Never Choose Flight (A Fighter Romance Novel) (16 page)

I woke up suddenly.

Immediately, I tried to regain my senses. Discover where I was.

There was ground under me. I could feel the pavement under my knees. I couldn’t see. Everything was blurry. The air was cold. I was wearing the same clothes I’d been knocked out in. There were voices, but they sounded very far away, and were drowned out by a loud ringing.

The voices stopped. My arms. They were behind my back. I tried to move them but they were stuck. There was rope. Tying my hands together. I was tied up. There would be no way for me to escape. I guess that was the idea. They didn’t want me to escape. Not after what they’d put me threw.

Slowly I could see again. It was dark out. I was near some street lights, but not under any other them. I figure out that I was between some warehouses. I made as guess as to where I was - Terminal Island. The worst neighborhood in the city. And there I was, tied up on my knees.

I had a splitting headache. Dehydration, maybe. Or maybe they hadn’t handled me with care, and I’d hit my head somewhere.

There were men standing around me. Sam, and Ernie, stood in front of me.

I was about to scream but then a hand landed over my mouth from behind. Sam leaned down to me and spoke in a calm voice.

“Hi. Welcome to Sunday night. The fight will be starting in no time. You get a front row seat, with Ernie and I. All we ask is that you don’t scream. Don’t yell. You just sit with us. Send as many signals to your boyfriend as you like. Can you do that?”

I just stared at him.

“If you do that,” he said, “then you’ll be fine as soon as he’s knocked out. Your other option isn’t nearly as pleasant. So can you help us with this?”

I just nodded. I couldn’t do anything else. I didn’t want to be killed out in some back alley.

“Fantastic,” he said. “Don’t worry. The God is good. He probably would have won even if we hadn’t gone to all of this trouble.”

I nodded again and the hand came off of my mouth. Sam and Ernie came to either side of me, reached under my arms, and lifted me up.

We walked for a short while. Then I saw that familiar green glow. Saw the crowd. Smelled the piss. It was a Sunday night fight.

But when we stepped inside, past the guards who paid no mind to a woman who’d clearly been kidnapped, I could tell that something was different. Completely different.

There were chairs all around the ring. There were hundreds of people. Maybe a thousand, all crammed into the warehouse. It was hot just from all the bodies.

There was a whole line of tables, all bookies, collecting money. People betting on the fight. This was big. He said big rounds had hundreds of thousands bet on them, but this fight probably had millions. It suddenly made sense why they’d worked so hard to make sure that Malcolm was in no state to fight.

And then I saw him. He looked tired. He was bruised, but not bleeding from anywhere that I could see.

Our eyes locked for a moment. He watched as we wove through the crowd and then sat there right at the front. Where we could be seen. I maintained eye contact, until I saw something glint to my right.

I looked down and saw a knife in Sam’s hand. He did a bit of a flourish, to make sure that Malcolm knew it was there. And then he pressed it against my side. Not hard enough to stab me. But hard enough that it stung.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is just in case he wins. Which he won’t.”

It was hard not to worry. Especially knowing about Malcolm’s condition. I didn’t want him to
die
for me, but a crowd like this, I can’t imagine they’d let the fight be over until someone wasn’t moving anymore.

Malcolm’s eyes were wide. He’d seen the knife. But then he made eye contact with me, and his eyes were soft. As if things were going to be okay. I had trouble imagining how that was going to happen at this point.

I watched as Malcolm warmed up. Throwing punches in the air. Jumping from one foot to the other as he did. He threw his punches with more anger than I’d ever seen before. I could tell that he was pissed.

There was no one on the other side of the ring. The God wasn’t there yet, I guess. But that didn’t seem to bother Malcolm, who just kept throwing angry punches into the air. Maybe he was just trying to get it out of his system before the fight, where if he did too well I’d be killed.

And then the whole room erupted with applause. I looked around, trying to find what everyone was clapping about. Then I saw him. The God.

He had short, blond hair. He had a fucking grin on his face as wide as the continent he’d crossed to get here. And he had a blond mustache. He was twice as wide as Malcolm, and a foot or so taller. He flexed for the crowd, who all loved him, and I saw just how many muscles he had. He had well toned muscles that I didn’t even know existed.

Well this was going to be an easy fight for Malcolm to throw. Or it would be, if he was capable of being knocked out.

The announcer got in the ring, but there was no call for last bets. Maybe they’d already done that. He introduced Malcolm, who honestly looked pretty weak and frail next to The God, who was introduced next.

Then the hand went down in between them, and the count began.

