Chapter 1 #2
Dangerous as fuck during a fight, but cute.
A flash like that could cost a man his timing, his teeth, maybe the whole damn match.
Lucky for her, Wraith doesn’t lose.
I drag my tongue over the blood at the corner of my mouth, eyes still locked on the empty space where she stood.
Alright, ghost girl.
Run your pretty little ass back into the dark.
I’ll still find you.
The hallway behind the cage is narrow, concrete, and lit by buzzing fluorescent lights that make everyone look half-dead.
It smells worse back here than it does on the fight floor.
Out there, smoke and beer cover some of the rot.
Back here, there’s nothing pretty enough to lie for it.
Blood, disinfectant, sweat, old vomit near the emergency exit, and the cheap menthol cigarettes one of the med students keeps smoking while stitching fighters up for cash.
I peel off my gloves and toss them onto a metal folding chair.
My knuckles are split in two places. Nothing serious. There’s a cut above my eyebrow from the first hit, and my jaw aches enough that tomorrow chewing is going to piss me off.
Doesn’t matter.
Pain is predictable. Pain does exactly what it’s supposed to do.
People don’t.
I turn on the faucet in the locker room and let brownish water spit into the sink before it finally runs clear.
The mirror above it is cracked down the middle, cutting my reflection in half.
One side catches the blood on my mouth, the bruises starting to darken along my jaw, the sweat dripping down my chest. The other side catches my eyes.
That’s the part people usually look away from.
Smart of them.
The door creaks open behind me, and I know it’s Johnny before he says a word.
He has a way of entering a room like the air moves for him. Used to impress me when we were kids. Now it just makes me want to slam his head into something hard half the time.
“You fought sloppy.”
I meet his gaze in the mirror. “I won.”
“You can win sloppy.” He leans against the lockers, cigarette already between his fingers. “Doesn’t make it less ugly.”
I rinse blood from my mouth and spit pink into the sink.
“Last I checked, ugly can still fucking win.”
He leans against the lockers like the place belongs to him, one shoulder pressed to dented metal, cigarette already hanging from his lips even though the wall behind him has three different signs telling him not to smoke.
Johnny has never listened to a warning in his life unless ignoring it sounded more entertaining.
We share the dark hair, the last name, and the temper sitting mean under the skin.
That’s where the similarities end.
Mine sits low and quiet. Controlled. Contained. The kind people don’t notice until it’s already too late.
Johnny wears his with a fucking smile.
That’s always been the difference between us.
I learned how to bury my violence.
Johnny learned how to make people like his.
“Come on, little brother,” Johnny says, tapping ash onto the floor like he owns that too. “Don’t get all sensitive on me. You’re always so fucking serious.”
I drag the towel across my mouth and look at him through the cracked mirror. “Says the one who came back here to bitch about how I fight.”
His grin widens. “I bet money on you.”
“Congratulations.”
“You almost lost.”
I turn around slowly. “No, I didn’t.”
“You got distracted.”
“So?”
Johnny’s brows lift, amused as hell. “So?”
“I still fucking won.”
He laughs under his breath, smoke curling from his mouth. “Yeah, barely. Next time you plan on letting some little flash in the crowd make you forget how fists work, give me a warning.”
My jaw tightens.
Johnny leans back against the lockers, all smug mouth and pretty-boy arrogance. “That way I can put my money on the other guy.”
I step closer. “Careful.”
“There he is.” Johnny’s smile cuts sharper. “That’s the look.”
“What look?”
“The one you get when something’s already under your skin and you’re pissed I noticed first.” His eyes flick toward the door, then back to me. “So who is she?”
“Camera girl?” I drag my tongue over the cut inside my cheek and turn back to the sink. “Who gives a fuck who she is?”
Johnny goes quiet for half a second.
That’s worse than him laughing.
I rinse the blood from my mouth and spit pink into the drain. “As long as she doesn’t point that camera at me during a fight again, I couldn’t care less.”
“Couldn’t care less,” Johnny repeats.
“Yeah.”
“Right.”
I cut him a look through the mirror. “You got something to say?”
Johnny taps ash onto the floor, his mouth curved like he’s already enjoying himself. “Just funny, that’s all.”
“What is?”
“You almost let some little camera girl blind you mid-fight, and now you’re standing here pretending you don’t give a shit.”
“I don’t.”
Johnny takes another drag, watching me through the smoke. “Yeah, little brother. You keep saying that like it’s the part I’m interested in.”
My jaw tightens.
His smile spreads.
