In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring to beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them - until one last time, when he gathered himself to his feet.

***A KEY WORD*** Imagined

I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.

But neither of us knows, because a fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it.

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

When death captures me," the boy vowed, "he will feel my fist in his face." (31.26)

Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave.