by Nicole Fox
“They need to know there are consequences for their actions,” he says over his shoulder, jaw tense. “They need to know we aren’t scared of them.”
I can see a car coming slowly up the sloped road. Caleb lifts a hand to signal to it, and the black car stops at the end of the driveway.
“Caleb, please.” I use my hold to slingshot myself around him. He stumbles when I land in front of him, hands pressed to his chest. “Just stay here and sober up. This can wait until another time, at least. Really, I’m fine.”
“It can’t wait.”
“Yes, it can.”
Caleb sweeps his arm out and moves me aside. It doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t exactly gentle. “I’ve skipped too many fight nights since meeting you anyway. And now more than ever, I need the money.”
“What does that mean? ‘Now more than ever’? What happened?”
He just shakes his head.
I can tell this isn’t all about me. Caleb is upset, and he is using the attack on me as a way to burn off his anger.
“Caleb, whatever is going on, it isn’t worth going to a fight like this. You aren’t in any state to fight.”
“I’m undefeated.”
The driver rolls down his window to make sure he is at the right place, and Caleb nods at him.
“Yeah, when you’re sober. You’ve never fought drunk.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve never seen you like this.”
He opens the backdoor. “Exactly. So neither of us have any idea what I’m capable of like this. I’m kinda excited to find out.”
I growl in frustration and move to the passenger side window, hoping to convince the driver what a bad idea this is. The guy is young twenties with shoulder-length hair parted in the middle and an energy drink in the center console.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but he is drunk. He shouldn’t be going anywhere right now.”
The guy laughs. “Most people who get in my car are drunk. As long as he doesn’t vomit, I don’t care.”
“Sorry about her,” Caleb says. “Overprotective girlfriend.”
“Fine. If you’re going to be an idiot, at least take me with you,” I say, reaching for the door handle.
Just as I do, Caleb pulls it shut and slides the lock into place. He smiles and shrugs through the window, his eyes bloodshot and puffy
Then, he says something to the driver, and they are gone.
38
Haley
I can’t follow Caleb to the fight by myself.
I also can’t let him go to the fight alone. The Hell Princes don’t have the decency to refuse him a fight if he’s asking for one. They’ll put him in the ring and cheer as he is beaten into the ground.
I repeat these reasons to myself over and over again as I walk up the long driveway towards the two-story white house.
It’s not as grand as Finn’s, but the floodlights lining the driveway illuminate a perfectly manicured lawn and cast the entire structure in a kind of fairy-tale glow. Golden light glows out of the white-curtained windows.
I feel like I’m on a movie set as I ring the doorbell and wait.
Thankfully, J.C. answers the door rather than one of his parents.
His eyes widen at the sight of me, but in an instant, his usual smirk is in place. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss Cochran?”
I don’t have time for pleasantries or guilt. Caleb is in trouble, whether he knows it or not, and I can’t help him alone.
“Caleb is drunk and walking into a fight with the Hell Princes. I need you to help me get him out.”
J.C.’s smirk drops away. “What?”
I shake my head. “If you’re going to help me, we need to go now. I can tell you in the car.”
There is a second of hesitation, a moment where I’m not sure J.C. is going to believe me or care or come with me. Then, he ducks inside to shout into the house that he’ll be back later, and he follows me out to my car.
“Okay, now what stupid shit is Caleb doing?”
“He’s drunk and going to a fight with the Hell Princes.” I’m going to have to spill all the beans before we get there, but I’m still hesitant.
It feels like a betrayal of Caleb to tell his friend the secret he has tried so hard to keep, but I’m not sure what other options I have right now.
“What fight? We haven’t hung out since the camping trip. Did something else happen?”
I turn onto Main Street and head north out of Ravenlake proper. The fights tonight are at the old schoolhouse again. Thankfully, I’m still on the text chain to receive the fight location.
Otherwise, we’d all be screwed.
“I was attacked at the park yesterday. A few of the Hell Princes did it, and Caleb thinks he needs to go fight John, uh, Bumper, for my honor.”
J.C. curses under his breath. “The Hell Princes hate Caleb. If he walks into their hangout alone, they’ll kill him.” He frowns and turns to the window, reading a highway sign as we pass. “We’re going the wrong way. The Hell Prince hangout is on the other side of town.
“He’s not going to their hangout. He’s going to an underground fight.”
Quickly and in as few words as possible, I explain the underground fights and tell J.C. that Caleb has been fighting in them most Saturdays for years.
“He’s undefeated, and he has made a shit ton of money off those people. They all hate him and are waiting for the day he loses. And if we don’t get there and stop him, today will be that day.”
“Holy fuck,” J.C. breathes. “That son of a bitch! Why did he lie to us? He always bailed on Saturdays and wouldn’t say why.”
“Money is tight now that his dad left, so he needed the cash and didn’t want you all to know.”
J.C. shakes his head in dismay.
After a few silent minutes, I give up and ask him the question that’s burning in my head.
“Would you stop hanging out with Caleb if you knew he didn’t have money?”
“No,” he says, screwing up his face, taking obvious offense to the question. “But I would have stopped hanging out with him if I’d known he was lying to me for two years. That’s messed up.”
