42. Colson
FORTY-TWO
COLSON
Old text messages…
Violet: You awake?
Colson: Am now. What’s on your mind, baby?
Violet: Nothing and everything.
Colson: Which category am I in?
Violet: The everything one. Always.
Colson: Promise?
Violet: Pinky promise.
A bittersweet stirring takes place in my body, swishing from side to side as I look out over the crowd. Tonight’s matches are on a patch of land on the outskirts of Harrison Heights behind the old battery plant that was shut down years ago.
Finn and Clyde tried running me off this road not that long ago. That night, Finn pressed the head of a lit cigarette against my neck and melted my skin into a circular scar I still don.
My eyes keep skirting to Tommy from where I sit. I’ve decided to keep my distance until my fight is up, so I’ve gotten comfortable on the delivery landing dock. Behind me are huge garage doors with dents in them. Above those are windows busted from years of sitting and enduring ravenous weather. None of us should be here, the chemicals most likely still poignant in the soil. One touch and who the fuck knows what a person could contract.
But maybe it goes deeper than that. Maybe it took years of working under certain conditions for so many of the workers to end up sick. It reminds me a hell of a lot like the movie Erin Brockovich, a woman who was an environmental activist and built a case against an electric company that contaminated groundwater that eventually led to unexplained health issues amongst many in its town.
There was a solid two years when I was in middle school that Mom would fall asleep in the living room and that movie would play in the background. Sometimes, I’d sit with her while she slept and watch the whole thing through. Other times, I’d venture to my room because it was too hard to see her passed out when she was home.
I shake the memory out of my head.
Focus.
With the battery-operated lights someone hauled out here, I recognize the scars that litter my hands. The areas on my knuckles that have split repeatedly. The skin was supposed to grow back stronger, but I never gave it the chance to properly do so between fights. I run my thumb over one of the scars, and it immediately throws me back to the night I showed up at Violet’s apartment after Finn got to me in that alley.
My lip was split, bloody and horrifying, but she swept me under her arm, anyway. Didn’t get on my shit. Made me feel important. I think that’s when she really got in my head and heart. When everything around me started to blur just a little more each time I saw her.
The memory of her rolling my shirt up, her skin brushing against mine holds like the black of the night, finishing off the cracks in my heart where I’ve been worse for wear most of my life. I squeeze my eyes shut and drop my head, pretending like I’m in her room and her hands are featherlight against my damaged skin.
My entire body craves her presence, but then I open my eyes and remind myself how this—my current way of life—isn’t her. Violet has always been a blinding contrast to what I am. Seeing random people shove each other and holler when Remy gets his win isn’t something she approves of or needs to be around. She made that perfectly clear when she straddled my lap and begged me to stop.
It’s something I dream about at night, how I refused to follow her guidance. The way her disappointment wove around me in a death grip. But in my sleep, she’s not alone.
Clyde is also there, ripping Violet from my grasp, hauling her away, and forcing her to run drugs for him. When she returns from doing just that, he makes her test them, checking the potency by forcing them into her body and watching as she succumbs to the high. Her brown eyes drench me in sweetness and shame, and I’m fucking immobile . I try so damn hard to push to my feet to save her from his abuse, but I never can. All the while, scenes of Violet are projected across the wall of my mind. Her snorting a powdery substance. Her swallowing a pill. Her skin pricked and broke open with the fine tip of a needle.
Her body falls slack almost every time. She loses that brightness in her beautiful eyes. Her skin pales just like Mom’s. And then she’s an outline of a shape. A human body that’s alive but not living. An incredible, caring mind that isn’t aware but still giving into the motions.
A cold sweat breaks out over my arms and back. The same kind that’s always there when I wake up from the nightmare. Then someone clamps a hand over my shoulder and pulls me from the agony settling into my chest cavity.
I glance up to find Eli looking down at me, his face wearing the same distant expression as always when we’re out at fights. It never fails to remind me how he morphs into an entirely different person on nights like these. He turns into a fucking killer in the ring. I haven’t seen him lose one match since I’ve started, which reminds me that I need to lose mine tonight.
“I’m hearing the grass is slick as shit,” he says. “Still wet from yesterday’s rain.”
Well, that sucks for most of the guys fighting tonight. I choose to see it as a small blessing in the deal I made with Clyde. It almost feels like the universe is on my side for once.
I’ll take anything that’ll work in my favor and make it seem less likely that I purposely screwed Tommy over. I don’t include Eli in my plan. It wouldn’t be wise to share it outside of the two people who need to know.
Besides, I have to do this. I can't let anyone talk me out of it.
Somewhere in the crowd is Clyde or his goons. They’ve already bet on me losing. If I switch up at the last minute, I’ll lose Mom’s house and have Clyde on my ass. The way it is now, I’ll only have to deal with Tommy and that’s if he finds out. This could all go down without him being none the wiser. That’s what I’m betting on.
“You can try getting in my head, but it isn’t going to work,” I tell him, playing it off like I’ll still go out there and kick ass. On a normal night, I would.
Violet’s face crystallizes in my head again. I blink, and she’s gone.
Eli chuckles, giving me the more easygoing version of himself before he goes out there and brings his opponent seconds from passing out.
He smirks. “Ah, who said I was trying to rile you?”
I crack one right back. “Your name is Elijah fucking McPearson and you sat next to me in high school history. Pretty sure I’ve watched you get on the teacher’s ass countless times in between your stints in the principal's office.”
He sits next to me. “That was just fun and games.”
“This isn’t?”
“A more grown up version, sure.” He knocks his shoe off mine. “You’re shaping into a top fighter. You’ll be fine out there, just watch your footing. Make sure you’re solid before you swing and your balance is even.”
