26. Colson
TWENTY-SIX
COLSON
I swing my arms back and forth and roll my shoulders a few more times. I’m off to the side of the area where the fights occur. There’s a lot of fucking people in attendance tonight, but because I’ll be in the ring in less than twenty minutes, I get a front row seat with Tommy and his other fighters. On the other side are our opponents and the guy that manages them. The guy glowers at us like he’s the Grim Reaper and one glance will take us out.
“Eli is about to wreck that fucking guy,” Remy, the guy next to me, says. He’s the last fight of the night. I won’t see it happen. After our rounds, we typically head somewhere in the back of the building or return to our area where we got ready. Turns out, grown men don’t take to losing very well. We like to lick our wounds in peace without an unforgiving audience. Eli told me they had to enforce that rule when one fighter put another in a coma after the fight. The winner didn’t see him coming, but the sore loser peeled his back off the ground and got a cheap shot in at the back of his head.
Fights were shut down for weeks until the dude came out of his medically-induced coma. He walked away with brain damage, still can’t talk or eat on his own to this day.
I try not to think about all the risks that come along with what I’m doing. I know why I’m here, but if I let my mind wander on all the horrible ways my fights can turn for the worse, I’ll be back in Mom’s room with a big ole bottle of amber.
And no one needs that.
“Look at the weight he has on him.” Remy snickers, running a hand over his bald head. He’s in his thirties and lives for this shit. Literally. He’s known Tommy since getting locked up in juvie for fighting and pickpocketing his way through his teenage years. “How long you give him?”
“You don’t think he’ll make the full three minutes?” I question, knowing by now that it’s best to just go along with Remy than ignore him altogether. The dude rarely shuts up.
“Fuck no. No way in hell he makes it to the third. When he goes down, he’s going down like a fucking pebble.” He chuckles at his joke, and I have to say, Remy isn’t wrong. Eli’s contender is tiny. His muscles aren’t as corded or ripped as Eli’s. Nor does he have height on his side. He’s lean like a swimmer, not ripped like a weight lifter, which makes me wonder why he’s not going up against someone who’s more of an equal in terms of weight class.
“Have to watch out for the small ones,” I chime. “They can be scrappy.”
“I’m not getting those vibes.” He slaps my shoulder with the back of his hand. “How about we have a little wager? I’ll throw a couple hundred on it.”
“Not tonight.”
His lower lip pushes out when he blows out a breath. “‘Fraid you might lose? We both know you’ve made a pretty penny since you started working with Tommy. You can afford it.”
Maybe so, but… “I’m here to fight. That’s it.”
He rolls his eyes, mutters that I’m a fucking prude with my money, then walks off to the other guys in our group. Probably to ask them the same thing. The dude can never sit still, and if it wasn’t already noticeable, has a problem with gambling.
Eli ends up winning, and just like Remy suspected, the guy goes down easy. When he’s carted off to the side, I swear I catch a glimpse of familiar brown hair. The perfect shade that I know way too well, but when I glance back over, it’s gone. That quickly, it gets lost in the crowd, and I wonder if my eyes are playing tricks on me.
There’s no way in hell Violet would be here. She doesn’t have a clue that I’m fighting. She’d flip if she found out I took pleasure in beating the shit out of other guys. I can still remember that look that overtook her face when I told her I was into boxing and offered to show her a few moves. It was around the same time she offered to teach me yoga, and I took her up on it.
But she drew the final line in the sand, and surprisingly, she’s been respecting it. Whatever I see, must be some other chick with the same remarkably brown hair as my girl.
It only serves as a reminder of how much I miss her.
The beauty mark under her eye.
Her smile and the way it always softened when I walked into the room.
Her goddamn touch and how it always made me feel alive.
Even more than fighting has.
I guzzle a mouthful of water and listen to the roar of the crowd. I’m up and bring my thoughts of her into the ring with me, but I can’t let her get in my head. She doesn’t belong there. Not anymore. That flicker of hair I saw is just my ego trying to draw me back into more heartache.
I won’t have it.
Not now.
I’m here to entertain. I promised that to Tommy and the crowd when I signed up for this shit, despite the fact that I'm mostly just fighting for myself. The only reason I risked joining Tommy’s group of guys is because it’s the only sure way I won’t get charged with assault. I can’t go out and pick fights for the hell of it. But out here, in the chaos of The Battleground, I can get away with everything but death.
Pushing Violet out of my mind, I settle my feet at my side of the ring. The crowd cheers. I hear my name from people’s mouths. People I don’t even fucking know. Their voices swirl around me. Get in my head. Pretty soon, they’re my only focus. Them, and the mean mug across from me.
My opponent is well-proportioned. Except maybe for his legs. They seem to be a little longer than the rest of him, and albeit, me. Otherwise, he looks just as strong, just as hungry for this match as I am. I rest my hands on my hips. My lungs scream for oxygen. I swear, sometimes when I’m out here, it feels like I stop pulling in air altogether. Like I’m in this upside-down purgatory where I have to hold my breath to make it through.
Maybe it has to do with this anguish inside of me.
Maybe it has to do with maintaining control.
I walk in a circle and look over the guy’s shoulder. Eli is there, standing behind Tommy and Remy. He gives me a nod of encouragement then disappears in the shadows of the crowd. He’s off to sit with his win and absorb all the good things that will come from it.
Praise.
Cash.
Popularity.
A buzzer reaches my ears, indicating that we only have a minute until the match starts. It feels like it lasts three seconds. It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to get this over with. Ready to impale my fists into this fuckboy and cover the hurt that blatantly shows its face every morning.
The fight signal comes next and before either one of us knows it, we’re in the center of the makeshift ring, trying to eat up the inches between us until our fists fly.
