Forty-three
Limping down the driveway with Alex, leaving Sam behind frantically scrambling around for his shoes and keys, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’m beyond furious, and yet, I know he loves me and would never purposely hurt me. He’s just a stupid boy with stupid pride and a stupid hero complex that’s too big for his own good.
I don’t plan to forgive him any time soon.
Alex tears through the streets on his shiny green motorcycle like we’re running from the apocalypse. I scream a little every time he takes a turn so deep our knees almost touch the ground, but at least he forced me to wear his helmet. It sits atop my head, wobbling like a hollow pumpkin on a fencepost, blocking my vision of everything except his broad, black-t-shirted back. I’m surprised he can breathe with how tightly my arms are wrapped around his waist. Maybe we are running from the apocalypse because, for once, Alex doesn’t make a sex joke.
Even before he cuts the engine on his bike, I feel the Armory’s energy like an echo in my bones. Memories of my mother dragging the four-year-old me to my father’s fights crash into my skull with the force of his fists, and for a moment, I clutch my head and double over in pain. It’ll be the same roaring crowd and the same pulsating atmosphere all over again, only this time, a different O’Brien is at the heart of the chaos.
Stragglers race toward the short line of people trickling into the nondescript, concrete monstrosity, only to be turned away by the bouncer who won’t let anyone else in.
“Full house,” he says to a guy in shredded jeans and a biker jacket. “Ain’t got room left.”
I shove the helmet into Alex’s chest and head toward the scowling, hulk of a man who could be Detective Lilly’s twin. He holds a hand out and repeats his line about there being no room, but there’s no way I’ll let him turn me away.
“James is my brother!” I shout. “You have to let me in!”
“I can vouch for her,” Alex says behind me.
“You’re Knockout’s little girl.” He sizes me up, eyes pausing to take in the scab on my lip and the fading bruises peppering my face. I don’t know if anyone’s heard about what my father did to me, but apparently this guy’s heard enough to validate my claim. Stepping aside, he nods at the closed black door. “Your brother’s been in for ten. Tough kid.”
Alex grabs my arm before I can burst inside. Just like James’s, his grip is way too hard to shake loose. “You’re not going anywhere without me,” he tells me. “Sam and your brother will kill me if I let something happen to you.”
It’s just a boxing match, I want to scream, but when Alex opens the door and leads me inside, my protests die on my lips.
The Armory of my memories is gone, it’s royal blue mat and white ropes obliterated by a nine-foot-tall chain-link cage. Silver risers which once played host to my father’s adoring fans and a handful of bloodthirsty bookies have been removed. In their place, a rowdy crowd as fixated on what’s happening in the pit of bodies as they are on what’s happening inside the cage.
I stumble into the room, disoriented by the strobe lights, and cling to Alex’s arm. The emcee screeches blow-by-blows over heavy metal louder and harder than anything my brother blasts on his speakers at home. Whatever he’s saying about James pounds back the memories of my father boxing and pulls what’s happening around me into sharp relief.
I need to see him.
“This isn’t gonna be like what you’re used to,” Alex shouts over the din. “This fight isn’t sanctioned. The people in there, they’re paying good money to see blood. Your brother’s blood.”
My stomach clenches, but I keep it together. “Closer!”
He holds my arm even tighter when we wind our way through the crowd. Someone shoves a tall guy wearing a football jersey into me and I feel myself going down, down, down, into the forest of feet stomping on the grimy floor. Alex is there to catch me, and the roundhouse punch he throws at the obviously drunk guy is a bloody reminder that this is his element as much as it is my brother’s.
We’re almost to the edge of the pit. Every now and again, my brother and his dark-haired opponent stumble our way and his blond hair catches in the light, but I can’t see anything else. I know Alex can, though, because he’s into the fight every second he can take his eyes off the mob surrounding us. I don’t argue when he gives up trying to hold onto my arm and shields me with his body instead.
Out of nowhere, Leslie materializes beside me and coils her arms around my waist. “Your brother’s putting on a real show tonight,” she purrs in my ear. “It’s about time your family crawled out of Daddy’s shadow.”
I want to hit her. In fact, I’m going to. But before I can figure out how to throw a punch from inside Alex’s grasp, the crowd groans and all attention shifts to the cage. The emcee shrieks something about solid kick to the head and I see what looks suspiciously like a spray of blood shimmer in the air. My brother’s blood?
Stomach churning, I shove through the last knot of people, Alex clinging to the back of my shirt, and fall to my hands and knees at the base of what used to be the Armory’s boxing ring.
James has his dark-haired opponent pinned to the cage, forearm across the other guy’s throat, ramming fist after taped-up fist into the guy’s face. His opponent slumps, but just when I think the guy might keel over, he rams a knee into James’s gut.
My brother drops and the crowd howls. A dark light flares in his opponent’s swollen eyes, like he’s sensing an easy kill in my brother, but James has always fed off noisy crowds. He shoves himself to his feet, bounces on his toes a few times like our father used to do, and hurls himself at his opponent again.
This time, the other guy is ready. And, oh my God, is he big. He ducks left, nails James in the side with his elbow, and with a sweep of his long leg, takes my brother back to the mat.
“James!” I scream, but my voice is swallowed by the jeering crowd. I scramble over the last retaining wall and try again. “James!”
My fingers find the chain link fence, but my eyes haven’t left my brother’s contorted body. His face is bloody and twisted with pain, and though I can’t hear it, I feel the low moan rattling in his chest. I can’t count how many times he’s crawled into my bed, bruised, bleeding, and unable to breathe, but nothing compares to the horror of what’s in front of me. Still, he climbs to his feet, gaze set in furious determination, and lifts his fists.
Never in our lives has he looked more like our father.
