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It feels like it takes me a long time to move from where I’m sitting, but I finally do. I can’t help but dart glances to the small device in the corner.
I let my hands roam over the walls to find something, anything really. Pushing the cot to the other corner, I even reach up to the boarded vent, but it's nailed on tight.
Eventually, the footsteps retreat and silence descends.
Stepping down from the cot I sit down, hands folded in my lap as the tears wash over me. I don’t try to stop it, instead, curling over and allowing myself to sob to sleep.
Atlas
Bad Moon Rising
It’s almosttwo in the morning before I finally get the last stragglers out and send Phil home. There are nights where we go all hours but after a fight like tonight, I like to close down rather than let the adrenaline-ridden spectators wreck my place. The energy is contagious, and the mob mentality can run high.
What we do isn’t like the shit you get on TV.
It’s one of the reasons I love it, despite the world it forces me to be a part of.
The raw and grittiness to it and how real it is. The men who fights in my ring know they may not come out. It’s not dirty fighting, but arealfighting.
I reminisce my first underground fighting match—after my parents died when I was eighteen, I came across an entire world of fury and blood. I was so fucking angry after they died, and looking back on it, I’m sure a lot of what I did then was really out of some kind of death wish. It was Jason who found me, fixing me to get in a fight with a man who could have fucking crushed me.
I still got in a fight that night, but rather than end up in the hospital, I ended up at a shitty dive bar, learning about the underground world of fighting, gambling, and so much more I had never been exposed to.
I was hooked.
The corner of my mouth turns up, stretching the scar on my face. The mirth drops at the thought of the night it happened, only months after that night.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,”Jason cries out, hissing as he reaches toward me and the crackling heat.
I wasthe idiot who started the fight that resulted in that fire. The fear of flame hasn’t left me since.
I feel a stab of guilt that I haven’t reached out to Jason in a while. The old fucker never liked me prodding, but fuck knows he could use a hand. He saved my ass enough times. If not for him, the fire that day would have killed rather than scarred me. I make a mental note to track him down soon, make sure he is doing okay.
The guilt hits deeper when I think about the girl who was taken earlier.
When I showed up at a club much like this by accident, I was saved. She was taken by monsters.
Another thought I try to push to the side.
It’s those same monsters I should be worried about, not the random girl I don’t know.
I’m amazed I got away with saying no to the Iron Elite’s offer, but I’m not naive enough to believe they won’t be back. And there will only be so many times I’ll be able to reject them.
On the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Whatever I like to believe, I know I’m not a good man. Legality and following the rules have never been my strong suit. Would it be so different if I just did it, went through with whatever their initiation is to get them off my back?
Certainly nice to have better backing, larger facilities. Not that I have any problem with my current set-up, but they do say bigger is better for a reason.
I mean, the only way I’m getting those fuckers to back off is if I agree. All they really want is someone to make money for them, do their dirty work on the ground.
Fuck, ain’t like it would be the first for me.
These thoughts run through my mind as I head down the street and toward my apartment a few blocks away. I don’t give a shit where I live, and my place reflects that. A shitty one bedroom above a Chinese restaurant is fine for me. Hardly fucking there, anyway.
By the time I walk in the door, my mind feels slightly better.
I know I should sleep, lots to do the next few days, but I don’t even bother going for the bed, instead, heading straight for the bottle of whiskey in my cupboard. I narrow my eyes at the quarter bottle before bringing it up to my mouth. It burns my throat, and I sit down with a thud at the small card table, that is one of my only pieces of furniture. Lighting a smoke, I take another swig.
