by James Tate
HATE
MADISON KATE #1
Tate James
Contents
STALK TATE
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 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
LIAR
A letter from the author (raw and unedited)
Also By Tate James
Tate James
HATE: Madison Kate #1
Copyright © Tate James 2020
All rights reserved
First published in 2020
James, Tate
HATE: Madison Kate #1
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Tamara Kokic
Photographer: Michelle Lancaster www.michellelancaster.com
Model: Nicky James
Editing: Heather Long (content) and Jax Garren (line).
For Megan D’Ath and her beautiful baby, Archer.
STALK TATE
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1
I shouldn’t be here.
If my father knew…
But I would take those risks to witness this fight. This fighter.
Music boomed from the speaker beside me, and the crowd got louder. More frenzied and impatient. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins, pushing my own excitement to such a level that I could barely stay still. I started bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet just to keep from screaming or fainting or something.
A grin curled my lips, and I nodded my head to the familiar tune. "Clichéd choice, but could have been worse," I muttered under my breath. “Bodies” by Drowning Pool continued to rage, and I pushed up on my toes, trying to catch a glimpse of one of the reasons we’d skipped out on our shitty Halloween party.
"MK, I don't get it," my best friend, Bree, whined from beside me. Her hands covered her ears, and her delicate face was screwed up like she was in physical pain. "Why are we even here? This is so far from our side of town it's scary. Like, legit scary. Can we go already?"
"What?" I exclaimed, frowning at her and thinking I’d surely just heard her wrong. "We can't leave now; the fight hasn't even started yet!" I needed to yell for her to hear me, and she cringed again. She had reason to. In a crowd dominated mostly by men—big men—Bree and I stood zero chance of even seeing the octagon, let alone the fighters. Or, if I were honest, one fighter in particular. So we'd climbed up onto one of the massive industrial generators to get a better view.
The one we’d picked just happened to also have a speaker sitting on it, and the volume of the music was just this side of deafening.
"Babe, we've been here for over an hour," Bree complained. "I'm tired and sober, my feet hurt, and I'm sweating like a bitch. Can we please go?" She tried to glare at me, but the whole effect was ruined by the fact that she still had a cat nose and whiskers drawn on her face—not to mention a fluffy tail strapped to her ass.
Not that I could judge. My costume was "sexy witch," but at least I'd been able to ditch my pointed hat. Now I was just wearing a skanky, black lace minidress and patent leather stiletto boots.
It was after midnight on October thirty-first, and we were supposed to be at our friend Veronica's annual Halloween party. Yet Bree and I had decided that sneaking out of the party to attend a highly illegal mixed martial arts fight night would be a better idea. Even better still, it was being held in the big top of a long-abandoned amusement park called The Laughing Clown.
Like that wasn't an infinitely better way to spend the night than being hit on by a boy with a Rolex and then spending all of three minutes with him in the backseat of his Bentley.
Yeah, Veronica's parties all sort of ended the same way, and I for one was over it.
"Bree, I didn't force you to come with me," I replied, annoyed at her badgering. "You wanted to come. Remember?"
Her mouth dropped open in indignation. "Uh yeah, so you wouldn't get robbed or murdered or something trying to hitchhike your way over the divide! MK, I saved your perky ass, and you know it."
I rolled my eyes at her dramatics. "I was going to Uber, not hitchhike. And West Shadow Grove is not exactly the seventh circle of hell."
Her eyes rounded as she looked out over the crowd gathered to watch the fights. "It may as well be. You know how many people get killed in West Shadow Grove every day?"
I narrowed my eyes and called her factual bluff. "I don't, actually. How many?"
"I don't know either," she admitted, "but it's a lot." She nodded at me like that made her statement more convincing, and I laughed.
Whatever else she’d planned to say to convince me to leave was drowned out by the fight commentator. My attention left Bree in a flash, and I strained to see the octagon. Even standing on the generator box for height, we were still far enough away that the view was shitty.
My excitement piqued, bubbling through me like champagne as I twisted my sweaty hands in the stretchy fabric of my dress. The commentator was listing his stats now.
Six foot four, two hundred and two pounds, twenty-three wins, zero draws, zero losses.
Zero losses. This guy was freaking born for MMA.
It wasn't an official fight—quite the opposite. So they didn't elaborate any more than that. There was no mention of his age, his hometown, his training gym… nothing. Not even his name. Only…
"...please give it up for"—the commentator gave a dramatic pause, whipping the crowd into a frenzy—"the mysterious, the undefeated, The Archer!" He bellowed the fighter’s nickname, and the crowd freaking lost it. Myself included.