A pair of burly bouncers pry me away from the cage. “No!” I cry, and this time my brother’s head whips around. He doesn’t see me, but the price of that one second of distraction is a punch to the gut. I bite down on my still healing bottom lip so I don’t cost him anything else.
I’m passed into two sets of familiar arms, one set I’m expecting. One set I’m not.
Ignorant of how much pain they’re causing me, Alex and Sam carry me through the crowd, shouldering through the throngs of spectators now riveted to whatever is happening in the cage behind us until we reach the edge of the pit.
Alex drops my legs like I’m one of his homemade bombs about to explode in his hands and backs away. “She’s all yours, man. I did what I could.”
They’re acting like I’m crazy. Wanting my brother out of that cage, away from that other guy’s fists so I can fix all the places he’s hurt, is not crazy. The shimmering spray of blood I’d seen earlier plays like stars across my vision.
I scream and clutch my side. “Let. Me. Go!”
“Not a chance.” Sam backs us away from the crowd and pulls me down into his lap against the wall. “Not until you calm down. You’re hurt.”
“I am calm!”
He presses my face into his chest. “Sure you are.”
Inhaling his scent, seeing the blood over and over again, a dam of pain breaks loose and pours out of me. “You lied to me. How could you lie to me?”
Tears spill down my cheeks and my fists pound his chest, but nothing could hurt worse than the mess of emotions wreaking havoc on my body. I want to curl up and die, kill my brother, and crawl under Sam’s skin. I want to heal my brother, kiss his cuts and bruises and lips, and save him from what’s happening in my heart.
Through it all, Sam strokes my hair and whispers I’m sorrys and I love yous. I want to drown in the words and come to in a world where my mother isn’t dead but my father is, and my brother is waiting for me with a big smile on his face at the dining room table. I want to live with Sam and Liz and work at Enchanted Garden until it’s time to move to Los Angeles.
“Oh, shit,” Sam mutters.
Someone rips me from his arms and sends me crashing to the ground a few feet away. The dirty concrete scrapes my elbows as I skitter away from the sight of my brother, sweaty and bloody in a pair of our father’s old boxing shorts, holding Sam off the ground by his shirt.
“Don’t ever touch her again!” he bellows and lets go long enough to slam his taped-up fist into Sam’s jaw.
Sam’s head rocks to the side, but he still manages to break free of James’s grasp and stumble a few feet away. Without taking his eyes off my brother, he spits blood onto the grimy concrete floor, then asks, “Is Sarah okay?”
Alex grabs me by the arms and hauls me to my feet. “She’s fine,” he answers at the same time James snarls, “How she is isn’t any of your business.”
Fists clench and knuckles crack. The tension between Sam and James as they circle breaks me in half. If I don’t stop them, only one will walk away from this.
“James, please,” I cry. “Don’t do this!”
My brother’s fists drop a fraction and he glances at me over his shoulder. There’s no time to decipher the crazy look on his face because Sam—the guy whispering I love you in my ear only seconds ago—launches himself at James, driving his shoulder into my brother’s gut. They hit the ground in a rolling snarl of curses, legs, and flying fists.
The bloodthirsty crowd, gleeful over the change in venue and opponent, cinch in tighter. Alex tries to pull me close, but I smack his hands away. “Do something! Make them stop!”
He shakes his head, eyes fixed on the fight. “No way. They gotta get this out of their system or you can kiss sex with Sam goodbye.”
If my brother and my boyfriend weren’t intent on killing each other ten feet in front of me, I would slap Alex. This is not about sex. At least, not to me.
They come to a stop with James on top, a wicked gleam in his eyes when he rams his fist into Sam’s cheek. A sharp blast of copper bleeds into the air. When they roll again, Sam is on top, blood running from his mouth, fists pounding into my brother. His pummeling splits James’s already minced lips.
Eight years of friendship, obliterated.
James lets out an inhuman roar and explodes from the ground, jerking to the side so he can kick Sam in the chest. The crowd screams its approval when Sam staggers backwards and drops into a crouch against the wall gasping for air.
James hovers over him, fists at the ready. “You think you’re a fucking saint because of your dad, but you aren’t shit! Fight me!”
Sam glares up at him. “Fuck. You.”
Wrong answer.
“Stop!” I shout right as James pivots, cocking back his leg. The crowd holds its breath, waiting for the crunch of foot against face, for more blood to rain down on the Armory—
Launching himself from the wall, Sam grabs James’s extended leg and twists, sending my brother to the floor. Before Sam can tackle him, I break free of Alex’s grasp and fling myself on top of my brother. He elbows me in the side and rolls away.
My burn screams, but I force myself to my feet and grab hold of the nearest body. James.
They glare at each other over my head, chests heaving. I trust him less than I trust Sam, so I keep my back pressed to my brother’s chest, hand fisted in the waistband of our father’s shorts, and give the double-vision version of Sam standing in front of me the darkest glare I can muster. The room spins with the effort.
“What’s wrong with you? You’re best friends!”
The validation in Sam’s eyes only infuriates me further. He wanted a confrontation like this. If he used the stupid, twisted boy logic I’m all too familiar with after a lifetime of being James’s little sister, Sam probably figured he’d take on my brother and win the right to be with me. The stupidity of this fight makes me want to throw up. All that’s missing are swords and chainmail and willowy damsels in distress.
I’m no willowy damsel.
“I’m so sick of this!” I yell. “I’m a person, not some bone you get to fight over!”
Flames lick at my burn and my aching head is full of shattered glass, but I manage to release James and hobble a few feet away before I’m too disoriented to walk in a straight line. There’s no way I’ll let Sam and James see my pain.
The pleading look I give Alex must be really pathetic, because he slips an arm around my waist and half carries me to the door without another word.