Chapter Eleven
Mason
“Why do I have to sleep at Wanda’s house?” Millie hugs her soft toy, Roo, to her little pigeon chest, the Winnie the Pooh character looking faded and more than a little worse for wear. My baby sister looks like she might cry. I suddenly feel really fucking sick.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, Mil. You want me to stay home here with you?”
She looks up at my with those big eyes of hers, shiny from the potential tears that might fall—she hasn’t decided yet whether staying at Wanda’s is a big enough deal to warrant tears—and blinks. “Where are you going?” she whispers.
“I’m going to do another job.”
“But you went to work this morning.” She rubs the pad of her index finger against my knee, staring at it, clad in my jeans, apparently absorbed in the feel of the material.
“I know, kiddo, but this is for extra. Extra money. So we can move and get a better place, right?” We’ve talked about this enough that Millie knows how important moving is for us. She gives me a very solemn nod, still not looking at me.
“Away from next door to Wanda and Brandy?” she asks.
“Well, yeah, Mil. Somewhere safe. Somewhere good, right?”
“Can Wanda and Brandy come?”
I have to bite my lip as I stare down at the wispy golden curls on the top of her tiny head. “I don’t know, Mil. Maybe. I think Wanda likes living here, though. We can always come visit her and Brandy, can’t we?” Of course Wanda doesn’t like living in this shitty building with it’s shitty pipes and drafty windows, but you end up telling lies like this to keep the peace. And to comfort, too. Besides, Millie is still going to come here after school while I’m still stuck at Mac’s, so that part is true at least.
“So do you think I should stay?” I ask. I shouldn’t really be giving her the choice, but she panics less if she thinks she’s in control of what’s happening and when. I mean, how fucked up is it that a little girl her age needs to feel like she’s in control, because the world is too scary, and dangerous and frightening. It fucking stinks.
“No. No, you can go,” she says quietly. She’s silent for a moment and then her head snaps up, a broad smile spreading across her face. She holds her hands to her mouth, like she’s afraid of even speaking the idea that has just occurred to her. “Um, if you get more money,” she says carefully. “That means I can have a new princess bed.”
This is stated like it’s a foregone conclusion. Brandy, Wanda’s daughter, got a fancy bed for Christmas—a mini four poster thing with pink frilly see-through material that you can pull across to make a sort of den. Millie’s never mentioned wanting one before, not once. She never asks for anything. But now, I can see from the look in her eyes that this is something she wants very badly. I feel like a piece of shit. A bed like that wouldn’t cost a huge amount of money, but it’s more than we have. More than I’m likely to bring home tonight from my very first fight.
“How about we see what happens, huh, kiddo?”
Millie nods, her head rising and falling in exaggerated movements. “Okay.” She’s all too happy to run next door with Roo underneath her arm, then, at the prospect of ‘seeing what happens’ with her getting a new princess bed. I’m all but forgotten. Wanda squeezes me tightly to her massive chest when she opens the door to us. I’ve nearly suffocated in that woman’s cleavage more times than I can count.
“You be careful tonight, you hear me?” she scolds.
“As careful as I can be.” I hold out the tiny backpack with the pink ponies firing rainbows out of their asses on the front of it—at least that’s what it looks like—and Wanda takes it from me without a word. She knows what’s inside: a clean pair of PJs, Millie’s favorite blanket, and her expensive as fuck medication. Wanda knows the drill. She knows what she needs to give Mil if she has a seizure. The woman has never once complained about having to clean up after my sister if she has a fit. Not once.
She gives me another warm hug and then shoos me on my way, knowing exactly where I’m going, hating it, and yet still not telling me not to go. She knows this is the only way I’m going to change things for us.
It takes twenty minutes to drive across the city to La Maison French Markets. Of course, there are no markets taking place right now. The vendors have cleared out their tables and equipment, knowing that Saturday nights are fight nights. I park my shitty truck three streets away as I was instructed by Ben, and then I make my way over to the west entrance of the underground markets. There are already plenty of people slipping down the concrete staircase, doing their best to look inconspicuous and not pulling it off. There’s hardly any point in trying to hide what goes on down here, really. The cops are already fully aware of what goes on, paid off to keep quiet and not cause a fuss or disrupt the evening’s entertainment.
The stairwell smells like piss and stale sweat. Down one level, the large space is filled with bodies, all pushing and shoving against one another. The rush of voices bounces off the low ceiling, making the roaring rumble of shouted conversation and raucous laughter even louder. For a very brief moment, I consider turning around and getting the fuck out of here. It’s all too much, and I have absolutely no business being here.
But then I remember Millie and that hopeful look in her eye when I kissed her goodnight, and my resolve solidifies. I’m not leaving. I’m staying, and I’m going to win my fucking match.
I find Ben at the side of the ring—an easy thing to do considering his red hair—handing over hundred dollar bills to a morbidly obese guy in a sweat stained Cuban hat. My friend grins, slapping me on the shoulder when I arrive at his side. “There he is! Thought you’d pussied out, motherfucker. You’re almost late. Hey, this is Carlos. You need to pay your cover to him, okay?”
