Page 82 of Ghosted

“Say one more fucking word.”

“Oh, I will.” He flicks ash onto the concrete and smiles through the fence. “That’s why I came.”

The referee shouts behind me, telling us to get ready. My opponent bounces in place across the cage, all shoulders and stupid fucking confidence, acting like this has anything to do with him.

It doesn’t.

Johnny’s voice drops low enough that the crowd can’t catch it.

“I mean, she served me just fine.”

Everything in me goes cold.

Still.

The kind of still that comes right before I do something I can’t take back.

Johnny laughs softly, delighted by whatever the fuck shows on my face before I can bury it.

“Relax,” he says. “She’s just so generous that one.”

My hands flex once at my sides and I turn to face him.

Johnny’s eyes glitter through the chain-link.

“Or maybe,” he says, smiling through the fence, “she just liked walking away with something from me more.”

The whistle blows.

I hear it, but I’m already gone.

My opponent moves first, and this time, I let him.

His fist cracks across my jaw hard enough to snap my head sideways, and the crowd fucking erupts like they’ve been waiting all night to see Wraith bleed. He drives into me shoulder-first, shoving me back into the chain-link. Metal bites into my spine and my hands come up on instinct, but my head isn’t in the cage anymore.

It’s on Alice.

It’s on Johnny’s mouth saying she served me just fine.

Fuck him.

Fuck his voice.

Fuck every second I wasn’t there.

My opponent swings again, and I block too late. Pain bursts across my cheekbone, hot and clean, but it barely registers. The fence rattles behind me. The crowd gets louder, hungry because I’m taking hits I should’ve seen coming.

Get your fucking shit together, Jagger.

Move.

Hit him and end this.

Johnny steps closer to the cage, but he isn’t laughing.

Now, he’s smiling.

Wide. Cocky. Evil as fuck.