Hundreds and hundreds of people, counting down to either Malcolm’s death or mine. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven! Six! Five! FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE!”

The hand flew up and the announcer got the fuck out of the way.

The two men both had the perfect fighter’s stance. And then I watched as Malcolm purposefully ruined his. He brought his fists apart more than he should have. He straightened his knees. He lowered his fists slightly. And then he threw the first pathetically weak jab.

The God knocked it to the side with no problem. He threw a punch with all his strength, and the cracking noise of Malcolm’s jaw was heard throughout the building. But he didn’t fall. He just uprighted his head, and stared at The God.

I could tell that he was getting mad. I could tell how badly he just wanted to win. And then he let loose.

His fists went back to where they were supposed to be. Then jab after jab. Undercut. A kick to the shins. He fought fast and with accuracy. I could tell that The God was surprised. He was backing away slowly under the barrage of blows.

The God went down into a roll to get onto the other side of Malcolm. And then Malcolm turned to face The God, and I could see his eyes. See his face. And he could see mine. And then he wound up. Wound up way too far back. Leaving himself completely exposed.

I watched as another punch landed square on his jaw, turning his head sideways. But he did not go down. He acted stunned though, and The God pummeled his chest for a good few seconds.

He stumbled backwards and The God pressed forward. Blow after blow, all landing on parts that had been pre-pummeled by his goons. There was nothing Malcolm could do but take it.

I saw him looking up, almost praying to fall unconscious.

A punch to his face broke open his lip again, and he started to pour blood everywhere.

The crowd was loving every second of it.

The fight went on long enough that I started to see the bruises appear on Malcolm’s body. Every knock to the chin made him woozier, but I could tell he wasn’t going down. He was going to die, right there, and I would watch it. And it was going to be for me.

I could see the same realization happening on Malcolm’s face. He looked at me with eyes that said goodbye, until they were smashed to one side by one of The God’s giant fists.

Tears started to pour down my face. I closed my eyes. I started to wonder if Sam had been telling the truth. Would they really just let me go if Malcolm died in the ring like he was supposed to?

But when I opened my eyes again, something had changed in his eyes. He was beating The God back to the far side of the ring. Totally letting loose. But from our angle, we couldn’t really see what exactly was happening. If The God had been knocked out or anything.

And then suddenly Malcolm turned and ran. Towards us. I could tell that Sam had no idea what to do. And then Malcolm stepped up on the side of the ring and jumped right at us. His food landed on Sam’s face, and the chair clattered backwards.

Ernie stood up but Malcolm knocked him cold with a single punch.

The whole crowd was going insane. I caught one glimpse of The God, still lying on the ground, before Malcolm wrapped his hand around my arm and lifted me to my feet.

The crowd had backed up around us, I guess scared of being too close to Malcolm. Then the bouncers closed in. The two men with bats, there to make sure that all the fighting took place in the ring. The first one swung at Malcolm, but he pulled the same move he’d used before. Grabbed both ends of the bat and then pried it away.

“I’m not a bad guy,” he yelled at them, brandishing the bat. “You both know that.”

He carried on with the bat over his shoulder, and the crowd parted for us as we ran towards the exit. I didn’t see The God again, but I heard one voice boom over top of the rest. It yelled “AFTER THEM.”

We were out in the cool night air, and Malcolm just kept running. My flats fell off, but the crowd was bursting from the warehouse, angry yells. I guess people were mad that Malcolm had left the fight without finishing it.

When he saw that my feet were bare, he lifted me into the air and kept running. The blood from his face landed on my nice outfit and I wrapped my arms around his sweaty and muscular body.

The next thing I knew we were of the roads, running down back alleys. Going through gates. Trespassing. Breaking all sorts of laws, I’m sure. And I had no idea where we were. But there was no chance that anyone in a car would have been able to follow us.

We got to the road and he stuck out his thumb. A cab pulled over and we got into the back.

“Shit, man!” said the driver. “Hospital?”

“No,” sputtered Malcolm. He looked at me. “Give him your address.”

I did, and we told him to drive fast. We managed to get there before any thugs, and we switched from the cab to my car. “No time to pack,” said Malcolm. And then he guided me onto the interstate.

* * *

We were halfway across Nevada before we finally pulled over at a motel. There was no chance I’d make it to work on time the next day.

The motel was horrible. There were stains on the carpet. The lamp was nailed down. There wasn’t even complimentary toilet paper.

But on the shitty bed, we became one once again. He was inside of me, and I felt like everything would be okay. I held him close, and he held me. And somehow, despite what had just happened, I knew that we’d make it. Together.

The End

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Danielle Forte.

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