CHAPTER 43
Landon Lane
EVERYTHING IN MY BODY WANTED to tighten up. Every muscle wanted to flex. I willed myself to relax. Staying calm and loose was the key to winning a fight. When muscles constrict and panic sets in, it restricts motion. You can’t move as fast. Reaction time slows. Ask any professional athlete. Relaxation. Loose limbs. You have to train your body and your mind to do it.
I stalked out toward the center. Sid came at me like a bull. Fire in his eyes. Kill or be killed. Darwin ruled Hell’s Island.
I didn’t even see it coming. Lightning fast.
I was on my back before the signal in my nerves traveled to my brain and told my body what just happened. His fist had come out of nowhere. Maybe from Mount Olympus.
If he’d hit me full force, I might’ve been dead.
My head throbbed. I tasted metal in my mouth. My nose was broken at the very least, but I was conscious, barely. Fuzzy stars filled my line of sight.
I took my time getting up.
They wanted the fight to last more than one punch. He hadn’t hit me with everything. Probably nothing more than a love tap for him. I rose to my feet and staggered around a bit.
“You okay?” The referee grabbed both of my forearms and shook me.
Sid had stomped back to his corner and stood there, waiting. Edmon beamed at him like he was a prized racehorse.
I nodded at the referee.
The crowd roared back to life. Nobody had taken a Sid punch and not ended up in a hospital, and he’d definitely hit me harder than he’d hit anyone else in his previous fights. I knew Joe was paying attention and one thing worked in our favor—we had real-time data. Every punch Sid threw, Joe would log it all in his brain. Every muscle, every action. He was an observation machine.
I needed to make it through round one. Protect myself until then. Hopefully, Joe would spot something. Anything that hadn’t shown up on paper.
We walked back out, and Sid smirked—barely, nothing but a slight hint of emotion on his lips. I threw a punch, but I hadn’t planned on it hitting. It was just to see how he’d react. He dodged it easily. We circled around and then he came on stronger. His fists pistoned into my ribs. At least five blows in under a second. His arms had to look like a blur to people watching. I shook violently like I was tied to a pole and shot up by a firing squad of machine guns.
Sid came across with a left hook. It felt like he smashed a cinder block over the right side of my face.
I toppled over. The left side of my head pounded the mat nearly as hard as his fist had hammered my right jaw. His follow through was like a knife cutting through butter, like my body had put up zero resistance.
My brain jarred against my skull. Intense throbbing pain. I imagined it was like running headfirst into a subway car wearing a football helmet.
I pawed at my head and writhed on the mat. My ears rang, and I couldn’t hear anything else. One of my ribs had cracked, I thought. I could still breathe, so it hadn’t punctured a lung. I stretched my arm over my head and realized my rib hadn’t broken, it’d dislocated.
I let out a scream that I couldn’t hear. Stretched my arm up harder and pushed in with my other fist until it popped back in place. The pain subsided.
I looked up at the clock. It read 3:25 and slowly ticked down. I’d lasted a minute and thirty-five seconds so far. Time seemed to stand still in the ring with the monster. I stared at the clock again. Each second was like an hour. I stayed down as long as possible to run out some more time. I needed to make it to the bell.
If Sid had wanted to finish me off, he’d have already straddled me and pummeled my head until the lights went out. He’d been told to batter me, but not finish me off yet. It was the only explanation. I was sure they had a huge spectacle planned for my demise. My eyes rolled over to Edmon. He gazed reverently up at Sid and basked in his creation. Wouldn’t even look at me.
I glanced to Joe. He just stood there with a blank stare. Like he’d been right all along. He knew it was an impossible task, no matter how hard I trained.
“I have to call this. You can’t go on.” The ref stood in front of me.
If he only knew what Sid and I were capable of withstanding. This was just a warmup. I pushed to my feet. “I’m fine.” Blood shot out of my mouth when I said the words.
I looked at Sid and grinned. Waved him on with a hand.
It was pointless. I was pretty sure he didn’t have emotions, and if he did it would take more than a petty taunt to activate them. But it put on a show for the crowd. Adrenaline coursed through my blood when they roared to life. I stayed loose. Being the favorite of the crowd was an advantage, and I could use anything, regardless of how minute, that would work in my favor. I pushed the pain away with my mind. Pain is all in your head.
“Okay.” The ref backed away up against the cage.
We came back out and circled up. Had to be about three minutes left. I started a mental timer. Three minutes. If I was in a park with Logan three minutes would go by in three seconds. In the octagon with the beast, it’d be the longest three minutes of my life.
I watched his soulless eyes for a clue.
Focus.
He swung with a hard right and I dodged it.
Minor victory, but a victory nonetheless.
He came back with a left and hammered my face. My jaw crunched against his fist and I was pretty sure he’d just broken it. Blood misted in the air from my mouth and a stream of crimson splattered on the mat. He hit me three more times on the way down before I smashed against the ground.
He didn’t back off this time though. His weight crushed my back and he wrenched my head up. I couldn’t move. Thought he might’ve severed my spine. I couldn’t feel my legs.
I looked straight ahead. There was a camera.
He’s going to kill me in front of the world.
I lay there at his mercy, head torqued in one of his hands while he hammered me. One, two, three, four, five—the same thing Joe had done to me in the yard in front of Cora and Logan.
I collapsed into a pile. My legs still moved but barely. I didn’t feel any pain in them, just tingling. Everything was blurry. If I focused on one object I saw three. If I made it through round one I wasn’t sure there would be any brain activity left in my skull.
The ref was on his belly looking into my eyes. “No, no, I have to call this.”
I pushed up to my knees and tried to gather myself. I shook my head. “No!”
Edmon stared. It wasn’t a look of evil. He didn’t look like he wanted me destroyed. He looked like he pitied me. Like I was garbage. A disappointment.
I tried to focus on the clock above. I saw three of them too. They overlapped and morphed into a blur. I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them. Tried to will my vision back to normal. It worked.
The clock above read 1:20. I didn’t know if I could take another onslaught of blows. I stood to my feet and my whole body was numbed over. I dizzied and backed myself up against the cage to help hold me up.
“You have to hit him, asshole.” Joe’s words came from behind me. It sparked something deep down. Shocked me back to life like jumper cables.
I couldn’t hit him, but I needed the boost if I wanted to survive to the second round.
Three rounds of five minutes. That’s what we were working with. It was usually five rounds for title bouts, but ironically the biggest fight of all time wasn’t even for a championship belt. Sam still held the title.
“I gotta keep this thing moving.” The ref dropped his hand apprehensively and cringed.
Sid took his time. Fifty-five seconds were left. Maybe I’d survive the round after all. Maybe they wanted him to keep me alive and then kill me off at the end.
The last fifty-five seconds was hell on earth. He pounded me with at least fifteen shots to the head and ribs. Right when the bell sounded he leveled me with a crushing blow. Harder than I’d ever been hit in my life.
The lights went out and I was pretty sure death was right around the corner.