Jake's hands came off her legs, his fingers opened. He went heavy against her arm. Gianna felt it go and released in the same motion. She caught his head before it reached the mat. She rolled him onto his side. She put two fingers under his jaw and tipped his chin up, and she stayed on one knee beside him, watching his chest.
Nobody in the building said anything.
Jake's eyes came open about four seconds later. He looked at the ceiling lights. He said, "What?" And then he said it again. Then he sat up on his own, put both hands flat on the mat, and started to cry.
Luke Riley was already walking out. "Get up, Jake. Luke, get up."
Luke did not shoot. Luke came in tall, hands high, and threw a looping right hand at the side of her head. People in that room stood up when he did it. Gianna slipped under it. She did not hit him back. She caught his right wrist with both hands on the way past, turned her shoulders, and stepped her left foot behind his ankle.
Luke's own momentum did the rest. He went down hard on his back with her already turning on top of him. By the time the sound of him landing finished, her legs were where they needed to be. His own right arm was across his own throat, her shin locked there.
Eleven seconds.
Luke slapped the mat twice. She was already off him before the second slap landed.
Mason Clark had not moved from his corner. He looked at Jake sitting up with his hands over his face. He looked at Luke rolling onto all fours, coughing, furious, unheard. He looked at the girl standing in the middle of his mat, hair still tied, breathing easy.
Something happened to his face, and sixty people watched it happen: the grin went first, then the color.
"Cut the stream," Kyle Morrison said from the desk.
"Leave it," Mason said.
"Mason—"