Page 1 of Yours on the Canvas

1

Jack

The oncoming headlights slash across the windscreen. I flinch and squint against the glare as the car tears past, breaking the quiet of the Nanaimo night.

I glance at the clock on the dash. Eight-ten. My fight is at ten. Plenty of time to check out the competition and get my head right before I climb between the ropes.

I pull into the deserted lot, and my stomach drops when the darkness closes around the car. I glance at the address in the text before checking it against the map glowing on my dashboard. They match.

I climb out of the car, my boots crunching over the loose gravel as I head towards the warehouse. The building sits silent and empty.

Then I hear it.

At first, it’s only a low hum carrying through the night. I take three more steps and the sound gets louder. Hundreds of voices, all shouting and swearing, calling for blood.

Walking in, I’m hit by a wall of heat from the packed bodies that circle the ring in the centre. Cheap cologne and perfume hang in the air, mixing with the musty scent of the old building.

Two fighters tear into each other in the dirt, both soaked in blood. Their faces are swollen and cut, their bodies running on whatever adrenaline they have left. I can already see that they’re past fighting to win. They’re now fighting because they know only one of them is walking out of there.

I know the stories about places like this, and it isn’t pretty. There have been men die in the ring, then their bodies get dumped outside whatever hospital was closest before anyone started asking questions.

This was underground fighting at its worst. There are no flyers or advertising with these places, just whispered invitations and people who know how to keep their mouths shut. I’d been around long enough to earn my place here, stepping into whatever pit I chose.

I can still taste the copper when I think about the first punch I ever threw. I was eight, and it landed on Finn.

I’d been terrified that day. School had been normal, and Mum and Dad were already screaming at each other in the kitchen when I got home—nothing unusual about that. But then Dad grabbed me by the collar, dragged me outside, and shoved me into the back seat of the car. The tyres squealed as he tore out of the driveway.

We had picked up Uncle Ray, who barked directions toward a sprawling Seattle house beside the ocean.

I didn’t know it then, but it turned out to be Finn’s house. He lived in a super-rich area.

I had stupidly argued back against Dad when he told me why I was there, and Uncle Ray answered with a backhand that snapped my head to the side. I froze, my cheek burning, unable to move. A heartbeat later the sting spread across my face, and the tears came before I could stop them.

Uncle Ray’s face had flushed red with anger as he growled at me, “You’ll do as you’re told, Jack. Your mother needs you to do this.”

Dad sat in the front seat silent, while Uncle Ray got out and hauled me from the car by my jacket.

Inside, I stood on the mat opposite Finn, my knees shaking so badly I thought they might give out. When Uncle Ray barked my name, I swung blind.

Somehow, my fist connected with Finn’s face.

After that, Finn’s father decided I had “potential.” That single word had chained me to the underground fight circuit before I’d even finished primary school.

* * *

I elbow my way through the crowd and find Frank. I slide in beside him, pulling my jacket tighter against the chill.

Frank tilts his head, eyes fixed on the fighters.

“You’re up in three.”

Three fights. “Good. Plenty of time to warm up. Bit stiff, it’s been a long drive.”

I stand there listening to the wet slap of flesh meeting bone as it echoes around the warehouse. My pulse kicks hard, and without thinking, I start bouncing on the balls of my feet.

Finn calls it weaponising, says I look like Henry Cavill loading up before a fight.

I stand there, looking at the floor for another minute, watching the guy in jeans. He’s efficient, has no wasted movements, and he makes sure that each hit lands where he wants it. He throws a fast, clean roundhouse, connecting with the other man’s head with a sickening crack. His teeth scatter across the dirt before he drops to the ground.