Chapter 14 Lance
Lance
I roll my neck, the vertebrae cracking in succession, and stare at the dark hallway that leads to the pit.
It’s filling up, I can hear it: expensive shoes clicking against concrete, anticipation buzzing through the air.
The laughter and the illicit danger that feeds the most depraved parts of everyone’s soul.
They come from all over for this, sneaking in through different access points around town and entering through the tunnels.
It’s exclusive—if your name isn’t on the list, then you don’t get in. And that always brings people who want to pay to play.
The kind of violence that doesn’t stop when somebody taps out.
And this is why I can’t get in my feelings. Why it’s pointless to have chats about what I miss or what kind of stupid fucking memories I’ll have when I die.
“You’re up in ten.”
I don’t turn around, but my spine stiffens at Art’s voice.
“I know.”
“Benny will be here in a minute to go over the logistics.”
“I know how to throw a fight, Art. Been doing it long before you got your spot down here.”
There’s nothing but silence behind me, but I can feel him hovering like he wants to say something. “Lance… There’ll be video of tonight.”
Video means tonight isn’t a betting night. It’s a hit job.
Someone paid to put a man in the cage with me, and they’re paying for him not to walk out.
The camera captures every second, and when it’s over, Myrddin adds it to the collection—another piece of footage that ensures my leash is tight.
Because on tape, there’s no context. No orders.
No money changing hands. Just me, beating a man to death.
Do what they say or the tapes get leaked, and it won’t only be me who goes down, it will be every person attached to my name. Every person I love dragged through the wreckage of a violent, serial murderer.
It’s the same story, every single time.
Art clears his throat. “Did you hear me?”
I grit my teeth and ignore him.
When tonight is done, I’ll try like hell to go back to being his Lance, the best friend who would do anything for him, but right now, it hurts that he’s the one down here, filling in the void Freddy’s death left.
I hadn’t expected him to play the role of my blackmailer.
He nods, and then he lingers, but I ignore him. I have to, or I won’t be able to become what they need me to be.
At some point he leaves, and I’m left alone.
The door opens again, and this time I do turn, because the footsteps are hesitant.
“What do you want, Benny?”
“Protocol, you know how it is.” He steps closer. “Your opponent tonight is Kingston Brando.”
“I don’t care who he is.”
“He’s connected to the Marcolleti family out of Boston. They’ve got money on him not walking out of here.”
“So they’re paying for a body.”
I crack my neck and nod.
Fine. Fuck them, then.
“Is he any good?”
Benny tilts his head like he hasn’t thought about it. Which means they could have sold this to the poor guy as a chance to win some money in a fight. I’ll have to make it look good. I know how this goes. I give them a show and take enough damage to sell it.
Then I end it.
“Anything else?” I ask.
Benny shifts on his feet, and something flickers across his face. “How’s Tyler?”
“Stop.” My voice is icy as I cut him off. He doesn’t get to talk about my cousin. “That name doesn’t come out of your mouth.”
It barely comes out of mine. I haven’t seen him since Marcus Montgomery’s funeral, and from what Juliette says, she hasn’t, either. It’s like he’s disappeared entirely.
“If he’d quit trying to take his sister from me, none of this would have happened.”
I let out a hollow laugh and rub the scruff of my jaw. “Yeah, Benny. Whatever you say.”
Benny turns to leave, but pauses at the door, glancing back over his shoulder. “Almost forgot. I brought Percy down tonight, told him to watch and learn.”
My stomach sours. “He doesn’t need to see this.”
“How else is he gonna know what’s coming?”
I don’t reply, because he’s right.
When I step into the hallway a few minutes later, Percy’s there, trying to look casual.
“Go home.”
“Can’t.” He pushes off the wall, falling into step beside me. “They want me here.”
I turn to face him. “You should be worrying about college or getting laid or whatever kids your age worry about, not standing down here taking notes.”
“Come on, Excalibur. We both know I don’t have a choice.”
Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Sorry. I just… That’s what they call you at the other spots.”
My hand falls from my face and the tunnel shrinks. “What do you mean ‘other spots’? They’re taking you to other locations?”
