This becomes clear after I draw first blood, landing a whopper of a punch right in the guy’s teeth. At this point, my blood would usually be pumping hard and fast. As it is, I feel sluggish and slow, completely unable to block the punch he answers with. It snaps my neck back, but I recover quickly, shaking off the ache.
It seems like everyone’s screaming now, bodies looming along the rim of the pool like a fence, trapping us in. There’s just no fucking excuse for the next hit I take, stumbling back a couple steps before regaining my footing and ducking the next swipe.
Fuck, I need to get my shit together.
Centering myself, I focus on the guy in front of me, following my tight, bouncing circles out of his reach. It’s not hard to imagine he’s Heston. I’ve gotten really good at that over the years. It gets me a couple more solid right hooks.
But there’s just something about it.
Something isn’t clicking.
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or that I’ve been hitting the booze and weed a little too hard this week. Maybe, like with lacrosse, I’ve just been out of the game for too long, less capable of competing.
But even deep down, I know that’s bullshit.
I could have kicked ass on the field—if I really wanted to. If I wasn’t consumed with this bitter fucking resignation that Heston will always knock down the best parts of me.
The guy takes a shot at my jaw and it grazes me too high, glancing off my cheek in a bad way. I feel the skin split, but it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. I try to dodge his next hit, only for my hair to be caught in his other fist, driving me down into his knee with a blow that makes my vision go momentarily white.
I shove him off and try to shake it off, using a wrist to wipe the blood from my mouth. He gives me a slick grin, clearly proud of himself. “Motherfucker,” I spit, some of that hot fury finally coming to life inside my chest. I clutch onto it for dear fucking life, willing the ember to grow, to burn. I strike out, finally getting in a good round of blows. The crowd’s shouts pitch higher when he stumbles to the side, running from my wild barrage of fists. It’s sloppy, primitive bullshit. Not my fin
est work.
He comes back moments later, recharged and smarting from the energy of the crowd. There’s a clear favorite here, and it’s not him. His fist meets my temple, and goddamn. Cocky little fuck, but there’s some power behind his hands. I edge away, willing my sight to steady out before he returns, and I can’t pretend anymore. My heart’s not in this.
Fuck, I don’t even think my lungs are in this. All of my organs are firmly out of fucks to give. It doesn’t make sense. All I wanted for months was to finally get in a ring with some motherfucker and go to town. Beating Doug’s ass, for all the turmoil it caused, was the highlight of my whole fucking winter.
What changed?
Apparently, I’m spending too much time in my own head about this, because the guy gets a good one on me, right in the eye that just began healing from Doug. It’s a real bitch of a hit, too. Nearly sends me right to my knees. I skirt around him for some distance, because that’s apparently how I fight now. I run and wait.
Because there’s nothing to fight for.
My fists drop, landing heavily against my thighs as I gasp in huge, sucking breaths of chilled air. I get this split-second thought that I should just lose. I should get my ass handed to me down here, let Heston think that I’m useless to him.
That’s when I know I’m done.
The guy laughs when I climb the steps of the shallow end, pushing past the throng of confused, disappointed people eager for their pound of flesh.
“Not gonna fucking be mine,” I mutter, clumsily tapping out a cigarette as I idly watch Heston shove through the crowd.
“What the fuck are you doing!” he shouts, face gnarled with fury.
I take a long drag from my cigarette in reply. “Seems obvious, doesn’t it?”
There’s this vein in Heston’s temple that gets all bulgy and gross when he’s pissed off past the point of maintaining composure. It hardly ever makes an appearance, considering composure is his whole thing, but there it is. Bulge bulge bulge. “I have seven fucking grand riding on this fight. You get your ass in that pool and beat that motherfucker down, or—”
“Or what?” Reyn’s voice comes from behind me. A bored glance over my shoulder reveals the other four Devils.
Heston gives them all a scathing look. “This is none of your fucking business.” He thrusts a finger in my face. “You know exactly what I’ll do, don’t you? Remember that ragdoll you talked about last week?”
I scoff. “This shit again? I already told you I don’t give a fuck about Sydney.”
But Heston smiles, sharp and menacing. “Imagine she was someone else.” He nods at the look on my face, voice pitched low when he leans in to hiss, “I will fuck her within an inch of her life.”
Everything goes a little fuzzy then, because I do. I imagine him doing to Sugar what I saw him doing to Sydney.
Heston hits the ground so hard, I can practically hear all the air escaping his lungs. He tries to push me off, but I get a knee into the center of his chest, pull my fist back, and slam it forward. The crowd from before notices a new skirmish and quickly surrounds us, swallowing up the sounds of my knuckles meeting Heston’s face. He tries to buck me off, that vein still bulging, but it barely moves me. He tries to turn his head away from the blows, but I don’t mind hitting his fucking skull, so that’s what I do.