Chapter One
Mia
I was bleeding again.
Red-tinged water trickled down the drain of the shower at Mark’s Gym, flowing over cracked tiles and years of grime no cleanser could touch. I tended to do a weird kind of tap dance while I showered, because I didn’t like the idea of all that filth seeping into my unprotected skin.
Tipping my head back, I winced at the stabbing sensation under my left eye. Scalding hot water didn’t help to soothe my wounds, at least the external ones. But sore muscles responded well to the heat, and I loved ducking my head under the steaming spray until nothing existed but my quivering, straining body and the blissful exhaustion awaiting me.
I soaped myself with my no-name soap, inhaling the cleansing scent. No flowers or fruit for me. My shampoo smelled just as nondescript. I didn’t have a reason to smell sweet. No man to entice, no women to compete with. I’d fashioned my body for one thing.
To fight. And to win.
Now that I was finally making money in the underground MMA scene in Brooklyn, I’d almost reached the point of walking away for good. I’d spent months preparing for an upcoming battle with perfect, blond Fox Knox, a man who probably didn’t know I existed. I’d given up one form of making money with my body for another, but soon enough I’d drop this one too.
All I needed was that payday from fighting Fox. That was my—our—ticket out.
I got out and toweled off, then hurried to my locker. Due to the day’s unexpected snow, the locker room was much less crowded than usual. Only my trainer, Kizzy, and a couple others had showed, and our practice sparring session had gotten a little out of control. The real fight Friday night would be extra special now, since I was already hurt.
I yanked open my locker and smiled at the tattered photo I’d hung up with a magnet so it wouldn’t get damaged by tape. Carly’s bright blue eyes stared into mine, filled with the joy reflected in that gap-toothed smile. Her cinnamon freckles went with her more-strawberry-than-blonde hair, a complete contrast to my pale, almost translucent skin and brown eyes and hair.
Our looks were the least of our differences. Sometimes it felt like ten years separated us instead of a little more than three. My baby sister had kept me going all these years, and she’d help me get over the finish line to our new life. A month from now she would turn eighteen. Then we’d start the rest of our lives, far away from New York. We both needed a fresh start, far from the memories that haunted us. I was determined we’d get one.
The door to the locker room slammed open, startling me. The feminine laughter that followed dragged razorblades down my spine. Anyone that didn’t think female fighters postured every bit as much as men didn’t meet the chicks I did on a daily basis. This particular group of them had hated me and everything I represented on sight. I wasn’t from their neighborhood of pawn shops and beauty salons. I didn’t have a neighborhood. No matter where I laid my head at night, I had no community and few friends. Which made me a target. Take me out and they’d have one less competitor to face.
But they didn’t get that I was fighting for my life.
“Hey Mia,” one of them called to me, smiling.
Apparently she wasn’t too disgusted by my once again bleeding lip. I must’ve bitten it without realizing.
“Heard you’re trying to set up something with Fox. You know that’s not going to happen, right?”
Instead of arguing with Vanity—I could never remember her real name, but I couldn’t forget her brutal right hook—I dropped my towel and hauled up my skinny jeans, sans underwear. I’d never been able to keep a lot of weight on, but lately it’d been dropping off no matter how many protein shakes I drank. My muscle tone was excellent, though my breasts were about to edge into an A cup if I didn’t watch it. Not a huge problem, since most of the guys I used to “date” ignored their presence. They mostly just got in the way when I was fighting.
Vanity strutted forward. “Aww, Spyder doesn’t speak?”
I tugged my sweatshirt free of the crap I toted around on a daily basis. That bag represented my home away from home and overflowed with hairbands, a battered paperback, gauze, cloth hand wraps, extra mouth guards, bike shorts, and a couple of tank tops. Right now the bag offered a distraction. Maybe if I ignored Vanity, she’d leave me the hell alone.
“I’ve never heard you talk,” she continued. “You fight like a little bitch, so I figured you’d have the smart mouth to go with it.”
The smirk crossed my face before I could stop it. One day I’d learn to control my involuntary reactions. They were always getting me in trouble.
My voluntary ones weren’t much better.
I pulled the sweatshirt over my head, well aware of the risk I was taking by breaking eye contact even for a moment. The show of insolence was worth it. No one would ever make me cower again.
The punch hit me square in the stomach, staggering me backward and stealing my breath for a fraction of an instant before adrenaline surged through my system and buried some of the soreness. Panic rose up in my chest, hot and unwelcome, almost as overwhelming as the agony that twisted my guts. Though it cost me extra seconds, I relied on the mantras I used in the ring to shove the fear in a box. I’d go down swinging, no matter what.
I jerked the sweatshirt down and shoved my arms through, smiling like she hadn’t just made me nauseated enough to have the burned egg sandwich I’d eaten for breakfast lurching up my throat.
