Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Blaze drove the few blocks to the second event.
Stella sat in the passenger seat of the Ram with her face arranged into Mia Carver’s.
The blunt platinum wig sat smoothly against her cheekbones.
The red bandage dress she was wearing was doing crazy things to his insides.
Ryder was in the back with the corner bag at his feet.
The bruise on Blaze’s ribs had turned mottled green and yellow at the edges and was still purple in the middle. He moved a half second slower turning his head left than right. That was the leopard’s gift, and it would be with him in the pit.
The venue came into sight at the end of the block. He pulled into the lot and parked at the back. Their covers held at the door. Inside, the crowd was thicker than the previous event, and the bar was already two deep. Blaze swept his eyes across the room.
A floor manager in a black polo crossed to them. He said Russo and pointed at the fighters’ holding room in the back. Blaze squeezed Stella’s wrist, and she nodded. She drifted off toward the bar. Ryder came up beside him with the bag, and they walked to the holding room.
On the back bench against the wall sat a new fighter who Blaze determined was a polar bear. Six four, two-fifty if he was a pound, hair shaved close, jaw broken and reset more than once. He worked slowly on his own tape and didn’t look up.
Blaze set his duffel down and started on his wraps. Pierce stepped into the holding room as the first bout started and walked straight to Blaze.
“Mister Russo.”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight I’d like to see what you’re really made of. You’re up against my champion. He hasn’t lost in three years.”
“Then it’s been a while since he had a real fight.”
The corner of Pierce’s mouth twitched. “We’ll see.”
Pierce crossed to the back bench, said something low to the polar bear, and walked out of the holding room. The first bout finished fast, ending with the roar of the crowd.
The floor manager walked in. “Russo. You’re up.”
As Blaze stepped out into the light, the crowd noise rose higher.
He slid the mouth guard between his teeth and scanned the room.
He found Stella at the bar, drink in hand.
Then pulled his eyes off her. The polar bear was already across the pit, barefoot and shirtless.
He was built like a brick wall and had three old black scars down the right side of his torso. The PA’s voice cut through the crowd.
Jake Russo, twenty-three and four out of Reno. Against the reigning champion of this card. Mason Drake. Twenty-two and zero.
Drake lifted his head and looked at him across the pit. His eyes were calm, almost gentle. The eyes of a man who knew he was going to win. The floor manager raised his hand and brought it down.
Fight.
Drake didn’t circle. He walked at Blaze in a straight line.
No feint. No testing. He wasn’t worried about Blaze’s reach, and he wasn’t looking for an opening.
He was coming forward, and Blaze was going to have to deal with it.
Drake had already decided how the next three minutes were going to go.
Blaze pivoted. He tried to cut the angle and put the wall behind Drake.
Drake kept walking. Two steps in, he threw an overhand right. Heavy and slow on the way out, and Blaze dodged it. The wind of the punch passed his ear, and Drake wasn’t surprised. He had been setting it up.
His left hand came through the gap and caught Blaze on the side of the jaw.
The world tilted. His knees went for a half beat.
He got his hands up. Drake caught him again on the side of the head before he could clear it, and then a body shot to the right side that landed directly on the bruise from the last fight.
Blaze’s vision whited out at the edges, but he covered, ate two more on the forearms, and backed up. A fourth body shot landed on the bruise and dropped him to one knee. The pain ran through him in a hot bright wave, and the wolf inside him surged so hard he almost lost it.
He got up before the count started.
Blaze closed the distance and grabbed Drake, burying his face in Drake’s shoulder and working inside. Drake let him have the clinch for one full beat, then lifted him off his feet and drove him into the cinderblock wall. The wall slammed into his back. His ribs screamed.
Drake worked Blaze’s body with short hard uppercuts. Blaze took three on the bruise before he could get an underhook and break the angle. He pushed Drake off. Drake threw a knee. Blaze caught it on his thigh, the thigh went dead, and he sagged for half a step.
The buzzer ended the round.
He walked to his side of the pit and sat on the cinderblock. Ryder leaned over with the water and the towel.
“Jesus, Blaze.”
“Don’t.”
“You can’t win this trading punches. You have to get him down.”
“I know.”
Blood ran into Blaze’s eye, and Ryder wiped it away.
“He’s not going to give me an opening. I have to bait him.”
Blaze spit blood onto the concrete. The buzzer sounded.
Drake walked at him again in the same straight line, with the same calm.
Blaze gave ground on purpose. He let Drake think he was hurt worse than he was.
He was hurt. But he sold it harder, walked his hands a hair lower than he needed to. Drake read it. He came in faster.
Drake threw another overhand right. Blaze dodged it and shot for a single leg, but Drake was too strong.
