ONE
HER MOTHER HAD ONCE told her that the only way to truly know someone was to fight them. In Lore’s experience, the only thing fighting actually revealed was the spot on their body someone least wanted to be punched.
For her opponent, that spot was clearly the new tattoo on his left breast, the one still covered with a bandage.
Lore brought up her fourteen-ounce gloves and let them absorb another sloppy hit. Her sneakers squeaked over the cheap blue mats as she bounced back a step. The lines of silver duct tape holding the makeshift ring together were, after five fights that night, beginning to peel from the moisture and heat. She grunted as she stamped the nearest one flat with her heel.
Sweat poured down her face until all she could taste was the salt of it. Lore refused to wipe it away, even as it stung her eyes. The pain was good. It kept her focused.
This—the fighting—was nothing more than a recent bad habit, one that had brought her a desperately needed release after Gil’s death six months ago. But her original promise of just this one match had vanished as she’d felt that familiar surge of adrenaline.
One fight had been enough to break the deadening grief, to get her out of her head and back into her body. Two fights had disconnected the deep ache in her heart. Three had brought in a surprising amount of cash.
And now, weeks later, fight fifteen was giving her exactly what she was desperate for that night: a distraction.
Lore told herself she could stop at any time. She could stop when it no longer felt good. She could stop when it dredged up too much of what she’d buried.
But Lore wasn’t there. Not just yet.
The cramped basement of Red Dragon Fine Chinese Food was sweltering. The hot press of too many bodies surrounded the mats. The crowd shifted
as the fighters did, forming the unofficial boundary of the ring as they clutched their Solo cups and tried to keep from spilling their top-shelf liquor. Bills and bets flowed around her, hand to hand, until they reached Frankie, the ring organizer. Lore glanced to him as he adjusted the order and bets of the next two fights, forever less interested in the winner than the winnings.
Steam rolled down the stairs from the kitchen above them, giving the air a satin quality. The smell of kung pao chicken was a delicious alternative to the reek of old vomit and beer that haunted the boarded-up nightclubs the ring usually rotated through.
The crowd didn’t seem to mind; whatever it took to give them some illusion of edge. Frankie’s exclusive list seemed a lot less exclusive these days: models, art-scene types, and business guys passing around their small sachets of white powder were now frequently joined by private-school kids testing the limits of their parents’ apathy.
Her opponent was a boy about her age—all soft, unmarked skin and unearned confidence. He’d laughed, crooking a finger at her as he’d chosen her out of all of Frankie’s available fighters. Lore had decided to destroy him and lay waste to whatever tattered bit of his pride remained well before he ever called her baby girl and blew her a drunken kiss.
“Let me guess,” she said around her mouth guard. Lore nodded toward the bandage on the teen boy’s chest, covering his new body art. “Live, Laugh, Love? Rosé All Day?”
His brows lowered as the crowd laughed. The boy swung a glove at her head, grunting with the effort. The movement, combined with his flagging strength, left his chest wide open. Lore had a clear target when she slammed her glove into his tender inked skin.
The boy’s eyes bulged, his breath wheezing out of him. His knees hit the mat.
“Get up,” Lore said. “You’re embarrassing your friends.”
“You—you stupid bi—” The boy choked a little on his mouth guard. Lore had wondered how long it would take before he melted down, and now she had her answer: five minutes.
“I’m sure you’re not going to call me that,” she said, circling him, “when you’re the one on all fours.”
He struggled to his feet, fuming. She rolled her eyes.
Not so funny anymore, is it? Lore thought.
Gil would have told her to walk away from the stupid kid—he had always been quick to remind Lore in that nonjudgmental, grandfatherly way of his that she didn’t have to jump into every fight that presented itself. The truth was, the man would have hated this, and Lore suffered the guilt of that, too. Of disappointing him.
But Lore had tried other ways. None of them helped her move through the crushing tide of loss like a good fight did. And now it wasn’t just Gil’s death she needed to escape; there was a new dread clawing beneath her skin.
It was August, and the hunt had come back to her city.