Caged: Cellar Door Series

by Pars, K.

  CAGED

  Cellar Door Series Book 1

  K. Pars

  First Edition, November 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by K.Pars

  Cover Art and Design Copyright © 2014 by Crazy Cracker

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced nor used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To quote Lil’ Wayne, “I got a small circle; I’m not with different crews…” To my crew, you all know who you are; this is where hanging with you got me. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, just saying. To my Crazy Cracker and DLBFF who started me on this ride some time ago in a different forum….if it looks like steak, smells like steak then it’ll taste like steak. If it looks like steak, smells like flowers, ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuun! To all the readers, the writers, the up all nighters…..enjoy.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  Rubbing a hand over my head, the short hair spiking haphazardly, I stood from my bed, my hand falling lower to rub at my aching neck. Truth be told, my entire body was sore but you had to expect that when you treated yourself like a punching bag on the regular. Fighting is what I live for and hadn’t been able to turn away from, not that I’d tried to anyway. Last night’s wins were no big surprise, it wasn’t like I hadn’t ever lost but the past couple of years my record had been pretty fucking stellar. That record was paying the bills and keeping me sane. Well, as sane as I could be given I had a two second temper that most people avoided like they avoided a dose of the clap.

  If I suffered a few aches and pains the morning after a good night of fighting, so be it. Club Cellar Door’s basement had become my home away from home. The underground cage fights that took place, the cash that flowed, the entire vibe had been my savior; but lately I really wanted to get back to being legit, score going pro and make something of myself. Until that could happen I was honing my skills as often as fights could be set up for me at Cellar Door and learning to control my temper. That fucker helped me win fights and lose them, a point that had been made more than clear to me.

  A few years back I had damn neared ruined my chances at a real career when I’d lost my shit during a legal amateur fight and seriously injured my opponent. I had been a team competitor and the team owner did not want that kind of crazy associated with him. Word had spread faster than I ever thought it could and my legit fights had fallen by the way side.

  Matt Layne, my stick partner, the one fucker that always stood by me, was trying to pull it back together. It had been a long hard climb to get my ass back on decent cards, to get recognition because I was good not because I was notorious, to get the life I wanted back. Recently a few real talented amateurs had been dropping by Cellar Door looking to get on a card with me. Matt swore on his left nut and first born child that it was a good thing, meant someone was taking notice of me again. About fucking time.

  Slipping from my room, I padded down the hall to the bathroom, leaned a hand against the wall to steady myself after stepping up to the toilet and started to relieve my aching kidneys. The celebrating I’d done last night was almost as energetic as the fights and had lasted a helluva a lot longer than the fights had. The sheer volume of alcohol I’d kicked back should have kept me in my bed for at least one full day but you couldn’t hold a professional partier down and I’m almost as good at drinking as I am at fighting. Proud fucker right here....yeah buddy, I’ve really made something out of my life. Fuck I need a change. The only good thing about the booze was it evened me out when I was agitated as hell. Polar opposite of most.

  Flushing, I reached into the shower and turned the water on full blast. Shucking my boxers down over my thighs, I stepped out of them, kicking them aside and easing under the liquid rain with a deep groan of satisfaction.

  The hot spray worked to ease my tense muscles and I couldn’t help but let loose another groan as my body warmed and relaxed. My chin dropped to my chest, the water raining down over me, rivulets racing along my inked skin before slipping off my feet to circle down the drain, a nice metaphor for how my life had felt lately, circling a drain.

  Winning wasn’t even as satisfying as it once had been. Now it was more like a job, one I’ve been fanfuckingtastic at but still a job. Instead of punching a clock, I clocked my opponent’s faces. Going pro would offer me the best of the best and I wanted to show what I was made of not just end up some has been could have been. Cellar Door didn’t just put anyone in the cage but sometimes the competition was lacking and that’s when it felt like I was running on auto pilot.

  I live for a challenge, for something to keep the gears turning in my head so auto pilot has never been my happy fucking place so to speak. Without a 9-5 deal or school to attend I had plenty of down time too and I had been filling it training, fighting, fucking or drinking and not necessarily in any particular order over the past few years because it wasn’t like there was anything else to be worried about. At least not anymore after the stunt I’d pulled getting all but banned from legit fights but hopefully change was on the horizon. Not that I put a lot of faith in hope or anything else that you didn’t do yourself.

  Raising my face into the stream, I blindly reached for the soap, began running it over my skin as her face drifted behind my closed eyes. Yup, number one reason for diving head first into a bottle right there, same damn reason I lost my shit and my first chance at going pro not that it had been her fault. No that lay squarely on my own shoulders, she was just the fuel for the fire. Kylee Grace Parrish. My nightmare, my angel; my fucking kryptonite.