There it is.
The one he wears right before he ruins something for fun.
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
Johnny laughs, low and mean, but it doesn’t soften him. Nothing softens Johnny for long. He takes another drag, eyes locked on me like this whole conversation is the best part of his night.
“Relax, little brother. I’m not thinking anything.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine.” His grin widens around the cigarette. “I’m thinking it’s fucking hilarious that one little flash almost made Wraith eat canvas.”
My jaw ticks.
“I didn’t almost eat anything.”
“No?” Smoke curls from his mouth as his gaze drags over my face, amused and sharp. “Because from where I was standing, you looked one bad second away from losing me a lot of money.”
I stare at him through the cracked mirror.
Then I turn away.
Johnny laughs like that’s a win.
Maybe it is.
I don’t give him anything else. Not another word. Not another look. Not another fucking reaction for him to pick apart and turn into something sharp. He came back here to piss me off, and I’m not in the mood to be entertainment.
I grab my shit from the bench and head for the door.
“Aw,” Johnny calls after me, voice dripping with that smug older-brother bullshit. “Leaving already?”
I shove the door open.
His laugh follows me into the hall.
Let him laugh.
Let him think this is about the fight. The money. The flash. Let him think I’m pissed because some girl with a camera got close to costing me a win.
Maybe I am.
Maybe I don’t like being distracted. Maybe I don’t like anything cutting through the cage, through the noise, through the part of me that knows exactly what to do with fists and blood and pain.
But that little flash didn’t just piss me off.
It got my attention. And she knew it.
Ghost girl stood there with her lens pointed at me like the rest of the warehouse didn’t exist. Not the crowd or the blood. Not even the guy I was taking apart in front of her.
Me.
She wanted to see so bad, fine.
I’ll let her.
Up close and fucking personal.
Only next time, when she points that camera at me, I’ll be looking right fucking back.
By the time I return to the main floor, the crowd has moved on to the next fight.
The warehouse is still packed, and filthy with noise, but the current match doesn’t have the same bite. Two frat boys are swinging at each other like they learned how to fight from action movies and bad fathers. The drunk crowd loves it, but I couldn’t give any less of a fuck.
I should just leave.
Cash is waiting in the office, there’s a shower at my apartment, and I have an early class in the morning that knowing me, I’ll likely skip.
Still, my feet don’t move toward the exit.
Ghost girl.
I head for the support columns first, back to the last place I saw her, but she’s no where in sight.
All that’s left is concrete, smoke, and the memory of that flash cutting across my vision at the worst possible second.
My jaw tightens.
I scan the crowd.
Raised phones. Drunk faces. Girls laughing too loud. Guys shoving each other near the cage. Smoke curling beneath the lights. Bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, moving with the ugly pulse of the warehouse.
For a second, I think I lost her.
Then I see the camera.
Black body. Long lens. Strap wrapped around pale fingers covered in silver rings. The thing looks expensive enough to pay someone’s rent for a month, but she holds it like it’s just another part of her.
Like it belongs to her more than most people belong to themselves.
Then I notice the rest.
Heavy black boots. Fishnets beneath a short dark skirt. Silver crosses tangled at her throat like warnings. Her hair falls over her shoulders in loose waves, black at first glance, but when the warehouse lights hit it, there’s a blue sheen threaded through it like midnight under glass.
It suits her.
The darkness. The almost-blue. The way she looks cold and electric at the same time.
Most people come down here and react.
They flinch. Cheer. Scream. Laugh too loud because the blood makes them nervous.
But she doesn’t react.
She fucking records.
I stop a few feet away and watch her take another picture.
The flash fires, throwing her face into white for half a second before the shadows swallow her again.
She lowers the camera to check the screen, thumb moving over buttons, expression focused in a way that makes me feel strangely, irrationally ignored.
I don’t like that.
I don’t like wanting her fucking attention either.
Both things can be true.
She looks up before I say anything.
People who live behind lenses learn to feel eyes on them.
Her gaze moves over the blood on my jaw, my hands, then back to my eyes. Slow, thorough and curious.
That bothers me most.
“What?” she asks.
I can tell by her tone, she’s not scared or trying to be cute.
“That how you talk to everyone?”
“Only men who stare at me like they’re deciding whether to yell at me or rob me.”
“Rob you?”
She lifts the camera slightly. “This wasn’t cheap.”
“No shit.” My gaze drops to it, then back to her. “You always blind fighters with expensive cameras, or was I special?”
That almost gets me a smile.
Almost.