“And now he’s giving me advice,” I quip.
“Must be something in the air. Tommy’s even off. The dude is putting a percentage of his winnings back in the pot for the crowd tonight. Something to do with bulking up the crowd by the time the spring fights roll around.”
A tornado of alarm swirls in my gut. If Tommy is putting in his own money, it makes my choice to throw my match a whole lot worse if he ever does find out. I say the only thing that comes to mind. “But he loves money.”
“Which is why I don’t fucking get why he’s giving it up tonight. The nice weather is months off, and we’ve never had an issue with the crowd dying down before.”
“Guess there’s a first for everything?”
He shakes his head, watching the current fight from afar with me. “He’s always been heavily invested in keeping the crown on his head. Being the top guy in The Battleground world. Making sure everyone looks to him instead of one of the other head honchos.”
“Would one of them actually move in on him, try to take his place?”
I’ve never really put a lot of thought into the politics of The Battleground, but I guess in every structure where there’s a top player, there’s a chance for someone else to take him down.
Eli shrugs a shoulder. “They wouldn’t survive it if they did, but that doesn’t always scare people off.”
“Hmm.” Again, that pit in my stomach opens up like the size of the Red Sea. I ignore the nagging thought that what I’m going to do tonight is a bad idea, and instead focus on the guy next to me.
“So, go out there and kick some ass?” I reason.
He nods to the crowd. “Give ‘em something to walk away with. They take something big home with them, they’ll come back again and keep pouring their money in the pot, keep us fighting. And most importantly, keep Tommy happy.”
Eli wasn’t kidding when he said the grass was the equivalent of a slip ‘n slide. My feet glide every time I make a move. Every time I bob and weave, I worry about overextending my weight just to end up splayed out. My opponent, a guy around my age with a shaved head and scar tracing its way from his temple to mid-cheek, snarls at me. Literally. He’s a jaguar in the rainforest, ready to annihilate and eat his prey, regardless if I’m his top choice. But, alas, I’m the sucker in front of him, and that’s good enough to pull the deep growl from his throat and swing at me with powerful abandon.
I get him with a check hook, timing his movements out in my head during our second round. There’s only one more after this, which means I need to figure out how I’m going to go out in a way that seems real. One wrong move, one discernable flick of my eyes in the wrong direction, and Tommy will recognize what I’m doing. I just fucking know it.
I have no doubt there haven’t been guys like this before. Men who’ve tried to take advantage of the money that gets passed around. Guys who are okay risking their lives to put an extra thousand bucks in their pocket at the end of the night.
And then there’s the fact that I questioned Tommy not long ago. If he had his fighters split up, I’d no doubt be on the shitlist. Even as I move back and forth with my fists protecting my face, I notice his steely gaze on my back, beckoning me to end this before I give this guy a bigger advantage.
The issue: I need to deliver an opening to him regardless.
The crowd wails around us, cheering and hollering. They don’t care where we are. It doesn’t matter if someone can hear them. They want blood, and they want their bet to be the winning one by the end of the night. I know a lot of them bet on me simply because I’m one of Tommy’s guys. I’ve been around long enough to deduce that Tommy is nowhere near a bottom-feeder. Clyde further proved that when I saw him, and we concocted this stupid ass idea I’m about to follow through on.
My enemy swings at me. I duck down. It’s the perfect storm of movement, granting me the opportunity to make it seem as though my foot flies out from underneath me, and my leg buckles from the movement. It twists back, and a grunt thunders from my mouth, though I doubt anyone hears it. It’s too loud around us, but there are varying gasps that pull at my ears the second my back thuds against the muddy, wet ground.
My opponent beams at me with a nasty look in his eye, and then he’s standing over me, his meaty legs caging me in. I wait a few seconds to act, pretending like it knocks the breath out of me when I go down. As he hovers above me, I use my right foot and push it against the ground. I slide upward to create distance, but he matches the movement and follows.
My stomach twists around itself. My neck and shoulders go rigid. This guy is about to knock me into a new goddamn dimension. I’m stuck, but it’s a good shitty position to be in. One that will give me what I ultimately want.
I’ve already decided that I’ll fix up Mom’s house once it’s mine. I’ll work my ass off to pay the mortgage. I’ll take care of it, make it into something she never had the chance to. Into something I deserved to have when I was a kid.
That’s what I look forward to as my opponent’s heavy fists come down. I block my face pretty well until he shifts and moves his focus to my ribcage. My torso absorbs blow after blow. His legs are so close to my body, it’s impossible to roll to my side and protect myself. I’m wide open.
Agony twinges just beneath my skin. It’s not long before it embeds itself into every part of me. When I have no choice but to lower my hands to protect my body, he uses it as an opening to my face. My head flies to the side, spit flying from my mouth when he strikes my opposite cheek. Stinging immediately takes root inside my mouth, and blood coats my tongue.
My body is an inanimate object as he beats me to oblivion. The only part of me that isn’t hurting are my legs. My torso is on fire, and my face tails behind for second place. Wetness coats my forehead. I don’t know if it’s from the grass, the spit coming out of my opponent’s mouth as he yells, or blood from a part of me that isn’t my mouth. Perhaps a combination of all three?
Fuck. I don’t know.
My head spins, and I have never felt like this before in my life. I get this false sense of motion. Like I’m running, but I know I’m not. I’m on the ground, my body flush with the crust of the earth.
My body becomes heavy. I try to keep my eyes open, but someone, or rather something, pulls down on my eyelids. My muscles shout to give up and give in. For seconds that feel like minutes, I fight it, but then my neck gives out, and my head lolls to the side.
Darkness consumes me a minute later.