I don’t know whether to be comforted or worried, but there isn’t time to sort it out because the school appears just behind a line of trees and the lot is full.
The fight is about to start.
We don’t have time to delay.
There are so many people slowly making their way towards the front doors that I don’t have time to weave through them and find a spot.
Instead, I throw on the hazards and park in the middle of the lane between two rows of cars.
“Not exactly legal,” J.C. says, slamming the car door shut as we get out.
“What are they doing to do, call the cops to tell them I’m double parked at an illegal underground fighting ring?”
J.C. smiles. “Touché.”
We cut to the front of the line. When the people behind us begin to complain, J.C. charms them with, of all things, a joke about a stripper and a priest.
God, what I wouldn’t give for that kind of charm.
Of course, if the people in line recognized him as a Golden Boy, we’d probably be having a much different conversation.
The password is “Shit the road, Jack,” which J.C. thinks is hilarious. He and the bouncer at the door have a good laugh before I grab his arm and yank him inside.
“So, everyone here knows who Caleb is?” J.C. asks, glancing around the crowded hallway. “This isn’t like a luchador fight?”
“Do you mean, like, does he wear a mask?” I ask. “No. They know who he is.”
“Why the fuck do they keep his secret, then?”
“Money?” I shrug. “Caleb never loses, and people keep showing up, hoping it will happen. Plus, the police would shut this down if they knew, so the Hell Princes probably think you and Noah would rat them out if you knew about it.”
J.C. acknowledges the logic there with a
shrug.
The crowd moves more slowly down the hallway than I’d like it to, but if people aren’t rushing to get through the doors, it means the fight hasn’t started.
Which means there is still time.
The auditorium is stuffy and humid. A few industrial-sized fans have been brought in, but they do little more than stir the hot air. J.C. pinches his shirt away from his chest, fanning himself as he searches the room.
“Caleb isn’t here,” I say just as he turns to me.
“I don’t see him, either.”
For a second, I consider the possibility that Caleb didn’t go through with it. Maybe he did sober up a bit on the thirty-minute ride and realized what an idiot he was being.
The thought should be a relief. But if he did change his mind, it means I revealed his secret to J.C. for no reason at all.
It means I potentially ruined everything between us for nothing.
“I’ll call him,” J.C. says. “He probably won’t answer.”
“I’ll go ask if anyone has seen him. You stay here.”
The bouncers at the door didn’t recognize J.C., but Felix will, and if I want him to help me find Caleb, I can’t let him know I told another Golden Boy about the underground fights.
I slip between people coming through the doors and jog down the hallway to the kitchen. It’s where the organizers of the fights hang out, and Felix is almost always back there, keeping an eye on the money. He doesn’t trust anyone else with the task.
If John is here tonight, it’s also where he’ll be. I try not to think about what could happen to Caleb if he tries to take on John or any of the Hell Princes outside the ring with no audience.
In the ring, there are some basic rules.
Outside of it, they won’t hesitate to pull out a blade or worse.
Just as the kitchen door comes into view, it opens and Felix walks out. He sees me immediately and frowns. “What are you doing back here?”
“Have you seen Caleb?”
His frown deepens. “Whatever drama is going on, I don’t want any part of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Caleb is drunk off his ass,” Felix says, shaking his head. “He showed up drunk and asking where Bumper was. When I tried to tell him to leave, he took a swing at me. Luckily for me, he missed. Not too lucky for him, though. If he actually manages to get into the ring tonight, he is going to get his ass handed to him.”
“’If he gets in the ring’? What does that mean?”
Somewhere behind me, I hear the crackle of a speaker and the voice of the announcer letting the crowd know the fight starts in five minutes.
Felix nods. “Caleb has been missing a lot of fights, so I didn’t have him on the roster tonight. Then, he showed up trying to call out Bumper. Despite the fact he is so drunk he can barely pronounce his name.”
“Where is he?”
“Bumper? I have no idea. I haven’t seen him tonight. He is probably with—”
“No. Caleb.”
Felix steps aside and hitches a thumb over his shoulder. “In the pantry. I sent everyone else away when Caleb showed up. I didn’t need him starting fights near the money.”
I dart past him into the empty kitchen. The counters are dented and rusted, worn with age, and neat stacks of cash are arranged across the surface, bound with rubber bands and notes with names scrawled across them.
Turns out I don’t need to look for Caleb because as soon as I walk in, he stumbles out of a room in the back.
“Did I hear the five-minute warning?”
He hasn’t sobered up at all. If anything, he looks drunker than he was when he left. His shirt is sitting crookedly on his shoulders, his hair is sticking up and messy, and his eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed.
When he sees me, they go wide.
Then, he grins.
“You came to see me after all?”
“No, you idiot,” I snap, too frustrated to be delicate. “I came to stop you. Everyone can see you aren’t in any shape to fight except for you. Even Felix tried to stop you. Can’t you see how bad things must be if Felix is trying to keep you out of the ring? Imagine the money he could make on a drunk Caleb Wilson fight.”