“Paranoid” by I Prevail poured from the speaker beside us, and by the time the tall, hooded figure had made his way through the crowd with his team tight around him, my throat was dry and scratchy from yelling. Even from this distance, I trembled with anticipation and randomly pictured what it’d be like to climb him like a tree. Except naked.
"I'm going to guess this is why we came?" Bree asked in a dry voice, wrinkling her nose and making her kitty whiskers twitch. Her costume wasn't as absurd as it could be,
since most members of the crowd were in some form of Halloween costume. Even the fighters tonight wore full face masks, and the commentator was dressed as the Grim Reaper.
"You know it is," I shot back, not taking my gaze from the octagon for even a second. I hardly dared blink for fear of missing something.
One of his support team—a guy only a fraction shorter with a similar fighter’s physique and a ball cap pulled low over his face—took the robe from his shoulders, and my breath caught in my throat. His back was to us, but every hard surface was decorated with ink. We were too far away to see details, but I knew—from my borderline obsessive stalking—that the biggest tattoo on his back was of a geometric stag shot with arrows. It was how he’d gotten his nickname. The stag represented his star sign Sagittarius–the Archer.
"Ho-ly shit," Bree gasped, and I knew without looking at her she had suddenly discovered a love for MMA.
"They say he's being scouted for the UFC," I babbled to her, "except they said he has to stop all underground cage matches, and apparently he told them to shove it."
Bree made a sound of acknowledgment, but knowing her, she didn't even know what the UFC was, let alone understand what an incredible achievement that was for a young fighter.
"Shh," I said, even though she hadn't spoken. "It's starting."
In the makeshift octagon, The Archer and his opponent—both wearing nothing but shorts and a plain mask—tapped gloves, and the fight was officially on.
Totally enthralled by the potential of the main event fight, I waited eagerly to see how it was all going to pan out. Would it be an even match of skills and strength, spanning all five rounds? Or would it be a total domination by one fighter? I could only cross my fingers and hope The Archer hadn’t grown cocky with his recent successes and ended up KO'd in thirty seconds like Rhonda Rousey.
The other guy struck first, impatient and impetuous. Watching the way The Archer blocked his attack, then struck back with a vicious jab to the face and knee to the side, I could already tell it would be over before the end of the first round.
“Damn, he’s quick,” I commented, while my fighter of choice dodged and weaved, not allowing any contact from his opponent. Each strike he blocked or evaded, he returned three-fold, until eventually he had the other guy down on the bloodstained mat.
“Is it over?” Bree asked, gripping my arm.
I shook my head. “Not until one of them taps out or, you know”—I shrugged—“gets knocked out.”
“Brutal,” she breathed, but there was a spark in her eyes that said she was having fun.
The Archer's opponent thrashed around like a fish on a hook, just barely holding back the arm threatening to get under his chin. Once the bigger, tattooed fighter got his forearm under there, it'd be all over for the guy whose nickname I hadn't even listened to.
"Come on, come on," I urged, bouncing slightly in my stupidly high heels. "Come on, Archer. Finish him!"
The struggle continued for a few more moments, then some huge-headed asshole moved into my line of sight. Something happened, and the crowd roared. I could only imagine Archer had locked down his choke hold.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, craning my neck to try and see. “Oh come on, move!” This was aimed at the guy blocking my view. Not that he could hear me.
The commentator started counting. It would all be over in ten seconds, if the other guy didn't tap out before that.
"...three...four...five..."
Frustration clawed at me that I couldn't see.
"...six...seven..."
Bang!
Startled and confused, I jerked my attention to Bree at the loud noise. Had a car just backfired? Inside the big top? How the hell was that even possible?
"What was that?" I tried to ask but couldn't hear my own voice. My ears were ringing with a high-pitched sound, and everything else was on mute.
Bree was saying something and tugging on my arm, but I couldn't hear her.
What the fuck is going on?
"MK, come on!" Her words finally penetrated the ringing in my ears, and I stumbled as she dragged me down from our elevated position and into the chaos below.
I shook my head, still confused as fuck, until Bree's panicked yell sank in.
"Someone just got shot," she told me. "We need to get the hell out of here. Now."
Several more shots—because holy shit, she was right—rang out in the crowded space, and people scattered like bowling pins.
