Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

Every kid is laughing. So loud, Maart can’t hear the rest of my curses. But I keep going. It’s like… all those fantasy moments about what I would say when I finally started talking are playing out in real time.

“You’re just a fucking bully,” I continue as Cort pulls me to my feet. “And you’re jealous. That’s why you’re being such a dick. You’re—”

“That’s enough!” Now Cort is yelling at me. I turn to look at him. “What the fuck, Anya? He just knocked you out with one punch. You want him to do it again?”

I throw him the finger too. Right up in his face. “Fuck you too. I don’t need a big brother, OK? I can take care of myself.” Then I look at Maart. “If you want to fight me, you better fight me. Because if you slap my face like a fucking pussy one more time”—I spit blood on the mat—“I will cut your dick off in your sleep.”

All the kids erupt in giggles.

But the three tough men go utterly silent. Just look at me like I’m some wild demon.

Then Irina has my arm and she’s tugging me off the mat, leading me into the clinic to take care of my damage. The building’s door has been propped open so we can hear Cort and Maart arguing outside as she cleans up my face in silence. Rainer is trying to play referee.

Most of the kids file past the clinic and end up in the game room. I figure that must be what Rainer was talking about when he said everyone was ready to celebrate the end of phase two. And then I get lost in the idea of that and what the next month will bring.

Who will I fight next time?

I look at Irina. She has a cut above her eye from her fight with Paulo just a little while ago. But their fight was mostly grappling on the mat. She smiles at me, giggles a little, then signs, I fucking love you.

Why? I sign back, not even sure why I’m signing instead of talking.

“Because,” she whispers, looking over her shoulder nervously, “I have been wanting to say that to him for ten years.” Her accent is thick Russian. And her voice is so much sweeter than I ever thought possible. “He slaps me all the time. It’s insulting.”

“Right? Fucking dick.”

“Just punch me,” Irina says. “I am no one’s little sister. I don’t need no fucking baby slaps.”

“Yeah,” I say, sighing as I push my wild hair out of my face. “Me either.”

Irina points to herself. “I am big sister.” Then she nods her head, pronouncing me fixed as she puts up a hand, palm out. I look at it dumbly for a moment. Then she takes my hand, slaps her palm with it, and then does some little wiggly things with her fingers. “Secret handshake,” she whispers. “Phase three is good. You’ll see.”

Then she winks.

And walks out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - CORT

The night of test two out on the Rock is one of celebration. The first month is all about discipline. They can’t talk, they can’t laugh, they can’t communicate in any way. They are their own worst enemy and they must learn to deal with that. They must learn to contain the fear. They must ignore the beasts lurking in the background, and never take their eye off the savage in front of them.

Because here’s the hard lesson I want them to learn the easy way: No one is coming to save them.

I learned it early, but as Anya can attest, I never completely bought into it.

I need them to buy in to it.

It’s one thing to have hope and be me. A man on the edge of the end and the end is gonna be sweet, not dark.

And it’s quite another to be them.

Just getting started.

Udulf could walk into my camp at any moment and take any kid he wants for any reason whatsoever. He’s done it seven times in the past twelve years and one of them was sixteen. Sixteen and she just disappeared one day with Udulf and that was that.

So they can make it all the way to me, all the way to the rim of that ring of fire and still, they will never be safe.

I cannot save them.

They must learn to save themselves.

It’s a shitty lesson. And it’s even shittier that they have to learn it so young.

But what is the alternative?

They break down crying?

They stop fighting?

They give in?

That is death. Even if they’re still alive, if they break, they die. It might take a few months, but they are already dead when they break.

They must defy this life. Every possible chance they can, they must fight. And they must be smart about it. Like Anya. She is a fucking genius. And I’m not talking about all those languages, either. That silence. Yeah. It’s brilliant. Because she gets one chance with every single person who knows she doesn’t talk to stun them into their own silence.