Grudge Match

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Your head got knocked around a little, girl. It will do that from time to time while it works on righting itself. No worries. And we will get you something for that headache I see in your eyes too. Fix you right up. Here, let me help you up onto the bed," he offered after wheeling me into a small curtain-draped 'room,' and parking me beside the bed. His hands went under my arm from the side, helping me onto my feet. I didn't think I needed help until I swayed.

  "Thank you," I said as my butt got onto the side of the bed, my hands gripping the edge, holding on in case I toppled.

  "Let me just help you get hooked up," he offered, moving the chair so he could slide in, and clip a heart rate monitor to my finger. "And I will go find a doctor right now to check you over and get you some meds. Any allergies?" he asked, shuffling around.

  "Ah, not that I know of, but I haven't really taken many medications."

  "Alrighty. So I can assume you're not currently taking any medications?"

  "No."

  "Daily aspirin, supplements..."

  "Ah, just a multi-vitamin."

  "Alright, great. I am just going to take a look at your head real quick," he said as he put the chart down, and slipped on gloves. "Just so I can tell the doctor what he is coming into. Oh, not as bad as I thought," he offered, carefully pulling apart my hair, then touching the sides of what had to be a decent cut. "Alrighty," he said, pulling off, and tossing the gloves. "I am going to see who I can find for you, honey," he said as he shuffled off. Like the lady at the admissions desk - sweet, but professional.

  Alone, I looked over myself, seeking bruises, scratches, anything. I found a scrape on the back of one calf, but that was it. A mental body scan came back with the pains from before - the migraine, the chin, the back of my head, and a soreness in my neck. My back hurt a bit as well, likely from the fall with nothing to break it. I didn't, thankfully, feel any kind of pain between my thighs, my panties were still on, and I hoped to God that was proof enough that that horror hadn't happened to me while I was unconscious. Or before, seeing as I couldn't remember hardly any of the day.

  There was the distinct memory of padding into my kitchen with the first beams of sun casting the room in a warm glow, standing beside the coffee pot, waiting for it to drip. I walked to my closet.

  Then nothing.

  The whole day was gone.

  Had I been drugged?

  Could a blow to the head really muddle up your brain that much?

  I guess I would find out.

  Two hours later, I had been cleaned up and had a CT scan to check for a likely - as it turned out, a definite - concussion. I was stitched. I was given pain medicine that only barely took the edge off.

  Then, out of nowhere, there was a cop in my room.

  Asking questions I had absolutely no answers to. About what happened to me. About the man who brought me in. Aside from a description of him and a lame recounting of a black sports car, I had nothing to offer.

  He gave me his card in case I remembered, and left without another word.

  "Honey," Michael said a few minutes after the doctor left, talking about discharge papers and dissolving stitches, and prescriptions to fill, then left. "You okay?"

  "I, ah, thought I would maybe be staying here," I admitted. How could they expect me to just... move on when I had no idea what had happened over the course of almost twenty-one hours of my life?

  "Normally, you might, sweets," he said, looking over a folder, flipping pages. "But we are out of beds, and sticking you in a hallway would be cruel and unusual with your migraine. You don't have anyone to stay with?"

  Not close by.

  "I don't even know where my car is," I admitted.

  "The doc would prefer you don't drive tonight or maybe for the next few days anyway. We can call you a cab."

  Right. Because my phone was also missing.

  Along with my purse.

  My IDs.

  My keys.

  My cash.

  My credit cards.

  You know, all the things that make up most of your life.

  I did have cash at home though, so I could pay the cab.

  And I had the internet there to pause my credit cards, and maybe see about having the car company track my car through the GPS or something. I wasn't sure I could do that, but it was worth a shot.

  "Ah, yeah, please call me a cab."

  So then, I was on my way home, head throbbing still despite the pain medicine, maybe because the stress of life was adding to the actual pain.

  But, I reminded myself, clinging to the good like I was raised, I only had the head and chin injury, and the sore neck from whatever caused it. The concussion went along with that. I wasn't beaten. I wasn't raped.

  There were small miracles in every bad situation.

  I asked the cab driver to wait, trying to make my way up to my apartment without getting too lightheaded, having to go dig my spare key out from where it was hidden in a planter at the end of the hall since my keys were missing, then paying him, and dropping myself into bed with my laptop.

  An hour later, my cards were paused, my bank account was checked (no withdrawals, thank goodness!), and my car company said they could send me a location. Which I was pretty sure I scribbled down before I passed out.

  The last thought before doing so was wondering if the doctor had said I did or didn't need to be kept awake after a concussion like you always saw in the movies.

  But by then, it was too late to change it anyway.

  THREE

  Ward

  I got an hour of sleep.

  Not because I didn't have time for more, but because every goddamn time I tried to close my eyes, the look on her face came back to me.

  The look when she found out I was leaving her there scared and alone and confused.

  The look of betrayal.

  It didn't matter that I knew she had no actual right to feel betrayed by my departure. I was just a stranger. A stranger who did the right thing. That was it. I had no obligation to her well-being after putting her into the capable hands of the hospital staff.