He grips the back of his neck and shifts on his feet. “Yeah. They took me to a pop-up out in Brooklyn two nights ago. They didn’t tell you?”
It’s cute he thinks they’d tell me. I’m chopped liver in this system, the same as him.
“Who’s they?”
Cheering bounces off the walls, and Benny shows up at the entrance to the pit, tapping his watch.
I grip Percy’s shoulder. “When it gets bad, you look away. You hear me?”
He nods, but I know he won’t.
“Go.”
Percy hesitates like he wants to say something else but then spins around and disappears down the tunnel.
The walk from the back rooms to the pit is maybe fifty feet, but it feels like miles.
The crowd noise builds with every step, a low, eager rumble. The Lye is packed tonight, every seat filled, standing room occupied by men who couldn’t get a spot but paid enough to be let in anyway.
I keep my eyes forward. I don’t want to see the hunger on their faces.
If I think of them as human—as fathers and husbands who go home after this and kiss their kids good night—I’ll lose my mind.
So I don’t think. I just walk.
I step through the gate, and it clangs shut behind me.
The crowd roars.
I roll my neck again, bounce on the balls of my feet, shake out my arms—the motions my body knows even when my mind is somewhere else.
Across the cage, my opponent is doing the same.
He’s maybe two forty, with hands the size of sledgehammers. His eyes are flat and cold, and I wonder again if he knows what’s coming or if he thinks this is just another fight.
The ref, if you can even call him that, steps between us, although his position is really just for show. Everyone knows there are no regulations here.
“Gentlemen. You know why you’re here. Touch knuckles if you want. Fight’s over when someone stays down.”
“Or dies.” The fucker across from me murmurs, a sick grin spreading across his face.
So he knows. Or he thinks he does. Wouldn’t be the first time someone walked into this cage cocky and got carried out.
Brando doesn’t extend his fists.
The ref steps back.
The bell rings.
And everything else falls away.
The first strike I throw is a range finder: a low calf kick to test his reaction. He checks it, shin to shin, which tells me he’s trained.
Good. Makes this easier.
The first round is feeling each other out. Jab, feint, circle. He throws a leg kick of his own and I absorb it on my thigh, the impact radiating up to my hip. He keeps me at a distance with a piston jab, then fires off a head kick. I barely slip, the wind of it brushing my ear.
He’s measuring me like he’s already figured out how this ends.
He hasn’t.
I let him land one. A right cross that catches my jaw and sends dots of black bursting across my vision. The crowd roars, and I taste copper in my mouth.
One for the show.
Round two, I give him more. Let him take me down, my back hitting the mat with a thud that echoes through my bones. His weight crushes my ribs, and he rains elbows while I cover up. One catches me above the eye, and my skin splits.
The cage presses cold against my shoulder as I shrimp toward it, using the fence to wall walk back up to my feet. He meets me in the clinch, driving knees into my body, one catching a weak rib and making my side scream.
He’s grinning now. Probably thinking he’s got me figured out and that this is his night.
Unfortunately for him, tonight I’m not the one who’s supposed to go down.
The crowd chants “Excalibur” in the background, the nickname Myrddin branded me with as if I’m his sword and not a person.
The third round is when I use his weak spots against him. I found it thirty seconds in and have been biding my time since. Half a second after a jab, he leaves his chin exposed, so I let him paint himself into the corner, his bravado making him sloppy.
There.
I step inside his reach and put everything I have into an uppercut that starts in my legs, travels through my hips and explodes from my fist.
His head snaps back and his legs buckle. He stumbles and drops, and I follow him to the ground. His arms come up to protect his face, but they’re sluggish now, and I trap one with my knee and start working.
The first elbow splits his brow and with the second his cheekbone gives. By the third, his arms have dropped entirely, but I don’t stop. Not until his body goes slack beneath me. His eyes go vacant, and my arms are slick with red.
The crowd erupts, banging on the fence and hollering from behind the glass booths.
I push off him and stand, my chest heaving, blood dripping from my hands, and I feel…nothing.
And then, I think of Genevieve counting to seven in a quiet kitchen, and that nothing cracks, allowing just enough of something in to hurt.
I spit the blood from my mouth and walk back toward the tunnel.