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Now there was no more escape. There was only the hatred and the rage.
Tonight was fight night. Sacred Night. Better known as Hallowed Eve. It was the one night my demons were allowed to roam free. I only fought three times a year because I trained hard and fought harder. There was only so much I could put my body through. The rest of the time I just hosted.
There was always a sold-out crowd.
There was always some new punk with more nuts than talent.
There was always blood.
And no one got in without an invitation.
My father, who was getting ready to toss his name onto the presidential ballot, reminded me daily that appearances were everything. Maybe that was why I chose to look like Death—because that was who I was. Untouchable. Unpunishable. Unbreakable. Irredeemable.
I had one good and perfect thing in my life, and I killed her. She would never smile again, never laugh again, never fall apart on my cock again. One look in the mirror at the skull painted on my face, and I was reminded of what I did that night, of who I really was.Death.
And God save any motherfucker who stepped into the cage with me.
Lucifer’s ears perked up, and his head lifted from where he was lying on the bathroom floor. A low growl rumbled in his chest. He never barked. Didn’t need to. His growl was enough to make a grown man piss his pants.
I tossed the brush in the sink and hopped off the bathroom counter. A second later, someone knocked on my door. Who needed a security system when you had a one hundred twenty-pound rottweiler?
Lucifer trotted alongside me all the way to the door. His heavy pawsthump, thump, thumpedon the hardwood floor. We were the same, Lucifer and me. Scary as fuck on the outside, loyal to a fault, and we’d both rip the fucking throat out of anyone who did us dirty. I never went anywhere without him.
Deuce, my trainer, was on the other side.
“The fights don’t start for another hour,” I told him, not offering to open the door and let him in.
He held out a bouquet of roses. “Your usual. Thought I’d drop ‘em off and check on you.”
What he meant was,“I wanted to make sure you aren’t high.”Fucker should have known by now. I didn’t fuck with my body when I was training. Fighting had replaced drugs as my escape. I didn’t need them when I was focused on something else.
I grabbed the roses. “Thanks.” Then I shut the door without another word. I’d go downstairs and get wrapped when it was time. I wasn’t in the mood for lectures. I got enough of those from my dad.
Plastic wrapping crackled as I tossed the bouquet onto the table by the door. The red roses stood out against the clear cellophane wrapper. The petals reminded me of Lyric, of the way she’d plucked them and sent them into the wind at her mom’s funeral.
“And the fire and the rose are one.”– T.S. Eliot.
According to Eliot, the rose was a divine symbol of love and the fire represented Purgatory. My heart was consumed by the hell I was trapped in. Nothing summed up my life better.
Which was why after every fight, I dipped one in lighter fluid and set it on fire before handing it to someone, anyone, usually the girl with the best tits in the crowd. It didn’t matter to me. They were all nameless faces.
I plucked a flower out of the bunch, fed Lucifer a piece of red meat, and drowned out the voices inside my head with some Lamb of God. An hour later, I was downstairs straddling a chair while Deuce wrapped my hands.
On the other side of the double doors, in the auditorium where the cage was set up, the crowd chanted and cheered as Big Tim announced the next fight. Music blared over the sound system, channeling an electric energy throughout the building as the fighter made his way to the cage. I knew the lights out there had dimmed, leaving nothing but the red glow from a few spotlights and the bright light above the cage. The countdown was on. Two more fights, then it was my turn. This was the moment my heart should race. Beads of sweat should trace my brow. But I was as calm as I’d been when I chopped up Lucifer’s steak dinner with a meat cleaver.
“You gotta slow down or you’re gonna self-destruct,” Deuce said as he pulled the tape tight. “The fighting. The drinking.” He glanced up at me. “The drugs.”
I twirled the toothpick between my teeth. “Should I call youDadnow? You gonna start fucking my mom and barking out orders?”
He cinched the tape tighter than necessary. “She does have a nice ass…”
“You know you don’t have to use the wholepiss-him-off-so-he’ll-get-angrytactic on me, right?” There was enough anger inside me to fuel a dozen fights. Maybe more.
He winked. “Who says it’s a tactic?”
Asshole.
I rolled my eyes and got up, the chair sliding across the floor as I stood.
