by Amity Cross
As if that was the least of my problems.
The referee slid to his knees beside us and raised his hand, blowing the whistle. The crowd roared, thumping their feet on the stands. Another ten points to Reign of Terror. I figured that put me in about third place now. Didn’t matter either way, the pay out would be a good one tonight. Another pointless check to deposit into my bank account in the morning.
As soon as I stepped out of the cage, Dean pushed through the crowd and grabbed me roughly around the arm.
Shoving him off I snapped, “What’s your fucking problem?”
“What’s my problem?” he exclaimed. “That’s my fucking problem.” He pointed to the cage, anger simmering in his eyes.
“You’re the only one,” I replied stubbornly. “I fucking won if you hadn’t noticed. Third. Place.”
“You need to cut this crap out,” he hissed.
“Crap?” I asked, my eyebrows rising.
“Yeah, crap. You know this could get you kicked out of the league before you’ve even qualified.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you come here?”
Dean was a fighter, but I wasn’t so sure he would get it. He was straight-laced, fought by the rules, preferred order in his chaos, while I just preferred the chaos part.
He placed his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “Why? Is it because of-?”
“Don’t say his name,” I spat, shaking him off.
“Ren, c’mon,” he said, trying to soothe. “We’re all worried about you. You’re up and down so much it’s beginning to scare the crap outta everyone.”
“I’ve always dealt with shit on my own. I don’t need you.”
Dean winced slightly and a small flare of guilt began to bloom at my hurtful comment.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “You don’t need to anymore.”
He was right, but I didn’t know how to let anyone in to help in the first place.
He shook me. “Ren.”
“I need to fight, Dean,” I said. “I’m so fucking angry.” I ran my bound hands over my face. “I need this.”
He frowned for the millionth time that night. “You sound like a junkie, you know.”
I stilled, absorbing the word ‘junkie’.
“If you keep scowling like that,” I said angrily, “the wind will change and you’ll get stuck looking butt ugly.”
Dean sighed, rolling his eyes. “C’mon. I’ll give you a ride back to Beat. I’m not letting you get back into that cage. I’ll fucking hold you down myself.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I’m not fucking around Ren.”
“Fine,” I replied, knowing that he’d follow me around like a bad smell until I caved. “I’ve just gotta change and collect my money.”
“Money?”
“That fight just netted me fifteen grand.”
Dean’s mouth fell open as I strode off, unwinding the wraps on my hands. He could give me a lift back to Beat, but I still wasn’t convinced to give up fighting at The Underground.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe I was a junkie.
I knew the moment Dean had ratted me out to Dad when the man himself approached me the next day, a look of pure anger on his face. I’d never seen my dad angry before and I now knew what had made him such a force in the ring all those years ago. It was as much his skill as it was his presence and his presence when switched on was scary.
Like father like daughter.
I dropped my gloves and turned to face him. Beat was still empty so this showdown was going to be one on one. No witnesses, no gossip. Just two fighters going head to head. Father and daughter.
“You need to stop going to that fighting racket Ren.”
I narrowed my eyes. I could see where he was coming from as my Coach, but as my father? He’d told me he didn’t want me going there before, but didn’t do much in the way of following through. The fact that he was so pissed at me now was like a slap in the face.
“If you want to go pro, it could mess up your chances,” he went on. “If anyone finds out…”
“They won’t find out,” I snapped, my patience wearing thin. “They haven’t.”
“They will if you keep going.” he sighed sharply, running a hand over his face. “Do you know how that made me feel, to find it out from Dean?”
“Do I look like I care?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“You look like a child who didn’t get what she wanted.”
“Fuck you,” I hissed. “Stop acting like my father.” He didn’t know what had happened right here in this studio. He didn’t know what his daughter had done. He didn’t want me for seventeen years of my life.
“Stop acting like a spoilt child Ren.”
“What would you know?”
“Not a fucking lot apparently,” he snapped. “But what I do know is by continuing to fight at that racket, you’re putting yourself directly into harm’s way. Knowingly, I might add. You could get injured to the point of early retirement. I know the lack of rules and precautions these places have Ren. You could get yourself killed.”
A memory flashed through my mind, sharp, painful and full of blood. Ash almost beating a man to death in the cage. He beat a man within an inch of his life, marking his fucking territory. What was stopping somebody from doing that do me? Skill, luck…outside the cage it’d been Ash who’d saved me. Who was I fucking kidding?
“Ren, what do you really want?”
“I want to fight,” I replied like it was the stupidest question on the face of the planet.
“Stop lying to me.”
I curled my fingers into tight fists, my jaw quivering.
“What do you want?” he asked again, eyes blazing.
I began grinding my teeth together, focusing on something else other than exploding.
“Answer me Ren,” he said. “I’m not going away until you do. You can’t avoid this.”
I glanced away. How could I tell him that I was exactly like my mother? The woman he’d left. Ash had left me, too. It wasn’t in the same way as Dad had left us, but it had the same ending.
