I felt someone beside me, and the sensation jolted me out of my thoughts. Gunner was still talking about something, but I hadn't heard a word of it. Then he laughed, and I looked beside me at the topless girl who had attached herself to my arm, her bare tits pressed up against me. She leaned in and purred, her voice close to my ear, "Hey, baby, you want to play?"
"Hey man," Gunner said. "Have at it. You're retired, not dead."
I felt the familiar stirring of arousal, and slid my hand over one of her tits. Shit. I hadn't been laid in a long time. That part of me had been dead for a while. "What's your name, darlin'?"
"April," she said, leaning into me as she slid her hand down the front of my shirt toward my pants. I caught her by the wrist, pulled her away from me, filled with anger.
"Is this some kind of fucking joke?" I asked, looking from her to Gunner, whose face was chalk white.
"No, man, I don't know what the fuck," he said.
Her wrist felt tiny in my grip, and when I squeezed it harder, she yelped, her face contorting in pain. "What the fuck?" she screamed. "Let go of me, you psycho!"
I couldn't. "What the fuck do you mean, your name is April?" I heard my voice, loud even to my own ears, and I was aware that people were starting to stare at me.
She began whimpering. "All the girls here tonight - we're the months. April, May, June, you know? What's your problem?"
"Did someone tell you to say that?"
"Yeah, man." She struggled, trying to pull her wrist from my grip. "Our fucking pimp."
I looked at Gunner, who shook his head. "It wasn't on purpose man, just coincidence."
Not on purpose. Just a shitty piece of coincidence. Like the rest of the shit that happened with this fucking club, right?
I felt my grip on her wrist loosen, but my anger didn't dissipate. She yanked her arm from my grasp, and I heard her yelling about "fucking assholes" as she pushed her way through the crowd toward the other hookers.
Blaze walked up beside me. "You okay, man? I didn't know about that."
I could still feel my heart pounding in my chest, the adrenaline coursing through my body. I was ready to lose it on someone. Fuck no, I was not okay. What I needed was to get the hell out of this clubhouse and away from all this shit. The reminders of what was everything to me at once was too much. I couldn't take this.
"I need to get the fuck out of - " I didn't even finish the sentence. I turned to leave, get the hell away from this place, and right in front of me stood that fucking prospect, the mouthy one from earlier who made the comment about me driving up here in a cage. Except he wasn't wearing his cut, he was dressed in athletic gear, prepping for a practice fight. His cocky smirk just sent me over the edge.
I took one look at him, and rage took over. He saw it too and tried to dodge, but I punched him square in the jaw. He went straight to a knee, but stood up on wobbly legs, full of fight. "Cheap shot," he said, and in a blur, he was coming at me, swinging wildly, not controlling his delivery, and full of rage.
I stepped back, clear of his swings, and then went forward with a jab to his nose and upper lip that resulted in a gush of blood. He was stunned momentarily, then turned back at me with a roar and lunged into me. We hit the floor hard and he got in a few good shots on me, but all he was doing was keying me up even more. It felt like child's play, brought me back to my high school days, all the brawling I did. Part of me was enjoying beating on this little punk. It was only when he hit my with an elbow to the side of the head that I started to lose control.
Everything went blurry, and the only thing I was aware of was that feeling of all-consuming rage again, the same thing I'd felt before when I beat Tink. I didn't give a shit about anything, except what was happening right now. I didn't give a shit if I lived or died.
I felt hands on my back, pulling me off of the prospect. "Hammer!" someone yelled. More hands.
"Hammer!"
I could see Blaze from the corner of my eye, his expression grim. "No more," he said. "You're going to kill him. I don't need a dead prospect to deal with."
Kill him? I was confused. We'd barely been fighting for a few minutes, and he was talking about killing him. This prospect had to be a real sack of shit if he couldn't take a couple of punches. Shit, I was more torn up than he was, my knuckles raw. I could feel blood dripping from my nose, and my face throbbed.
Then I looked down at the prospect lying on the floor, barely moving, his face a bloody mess. One of the brothers squatted down to pull him off the floor, and I watched, not quite understanding.
I hadn't done that, had I?
I looked at Blaze. "Shit," I said. "I didn't think I was going at him that hard."
He nodded, and shrugged "It's all right," he said. "He's a shit stain of a prospect anyway. So fucked up he has a hard time doing wrong right. Was good for fighting, though. Maybe you need to get in the ring sometime."
Fuck, I thought. That was the last thing I needed. On the other hand, a feeling of calm began to descend over me, and I hadn't felt calm like this in a long time. It was a relief to finally feel peace, even if it was temporary.