Chapter 14
Keaton
Two Years Later
Waking up on someone else’s couch had stopped feeling weird a couple of months ago. It still wasn’t comfortable, though.
I opened my eyes to the sunlight filtering through bent slats in the mini blinds and lay still for a second, trying to remember where I was. The apartment reeked of burnt coffee and whatever citrus air freshener was shoved into the wall.
My neck ached from the strange angle I’d slept in, and one of my arms had gone numb during the night. I flexed my fingers, trying to get blood flowing again while I stared at the water stain on the ceiling above me.
“You alive?” Scott inquired from the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. We’d known each other since ninth grade and had run with the same crowd long enough that him finding me passed out on his couch didn’t even earn more than a half-second look anymore.
“Unfortunately.”
He snorted. “Good. There’s coffee. It tastes like shit, but it’s hot.”
As I pushed myself upright, every muscle in my body protested the movement.
Between working at Sal’s, barely sleeping, and taking fights wherever I could find them, I lived in a near-constant state of soreness.
My knuckles were healing from the last fight, the bruise along my ribs wasn’t quite as tender, and the cut above my eyebrow had closed up enough that I no longer looked like I’d gotten jumped in an alley.
Scott stepped farther into the living room, wearing a wrinkled shirt from the auto body shop he worked at and cargo pants, one hand wrapped around a chipped mug. His dark hair stuck up in the back as if he hadn’t checked a mirror yet.
He glanced at me and lifted a brow. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Are you working today?”
“Yeah. I’ve got the lunch shift.”
“At the pizza place?”
“No, the other glamorous job I have,” I replied sarcastically.
He nodded and walked down the hall toward his room.
I headed for the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee. He hadn’t been lying. It did taste like shit, but it was caffeinated, which was all I really needed.
As I reached for one of the protein bars I’d bought, my phone pinged with an incoming text. I checked the screen and saw it was from my mom:
Can you bring me some things from the storage unit this weekend?
No “hello.” No “how are you?” Just her asking me to do something for her.
I’m heading to Reno this weekend
So you have time for fun but you can’t help me out?
I ran a hand over my face and let out a breath.
A year ago, she told me she was moving in with my aunt in Colfax.
I remembered sitting in the living room while she explained how the house was too much for her and that she’d already called a realtor.
During that conversation, she didn’t ask where I would go, if I could afford a place on my own, or if I needed help. She just assumed I’d figure it out.
The house sold right away, and as soon as she signed the escrow papers, she’d packed up all her shit and took off.
Watching her drive away was a little too similar to when I’d watched Rowan do the same thing. But I refused to think about that.
I’ll see what I can do
I didn’t bother explaining that I wasn’t going to Reno for fun. She wouldn’t get it anyway. I just threw my phone on the counter and took a few deep breaths.
Scott came back into the kitchen. “Everything okay?”
I rolled my neck. “Yeah. Just gotta figure out how to get some shit to my mom before I head out of town this weekend.”
“You have another fight?”
I looked over at him. “Maybe.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
I didn’t respond.
“You know I’m not judging you, right?” He set his mug in the sink. “I just think those fights are sketchy as hell.”
I rested my hip against the counter. “They pay cash.”
“That doesn’t make them any less sketchy.”
“No.” I took another sip of the shitty coffee. “But I need the money if I ever want to get a place of my own.”
He scratched his jaw. “You could ask Sal for more hours.”
“I already did.”
“And?”
“And he gave me two more lunch shifts and said business was slow.”
Sal did everything he could to help, but it wasn’t enough. Not when I was paying for my own gas, insurance, trying to keep my car running, and feeding myself.
Without the fights, I’d probably be a week away from being completely fucked.
I didn’t go out looking for them at first. It just kind of happened.
Six months ago, a couple of guys came into Sal’s, and I overheard them talking about some illegal fights they’d just attended.
I started a conversation with them and found out there could be easy money in it if I didn’t mind getting hit.
The first fight had been in an abandoned warehouse in South Sacramento.
There weren’t many rules or medical staff—just a bunch of drunk guys throwing cash around and cheering every time they saw blood.
