A Fighting Chance

by Sand, A. J.

  One of them kicks me in the ribs until I flop onto my back. A car door opens nearby, and my whole body seizes when I hear the distinct drag of metal against the asphalt. Then I see it, the glow of a white cylindrical object, and I know what’s coming.

  “Dude…please…take my wallet…” I plead with my hands raised as I swing my gaze to the dark frame looming over me. There’s a pipe resting on his shoulder. It’s the wiry guy. He’s a lot bloodier than I am, and rocking side to side. He raises the pipe over his head, and a small laugh escapes him, the moonlight illuminating teeth reddened by blood. Even though he’s clearly in a lot of pain, he holds his posture with the confidence of a batter who knows he’s about to hit one into the stands. The last thing I hear is the soft whistle of the pipe moving through the air as it comes down.

  HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE

  I think someone’s having sex right next to my head, or inside my head, because the headache I’ve got is definitely similar to a headboard slamming into a wall. It’s painful to open my eyes but I do anyway; I need to know which one of my theories is true. Grimy white walls and cheap cracked furniture come into focus, but I’m wherever I am alone. The noises are seeping in through the walls from next door. Wait…where exactly am I? When I sit up, my muscles protest, and I immediately have to run to the bathroom to vomit. From the looks of things, I must’ve done the same thing before. Recently, too. The memories spill in with a swirl of dizziness. I’m in a hoteles de paso, one of those skeevy hourly rate joints you can pay for in cash, with tacky, bright decorations and really, really thin walls.

  As my vision clears and I catch a glimpse of myself in the cloudy bathroom mirror, I gasp in horror. There’s blood down the front of my shirt. I have that panicked moment they always show in movies when the guy wakes up in a room with a dead body and can’t remember anything, but more memories come rushing in, thankfully. Salon Tigre. That stupid fight with Jimmy. Wandering. Getting jumped by those guys. It’s my blood. They beat the shit out of me. I lift my shirt and my chest and torso are covered in ugly bruises and cuts. My face probably looked like a sack of potatoes a few days ago, too.

  I need to call a cab. I remember right then that those were the same famous last words I thought before those guys attacked me. I check my pockets for my cell phone but it isn’t there. Did they rob me? I ransack the room and find my wallet on top of the television set, but my cell is definitely gone.

  When I step into the hallway, the door to the room next to mine swings open—where all the action was happening a few minutes ago—and a woman in disheveled clothing rushes by, stuffing cash into her bag. I trail her down a dark, creaky stairwell for the reception desk, where the clerk sits behind a bulletproof glass barrier. Lap of luxury I’ve chosen here. I tap on the glass partition and she slides it open.

  “Do you speak English?” I ask the middle-aged woman. My voice comes out hoarse from my ragged throat.

  “Sí,” she says, with a cautious smile, “más o menos.”

  “How many days have I been here?”

  She flips through a large book on her desk and taps a spot where my room number is listed. “Today, make four. You come, bleed everywhere. You give money and say no policía. You pay six days. I give you room.”

  I gulp down so hard it ignites more inflammation in my throat. Four days. Shit. I must’ve come in after the fight, passed out, and just lost everything in a haze. “Uh…teléfono, por favor?”

  “Five dollars for five minutes.”

  What the fuck. “Take it from what I’ve paid already.” She’s silent as she aims a disapproving glare at me, but she passes a corded handset through the partition, and then I recite for her one of the only phone numbers I ever learned by heart.

  A loud knock sounds on the door to my room an hour later, while I’m sitting on the bed with a ratty towel wrapped around my waist. Drew doesn’t hug me so much as jump into my arms when I let her in, and the clean clothes she’s brought are now a forgotten pile on the carpet.

  “We’ve been looking for you for days, Jess,” she breathes out in a frightened whisper.

  “Thanks for coming.” Exhaustion masks my sincerity, but this is the most relief I’ve felt since waking up.

  “Yes,” she says as she spins around, taking in my accommodations, “but what the hell did I come to?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t even remember coming here.”

  Her confusion fades into concern. “You’re bleeding…” Drew’s eyes stretch wider by the second the longer she stares at me. “Actually…you’re really hurt. Who did this to you?”

  “Some guys beat me up,” I say on the way to the bathroom to change. Getting dressed is agonizing, and pain erupts at every angle, no matter how slowly and carefully I move. My eyes are watering by the time I’m done. Oh, and blinking, that shit hurts, too.

  “Some guys beat you up?” she asks when I walk out again.

  “Yeah, but I let them.”

  “You let them?”

  “Well, just one guy. The others…there were three of them, and they had a weapon.”

  “There were three of them…and they had a weapon? I need a cigarette. You’re driving me to smoke again, you know.”

  “You’re gonna keep repeating everything I say?” I smile and caress her face. “Did Mig bring you? He’s pissed at me, isn’t he?”

  “Downstairs in the car, and not pissed. Worried. Feeling guilty about what happened at the bar.”

  I hug her, needing to feel her again. Drew is a welcoming fire after a day in the cold. “I wish you were in Texas.”

  She lets out a weak giggle. “You called me…”

  “I know, but I just needed to hear your voice. I didn’t know you were still here.”

