Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Savina
THE FIRST DAY of school goes by in a blur.
There’s a lot of memorization involved, something that I’m, fortunately, really great at.
I think I have a good feel for the layout of the school and that, by this time tomorrow, I will know where everything is without having to ask and nervously stuttering in front of my classmates and the staff.
Even though everyone should be acting more like adults in high school, I have a feeling I’ll still get bullied over my speech impediment.
What really sucks is that I won’t have Darby there to back me up or protect me.
I know I need to stand up for myself, but it’s hard sometimes considering I’ve been bullied my whole life in school and at home as well by own stepmother.
My brain is just wired to stand down and take the abuse, and I hate that about myself.
I wish I had more of a backbone. I wish I was more like Darby.
Speaking of the devil…Darby comes running around the corner to my locker. “Get your shit. We have a fight to go to,” she says with a toothy grin. She types on her phone and says, “I’m ordering us an Uber. No way I’m walking in these.”
I glance down at her black combat boots.
I’m surprised she wasn’t sent home immediately for wearing them.
The school policy is that we’re allowed to wear closed-toe, dress-style shoes in neutral colors.
But Darby is always pushing the envelope.
I mean, at this point, I would be surprised to see her not breaking the rules.
We wait in front of the school for a while until a car pulls up. The Uber driver then takes us downtown and drops us off in an overgrown parking lot. As the car pulls away, leaving us alone in the deserted area, I ask Darby, “Uh, are you sure this is the place?”
“Yep,” she says confidently, so I trust her.
We walk a narrow trail through high weeds and brush until we come to a clearing.
The dark, murky water gurgles along the jagged shore, which is comprised of large rocks, submerged concrete and debris.
Rusted metal fragments litter the area as we carefully walk along, trying to avoid any tripping hazards on the way.
“The entrance is over here,” Darby says as I follow her.
We squeeze through a rusted grate and into an abandoned subway tunnel.
We walk past the colorful graffiti-scrawled concrete walls and down a stairwell that isn’t supposed to lead anywhere.
The entrance is narrow, and we have to duck under the crumbling concrete ceiling.
I’m not claustrophobic, but I know that Darby is.
I can hear her breathing beginning to become labored as we go through the tight channel.
“You g-g-g-good?” I ask her nervously.
She nods but doesn’t actually say one way or the other. The only thing she does is walk faster as I desperately try to keep up.
Eventually, the tunnel we’re in opens up into a large cave.
The walls are jagged, carved by time and neglect.
The air is heavy and smells of sweat, mildew and the sharp, coppery scent of blood.
Someone must have dragged in generators, because I can hear the consistent mechanical humming in the distance.
Water drips from exposed pipes above, catching slivers of light from the bare bulbs hanging on the ceiling.
A large crowd is dispersed throughout the cave. I recognize a lot of our classmates, still in their school uniforms. But there are adults here too, and I can see them passing around money as they place their bets on the fighters.
The fighting ring itself is primitive. It’s just a circle of dirt ringed by a faint chalk outline.
I don’t know what the rules are for the fights, but I assume there are none, given where we are right now.
I can’t imagine there’s a ref or anything either to keep everything in order.
No, this place is definitely giving disorderly vibes.
Suddenly, LED floodlights flicker on, casting sharp shadows around the cave as people begin to move in closer to the makeshift ring.
An older man steps into the middle of the ring with a megaphone.
“There will be three fights tonight,” he announces, his voice echoing throughout the cave.
“The rules are simple. There are no rules!” he says, and the crowd goes crazy in appreciation.
“The fights go until someone taps out. And the last fight of the night is between The Executioner and The Destroyer. Place your bets, ladies and gents,” he calls out.
People press in shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting last-minute bets as their voices ricochet off the wet concrete walls.
Darby and I stay towards the back of the crowd, having no interest in getting up close and personal to the people here or the fighting that’s going to inevitably happen in that small ring.
“Oh, there they are!” Darby hisses as she points to the right of us.
Several fighters enter through a back entrance, each one looking more menacing than the one before him.