I’d been in enough fights in high school to know I could take a punch, and I thought getting paid to do so wouldn’t be bad.
It was a stupid way to think, but it wasn’t as if I had a ton of other opportunities beating down my door.
I told myself I was only going to do it once.
That was six fights ago.
The Sacramento ones paid decently. Reno paid better, especially if the right people were there betting. I didn’t enjoy driving that far, but I loved waking up with a few hundred extra dollars in my pocket.
Maybe ‘love’ wasn’t the right word.
I needed the extra cash.
“Well, hopefully something will pan out soon.”
“I hope so too,” I agreed.
My Elantra didn’t handle the drive up the pass well, and I spent half of it watching the temperature gauge, worried the engine would overheat at any second, but it lasted long enough to get me into Reno, which was all I really cared about.
The address I’d been given took me to a place far from downtown. I found no sign or lights, only a flickering bulb over a side door, and a lot of cars parked on the gravel.
Most of the places I’d been to had the same vibe.
I should have arrived earlier, but traffic getting out of Sac had been even worse than normal, so I was running late.
I grabbed my duffel from the passenger seat, pushed the door open, and got out of my car.
A couple of guys were standing nearby, smoking, and they gave me a once-over before they looked away again.
No one asked questions. I headed inside.
It was larger than I expected, with a makeshift cage set up in the middle, and people gathered around it on all sides. Some pressed right up against the fencing, while others sat back with drinks in their hands, shouting over one another.
I found one of the guys running the fights sitting at a folding table with a clipboard in front of him.
“You fighting?” he asked without looking up.
“Yeah. Keaton Stafford.”
He jerked his chin toward the back. “You’re late. You’ve got the next fight.”
I moved past him toward the far side of the warehouse, where a few other fighters were already hanging out, stretching or bouncing on their feet.
One of them had a split lip, with blood still fresh at the corner of his mouth.
Another guy paced back and forth, muttering under his breath as if he was trying to psych himself up.
I set my bag down and rolled my shoulders, loosening up as best I could. My knuckles throbbed faintly as I flexed my hands, and I quickly wrapped them.
A roar erupted from the crowd as the fight inside the cage took a turn. I spun around in time to see one guy slam the other into the corner so hard that the entire structure rocked.
These fights weren’t about skill like the competition I’d attended a few years earlier. They focused on who could be more ruthless and violent than their opponent.
“Stafford!” I looked up at the sound of my name and saw one of the organizers waving me over. “Let’s go.”
I popped in my mouthguard and followed him toward the cage. The noise grew louder with each step, the crowd’s excitement building as a new fight was about to begin. The door creaked open, and I stepped inside.
The guy across from me was bigger, and he grinned as if the fight was already over.
The door slammed shut behind me, and within seconds, the bell rang.
He came at me first without hesitation and started swinging wildly.
I ducked the first punch and felt the rush of air as it passed over me.
Spinning around, I managed to drive my shoulder into his stomach, and we slammed into the chain-link wall.
He was strong, but he lacked skill. His next punch caught my jaw hard enough to snap my head to the side and blur my vision for half a second.
I shoved him back just enough to create space and swung.
My fist connected with the side of his face, and the impact jolted up my arm.
He stumbled a bit, then came right back at me as if my hit was nothing.
We traded blows, trying to land whatever we could. My back hit the fence again, harder this time, while his forearm pressed into my throat, cutting off my air.
“Done yet?” he growled.
I didn’t answer; instead, I drove my knee up into his ribs.
He grunted, and his grip loosened just enough.
That was the opening I needed. I twisted out from under him and swung again, this time hitting him squarely across the jaw.
His head snapped back, and I didn’t give him time to recover.
I stepped in and hit him again. And again.
Each hit landed harder than the last, driving him backward. He tried to throw a punch, but it was slow, uncoordinated, and easy to slip past. Then I hit him one more time, enough to make his knees buckle.
He went down.
The crowd surged forward, pressing against the cage and shouting. I stood there, chest heaving, waiting to see if he would get back up. He didn’t.
One of the officials—if they could be called that—lifted my arm in victory, and I dragged my other hand across my face, smearing sweat and blood on my skin.