Bree and I clutched each other’s hand as we crouched low and made our way as fast as possible to the exit, but we soon realized there was a whole lot more going on than a lone shooter. Between us and the door, an all-out brawl was happening, with at least thirty people swinging punches and kicks. Blood and fuck knew what else flew everywhere, and I just barely dragged Bree out of the way when a burly guy in a leather jacket stumbled back from a punch to his face and would have knocked her over.
"We need to find another way out," I told her, stating the obvious as I searched around for another exit. It was a freaking big top, and there must been almost five hundred people spectating the illegal MMA fight night. The venue had to have loads of other exits. "This way!" I shouted, dragging her behind me as I ducked and weaved through the violent mob.
"MK," my friend exclaimed, tugging on my hand. "Look!"
I followed her shaking finger and saw a puddle of red across the polished concrete floor. A spill of pale blonde hair—the same color mine would be if I hadn't just dyed it hot pink for this costume—and a lifeless hand with chipped nail polish.
"Don't look," I snapped to Bree, yanking on her hand again to get her moving. One girl was already dead, and I sure as shit didn't want to join her.
It only took a few more minutes to get clear of the violent mess inside the big top. The night air held frost, and my teeth chattered as Bree and I hurried away through the dark amusement park.
"Th-that was..." Bree stammered over her words, and I slowed just enough to check that she was okay. Her eyes were wide and haunted, her face pale. She hadn't broken down into hysterical crying yet, so maybe shock was working on our side for once.
If nothing else, it'd hopefully keep her from mentioning why I was so seemingly unaffected by seeing a dead body and all that violence. All that bloodshed.
I locked down the memories of the last dead body I’d seen, stuffing them back into the tiny mental box they’d been in for exactly six years. Halloween was the anniversary of my mom’s murder.
"Stay quiet," I whispered to her, my attention on the shadows around us. "We need to get back to your car and away from here."
My best friend, for all her amazing qualities, had zero clue how much danger we were in.
"What's going on, MK?" she demanded, her voice pitched way too loud for my liking.
"Shh!" I placed a hand over her mouth to emphasize my point. We were tucked into the shadows beside a dilapidated sideshow booth, and I frantically searched around us to check that we were alone. "Bree, you need to trust me. That was no random act of violence. Didn't you see the tattoos on those guys brawling? The patches on their jackets?" Her eyes grew even wider above my hand, and her breath came in jerky, panicked gasps. I nodded, confirming what she'd just guessed. "Yeah. Exactly. We're neck deep in the middle of a gang war, and if we don't get the fuck out of here soon..." I trailed off. She knew what I meant. If either gang—the Wraiths or the Reapers—caught us, the consequences didn't bear thinking about. Let's say death would be the easy way out. Bree would probably get ransomed back to her filthy rich family, but I wouldn’t be so lucky. Not because my father couldn’t pay, but because he’d somehow made an enemy of the Reaper’s leader.
Voices came from nearby, laughing guys, and I pulled Bree farther into the shadows until they'd passed us.
"Let's go," I said softly when their chatter faded away.
Bree was right behind me as I started hurrying back toward where we'd parked. More and more people were spilling out of the big top now, so we kept
our heads down and tried to blend with a group in costumes. It helped that Bree was still in her sexy-cat outfit and my waist-length hair was hot pink. We just looked like regular girls out for a Halloween party.
I almost let the tension drop from my shoulders around the time we made it halfway through the park, but we couldn't hide with the crowd forever. We'd parked Bree's car in a shed behind the south gate, and everyone else was flowing toward the west one.
Silently, I tugged her hand, and the two of us broke away from the crowd, immediately picking up our pace and hurrying past the broken-down bumper cars.
"This was a bad idea," Bree mumbled, but she stuck close behind me as we jogged—in heels—through the scary-as-fuck park. Why had it all seemed so damn exciting when we'd arrived? Suddenly it was like we were stuck inside a horror movie and any minute now someone would jump out with a knife or chainsaw or something.
Adrenaline pumping through my veins, I rounded a corner without checking first and ran straight into the back of a guy in a full Beetlejuice costume.
"Shit, sorry," I exclaimed, catching my balance on my stripper-esque stiletto heels.
I made to move past him, but a huge hand circled my upper arm. He stopped me in my tracks at the same time as I saw the guy he'd been talking to... and the large, open bag of cash on the ground between them.
"Uh..." I licked my lips and flicked a look from Beetlejuice to the other man. "Sorry, we'll get out of your way."
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