  But there was that odd chest-tug sensation I had no way to place whenever I thought about it.

  Finally, around six AM, I got out of bed, took a run, showered, dressed, and made my way out of my apartment, calling someone to deal with the bloodstains in the car, then waiting for it to be dealt with before I made my way back to Hex to check out the cameras.

  For some reason, the feed wouldn't come through at home. I figured there was just a glitch. Though there damn well shouldn't have been one with how much I paid for it.

  But shit happened.

  And the hardwired system was at Hex where I needed to go to and do some work anyway.

  I pulled into the lot, a little surprised to see a car parked across the street considering the early hour. Sometimes, if the lots in the main part of town filled up, it spilled over into the side streets, but there was nothing going on this early.

  Figuring maybe it was someone from Hex who got wasted and Uber'd home, I shrugged it off, and let myself into the building.

  Where I spent the next goddamn hour and a half on the phone with the alarm company because I couldn't get the footage off the computers in my office either. In fact, the system wasn't working at all somehow.

  Two hours, and three cups of coffee later, I had two of my cameras working again - the one facing the street, and the one facing the back lot. The rest, apparently, they had to come out and look at.

  I bit back a comment about incompetence, hung up, and went for another refill. It was just going to be that kind of day apparently.

  Except, when I came to sit back down, my eyes drifted over to one of the two lit screens on my wall, seeing movement across the street. Figuring it was the hangover-laden idiot from the night before, I went to look away and get back to work, when something just made me pause.

  And there she was.

  The girl from behind the dumpster.

  The gir
l whose eyes kept me tossing and turning all night, those obnoxiously appealing light green eyes, and their look of hurt.

  Adalind Hollis.

  Even her damn name was fucking beautiful.

  There she was, walking up the street toward the car. A far cry from the outfit the night before, she had on a pair of gray yoga pants - and I tried (and failed) not to notice just how great they clung to her high, round ass - and a simple, hugely oversized beige sweater. It was big enough that I was pretty sure it belonged to a man, complete with dark brown elbow patches when I saw her raise her arms to cup around her eyes as she looked in the window. Her wavy brown hair was pulled up in a style I was pretty sure I hadn't seen since elementary school - two pigtails up high on either side of the head. I guessed it was the only way to keep it all out of the stitches she likely had.

  I wasn't sure what she was looking for in the window of the small blue car, but then she looked around a little helplessly, taking in the couple of houses further down and, well little else. Then her gaze went to the school, I swear looking right at the camera, brows a little knitted, teeth nipping into her lower lip.

  Then she was looking around before she crossed the street, moving into the dead space of non-working cameras before the one in the back lot picked her up again, making a bee-line for the dumpster.

  I had a feeling she still didn't remember.

  She was trying to piece it together.

  She was trying to put her night back together.

  My ass needed to stay in my chair.

  It was none of my business.

  But as she moved behind the dumpster and out of view, I, apparently, was no longer listening to my gut instinct.

  I left my coffee, and made my way up the stairs then outside, moving across the lot to stand beside the dumpster, seeing the girl squatting down reaching her hand under the dumpster, dragging something small and pink out.

  A purse.

  "Thank God," she said as she brought it up, flipping it open, and going inside. It wasn't a joyous Thank God though. If anything, it was just a strange, resigned, hollow sound.

  "Adalind," I heard myself call, without even realizing I was planning on doing it.

  Surprised, she yelped and jerked back, but because of the awkward position, fell back, landing hard on her ass.

  "Relax," I demanded, voice having an odd soft edge I had never heard there before.

  Her head whipped over, lips parted. "You!" she said in a whisper-hiss, more accusing than any I had heard before.

  "Yeah, me," I agreed, nodding, watching as she moved to her knees, then stood, reaching behind to brush off her pants. This close, I could see that the sweater actually swallowed up her hands when her arms went down.

  "You just left me there," she said, losing the small bit of anger there had been there a second before, instead just sounding sad. Which, well, was a lot fucking worse. "I had no idea where you found me, where my belongings were, what happened to me. You were the only link to any of that, and you left me there. Without even giving me a name."

  "Ward."

  Her brows knitted at that information.

  "Your name is Ward?"

  "Ross Ward," I clarified, realizing that normal citizens went by things like first names. What can I say, the only people I spent any time around were decidedly not normal citizens. Gun runners, mafia, drug dealers, contract muscle, those were the people I saw in my daily life.

  Criminals.

  Thugs.

  Lowlives.

  You know, my colleagues.

  "Ross," she repeated, and I liked it a little too much the way it rolled off her tongue. "What is this?" she asked, waving a hand at the building. "I mean, why would I be behind a dumpster in a party dress I don't remember owning, on a Thursday night?"

  Shaky ground.

  Hex was able to exist because only the types of people who went to things like underground fighting clubs knew about it. And those types of people knew that if you didn't keep shit on the DL, that the normal folks would happen in, be appalled, and rat it out.

  But this woman clearly needed answers, and thanks to the cameras being on the fritz, this was the only one I could give to her.

