brother shake his head in disagreement. It had been his and Tess’s favorite album, but that didn’t change the facts. “Now that we have that out of the way, what’d I miss?”

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  Ash leaned his head in my direction and said, “The day was going pretty well, but…”

  “But?” I asked.

  “I dunno, shit just got weird a little while ago. I honestly thought I’d be good this year. Sorry, guys.”

  My brother looked back at the evening sky, and I caught Dad's gaze. He always looked serious, even when he was happy or joking, but right now he just looked sad as he stared at my brother. They shared a tragic bond that I couldn’t relate to. I prayed I never would.

  After our mom died when we were twelve, Dad had been an absolute mess. But he picked himself back up and pushed forward. As soon as it came in, he invested a substantial portion of the life insurance money to purchase a large warehouse facility and expand the dojo. It had been his and Mom's dream to create a place where people could become “the apex predators of martial arts.” The old man poured his heart into the project while raising two sons alone, and eventually, it paid off.

  By hiring several of the top instructors from multiple martial arts disciplines, The Warrior’s Path Combat Academy became one of the best training facilities in all of Los Angeles County, if not the entire West Coast. I had to fight the urge to laugh as the memory of him crying at the grand opening flashed through my mind.

  Dad let out a sigh. “Do you boys remember what you told your mother and me you wanted to be when you grew up?”

  We both looked over at him. Even though our dad was sixty, he was still a world-class martial artist and could handle almost every fighter in the gym like they were children. He wasn’t very tall, but one look at the old man usually conveyed the fact he could knock you on your ass.

  “That’s easy, we wanted to be a couple of badass ghetto pimps,” Ash answered.

  “Close, but no.” I cut in. "We wanted to be male prostitutes. If memory serves me right, Ash was going to go by the street name, Chaz Rage. I was going to be the living legend known as...Girthquake." My hand arced in front of me with flair, like it was tracing an invisible rainbow.

  Dad stared at me with his mouth hanging open, slowly shaking his head. Ash and I exchanged glances and shrugged. We almost got him to smile that time. The old man never laughed at our jokes, which was ridiculous because Ash and I were hilarious.

  “You told us you wanted to be superheroes. You loved Spider-Man and all the others, telling us how you wanted to grow up and protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. Your mother and I loved it. It’s what inspired the dojo creed…well, that and some stuff your mother believed in.”

  “What’s your point, Pops?” Ash asked, rubbing his face.

  “My point is that heroes get their asses kicked—”

  “Wow, that’s not the direction I expected this to go,” I chimed in.

  “Let me finish, you damn pothead.”

  “Do you not also smoke my weed?”

  “That’s beside the point!”

  I put my hands up defensively, and he cleared his throat. “They get their asses kicked, but they get back up. They come back stronger than they ever were before, and they never lose the heart that made them who they were. Ash, you fought your way back from a very dark place, and I know your mother, rest her soul, would agree with me; we couldn’t possibly be prouder of you. And Jacob, these last few years, you’ve finally started to become a more responsible adult. I’m proud of you, too.”

  I gave a little bow, but Dad had neglected a key fact. “You know, Pops, it wasn’t just comics and cartoons that made us say we wanted to be professional badasses. Mom and Grandma used to tell us all those cheesy stories about how our great-great-great-great-grandfather was some amazing warrior hero or some shit."

  Ash jabbed his thumb at me. "He's got a point. Those were a big part of why we got the tattoos, too."

  Everyone in Mom's family had the tattoo to honor the family's alleged legacy. We hadn’t planned on getting them, but after she died, Ash and I promised each other we would head straight to the tattoo parlor the day we turned eighteen. It seemed like the right thing to do since we were the last living members of her family line.

  “You boys know my opinion about those damn tattoos, but...those stories made your mother so happy every time she told them, and I loved to hear her voice. It didn’t matter what she was saying as long as I could hear her. Unless she was angry, then I got the hell out of there. She’s still one of the only people to ever kick my ass...but that’s only because I couldn’t concentrate when we sparred. She was that beautiful.”

  Mom had been a hell of a fighter. She hadn’t trained in any traditional style before meeting our Dad, but she’d been taught to fight by her father, who’d been taught by his father, and so on. Watching her spar with Dad had been like watching a violent angel dance across the mat. The woman had been a graceful force of nature, never letting anything hold her back. There wasn't a day that went by that we didn't miss her.

  Before we were even born, she'd told Dad that she wanted us to start training from a young age. The old man was more than happy to make that happen. Hell, some of my earliest memories were of our parents teaching Ash and me to punch and kick properly.