She blinked, clearly confused. Flexing the hand she’d just used to give me one more bruise, she glanced back at her friends. And that was all the opening I needed.
Charging forward, I grabbed her by the throat and drove her into the wall. Her skull cracked ominously upon hitting the wood. I didn’t shy away from pain, my own or others. But I didn’t have a reason to inflict it here, other than the hit she’d delivered to my ego. Blows and namecalling I could withstand. I just couldn’t withstand her taunts that I had no chance of fighting Fox, when I’d been working toward that solitary goal for months.
Predictably, Vanity’s friends were on me like cockroaches before I’d even had a cha
nce to scratch those overly made-up cheeks. The stage name fit her, since she sashayed around the ring as if she were on a runway in Paris instead of an octagon in a rundown former industrial building in Brooklyn or occasionally the Bronx. She didn’t fight for the money, such as it was. Most amateur fighters didn’t make much, and amateur women made even less. She fought because she thought it made her look tough.
And now I was getting my already fucked up hair pulled out by the root by the crew of catty females who’d decided to triple team me.
Pain bloomed in my ribs, in my back, as they nailed me with punches to the kidneys and everywhere else. That was the bad part about getting into a brawl with fighter chicks. Even if I could’ve taken them on their own, as a group they were pretty persuasive. Especially when Mean Girl Number Two jammed a knuckle in my eye and sent me reeling onto my back on the dirty floor.
Fuckkkkk.
I focused on the shapes that loomed over me, each of them in triplicate. They laughed and gasped, holding their sides. They’d beaten me. Or so they thought.
Fast as a rattler, I pushed through the pain and jerked to my feet, grabbing two heads of fluffy curls and slamming them together. I hated them for their laughter, for mocking me, for their pretty hairdos. I’d had pretty hair once, so long ago that even the few pictures I’d saved were unrecognizable. Even my memories of happier times taunted me, if I allowed them to.
Their inhuman howls tasted like victory, though blood washed over my tongue. Bit it again, dammit. But at least they’d stopped laughing. Even Vanity had backed up, her big blue eyes wide.
I had nothing to lose. Death didn’t scare me. Why else would I stagger toward it with my fists up night after night, hoping someone would finally put me out of my misery? I never put my death wish into words. Never even let myself think that way. There were definitely things I wanted to live for—like Carly—but sometimes even I wondered how far I really wanted to go.
They cursed at me and called me names. I’d heard them all before. Puta especially. Then they took off, apparently forgetting they’d come in to shower and get changed.
A smile cracked my sore lips as the door clanged shut behind them. The expression I so didn’t feel helped stave off the prickling in my eyes. Pity they hadn’t stuck around to get washed up. What, didn’t they trust turning their backs on me?
I made my way to the sinks, limping more than a little, to view the damage. Dammit. Even worse than I’d thought. More bruising near my eye, newly reopened cut lip. Various scratches. By tomorrow my face and torso would be a rainbow of blue, purple, and green.
I did the best I could with soap, water, and antibacterial cream, then shuffled out of the locker room before anyone else could ambush me. The ibuprofen and acetaminophen cocktail I’d just taken had emptied out the last of my meds supply, and in my business, I’d need more quick. Time to visit the Kum and Go again, even though I’d just been there a few nights ago to replenish my stocks of tampons, peanut butter crackers, and root beer popsicles for my sore lips. I could power through a few bumps and bruises without pills, but I looked like I’d been hit by a truck that had reversed to do wheelies on my face.
Didn’t matter. I’d get by. I always did. These scattered body blows wouldn’t do anything but make me train harder. I had the fight Friday night, and I would win. No matter what. Before then, I had to convince my boss at Vinnie’s to let me work tonight, busted-up face and all. The job at the bar, the fights, the pain—they would all be over soon. Carly and I were getting outta Dodge.
I did the best I could with my puffy face and finished getting ready, zipping up my thin jacket to the chin in deference to the biting cold that waited for me outside. The January cold snap was particularly brutal, and I wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather. At least I didn’t have far to walk, since Vinnie’s was in the same neighborhood.
Shouldering my backpack, I headed out, head held high. I walked to work the same way, despite the sting in my eyes from the snow that bordered on sleet. In this area of town, if you put your head down, you were asking for trouble.
I was, but not that kind. I’d already had enough to last a lifetime.
As I approached Vinnie’s, dodging a guy walking a dog while rollerskating—in the snow, no less—I scanned the people down the block out of habit. Never making eye contact, just surveying my surroundings. The tuft of blond hair stood out, mostly because it rose head and shoulders over everyone else.
Then the blond guy looked at me. Into me. And the sharp wrench of my gut had nothing to do with my injuries.