Chapter 1
ONE
LIAM
It’s win and survive. Or lose and die. I’ve taken two lives today already. Two other desperate men just like me. Men whose demons drive them to this ring, where rich men pay to watch us bleed. The money is enough to last for months if I’m careful with it, but at what cost?
Maybe it’s just my time to lose. To end this miserable life I’ve been dealt.
A drip cascades down my face, blood or sweat, it doesn’t matter anymore.
Pain explodes across the bridge of my nose, the brute above pounding his fist into my flesh, blurring my vision. It’s tempting to just give up. There’s not a part of my body that doesn’t ache. It’s my third fight of the night, and this time it might be me who doesn’t get back up.
A punch to the jaw throws me back fourteen years, except the fists then belonged to my dad.
So many of my early years were filled with pain.
A broken boy who still believed in kindness.
I do my best to block the next blow, but he catches my temple, and instead of his ugly mug, I see her.
The lone angel in my darkness. It’s been so long I sometimes wonder if I invented her.
So desperate for someone who didn’t like to see me cry.
A blond girl with a stuffed lunch bag and a never-ending amount of chatter.
My lip bursts with a sharp metallic flood that’s definitely not sweat.
I refocus on the room I’m in, some small flicker of survival flaring.
The cheers of the surrounding crowd crush in from all angles.
Dust motes dancing above the bruised man straddling my hips, twirling in the cheap warehouse ceiling lights.
Another blow slams my face to the right, dark red staining the concrete beneath us. Not all mine.
I went to find her, and she is gone. Years of holding on for that moment of reunion, only for it to be dashed against the wall. A punch as cruel as any I’d ever had from a fist.
And with it, my will to survive.
The man pounding my face stands, thinking me beaten.
Not realising that it’s my own depression that has me lying out like an abandoned old jumper.
It’s enough to let the brief speck of humanity left in me win.
He turns his back to me as the crowd jeers, slathering over my death already.
Baying for blood like a pack of wild hounds rather than the fathers, husbands and sons they are.
What would the people in their lives think of them if they saw them?
I roll onto my side, and then onto my knees, every muscle screaming in protest.
‘Fuck,’ I groan, forcing myself unsteadily to my feet. The room lurches violently as I force myself to stumble toward the braying fool, celebrating victory before he’s finished the job.
The sound around us intensifies, alerting my competitor to the possibility that something might be amiss.
My fingers crunch as I screw them into a fist. A thousand ghostly punches, pinches and other pains slip into my subconscious as I search for the rage.
I let all of the horror of the past hit me in one incredible blow, white-hot anger choking me.
The man rounds on me, his eyes widening at whatever he sees in my face.
I don’t give him time to recalibrate. To a roar from those who had bet against me, I lunged at the man, trying to phase out his features.
To imagine him as all those who deserved to die.
We meet in a renewed clash of fists, both knowing this to be the final moment for one of us.
And as much as death holds a tempting peace for me, I cannot let myself sink into its glorious grasp.
He punches.
I dodge.
His left arm hangs limply by his side, not his dominant arm, but a weakness no less.
I’m tempted to rip his fucking throat out.
His face morphs into my father’s, into the terrible grin he used to set on me.
The haze descends, and I’m on him. Tearing at flesh.
Blood seeping between my fingers. Facial bones crack.
My thumbs find the jelly-like orbs of his eyes and press hard.
It’s not a sensation you get used to. Nor the screams beneath it.
The way his mouth elongates, bloodied teeth gnashing as his eyes run down his cheeks.
Not enough to kill him, mind you.
The crowd lose their fucking minds, craving more.
But I’ve had enough. The spike of adrenaline ebbs, leaving numbness in its wake.
‘Sorry, buddy,’ I say, as I place my hands on either side of his head and give one sharp twist. The crack barely registers over the raucous noise, and like that, he departs our world. ‘Know I’d ache for a moment of the nothingness you have now.’
I rise, wiping eye goop on my thighs, wincing through my swollen face, and doing a quick tooth count with my tongue.
All still there, this time.
Every step up the grimy stairwell feels like another round in the makeshift ring. My muscles stiffen in protest, fingers digging into the cloth sack stuffed full of twenty-pound notes. No digital cash for me. No one wants their little underground fight scene to have breadcrumbs.
At least the taxman doesn’t know about it either.
Relief fills me as I reach my floor, the old nicotine-stained door is a dilapidated but familiar welcome.
My hands tremble as I fit my key in the lock, wondering what would have happened if I’d just never come home.
What happens to the bodies growing cold in the old warehouse, and who sits at home praying for their return?
No one would miss me.
The casserole on my kitchen table and the clean stack of dishes by the sink say otherwise.
Sandra always comes on a Saturday. I’m always out. Because what she sees as love feels like pity. I can’t stand the way her eyes fill whenever she looks at my face. She’d miss me, in a government-sponsored kind of way.
Notes spill out as I dump my winnings on the sparse counter.
I’ll need to put it with the rest, but maybe when I can’t see two fridges at the same time.
If I eat the cheap meat from the whoops section, and rice or pasta, it could last me a while, and whatever I don’t have to pay on maintaining this shit-hole flat can go away for my future.
A laugh escapes my throat at the thought.
Future.
There’s no future for people like me. You scrape together enough to eat while the world dishes out blow after blow, until you finally fall into the grave, too exhausted to rise. Death is welcomed as the kindest of companions. He brings neither disappointment nor pain. Just a sweet final nothing.
I down a glass of tap water, steadying myself against the counter, before swallowing a handful of painkillers and some arnica. By tomorrow, I’ll look as battered as an old boot, and likely feel it for days.
Good thing there’s nowhere else I need to be.
My bed welcomes me and the casserole into its cushioned depths. Eating is the last thing I want, but I know I’ll need it to fix my broken body. This isn’t my first time on the bloodbath rodeo. I spoon cold carrots and beef into my mouth, too tired to worry about heating them up.
Sandra does make a mean casserole. The salty gravy washes away the lingering metallic taste, and sleep soon taunts me with its embrace. As usual, I fight its temptations, not knowing whether my night will torture me with nightmares. With him.
One of the carrot slices is broken and has twisted to form a misaligned heart.
And hearts always make me think of her.
Kat.
I close my eyes and picture the scraps I remember. Her smiling face tearing through the trees. The shampoo running in my eyes as she scrubs my hair in the cold stream. The way she’d put her hands on her hips and tut, telling me that whatever I was doing, just wouldn’t do.
I’d spent so many nights dreaming that she’d come find me. That her family would move me into their oversized house and keep me in the softness and warmth that I imagined must have formed her.
As sleep pulls me under, I morph into the boy I was that summer, where moments of happiness pierced the fear and pain.