“Never mind,” Amelie said, “it’s nothing.” But the damage was already done.

Roch broke out into a big anticipatory grin.

“I’m her brother,” Roch said. “Who the fuck are you?”

Benjamin stepped forward. He was as tall as Roch but less bulky—he looked emaciated by comparison. And fragile, his hairless chest exposed. He said, “I guess you were leaving.”

Amelie had never heard him talk like that before.

Roch said, “Guess again.”

Benjamin didn’t flinch. He was looking at Roch with an expression Amelie had never seen on him before, a kind of automatic and terrible contempt … which unnerved Roch, who balled his fist.

“Get out of my face,” Roch said.

“Get out of my home,” Benjamin said.

Roch drew back his fist …

But Benjamin hit him in the face.

Roch just stood there, blinking, as if he was working it out in his head:what happened?—what?—then raised his hand to his nose. It was bleeding; Roch examined the blood for a long moment. Then he drew back his fist and threw it at Benjamin in a terrible, pistoning boxer’s punch … but Benjamin moved out of the way somehow; and then Roch—who was a member of a Cabbagetown boxing club, a heavyweight—threw a couple of very serious street punches. But Benjamin just leaned around them somehow and threw a few punches of his own, little nettling jabs that infuriated the bigger man. It was crazy, Amelie thought, it was not even a fight, there was nothing fair about it; it was a humiliation. Roch was turning a bright brick red. He screamed, “Stand still, you fucking faggot!”

And Benjamin stood still, but Roch didn’t respond—couldn’t, maybe.

The expression on Benjamin’s face was terrifying. It was a cold, radiant confidence in his own supremacy, an unblinking ferocity. He moved closer to Roch now, stood so that he was separated from him by a few inches of air. Amelie imagined the space between them as white-hot, flashing with some kind of invisible lightning. She could not see all of Benjamin’s face now but she could see Roch’s, and she was stunned by the fear he began suddenly to radiate. Staring into Benjamin’s eyes and seeing … what?