“The referee has called a stop to this match at two-minutes and forty-nine seconds into the second round,” the announcer begins. “The winner by TKO, Finn ‘The Fury’ O’Brien.”
The crowd screams and pumps their fists in the air when my hand is raised. I take the few seconds I need to thank my sponsors, my camp, and my brother, because that’s what I’m supposed to do despite the fog clouding my senses. I wish that disconnect had something to do with all the hits I took, but deep down I know that it doesn’t.
I’m back in the locker room before I know it getting stitched up, too many people talking at once. God, I barely hear their questions or my responses. But they’re there and somehow I make it through.
“I’m worried about you, Finnie,” Kill says when everyone piles out.
“Don’t. I’m not drinking tonight. I’m headed home,” I assure him.
“That’s not what I mean,” he says. He’s sitting in a fold out chair, his arms resting against his muscular legs. “I think you need to talk to someone.”
I stretch out my arms. By now they’re so tight, they pull against the bones. “I am. I’m talking to you.”
I don’t have to see him to know he’s shaking his head, or that he’s looking sad, disappointed, and maybe something else, too. “I’m not who you should be speaking to,” he says. “Not for what’s going on in your head.”
“You’re enough,” I say, even though I know it’s no longer true.
“Finn,” he begins.
I don’t wait for him to finish, leaving the changing area and heading toward the showers. “Go find Sofia and Wren,” I call over my shoulder as I strip out my shirt. “See if they’re up for some dinner.”
I don’t remember peeling the rest of my clothes off. That numbness I’ve been feeling too much lately claiming me like a mist until it fully engulfs me. Fuck. It’s like I’ve stopped living even though for the most part I think I’m still alive.
I lean against the tile with my arms spread, allowing the water to beat against my back. It’s too hot. I should turn it down, but I don’t bother. Eventually, like everything else, the sensation fades.
I’m not sure how long I’m in that position. A few seconds? A few minutes? But then Easton and his trainer Yefim are suddenly there. “You got lucky, O’Brien,” Yefim calls out, taunting me with his thick eastern European accent.
Shit. Like all the trash talk before the fight wasn’t enough.
“Did you hear me, you pussy?” he fires back when I don’t answer. “Did you hear me, you goddamn coward?”
Coward? Fuck you. It’s what I think, but not what I say, focusing instead on the streams of water that gather along my feet before they swirl into the drain.
It doesn’t help. The rage that’s building, the one I only manage to barely keep in? It stirs in my gut like a heavy pot filled with hate, sin, and all the curses my Ma would still beat my ass for saying.
“What’re you doing?” Yefim asks.
His voice is closer, he’s drawing near. I doesn’t matter that I’m standing here naked. He wants to be next to me. I shudder, that feeling I keep buried drilling its way up.
“I know about you,” Yefim says, not bothering to keep his voice low. “But everyone knows, don’t they? Even if you don’t want them to.”
My body shakes a little more, but it’s not from the cooling water. It’s from his words and all that anger they trigger. Don’t do it. Don’t go there.
“You like to keep it a secret. Don’t you, pussy?”
Yefim laughs when I keep my trap shut. He thinks I’m backing down, just like Easton did before his face met the mat. “He’s crying,” he calls out to Easton. “What? Not so tough now?”
That’s where he’s dead wrong. Every muscle I’ve conditioned serves a purpose―to take down those who fuck with me. And right now, Yefim is seriously fucking with me.
“You like to pretend that it’s girls you like, don’t you?” he says. “But that’s not true, is it? Oh, no, that’s not true at all . . .”
I raise my chin, knowing that someone’s not leaving without bleeding, and I’ve bled enough tonight.
Yefim kicks at my calf. “What? Nothing to say? Can’t speak without your boyfriend here?”
“Boyfriend?” Easton asks, laughing. “No fucking way.”
“Yes. Way,” Yefim insists. “Didn’t you know this little pussy takes it up the ass―”
I punch him so hard, I feel his teeth crack against my knuckles. For someone with decades of boxing experience he never saw me coming. But I see Easton flying at me out of the corner of my eye. I toss him over my shoulder, slamming him hard onto the ceramic tile floor. Like in the octagon, I throw myself on top of him, my fists colliding against his skin.
Voices rush forward, telling me to stop. A woman screams, but I don’t stop fighting off the bodies trying to grab me, breaking through the arms wrenching me back. I need to hit him―I need to feel my fists meeting his face―I need to feel something.
God damn it. I need to feel alive.
I don’t want the pain.
I don’t want the terror.
But once more, it’s all I feel.
CHAPTER 2
Sol