  "Hex," I supplied.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "This," I said, waving at the school, "is called Hex. It's a... club," I hedged, figuring it was best to keep it need-to-know.

  Her eyes went past me to take in the building that genuinely did look like it was on the verge of collapse. The brick was filthy; the mortar between was chipping. The roof looked as though it needed replacement a decade ago. The windows, while intact, were covered in a layer of filth and grime so you couldn't just look inside. It looked every bit the abandoned school that it had been.

  That was just how I wanted it though.

  If it didn't look suspicious, no one would come sniffing around.

  "The school is a club?" she asked, brows together. "But... there isn't a sign or any... oh," she said, nodding, looking back at me. "This is like one of those underground club things that you hear about, but aren't sure actually exist."

  "They exist." Way more than most people realized. There were underground clubs for anything you could set your mind to.

  "It's just... I don't really go to clubs. I don't understand why I would be here."

  "Maybe you came with friends."

  "I don't really have any," she said with a shrug. "Unless Millie, my seventy-year-old neighbor with the best shortbread in the world counts."

  "Find it hard to believe you don't have friends, babe."

  "I... I haven't been here that long. And, like I said, I am not a club-type person, so where was I going to meet any?"

  Having no actual friends myself, I guess that made enough sense.

  "I wish I had some answers for you, but my cameras aren't working right. I was hoping to catch whatever went down." She nodded at that, resigned to not knowing, though clearly upset about it. "Whoa," I said when she went to duck her head, and almost face-planted into the dumpster. My hands went out, grabbing her at the waist, pulling her a little closer as she slow-blinked. "You okay?"

  "Dizzy," she admitted.

  "Concussion," I concluded, wondering what the fuck would possess her to get out of bed after what had to be a pretty decent one. Or, for that matter, why the damn hospital discharged her when she clearly didn't have anyone to help take care of her. "Come on," I said, wrapping an arm around her lower back, then walking us both back toward the door that led down two flights, and into the finished basement.

  "Whoa," was her first response, planting her feet, looking around. "Is that a cage?"

  FOUR

  Adalind

  Okay.

  What the heck?

  A cage?

  He had a fighting cage in the basement of an old, abandoned, crumbling school?

  Strike that; he had an underground fighting club in the basement of an old, abandoned, crumbling school?

  Because that was absolutely what this was.

  If you kept your eyes to the left and back, all you saw was a type of, well, lounge. It wasn't right to call it a club. 'Club' sounded seedy. 'Club' sounded like sticky floors from spilled drinks, dark walls, too much makeup, sketchy backbars, huge crowds, loud music, frat boys, watered-down drinks made straight from the speed rack, gyrating bodies, and flashing lights.

  This didn't give off that vibe at all.

  This seemed like some upscale lounge with its dark, sleek, scratch-less floors, the dark, long bar toward the back with shining bottles in the backbar, the comfortable seating from tables-for-two to actual couches and chairs.

  I half-expected to smell cigar smoke in the air.

  But if your eyes went left, you saw a massive hexagonal cage raised up off the floor by a few feet. Beside it on the wall was a giant flatscreen TV for, I imagined, keeping score?

  And instead of cigar smoke, you smelled just a hint of bleach.

  For the blood.

  Geez.


  "Come on," Ross said, pulling me forward, lowering me down into a black real leather armchair that was new enough to be shiny still, but old enough to let you really sink into it. "I'll get you some water," he declared after watching me with those intense - maybe even intimidating - eyes for a long moment.

  I took a deep breath, looking down at my dirty purse. I wasn't sure how if I just fell, it ended up wedged under the dumpster. But at least there it had been safe from passers-by which meant all my cash, IDs, and credit cards were still inside.

  Small miracles, I reminded myself. You had to be thankful for them.

  Even if you had no idea why you were at some underground fighting club the night before in a dress you didn't own, where you somehow fell down and got knocked unconscious.

  "How's the head doing?" he asked as he handed me a glass of water, already sweating it was so cold, and sat down across from me in a black leather slipper chair.

  "Not great," I admitted because, well, it was nice to have someone to talk to it about.

  My mother had called that morning, and despite never doing such a thing, I screened the call. She knew me too well. She would pick up on something being seriously off. The next thing I would know, she would be on my doorstep, fresh off a plane, demanding details while she made me soup. And while a huge part of me actually wanted that, needed that, the other part needed to focus. I didn't need to fall into the fear and the uncertainty and pain. I needed to keep it together and find answers.

  Losing the majority of a day was simply not going to work for me.

  "Yeah, makes sense with a hit like that. How many stitches?"

  "It was 'only' eighteen," I said, hearing a bit of resentment in my voice, annoyed at the doctor for saying that to me the night before. Sure, other patients maybe needed thirty, but he made it seem like I was being an alarmist over eighteen. When eighteen stitches still said that parts of me that should have gone together, weren't going together without assistance anymore.

  Also, they had needed to shave just a small part of my head to do it, a fact I was still mourning, even though I knew better than to put so much stock in my own vanity.