  I never realized how much I relied on Kylee keeping my ass in line until she’d left for college. Cursing out loud, I forced my eyes open and tried to banish the dark haired beauty from my thoughts. It never failed to lead down a crap ass road. I would start with a whole shit ton of good memories, most of which Kylee had a starring role in and then those thoughts would go places that living through once had been bad enough.

  I hadn’t fallen too far from the family tree. I drank like a fish and fought like a fucking warrior, two things my old man excelled in that I had perfected; the only difference was I get paid to kick someone’s ass that was at least my size or bigger where pops preferred to pick on someone smaller than him, at least for a few years. Then I’d grown into my own and showed him just what his lessons had taught me one night right after I’d turned 16. Hell I’d even shown him some extra credit he wasn’t expecting.

  The only reason he’d still been breathing was because Matt found me and stopped me, at a cost of a few bruises to his own body before I realized who it was, where the hell I was and what the hell I was doing. I had blanked the fuck out; gone into a full blown rage and in the process had hurt Matt. It was something I’d always regretted; carried it around with me like an albatross even though he’d forg
iven me immediately, hell the fucker never even blamed me to begin with. It was however proof positive how much of my old man lived in me. All the fucked up parts apparently.

  It was the last time I’d spoken to my pops or stepped foot inside of the house I’d grown up in. At sixteen I’d come into cash because of the mom I couldn’t even remember; whose life insurance legally became mine. Pops claimed I owed him for having to raise me after my mom died. I didn’t owe him a fucking thing. I’d paid him more than enough in bruises and blood for a life time. It wasn’t that much that I was rich, but it was enough to get me started in life and enough to piss my pops off that he didn’t have fingers on it.

  It was definitely enough to pay for the MMA and Jiu Jitsu classes my football coach had been gotten me into in 10th grade. I had soaked up every minute of instruction and then some, learning to slow down and control my actions, at least most of the time. It was enough to put a down payment on a decent house but I just hadn’t felt ready for that yet, so I’d opted to get an apartment after graduation, bank the rest and was adding to it with the winnings from my fights. I had a nice little bank roll built and no real clear idea what I wanted to do with it. Other than my truck and my bike, I was just saving it up.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about my pops, he was all I knew, all I remembered, but it wasn’t in the father son style of thought, far fucking from it, he was just a breeder, a reproducer. Any feelings I’d had contrary to that had been physically removed with each blow he’d delivered to me, with the insults he’d constantly shouted at me. Like I had wanted to live without a mom, like the money that had been designated mine was what I fucking asked for. I’d have given every cent back to have a memory of my mom or a minute of fucking peace growing up with pops.

  After knocking pops on his ass, unconscious and damn near in a coma, I’d spent the last few years of high school living between Matt’s and Kylee’s and avoiding pops at all costs. Kylee and Matt’s folks had let me bounce between their houses, letting me choose where I stayed knowing that I needed that small amount of control over my life. Funny thing was pops hadn’t fought the emancipation that Kylee’s parents had helped arrange, he had let the courts grant it without contest and I’d felt free, for a little while anyway.

  I had been too young to realize at sixteen that Kylee’s parents had put in a no contact clause as part of the emancipation but as soon as I hit eighteen it was game on for pops to show up at my apartment and tell me how much I owed him. How I had took what was his. Yeah…total head fuck there.

  Anger and rage still runs deep in my veins whenever pops ghosts through my mind so it’s better that he doesn’t. What I know for fact is I’ve always been scared shitless I will end up like him and I wouldn’t put that on my worst enemy. It’s easier to keep people at a distance, to only give them what I was willing to spare them which had never been much. One thing pops had taught me well, people couldn’t hurt you if you didn’t give them any ammunition to work with. The physical blows had hurt; the shit he’d spewed at me cut way fucking worse. Nobody was going to have that kind of control over me again. Fuck that. Keep emotions and feelings caged up and locked down. Lesson learned.

  Forcing all that shit from my mind, I finished soaping up and shampooing my hair, shaking the short wet ends after rinsing, hoping to clear my mind off of where it kept heading. I’d actually managed to not think about Kylee or the past for the last few months and didn’t want to fall back into her constant companionship in my skull again. Even though she’d gone off to college and had barely been home the past four years, she’d maintained a voice in my head, a place in my chest as much as I had fought against it. Four years of that had been more than enough; it was time for me to let it go; something I’d supposedly done already only the organ pumping blood through my body seemed to fucking disagree which is exactly why I didn’t listen to that traitorous fuck.

  Killing the water, I grabbed a towel off the rack and stepped past the shower curtain, wiping down as I went before wrapping the towel around my waist. Rubbing my hand over my jaw I glanced in the mirror, blue eyes stared back at me, one with a nice purple discoloration under the lower lid but at least the swelling had gone down.