  “Well, I appreciate the pep talk, Dad. It was awkward, but… I appreciate the effort,” Ash said, patting his shoulder.

  “I love you boys.”

  “Pretty sure that my takeaway from this whole powwow is going to be that you finally admitted to loving boys,” I said, pointing at my dad.

  “God, where did I go wrong with you?”

  #

  “Separate Ways” by Journey blasted on the speakers overhead as we arrived just in time for class. Ash called for one of the senior students to lead warm-ups as we walked between the boxing ring and the class mats.

  “Alright, nerds, you ready to put in some work?” I yelled to the twenty or so students awaiting us.

  “Yes, Sensei,” they shouted back. Just then, every light in the building started to flicker. The lights died, and the music faded into an ominous silence as the building lost power. The last of the evening sunlight that passed through the windows barely illuminated all the students, who stopped what they were doing to look around in confusion.

  Dropping my gear bag, I grabbed my chest when the sensation hit me. It was like something had gripped my heart, and my whole body was suddenly filled with TV static. This was nothing like the episode I had in traffic earlier. It was worse.

  Jesus, am I having a heart attack?!

  Beside me, Ash had dropped his backpack and grabbed his chest as well.

  “Boys?” Dad asked nervously.

  Loud cracks, like shots from a gun, rang out as light bulbs exploded throughout the gym, raining glass down on the screaming students. Most of them were trapped in place on the training mats by the shards that lay all around their bare feet. The sharp scent of ozone flooded my nose as a blue light shone from beneath me. I looked down, and my eyes went wide.

  “What the hell?” I said with growing alarm. The three of us were inside a large glowing circle that had appeared on the floor, with dozens of glowing symbols and weird writing spread throughout it. My father cried out as he was thrown from the circle and crashed into a padded support pillar nearly fifty feet away.

  “Dad!” Ash and I yelled as we ran to him. Before we reached the edge of the circle, three thick glowing rings rose from the one on the floor, blocking us in. Dad’s terrified eyes met ours.

  He scrambled to his feet, stumbling at first and clutching his ribs, then he ran to us. Some of the senior students grabbed him and held him back as the sharp rings began to spin like saw blades. He tried to shake them off.

  “Get the fuck off me! Ash! Jacob!” His voice filled with panic.

  “Jacob, look!” Ash pointed to one of the larger symbols below us.

  What the hell?

  It was the same as our tattoo.

  “These aren’t supposed to be real,” Ash said in disbelief. But I could barely hear him now. Inside the ring, it was starting to sound like a wind tunnel, getting louder at an alarming rate.

  The noise from the circle turned into a shriek, and windows throughout the entire building exploded outward. Everyone in the gym cringed in pain and covered their ears. The rings blocking us in wobbled and shook violently, as if they were being assaulted. Electricity arced between them and then lashed out. It struck the light fixtures above us, cutting them in half, and scorched the gym floor and wall. The serene blue of the rings began changing to a sinister blood red.

  Fuck. That can’t be good.

  When the last trace of blue light faded the pain crashed down on me like a goddamn tsunami. My ankles buckled, and I crashed to the floor. The pain was unreal. It felt like thousands of small knives were stabbing me over and over. I howled in agony, but then in horror when I looked down to where the pain was the worst. My body was being shredded apart, vanishing from the bottom up as though I was being fed into an invisible wood chipper.

  We’re gonna die in here!

  I looked back at Ash; the bottom half of his body had been ripped away into nothingness. The terror in his eyes mirrored my own. He shouted my name, but I couldn’t hear him inside this death chamber. We crawled for each other in desperation as the circle devoured us. The red floor now burned to the touch, and smoke that smelled like burnt meat rose wherever our hands touched it.

  I couldn't lose him. If we could reach each other, it would all be okay. There was nothing we couldn't do when we were together. This nightmare would end if I could just touch him.

  Ash's left arm disintegrated beneath him, and he collapsed onto what remained of his chest. He shot his right arm out to me, his tears sizzling and steaming as they hit the floor. His torso vanished faster by the second. Only a few more inches and I'd reach him. We could still survive this! With a shout, I gave it one final push to take hold of him, but his hand dissolved, and all I grabbed was air. I wailed as the last of my brother disappeared.

  My head collapsed onto the scalding ground, and I sobbed uncontrollably. Through tear-filled eyes, I focused on what lay beyond the rings. Everyone was horrified, watching this public execution unfold. My father had fallen to his knees, arms hanging limp at his sides. Our eyes met, and his tears fell as he screamed my name one last time.