Out of something she recognized. The accumulated weight of watching something wrong happen, and not being able to keep telling yourself it's not your problem.
She thought about how that weight eventually gets too heavy.
She took out her notebook right there in the hallway and wrote down the time and what had happened. She included Ford's intervention exactly as it happened. His words, verbatim.
She didn't know yet how it would matter. But things always mattered in ways you couldn't predict from where you stood.
* * *
That evening, she trained later than usual.
The gym was empty. She had it to herself from 8:00 to 9:30, when the building closed.
She worked combinations on the heavy bag for 40 minutes. Then footwork drills. Then she stretched on the mat and looked at the ceiling and let her mind work the way it worked best. Slowly, without forcing.
Twenty-four days.
She thought about what she had. What she'd documented. What she'd observed. What she'd overheard in the library. What Ford had said in American history. What Delia had found out about Walter Briggs.
It wasn't enough yet. Not to act. Not in a way that would hold.
But it was building.
She thought about what Ray Dunbar had said on the phone.
Then what are you waiting for?
She'd said she'd know when she had enough. She thought she was getting close.
Trent would try a third time. He had to. He'd failed twice, and Shane needed a result before the window closed.
The third attempt would be bigger. More deliberate. Harder to deny.
And this time, this time she was going to make sure Walter Briggs was exactly where he needed to be.
She sat up, picked up her water bottle, drank.
On the gym wall, the clock read 9:12.
She looked at her training gloves on the mat next to her. The old ones. The ones that Shane Whitfield had looked at in the first week and said nothing about. But his expression had said it.
Trash.
The word was legible in the slight curl of the lip. This girl has nothing. She is nothing.
Reagan picked the gloves up. She turned them over in her hands.
Eleven years.
Every morning at 5:00. Every evening that Ray Dunbar had the gym open. Every cold morning in a converted storage unit with buzzing fluorescent lights and no heat. Every tournament. Every loss that made her better. Every win that reminded her why the work mattered.
Her father at the kitchen table, reading the scholarship letter three times.
Her father's voice: "Your mama would have made a lot of noise about this."
She put the gloves in her bag. She picked up the bag and turned off the lights.
She walked out into the Kentucky night. Cool now, properly autumn, the smell of fallen leaves on the air. And crossed the campus back to Carver Hall.
Twenty-four days.
She was ready.
What she needed now was for Trent Calloway to try one more time. On the right path, at the right time, with the right person sitting on the right bench.