The fat guy in the hat arches an eyebrow at me, his facial expression unchanging as he holds out his hand. I go to shake it, but he speaks before I can make contact. “That’ll be five hundred, friend.” He doesn’t want to meet me. He wants my cash. And too fucking much of it.
“Five hundred?” I glance over at Ben, ready to pop him in the shoulder for lying to me. Ben’s already holding up his hands, that look that he gets already forming on his face.
“Whoa, whoa, slow your roll, C. Mason’s an initiate. It’s one hundred for initiates, right?”
Carlos squints, running his tongue over his teeth. “Two fifty for initiates. Buy in went up.”
“When?”
“Just now,” Carlos says, frowning up at the both of us from under drawn brows. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who particularly enjoys being questioned.
“That’s bullshit,” Ben argues.
“Maybe. He don’t like it, he don’t have to fight, though. Them’s the breaks.”
Ben sighs, shrugs, then casts me a questioning glance. You got two fifty? I shake my head. I was breaking a sweat over the potential of stumping up a hundred and losing it all. More than double that? I just don’t have it. Ben nods, puts his hand into his pocket, and pays Carlos before I can stop him.
“What the fuck, man? No!” I hiss. “If I lose, I can’t pay you back.”
Carlos tuts as he puts the money into his back pocket and writes something down into a small, ratty book.
“S’okay, man. Just don’t fucking lose,” Ben advises, like it’s the most obvius thing ever. “No pressure.”
“Name?” Carlos clips out. “Hey, asshole. What. Is. Your. Name?”
“Mason Reeves.”
That goes into his book. “Lose the shirt,” he says. I take off my hoody and my shirt and stand there bare-chested as Carlos takes a fat red marker pen and scrawls something onto my left shoulder blade. “And you, dipshit.” He prods his pen in Ben’s direction.
Ben loses his t-shirt and Carlos draws a fat eighty-eight onto his shoulder, and then vanishes into the swell of the crowd, presumably to find more people to verbally abuse and draw on.
Ben whoops, slapping the top of my arm. “Turn around, man. Let me see what ranking he gave you. Oh shit!” he laughs. “Twelve? Damn!”
“Twelve? What the fuck does twelve mean?”
“Twelve percent chance of winning.” Apparently this is the funniest shit ever, according to my so called best friend. Undoubtedly he only thinks it’s so funny because Carlos gave him an eighty eight percent chance of winning, which means a shit ton more money from the house if he does. “Don’t worry, man,” he says, pulling me through the sea of bodies. “They always rank new guys low. He hasn’t seen you fight yet. C’mon.”
On the other side of the packed out market place, a ring has been set up and the first match of the night is already underway. The two guys in the ring are lean and quick, jabbing and striking at each other faster than lightning, barely grazing each other before darting out of reach. The crowd get bored of that pretty quickly. They want brutality. They want blood. They want the sound of bone cracking on bone. These violent things make the blood run hot in their veins.
Four minutes after we arrive, the two guys have been booed out of the ring, neither one of them having landed a proper punch, and two new fighters are climbing into the cage. Their fight is adrenalin fuelled from the moment the bell rings. One broken nose. A couple of potential broken ribs. One K.O. Two minutes and the whole thing is over. The people squeezing in around the cage are screaming at the tops of their lungs. I need a fight like that. I need something violent and bloody that will have them remembering my name until next weekend, where I’ll have to prove myself all over again.
There are three more fights before I’m called up. At least two hundred people go silent as I shove my way past them and up through the opening into the cage. My heart is fucking hammering in my chest. This is such a bad fucking idea.
It gets worse when Carlos, motherfucker that he is, calls out the name of the guy I’m going to be fighting: Hail Mary Harris. Ben. Fucking Ben. It dawns on me all of a sudden—he’s the other eighty eight percent to my twelve. How did I not immediate realize as soon as I found out my ranking. I mean, the maths were staring us right there in the face. Ben vaults up into the cage, shaking his head, his eyebrows drawn tight together.
“Fuck, Carlos. What the hell? It’s his first night. I shouldn’t be fighting initiates. And he shouldn’t be fighting intermediaries, either. What gives?”
“We’re short on fights tonight. Just the way it is, friend. You don’t wanna fight, you can always concede.” Carlos grins. He doesn’t give a shit about the fact that he’s making friends fight, and on top of that one friend who massively outranks the other.
Ben’s still scowling when he faces me. The crowd can tell something’s not right; they start chanting, pounding their feet against the floor, rattling the wire of the cage. “Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!”
“You wanna back out, man?” Ben asks me.
“Hell no.” The fighter who backs out sacrifices the money he paid in order to fight in the first place. I couldn’t afford to lose the hundred I’d originally planned on spending, let alone the extra one fifty I now owe Ben. He nods.