  I had my mother's eyes so I’d been told, ice blue, eyes that changed, deepened in color depending on my mood and given I could be a moody asshole, they changed often. Pictures held up the stories I’d heard about where my peepers came from but there were only a few of those. When it came to my mom, I had nothing to hold on too, nothing to remember, just the fact that her eyes were mine.

  The black hair unfortunately was not mom’s; that was pure pops. Starring at myself I noticed I could use a shave but it wasn’t like I was all Duck Dynasty and shit, just a light stubble that most the ladies down at the club never seemed to mind and since I had a tender spot on my jaw from a nicely thrown punch during one of the fights the night before, I skipped it and headed back to my room.

  Shutting the door I heard my roommate’s footfalls sound down the hall along with another lighter set I knew damn well didn’t live with us. Chuckling I got dressed, jerking my cargo shorts up over my hips and shrugged into a black t-shirt that I’d torn the sleeves off of after one had ripped at the seam. Good old Mattie boy apparently got himself some nookie last night. Kid needed it bad too. I’d been worried my boy was gonna grow a fuzzy palm lately.

  He was my stick partner and had been almost as long as Kylee had. We'd all been friends as far back as elementary school, had been almost inseparable and I thanked everything I could put some belief in for them both.

  Matt was one of a very few I trusted with everything so it made sense that he had moved in to my apartment after we graduated high school and the kid had become my personal manager for my fights after I got dropped from my team. He took care of scouting out my opponents once the cards had been set up at Cellar Door, he managed the money angle and he made sure I was prepared before entering the cage both physically and mentally, as much as he could. Fucker was all good by me, always had been.

  Glancing at my cell, there were several missed texts and a couple of messages that I continued to ignore as I headed to the kitchen. Most of them were from people that had been at the fight and had wanted back in the VIP section of the club afterwards looking for free drinks or females that just wanted to get it in. Bunch of fucking vulchers.

  Most of them wouldn’t have paid me any attention if it weren’t for the cash flow they were making off the fights at Cellar Door; they damn sure hadn’t been at the legit fights I had been involved in. With each win I took and the dollars that fattened up not just my bank roll but theirs, more and more people liked to pretend they knew me, not just heard of me, but knew me which was a bunch of shit. I’d always kept my circle small.

  Fighting at Cellar Door wasn’t exactly a legal profession, the fighting wasn’t the problem, the lack of rules and the gambling going on that was kept on the down low was the issue. A shit ton of money was being made off the fights by a lot of players and nobody wanted the cash flow to halt. Even still, attendance was off the fucking chain. All walks of life tried to get in to watch and while I loved fighting, I could do without crush of people.

  I always thought it funny that the more asshole I was, the more people gravitated towards me, at least until they pissed me off. Then it was asses and elbows the opposite direction. I had been that way even back in school. I’d always excelled in sports and used the physical exertion to try to keep my head straight and my soul calmed enough that I didn’t feel like ripping the heads off every stump stupid fucking person that crossed my path. My patience for ignorance had always been NIL. Being judged because of how I looked, good or bad or pitied for the shit storm that made up my life had always been a hang up of mine. That hadn’t changed, you couldn’t fix stupid and I couldn’t deal with it. It was more like I didn’t give a flying fuck for people and their stuck up opinions, some things would never change, my patience for stupid hadn’t grown any.


  In school, the girls had always been up in my space because of sports and that attention had gotten worse when I started getting inked. The dudes either hated me because of the attention or wanted to be me for exactly the same reason. Kylee had turned her nose up in disgust more than once at the blatant advances me and Matt had received. A neon sign with an arrow pointing our way would have been less subtle than some of the girls had been; that had only gotten worse when I took up fighting at Cellar Door after blowing my initial amateur gig.

  In high school my teachers had frowned on me getting up and pacing a classroom because I was agitated or bored out of my skull or just walking out and I’m pretty sure the ink scared them shitless but my grades had been decent so they didn’t give me too much flack. That and my coaches rode their asses about needing me, funny how that worked. If your school had a beast athletic program, the coaches had more pull than the teachers.

  All in all school hadn’t been the worst experience but just wasn’t my bag. It’s exactly why I hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks in college even knowing the disappointment it would be to Kylee, Matt and their folks. I just couldn’t do it, being cooped up while somebody droned on and on had driven me bat shit crazy.

  Unlike me Matt had liked going to school and in high school had rode my ass about attendance and shit when I stayed at his parents; same as Kylee had done when I’d stayed there. It was part of the reason my grades had been alright through high school. Matt had even gone on to get four years of college in and had just graduated with a business degree. What the fuck he was doing wasting his time handling shit for my fights was beyond me. He liked to claim it was easy money for him, I knew better. He spent a shit ton of time researching my opponents, organizing my training, getting shit lined up to start me back in some legit fights and hopefully get my career back in the right direction. That had been on top of going to class and homework.