He stuffed the takedown by sprawling, dropped his full weight onto Blaze’s back, and turned the attempt into Blaze on his hands and knees with two hundred and fifty pounds of polar bear on top of him.
Blaze grabbed at Drake’s arm and tried to pull it off him. He jammed his chin down hard against his own shoulder to protect his throat. Drake’s forearm pressed against his windpipe anyway, and his airway closed.
Drake held it for ten seconds. Fifteen. Blaze’s vision started to gray at the edges. The wolf inside him surged again, and he held it down with the last of what he had.
Then the pressure released.
With Blaze’s chin locked down, the choke wasn’t going to finish him. Drake gave it up and stood. The win he wanted was on the feet. He walked back to the center of the pit and waited. Blaze got up. His lungs worked. His ribs screamed.
Drake came back at him.
Blaze covered and gave ground. He clinched again, worked for an underhook. Drake let him have it because he was going to slam him into the wall again.
He started to lift. Just before the lift completed, Blaze dropped his level and shot for Drake’s ankle.
Drake had been winding up to slam. The redirection of weight to the ankle was a beat he didn’t have time to read.
His foot came out from under him. His momentum, two fifty in motion toward the wall, dropped him onto his back on the concrete.
The crowd reacted. Blaze scrambled on top of Drake before he could throw him off. The strength advantage dropped on the floor. Drake could still bench him into the air. But he couldn’t punch from his back without giving up position, and he’d never learned to fight from down there.
Blaze worked to get past Drake’s legs. Drake bucked under him and almost flipped him. Blaze planted his hands, rode it out, and kept his chest pinned to Drake’s. He got one leg through, then the other, and dragged himself up across Drake’s chest. He pinned him there with his full weight.
Blaze threw an elbow. Drake’s arm came up to defend, and Blaze threw another, harder, into the gap.
The elbow caught his nose. Blood went onto the concrete.
Drake had fought twenty-two times without losing because every man before Blaze had been scared of him on his feet.
The buzzer ended the round, and Blaze rolled off him.
He walked back to his side of the pit on rubbery legs. The cut over his eye was wide open and pumping. The bruise on his ribs had gone from purple to black. His left eye was swelling shut. He couldn’t take a full breath.
He’s going to come at me again. He’s going to be aggressive. He’s going to make a mistake.
The buzzer sounded.
Drake walked at him faster than before. He wanted the finish standing because the ground had exposed him.
Blaze covered and ate two more on the arms. He let Drake back him toward the wall of the pit and let him think he had him pinned.
Drake threw a heavy right that dropped in low and caught him on the side.
Blaze’s ribs screamed, but he didn’t go down. Drake was committed now, hungry for the finish. He threw the same overhand right that had caught Blaze in the first round. Blaze dodged it. Drake’s momentum carried him a step past Blaze. His head came forward.
Shoot the takedown, he thought, but a takedown wasn’t what his body went for. The wolf’s instinct moved first. The wolf knew what to do when something bigger than him exposed its throat.
His right arm slid under Drake’s chin. His left arm locked behind Drake’s head. He clamped down. The guillotine. He dropped to his back and pulled Drake down with him. Drake’s full weight came down on Blaze’s chest. The cracked ribs ground under the weight, but he kept the choke hold.
Drake tried to muscle out of it. He drove his weight forward, trying to crack the grip with brute force. Blaze’s arms shook with the effort of holding the choke. But Blaze’s whole body was the choke now. Drake couldn’t get his head free. Five seconds. Ten.
Blaze’s vision started to go gray from the pressure of Drake’s weight on his chest. He kept the lock.
His forearms screamed. His shoulders screamed.
The ribs that might have been cracked at the start of the round were definitely cracked now.
The pain was a white light running up through his chest, but he kept the lock.
Fifteen seconds.
Drake’s hand came up off the concrete.
He tapped the floor twice.
Blaze released the choke.
Drake rolled off him onto the concrete. The crowd erupted.
Blaze lay on his back, the lights overhead a white blur.
He got one knee under him, then the other and stood.
He swayed. Blood was in his mouth, his left eye was shut, and he couldn’t take a full breath.
The room came back into focus by degrees, the lights first and the crowd second and Stella third.
She was at the bar. Her hand was on her stomach against the dress, fingers spread wide, the only motion she had let her body make.
He held her gaze and then pulled his eyes off her.
Pierce was descending to the lip of the pit.
He reached a hand down. Blaze took the hand and let Pierce help him over the cinderblock.
“Mister Russo. You’re the new top of the card.”
“All right.”
“There’s a private event coming up. Something special. We’d like you on it.”
Pierce patted him once on the shoulder the way a man pats his hoarse. He turned and walked back through the crowd.
The sale event, Blaze thought. He just put me on the sale event. I’m going to be on the card the night they sell Nell.