My eyes sprung open and I looked up, disoriented by the sights and sounds. Dozens of anonymous faces swarmed around me in my ringed trap. The hum of voices grew louder, as distracting as the drone of cicadas in the summer.
I didn’t know these people. They’d come to watch me fail. Maybe even to die. They’d point and laugh, then they’d say nice things at my funeral and forget who I was in a year. If that.
What the hell was I doing? Fighting wasn’t the point. Fighting for the right thing was.
I’d taken too damn long to finally figure that out.
“Fox.” Slater tugged out my mouth guard and shoved an opened bottle to my lips. My tongue was so dry that I moaned at the first drop of water. “Drink, you bastard.”
I finished one bottle and immediately demanded more. Slater obliged me and waited until I’d finished before speaking near my ear again. “Why are you doing this? You’re going to end up seriously injured. This doesn’t even matter to you that much.”
The smile I tried to give him cracked my cheeks and set off a wicked throb in my jaw. “What…does?” I reached for another water out of the cooler and he brushed me off, gripping my chin in tense fingers and staring hard.
It’d really fucking blow if my buddy’s hard green eyes were the last I ever saw.
“Do you want to die? Is that what this is? Forget playing chicken in the ’Vette. Just wait until Costas cracks open your skull. More of you would be left in whole pieces in a damn street race.”
I patted his head as if he were a dotty grandfather. “Don’t worry ’bout me, surfer boy.”
“Fox, dammit—”
I popped in my spare mouth guard and stumbled away from the ropes, ostensibly toward the center of the ring. The match was about to start and hot pants girl was fellating her words as she shouted them in the general direction of the crowd. Raucous cheers accompanied them. “The Eye Of The Tiger” began to play, a song that normally made me grin. Unlike Rocky, I was in my prime. Failure wasn’t an option.
Pushing all the noise out of my head, I focused on the present. All that mattered was here and now. Even in my exhaustion, my training came to the fore. I took deep, even breaths and centered my mind, forcing out the negativity.
You want to hand him the bout, fella? Then keep winning it for him in your head. You’re all you’ve got.
With Timmins’ voice playing on a constant loop in my head, I took my usual stance and waited for the ref to start the round. Across from me Costas was sneering and prancing, victory clear in his eyes. He’d only have to land a few good blows and the match would be over.
My gaze drifted from his face to the crowd, searching for something I could hold close to get me through. A fan, a smile, a sign of support. Then I saw her, a hood shielding her face, brown leather dwarfing her shoulders. My coat. My girl.
Mia.
Costas swaggered forward before I could recover from the shock. He landed a single staggering blow—one fucking hit, goddammit—and bones crunched as my head snapped back. My bones. Blood gushed out of my nose, obscuring the horrified woman who’d somehow pushed her way to the front and now clung to the ropes, shouting my name. She begged me not to fall, and for a few seconds, I believed I’d remain upright from sheer will alone.
I swayed on my feet, my vision narrowing until she became my whole world. Then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mia
I was caught in a nightmare.
It had started when Tray fell to the mat, blood fountaining out of his nose with such pressure that I was sure an artery had been hit. I launched myself into the ring before the fight had even been called and somehow ended up on Costas’s back with my hands in his hair. My nails scored his skin and he howled in shock and pain, which made me happy for one shining instant until they pulled me off him and I remembered the carnage that had propelled me toward him in the first place.
Tray. On the floor, bleeding. Unconscious.
I slapped aside the hands that attempted to hold me back and crawled toward him through his blood, cold tears tracking down my cheeks. Every time I blinked, Darren’s face superimposed over Tray’s, flashing on and off like a macabre stop light. Even with all my fights, I hadn’t seen this much blood since it had stained my hands. But I didn’t let the memories of Darren slow me down. Tray needed me. I’d have plenty of time to go crazy later.
Sucking in a breath, I knelt next to his head. I was shaking so hard I feared touching him might cause him additional injury. So I bent to press my cheek to his and cupped my hand over his heart—still beating, thank God—and prayed he could feel my presence. My tears ran into his blood and when I backed away to let the EMTs do their job, both smeared my face. A sick, disgusting kind of war paint.
I’d caused this, every damn bit of it.
What happened to Tray was my fault. I’d caused him to break that glass in frustration. I’d punched his jaw. Somehow I’d even compelled him to look at me in the crowd, not knowing that one moment of distraction would be enough to take him out.
He was so strong, so vital. His silence and stillness were unnatural in every way. Rage and terror burned in my eyes and throat, finally drying to a pitiful dust that singed. I ached to switch places with him so badly that my lungs quaked around the silent plea.
That should be me bleeding out on a stained mat. Not him. Never him.