There’s one in particular that catches my attention.
He’s wearing a black hoodie and black mesh shorts.
His hood is drawn, cloaking his face in shadows.
There’s something oddly familiar about him, but I just can’t place it.
“God, they’re all so freaking hot,” Darby comments, making me smile. She does love bad boys.
I stare at the one in the black hood, and I swear I can feel him staring right back. A shiver runs through me, and I tear my gaze away from him.
Several minutes pass until the announcer gets back in the center of the ring and tells people that betting time is over. “The first fight will begin now.”
Two scrawny teens get into the ring and begin punching the hell out of each other.
One is left with a bloody nose and probably several broken bones considering how bruised his chest and ribs are before he calls the fight on his own, ending it in the second round.
The crowd erupts into chaos, booing him right out of the cave.
The second fight is almost a repeat of the first fight. This time, though, the men are much older than the teens with graying hair and potbellies. It’s all over by the third round, and the crowd is angry once again.
“Now, the fight you’ve all been waiting for,” the announcer says on the megaphone. “Welcome our fighters to the ring. The unstoppable Ethan ‘The Executioner’ Millsworth,” he calls out.
One of the fighters steps forward, separating himself from the group.
He’s wearing a leather biker jacket emblazoned with a skull on the back and black jeans.
He’s middle-aged, tall and appears to be in shape.
But once he removes his jacket and shirt, I see that I gravely underestimated his physique.
He looks like a giant bodybuilder, and it almost seems like his bulging shoulders are going to swallow his own head.
The announcer grabs Ethan’s hand and holds it high, gaining a lot of cheers from the crowd. I watch as the fighter moves his head from side to side, cracking his nonexistent neck.
“And welcome to the stage his opponent…Dimitri ‘The Destroyer’ Sokolov!” the announcer says.
Blood rushes through my ears as my entire world grinds to a halting stop.
No. It can’t be.
My eyes widen as a very tall man, yes, not a boy, but a man, walks onto the stage. He’s still wearing the black hoodie pulled low over his forehead, so I can’t make out any of his features. The material of the hoodie clings to every muscle in his broad shoulders and biceps.
Suddenly, Dimitri rips off his black hoodie and throws it into the crowd, savoring their loud cheers for him.
He steps into the chalked ring. His knuckles are taped tight.
His strong jaw is clenched, and he keeps flexing his muscular shoulders like he’s already won.
His raven black hair falls in front of those icy, blue eyes that I’ve been thinking about for the past two years as he scans the crowd.
As my eyes openly peruse his body, I notice that he has a few tattoos on one of his arms; and I stare at them intently.
Considering I barely know Dimitri, it shouldn’t surprise me that he has ink, but it does.
“Oh my god, The Destroyer is so freaking hot,” I hear Darby mutter from beside me. My head swings in her direction, completely taken aback by the fact that she’s calling my future husband hot. My emotion must be written all over my face, because she looks at me and says, “What? What’s wrong?”
Quickly, I school my features and murmur, “N-n-nothing.” Then, I draw my attention back to Dimitri, who is now standing in the middle of the circle, squaring up with his opponent.
They’re going to fight.
Dimitri could get hurt.
I shouldn’t want to watch this, but I can’t seem to force myself to look away.
Do I secretly want him to get hurt? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m so focused on the way he’s looking through the other fighter right now with those eerily cold eyes that I can’t form a single thought inside my head.
“I bet on the Russian dude,” I hear someone next to me say to his friend.
“Oh, for sure. I heard Russia deported him when he was ten years old to be a spy,” someone else says.
“I bet he’s killed people,” a popular girl from my class says. Then, she sighs dramatically, before saying, “That’s so hot.”
I grumble under my breath.
“I wonder if what they’re saying is true?” Darby asks.
I roll my eyes. “He’s not even f-f-from Russia. He’s from R-Romania,” I tell my friend.
Darby’s eyes narrow as she tilts her head to the side and stares at me like I’ve grown a third head. “And how exactly do you know that, Savina?”
Shit.