I’ve always been adamant about keeping my face protected, and I don’t stray from that now. My fists create the perfect shield to keep him from hitting me. He sends a jab my way, I block it by raising my arm. I swing for him, but he pushes his weight onto his back foot, and I miss.
We’re dancing, and the crowd knows it. Booing comes from every corner. It creeps into my head and adds to my unworthiness. They don’t think I’m good enough tonight. To them, I don’t deserve to be where I am. I’m the chum.
I do what anyone else would in my position, I lunge forward and hit him with a combination that confuses him. My fists move quickly. One of them connects with his cheek. The crowd erupts with cheers, and I’ve done well, but it isn’t enough. My stomach clenches with the need to do the same thing over again, so I tuck my elbows and rely on my balance as he shuffles around and tries to retaliate.
He swings.
I dip down, his fist haloing my head.
“That all you got, fuckboy?” I spit out at him.
Only we can hear it, and normally I don’t give my opponent the time of day by conversing with them, but something is at my back, pestering and pushing me to be better than I ever have before.
He replies with an original, “Fuck you, scumbag.”
My grin turns threatening. I imagine it looks as cocky as Eli’s was not too long ago. “Think it’s safe to say we’re both scumbags, no?”
A grunt tumbles out of him, and he lunges for me, lowering to try and tackle me until my back hits the floor. It doesn’t work to his advantage. I’m prepared for it and put all my power into my legs and arm as I squat lower and drive my fist into his stomach. He heaves out a gust of air. His bare knees fall to the concrete slab below us. The gym shorts he’s wearing get caught on something on the ground and rip at the hem.
The flock of people around us erupts with elation. Beyond, fists pump the air. He gets a couple of cheap weak shots in at me and then the buzzer blares again. The first round is over. We have two more rounds to knock each other out before we’re thrown into a tie-breaker fourth.
I don’t want it to get that far.
Judging by the way he sneers at me while we get a ten-second break, he doesn’t, either.
He mouths, “Coming for you,” just as the bell rings and we begin our second round. Three minutes are on the clock. One hundred and eighty seconds until I’ll look up and see the impatience on Tommy’s face. He doesn’t like it when we draw it out, when we give them more time to take the lead and claim power over us.
For the first minute, I settle with a cross-jab pattern that he gets the hang of quickly. A disconcerting smile spreads across his face. I see a glimpse of red shine over his teeth, an indication that one of my last punches busted his lip. Or maybe he bit his tongue or cheek. Either way, it motivates me to fall back a couple of steps. To circle him and figure out the best plan of attack.
After endless conversations with Eli and my own experience with boxing, I’ve learned that you can’t always go into a fight with a plan. Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses, and you don’t know how they’ll play with yours until you’re face to face.
So, I observe him. I ignore the crowd and watch as he advances but caters a little too much to his right leg. Just like that, I have his weakness nailed down. When he throws another punch, I dip my chin down and peek through my arms to see how his leg responds. He’s quick to pull it back and switch out with his other foot.
I give him one of my weaker punches to open up a response. He does exactly what I expect, and when my opportunity is present, before he’s able to switch his stance, I rear back, bring my leg up, and kick him where he’s lacking.
A combination of a grunt and yell comes out of his mouth. His body careens below me and he falls. I rejoice in my hit, but surprise consumes me when he gets back to his feet just as fast. He has a weak area, but perhaps he’s spent time strengthening it for reasons like this.
I roll my neck to the left as he gears up for more, because let’s be honest, it’s coming. He knows I targeted his leg for a reason. Just to feel complete, I stretch my head to the right as well, my peripheral catching the crowd bordering us, and that’s when I see it again.
Beautiful chocolate-colored hair.
Golden brown eyes.
And the faint glimpse of the beauty mark I visualized earlier.
What the fuck?
I thought I was imagining Violet before, but perhaps I wasn’t.
How the hell would she know to find me here?
I look over and see her, but just like how a hallucination poofs into thin air, she does, too. Dispersed into the musty air of this broken-down candy stockroom. My opponent’s fists slams against my cheek like a hammer driving a nail into wood. Shit, that hurt. Stars invade the edges of my vision. Everyone is so fucking loud that I can’t see straight. My head dizzies, forcing my stomach into a nauseous fit.
My eyes immediately start watering as pain fans out over my face. I don’t realize my palms are splayed out over the cold floor until I’m kicked in the ribcage. Goddamnit . This guy proves he has no weak spots after all. Proves that I’m the one with enough vulnerability to bring this match to a close.
Agonizing pain disperses out over my torso, and I realize I have two choices. I can lay here like a ragdoll and let him have his way with me or I can get my ass up and do what I initially intended.
And then after, I’ll search the crowd high and low until I find her.
Until I find my weak spot.
Adrenaline pumps through me at an alarming rate, but I’m not mad about it. It gives me the chance to get back to my feet and press up into my stance. I swallow the nagging pain in my head and blink away the stars. Something tickles my top lip. I lick at it. Liquid metal coats my tongue at the same time I’m met with a smirk.
He’s happy with himself.
Proud over drawing blood.
If he were anyone else, maybe I’d give him a clap on the back but nah. Tonight, I’m out for the same kind of blood he is, and even if Violet is somewhere close by, I don’t plan on letting him take my win. It’ll be me who walks away with my chin held high while he mopes over his loss.
I screw my head on straight, force myself into a tunnel, and make him my only priority. I envision my fist sailing through the air until it knocks every last thought out of his pea-sized brain. And then after that, I visualize his limp body spread out on the floor beneath me.
My attention turns to the crowd. So many faces stare back, cheek-splitting smiles on their faces as they whoop and holler. What I want to know is why Violet is one of them.
More importantly, I want to find her. I need to find her because no matter how permanent that line has become, she’s mine to protect. Even if the person I’m protecting her from is me.