“Did he do something to you?” Dad asked quietly, prodding a finger right into the open wound that was my heart.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“What did he do to you Ren?”
“He left me!” I shrieked, the floodgates opening. “He left me just like you did!”
I shoved Dad hard, pressing the flats of my palms against his chest, but he grabbed my wrists, yanking me hard against him. He’d never shown me any affection before. He’d never hugged me or kissed me on the cheek…nothing…so when his arms caged me against him, I struggled at first, but then it was all too much.
I sobbed against his T-shirt, battering him uselessly with my fists. I fought to forget because I didn’t want to be this. I hadn’t cried since that night I turned up at Josie’s. The same night Ash had left. I didn’t want to be that person who cried at the drop of a hat. I wanted to be the person who stood up and fought.
But I wasn’t really fighting, was I?
“I’ve been waiting for that for a whole year,” Dad said quietly.
I had a lot of anger inside of me, but all this time I didn’t realize what the anger was. I just thought I was born that way, that it was who I was. Turned out, it was what I was made into. I was angry at my mum, I was angry at my dad, I was angry at Monica and Hammer, but most of all…I was angry with Ash.
“Everyone leaves,” I choked out between sobs.
“I’m sorry Ren. I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“Why didn’t you come back? Why did you just disappear?”
“Guilt,” he said without hesitation.
Finally he was giving me answers. Tough love, but it was an answer. A reason.
“I did a fucked up thing, Ren. I wasn’t a good person back then. I regretted it, but I felt like it was much too late to go back. It was my own stupid guilt and fear that stopped me g
oing back to face you and your mum. I’m certainly not proud of it. You showed me up that day you walked in here looking for me, you know that?”
I sniffed, my throat constricting in on itself.
“I reacted badly then too. I reacted that way, shoving you into the storeroom like a dirty secret, because I felt like a failure. I am a failure. I failed you and I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Of course I am,” he said, squeezing his arms around me. “But I’m trying to make things right. We mightn’t have the most conventional father daughter relationship, but I’m trying the best way I know how.”
By training me. By showing me everything he knew.
“I’m not going to leave you again,” he murmured into my hair. “That’s a promise.”
I wiped my tears away, my cheeks red with embarrassment.
“I’m with you all the way,” he said, placing his hands on my shoulders. He pushed me back so he could look me in the eyes and show me his sincerity. “Every fight, every training session, every interview. I’m with you for it all. Start to finish. No matter what.”
“You promise?”
“I promise,” he replied. “On one condition.”
I cocked my head to the side.
“No more underground fighting, okay?”
The father I’d always wanted or a dirty underground fighting racket? I wanted something to hold onto and The Underground seemed to be something a little too unhealthy for my current mindset. Dean had made me realize that. Dad had driven the notion home.
Seemed like a no brainer.
I nodded. “No more Underground.”
Chapter 4
Ren
Everyone said that if I won the next qualifier that I was a sure thing for the league.
I was like that chick from Million Dollar Baby, knocking out every opponent in the first round. The only difference being, women were lining up to try and be the one that took out the infamous Ren ‘One-Shot’ Miller. And me? I was walking around in a haze, focused on the fight and nothing else.
They made a big deal about these qualifiers, especially since the women’s league was taking off in such a big way. Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena had been turned into a huge stage for the qualifying rounds for both the men’s and women’s leagues. There were TV cameras filming for Pay TV channels, reporters and fancy lights. Even advertisements were plastered everywhere. Every fighter had a sponsor and we all wore their clothing or had a patch on our gear for whatever company paid us money to train and fight. Commercialized fighting. It was big business.
Despite all of that and the crowds that paid good money to come to these things, I knew I’d never get used to the bright lights. I’d come from a lifetime of obscurity and shadows and had been shoved headfirst into the spotlight.
Since Dad was my coach, he came everywhere with me. He gave me advice and pointers on the other fighters, most of which I’d seen fight or had fought myself by this time. One skill The Underground had given me was how to spot weaknesses in my opponent using my own judgment. I’d fought pretty well there on my own without a trainer and could do it all on my own now, but this was Dad’s name on the line. I was just along for the ride.
One place he couldn’t follow was into the female change rooms, so the moment I could ditch him, I disappeared away from his scrutiny and the cameras and all the eyes that were trained on me. All the eyes that expected great things. Sometimes, it was a little too much to handle.
“Ren Miller?” A finger tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped.
Glancing up, I could hardly believe who I was looking at. I’d only seen her a few weeks ago at The Underground and nothing had changed in her appearance. She was still this tall, muscled, blonde Aussie beauty.
“Thunder?” I asked, blinking hard.
“Shh,” she said with a wink, then held out her hand. “I’m Alison, nice to meet you.”
Cracking a smile, I grasped her hand and shook. “Renee, but everyone calls me Ren.”
“I know,” she replied. “I saw that magazine shoot you did with those hunky twins.”