Caleb tilts his head to the side and waves a dismissive hand at me. “It’s sweet that you’re worried about me, but I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but rising voices come from the hallway behind us. Felix yells something, and then the kitchen door is thrown open and J.C. is standing next to me.
This time, Caleb’s eyes go wide and they stay that way. His mouth is hanging open, and shock is written in every line of his face.
J.C.’s in a defensive stance, legs spread wide, eyes alert.
When his gaze lands on Caleb, his lip curls back. “You stupid, shit-filled liar. What in the actual fuck are you doing here? Drunk, number one, but also at all?”
Caleb blinks at him and then turns to me. The stunned, disbelieving betrayal written on his face sends ice shooting through my veins.
Now, without any doubt, I know that Caleb trusted me. Truly and entirely.
And I betrayed him.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, blinking back the tears burning against my eyes. “I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t listen to me and—”
“You bitch.”
He spits the insult at me with more venom than I’ve ever heard from him before.
I thought he hated me before, but now I realize what genuine hate from Caleb looks like.
“Haley wanted to help your stupid ass,” J.C. says. “Don’t be mad at her.”
Caleb spins towards his friend, eyes narrowed and unfocused. “You shouldn’t be here. Leave.”
“Not unless you’re coming with me.”
Caleb lifts his chin. “Then we’ll both be leaving after the fight.”
He tries to hold a determined stance, but when he puts his hands on his hips, he tips forward and has to adjust his feet to keep from falling over.
J.C. sighs loudly. “You’re so drunk I could carry you out of here if need be. Please don’t make me do that.”
The door opens again and Felix is standing there, face red and flushed. “There are two too many Golden Boys in the kitchen right now. You all need to leave.”
Caleb starts to move towards the door, swaying with every step, but I jump in front of him. “Do this another week if you have to, Caleb. Bumper isn’t even here.”
“I’ll have someone call him.” Then, he narrows his eyes at me. “Move.”
“She’s right,” J.C. says. “Just go home and sleep it off. You’ll realize tomorrow how stupid you were. Knowing you, you still won’t thank us, but you’ll be secretly grateful. If you go out there like this, you’ll just be embarrassed.”
“Fucking hell,” Felix groans behind us. “I need to get the roster up so people can make bets. Are you calling Bumper out or not?”
“Yes—”
“No—”
“Hell no—”
Caleb takes another step, and I push on his chest.
Suddenly, there is a pressure on my chest. I fly off my feet instantly and slam into the long counter in the middle of the kitchen. The entire table tips over, the crash echoing off the tile floors as stacks of money spill onto the floor and dollar bills float down like confetti.
Pain radiates through my back and it takes me a few seconds to realize what happened.
Caleb pushed me.
It happened so fast—much faster than I would have thought possible considering he’s drunk.
The shock of the violence, the unexpectedness of it, is almost enough to make me freeze up.
It’s almost enough to trigger the reaction I used to have with John.
The reaction that kept me with an abusive man for two years.
Ironically, Caleb’s voice is the one I hear in my head. Despite him being the one who hurt me, I hear him tell me to get up. To fight.
So, I do.
I jump to my feet, sure to feel the ground firmly beneath me before I advance. Then, I charge forward, pull my arm back, and let my fist fly.
Caleb’s reaction to me was so fast and so strong that I almost wondered whether I’d been wrong this entire time. I thought maybe he could actually fight and win.
But when my fist hits his cheek, I realize how right I was.
Caleb makes no effort to defend himself. His head snaps to the side and his body goes with it, bending over with all the resistance of a sack of potatoes.
He crumples to the floor.
“Shit, Haley!” When I turn around, J.C. is grinning at me. “That was hot.”
“Just get him out of here,” I say, on the verge of tears. My fist hurts like hell.
“Please do,” Felix says, sweeping up dollar bills around the floor. “All of you need to get out now.”
Caleb mumbles incoherently, but he doesn’t fight as J.C. hauls him to his feet, slings his arm around his shoulders, and drags him out of the kitchen.
“Son of a bitch is heavier than he looks,” he groans.
My instinct is to stay as far away from Caleb as possible, but I sidle up next to him and take a portion of his weight.
“He’s out cold. How hard did you hit him?”
“Not nearly as hard as he deserved,” I say.
I don’t regret telling J.C. about everything and helping Caleb get out of the fight. For the sake of my own conscience, I’m glad I kept him out of the ring and helped him get home.
But this is the last time I risk my own safety for him.
Or anyone.
Drunk or not, Caleb hurt me. After everything I’ve been through—everything Caleb heard about and witnessed from John—he hurt me.
It won’t happen again. Ever.
As we pass the auditorium doors, I can hear a fight going on inside. Someone stepped up to fill Caleb’s space, apparently. A few people are lurking in the doorway, and one of them turns around. I don’t realize who it is until they speak.
“You’re brave to show your face here.” J.C. and I both stop and turn, facing Levi. Speaking of faces, his is mostly healed now. Only a few grayish bruises remain around his jaw and right eye. He tips his head towards Caleb and tsks. “Especially since your boyfriend is too messed up to save you.”