“Time,” Quarry said, almost sounding disappointed when I hadn’t been broken.
“Great,” I said, hopping to my feet to show my energy was high. I was tired, very tired, but I wasn’t about to show it.
“Now you do the heavy bag, and I want you to really go after it. No taking it easy.”
Someone threw me a pair of gloves and I quickly put them on. The crowd headed over to the bag to watch me punch and kick for five minutes. I paced myself, but threw hard combinations, making sure these idiots knew what I was capable of. If they wanted to keep messing with me, I’d make sure they understood that I could make them pay for it somewhere down the line.
Finally, the five minutes were over. I was breathing heavily and covered in sweat. “So, are we good?” I asked Quarry.
He looked at Z, who just made a face like he felt bad for me.
“Are we good?” Quarry repeated, feigning surprise. “JB, that was just the warm up. Now it’s time to see what you’re made of.”
I looked at him, sure he was joking. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Quarry pointed to the cage. “Get in there.”
“Get in the cage? Now?”
Quarry nodded his head. “This isn’t your momma’s training camp, son. You come into my house, you better come correct. Everyone who gets on my team has to fight his way in.”
“I told you, I can’t go full contact with this cut—”
“Get in the cage, or get the fuck out of my gym.” Quarry glared at me.
Everyone was watching me. I looked at the unfriendly faces, their eyes judging me, their expressions mocking me. The truth was, I wanted to put a hurting on somebody now.
“Fine. Why not?” I said, shrugging, as the group of thugs roared their approval.
I made my way to the cage.
“Good choice,” Quarry said, as I walked.
“So who am I fighting?”
“Everybody.”
I turned and looked at him again, certain he must be joking this time. “What does that mean?”
Quarry’s grin looked like a shark’s grin. “It means, you go two minutes with one guy, and then the next comes in. No breaks for you. You go until somebody knocks you out, chokes you out or submits you. Or until you beg for mercy.”
I stared at him, realizing he was dead serious. But then I smiled back at him. “I hope you don’t mind if I put your entire team in the hospital.”
His smile faded as I climbed into the cage.
“We’ll see about that, JB,” Quarry called, following me in. “I’ll be reffing this fight, but all that means is I make sure nobody’s arm gets broken and I’ll stand you up and make you fight if you try and stall. Got it?”
“Got it,” I replied. I was wearing the small MMA gloves that were customary in fights. I bent down and removed my sneakers, threw them out of the cage. Other than that, I was in jeans and a t-shirt. Not exactly the best outfit to be fighting in, but I wasn’t going to complain now.
Quarry called the first person into the cage. It was the little guy with the goatee, the one who’d said my initials stood for “Jail Bait.” I was more than happy to get a chance at him.
“Here’s how it works,” Quarry said, as the little dude got in the ring and threw a few practice punches at the air. “We go by weight class. Jimbo here is our smallest guy at only one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Each guy that comes in will get bigger and stronger. If you somehow manage not to get knocked out or submitted, eventually you work your way up to our heavyweights. I think maybe it would be better for you if that didn’t happen.” He chuckled, pleased with his own joke.
“Whatever,” I said. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Have it your way,” Quarry told me. He chopped the air with his fist. “Fight!”
Jimbo came at me with a surprising speed that caught me off guard. He was throwing wild punches. I stepped back, catching most of his shots on my forearms and elbows, ducking my head to avoid a few hard punches. I saw an opening and popped him with a hard jab. He smiled at me. I popped him again and wiped the smile off his face.
He got mad, started swinging for the knockout, trying to catch me with a lucky punch. I got him first. I landed a perfect right cross on his jaw and he went down.
Quarry stepped in before I could finish him off. “Okay, okay.” He got in between us.
“Next!”
I stood there and watched as the next guy came into the cage.
He was just slightly bigger than Jimbo, with tons of tattoos and big holes in his ears that dudes get when they wear earrings that are like saucers. He was more of a grappler, tried to bring me to the ground. I didn’t let him. I started pinning him up against the cage and hitting him with thudding shots to his ribcage. He groaned and eventually slid to the mat, upon which Quarry once again got between us.
Was it my imagination or did Quarry seem a little annoyed that I was making such quick work of his team?