I groaned, covering my face with my hands.
“What? It was brilliant. Totally jealous, by the way.”
“It’s not my scene.”
“It should be. Girl, you could be a model.” She laughed at my awkwardness and nodded toward the ring. “How’s it going?”
“Great, surprisingly.”
“Why are you surprised? You’ve beaten my ass more than once.”
“That was another lifetime,” I replied. One without rules and look where that had gotten me.
“What happened to Ash?” she asked. “I haven’t seen him around since…”
My entire body went tense at the sound of his name and I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“But you two are together, right?”
“Were.”
Alison’s shoulders deflated and she sat next to me. “Oh, shit. Sorry.”
I shrugged.
“So you don’t know what went down with him and Hammer?”
“I really don’t know,” I replied. That was one hundred percent truth. After I left Beat that night, it was like the pair of them had just disappeared into the ether.
“Hammer came back to The Underground.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
“Yeah, I was surprised too.”
My heart started hammering painfully in my chest. If Hammer was back…that meant... “When?”
“About a week after you left,” she replied. “He said he had an injury that kept him away, but nobody was buying it. You really don’t know anything?”
I shook my head, my entire body zinging with electricity. Ash didn’t kill him…then where the fuck was he?
“Not even Rogue knew what was going on,” Alison went on.
“They’re still together?” I asked, everything sounding far away.
“Nope. Hammer pulled the same shit that Ash did to you by the sounds of it. Just disappeared for six months without a word. He’s got a new girl now.” She smiled, nudging me with her shoulder. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you guys. You were fucking meant for each other. Anyone with a pair of eyes could see it.”
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Sometimes being meant for one another just isn’t enough.”
“So, you and The Underground…you’re done for good?”
I shrugged. “What about you?” I asked, turning the conversation back on her.
“I gave up a few days ago when I realized I had a chance to qualify for this.” She waved her hands around. “It was in everyone’s best interests. High chances of injury and all, not to mention the fact that it’s not exactly aboveboard.”
“There’s more money in The Underground,” I said.
“But you can’t talk about Fight Club,” she said with a laugh. “That’s the only rule. This…” she waved her hand around again, “you can talk about.”
I smiled, happy to find a friendly face amongst the competitors. This was yet another place I didn’t fit, despite the obvious.
Alison stood, rolling her shoulders. “I’ll see you out there, hey?”
“You’ve got it.”
How could I focus on all of this when I just found out that Ash didn’t kill Hammer? He didn’t do it, so where the fuck was he? Glancing up at the clock on the wall, I noticed had fifteen minutes before my fight was scheduled to start, so I shoved my things into a locker and scooped up my gloves. Time to put my game face on. If Ash still wanted me, he would’ve come back. It was that simple.
Venturing out from the relative calm of the staging area and into the arena, the din hit me with its full force. Putting my head down, I strode forward, hugging my hoodie tighter around myself. All these people wanted me, so why wasn’t it enough to stop that ache in my heart?
“Hey, One-Shot!”
I turned at the sound of Josie’s voice over the hum of the crowd and saw her waving through the throng o
f people milling around the walkway from the fighter area out the back to the cage.
Making my way over, I felt a flush rising up my neck to my face as people started to catch onto who I was. MMA was starting to get more popular and that meant fans, which was a totally new experience for me. Ever since that magazine article things had amped up, I refused to get started on Josie and Facebook.
As I approached my over-enthusiastic best friend, I realized she was pulling someone with her through the crowd.
“Look who I’ve got!” she cried with glee.
When I saw a familiar head of hipster hair, my jaw literally dropped.
“Seth?” I exclaimed.
“The one and only,” he said with a grin. “Don’t look so shocked to see me.”
“Sorry, it’s just-”
“I’ve never come to watch you fight before?” He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, fighting really isn’t my thing, but if you’re going to be all superstar champion of the world, I thought I’d better come along for at least one, right?”
I threw my arms around his shoulders and buried my face into the crook of his neck. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
I heard Dad call out behind us, which meant it was time to get ready for my fight. Pulling away I smiled up at him, remembering that awkward date we’d had the year before. Fuck, I was glad we were still friends after that train wreck.
“It’s really great to see you again Ren.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t seen you at the cafe…”
He waved me off. “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t go getting a broken nose or anything, huh?”
I shoved his shoulder playfully. “I’m not planning on it.”
“I’ll be hanging out in the stands with Josie,” he said.
“Cheering for me, obviously.”
Seth laughed, shaking his head. “Was there any doubt?”
Dad yelled out for me again and I started to back away. “Never.”
I weaved my way into the fighter only area around the cage to meet Dad for his usual pre-bout pep talk. It made him happy, so I went along and besides, as a fighter there were things he could teach me that nobody else could. He’d been a champion boxer back in the day. MMA was a very different sport, but a lot of the techniques were interchangeable. He thought it gave me an edge other fighters didn’t have, and maybe he was right.