“Okay. Well, I guess we’re fighting then.” He scratching his jaw, suddenly grinning like a mad man. “And I win either way, since I bought you in. Ironic, huh?”
“Yeah. Awesome.” He looks way too pleased with himself right now.
“Are you ladies done gossiping or can we get this show on the road?” Carlos snipes.
Ben lifts his right fist, already gloved, and holds it out to me. “I’ll go easy on you, I swear.”
“Don’t do me any favors, asshole.” I touch my glove to his, the bell rings and that’s it. No more time to talk. No more time to think. No more time to worry about what will happen if I lose this fight. My friend is circling me, a dark, predatory look in his eyes, and my head is not in the game. It gets there pretty quickly.
Ben comes for me, slamming his fist home straight between my guard, the same way Zeth did repeatedly the first time I fought him. My ears are ringing, my vision blurred when I step forward, trying to shake off the buzzing in my head. Ben’s grinning, shrugging his shoulders, the light over out heads swinging crazily, casting evil shadows all over his face. I can see in his eyes that he thinks this is going to be ridiculously easy. And maybe it is. But I’ve never fought or even spared with Ben before, and Zeth did manage to give me a few invaluable pointers that cost me a number of nasty bruises. He doesn’t know what I’ve got up my sleeve.
I let him land a hit on me again, this time to my side where Zee nearly broke some of my ribs. I wince, sucking oxygen into my lungs as best I can through the pain. Jesus fucking Christ.
I counter, landing a mean upper cut to Ben’s jaw. The smile has vanished from his face when he cracks his neck, loosening out his shoulders.
“Ahhh, like that is it?” he says, laughing. Ben’s a boxer. Has been for as long as I’ve known him. I’m willing to bet he hasn’t spent nearly enough time practicing any other martial arts forms since he started fighting down here, knocking people out left, right and center.
We parry back and forth for thirty seconds, each landing blows where we can. I keep my fucking guard up, and I don’t break eye contact with the guy. The crowd are baying for blood by the time I decide to test my theory. Ben comes in to land a left hook, but I’m ready for him. I duck, strike up, and then I slam into him, taking him down.
He makes a deep, surprised uffff sound as the air leaves his lungs. While he’s trying to recover, I’m already moving, already planning my next move. Spinning him over, I twist his arm around into a lock and pull upward, looking for that sweetspot between what will mean absolute agony for him or a broken bone. I find that point when his body goes tense beneath me, rigid as a board.
“Motherfucker,” he laughs. “Where the hell did that come from?”
Now’s not the time to be cocky. I concentrate on what I’m doing, locking him down, making it impossible for him to move without extreme pain firing through his whole body. Maybe I’m concentrating too hard.
I’m ready for him when he tries to jerk me off him, using his hips to push backward. When he realizes I’m not going to let him off that easy, he rips his body around, growling against the discomfort of his arm nearly popping out of joint.
The next three seconds happen quickly. I’m on top of Ben in mount position, legs either side of him one second, and the next I’m on my back and Ben’s hammering his fists into my face.
They call it ground and pound for a reason. I have to get out of this position. Right. Fucking. Now. Ben’s too busy pummeling my face to guard any other area of his body. As his fists rain down, I somehow have the common sense to react. To move. To jab him as hard as I can. I am for his ribs, and pure determination takes over. I know I’m spraying blood everywhere from my mouth and my nose every time I gasp for breath, and I know Ben’s doing his fair share of bleeding onto the canvas too, but neither one of us stop.
Eventually, Ben’s winded enough that he pauses—just enough of an opening for me to get out from under him. It goes on like this for another three minutes, one of us bettering the other, the other taking a beating, and then the roles reversing over and over again. I’m so exhausted I can barely lift my arm anymore when the final bell rings.
The crowd starts hollering and screaming at the injustice of the fight being called to an end. Ben and I lay on our backs, chests heaving, blood all over our skin, in our hair, in our eyes, blood everywhere, and all I can focus on is the light swinging over my head, burning into my retinas, and the insanity of my heartbeat.
Carlos stands us up, clearly unhappy that Ben didn’t just wipe the fucking floor with me. He holds Ben’s arm in the air and the crowd cheers like crazy. Surprisingly, when he holds my arm in the air, the reaction is the same. A draw.
Well fuck me.
An hour passes where more people fight and me and Ben slump against the back wall, trying to get our shit together. Eventually Carlos comes and pays up the money he owes us, half each. Nine hundred dollars for me and nine hundred for Ben.
“Not bad for two black eyes and a mild concussion, huh?” Ben laughs. “Fuck, you punch like a heavy weight.”
“Sorry, man,” I sigh. Am I really sorry, though? Hell no. I hand over the one fifty he spotted me, feeling kind of amazing as I pocket what’s left over. Seven hundred and fifty bucks. I wouldn’t earn that working for Mac every day for two weeks. A couple of black eyes and a mild concussion were worth it all right.