“I was so angry at my father. There was this rage inside of me all the damn time. I was ditching school, failing classes. I didn’t care about anything anymore. My mom was so desperate to help me, but I refused to let her in. I had anger management issues. I just… I hated him so much.” He looks down, the topic clearly stirring up old and buried feelings.
“Then I met Blake, Will, and Alex. Blake was new in town and clearly had a lot of anger of his own. Will was angry about his mother using again, and he’d been kicked out of his house by his dick of a step-father. Alex, on the contrary, literally had everything. A great family, a bright future, money. But he still felt empty. Like he needed more. We all bonded over our misery. Then, Blake told us he’d found a way to release his anger, and he thought maybe it could help us, too. That’s whe
n he took me to my first fight.”
“Your first fight?”
“Illegal street fights. Top secret and really hard to find unless you have someone on the inside. They constantly change location. Blake knew a guy. It had been going on everywhere across town under the authorities’ noses for a couple of years already. Anyone could fight. As long as they were aware of the risks.”
“Risks?” I ask.
“Dying, breaking every bone in your body—you know, the usual,” he jokes, but I can’t bring myself to laugh. “There are rules, of course. But you have to be willing to surrender. If you don’t, your opponent has the right to finish you off. Not exactly rainbows and unicorns, is it?”
I squirm.
“We started training intensely. We could make money and fight to release our rage. We thought we were in heaven.”
“Were you?” I nervously fidget with the fabric of my shirt.
“No. We couldn’t have been more wrong. They don’t call them illegal street fights for nothing, Winter. It’s not just fights. People gather from everywhere across the country to see the show. It’s drug dealers browsing the crowds before the fight to get people hooked. Fighters owing money and having to kill their opponents to pay their debts. It’s criminals betting huge amounts on the fights and refusing to pay when they lose. All sort of shady things. It got out of hand so fast. Let’s just say things went south, and by the time we understood what we’d gotten ourselves into, it was too late.”
“Why didn’t you just leave?” I look up at him and become aware that asking him why he stayed is like asking a woman in an abusive relationship why she didn’t just leave. It’s not that easy. It never is.
“You don’t understand. These fights aren’t something you can just leave behind when you feel like it, Winter. You can get in. But you can’t get out.”
The fear takes over a lot quicker than I thought possible. I think back to Maria and how she knew better than to ask questions. She knows her son’s doing way more than casually smoking weed in a park with his friends. Why did I have to see for myself? Why couldn’t I trust her instinct?
“Street fighter groups quickly formed. We call ourselves gangs, although we’re not what you see in the movies. It didn’t take long for us to know we needed alliances to make it through. We needed backup, people that we could trust. That’s how the East Side was born. Each gangs are from different parts of town, so we picked our names according to where we come from. We managed to stay under the radar for a while until recently—” He pauses. “—when we started winning all of our fights. Back then, we were just a bunch of teenagers who wanted to make money. Now, we have more enemies than we can count.”
I don’t say a word, eager to hear the rest of the story.
“Haze is the ultimate fighter, and his brother is next in line. I know he’s young, but trust me, no one wants to mess with him. No one’s ever won more fights than him. That’s why he leads the West side.”
My racing thoughts stop on the word “brother.” Damn it, you mean to tell me there’s more than just one Adams?
“I mean, until me.”
“You beat him?”
“No. Or at least, not physically. I beat his record. When I did, people started to question Haze’s title as the most powerful fighter. Needless to say, he didn’t like that. He challenged me to a one-on-one fight to regain his status. And well, here we are.” He sighs. “You know what they say. If you go looking for trouble, you might just find it.”
“When’s the fight?” I try to hide how terrified I am.
“About a month from now.”
I am positive he can see the panic in my eyes in that moment. All this time, the reason for Kendrick’s miraculous recovery was his involvement in illegal activities. He seemed to have found a new purpose back then. Now I know he fell into a trap without meaning to. Kind of like what I did.
Expect I didn’t get caught in the crossfire.
I literally jumped in it.
“Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay,” he tries to comfort me. “I’ll win the fight. No one’s going to know about you. I promise.”
I get up, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“You’ll have to stick with us at school. It’ll stop him from getting to you. Understood?”
I nod and exit the room, heading toward the staircase. Kendrick’s words are deeply anchored within me. He says hanging with the East Side will stop Haze from getting to me.