  “I didn’t even make it to the airport. When Miguel got back from Salon Tigre, he told me you’d had a rough night and you needed time. When I didn’t hear from you, I couldn’t go.” She pulls away from me and leads me to the bed, where we both sit. “What’s going on with you?”

  Shaking my head, I say, “I guess fighting again has been wearing on me more than I’ve been letting on. My emotions are all over the place. I let some stupid drunk d-bag in a bar push my buttons over it, but it was brewing before he started shit. It’s not like dudebros haven’t been picking fights since forever. It’s been a tough week, and he just hit a raw nerve. Sometimes I feel like no one really notices me until I’m hurting other people. They only care when I’m doing the most inhumane thing possible.” I had said once that I was like God when I was in the ring. But he gets to act with impunity and, to me, that is the exact opposite of humanity. I don’t want to be like God. For the moment, the physical pain numbs beneath the emotional one. “At Salon Tigre, it felt like I was back in Glory again, only mattering when I was in the ring. It feels like I’ve become so defined by fighting, that it overshadows me. And the sick part is that I need people to see me and love me, so I just take what I can get. People always say love is a drug, and that makes it a very bad thing, which is why I’m so afraid, Drew, because it’s mine. It’s my drug. And I hate myself for needing it so much. I let myself become a monster trying to get it…”

  “We all want love. But what happens out there with those people when you’re fighting—whether here or in Glory—that’s not love. I think deep down you know it’s not, because you wouldn’t have to seek it out like this. You shouldn’t have to make anyone love you, Jesse Chance. Anyone who would require you to be more than the beautiful spirit you are, doesn’t know your heart at all and, therefore, doesn’t deserve it. And you are not a monster...I wouldn’t be here if you were.”

  “I’m afraid of what I will be when I leave here. After this is done.”

  “I know what you are…” Drew presses her mouth to my cheek, her face wet with tears. “And right now, I just see a man. A man making innumerable sacrifices, so that he can stop the real monsters.”

  ****

  A line of sunlight shoots through the curta
in break, and Drew and I can no longer pretend that it’s not morning. We’re staring at each other from opposite sides of the bed back at the hotel in Centro Historico, and she’s playing her guitar and making me guess the songs. We’ve been back here a few days, but last night neither of us slept. She probably stayed awake to make sure I didn’t die overnight. I think she has watched me every night. I’m just staring at her to make sure she isn’t a dream. I’m in awe of her, not just her beauty, but also everything she’s done for me so far, and hoping to absorb some of that strength, too.

  We got the call.

  I’m fighting Carlos tonight.

  I walk my fingers up Drew’s arm and she jerks it away, scooting back toward the edge, but there’s a small smile on her lips. I don’t think either of us trusts ourselves to get any closer right now. But, damn, I want to be closer. Every morning the sheets have smelled like her, and every morning I’ve wanted to pull her against me to inhale her scent right from her skin. I get hard just from having her next to me. She didn’t get on the plane, so she didn’t go home to Buck, but I don’t know where they stand right now. And as a result, I’m not sure where we stand. I’m impatient but I’ll wait until she brings it up.

  “I do all the punching but somehow you’re always the one fighting for me. I told you, you’re the hero here,” I say.

  “And every hero has his or her version of Kryptonite apparently,” she says in a hoarse tone. Her eyes are red and her eyelids are heavy. “How do you feel?”

  “How do I look?”

  “Like shit,” she says grimly.

  “Well, that’s symmetry, so I’m winning at something…”

  Groaning, she says, “I can’t joke about this.” Drew rolls her eyes as she gets up, not amused by my response. My gaze sails down her body, lingering on her hard nipples pressing through her tank top and then over the curves at her hips. My mild erection stiffens completely. “How the hell are you going to get through tonight?”

  I don’t say anything because she’ll really hate this answer. My body is a wreck. Nothing’s broken but I’m fucked. I sit up and swing my legs to the floor. The room is spinning, and I don’t know if it’s from being in bed with her or general dizziness.

  “Well?” she prompts.

  “I’m…” Not. “Going to do the best I can.” I don’t want to scare her, but I can’t really sugarcoat how off I’m going to be tonight. Drew’s no amateur, either; she’s seen what can happen to unprepared fighters. And with these fights, as Sandrine explained, a yes can’t suddenly become a no.

  “Seriously, Jess?” she says with clenched teeth.

  “You want me to lie to you?”

  Drew looks back at me once, makes a noise of frustration, and stomps into the bathroom. I grunt, too, surprised at her reaction. What does she want me to say? We can’t cancel the fight. I’d rather not make enemies of these people when I have to be in Mexico until I get the money. We could run—and this is a huge country—but I’m sure someone in Ramón Vega’s position has enough connections to make this place feel as big as Glory.

  I follow her to the open bathroom door. “Do you want me to lie…” I trail off when I see her. Drew is leaning toward the mirror, with her back arched, her ass sticking out, and just legs for miles. It’s really sexy from where I’m standing. The sight of her melds my desire with my bones, and unravels all my resolve from earlier, which was mostly full of shit, anyway.

  “No, I don’t want you to lie…” she says in a shivery breath, shifting her stare to me. She turns back to the mirror, her body tensing as I walk until I’m directly behind her. Drew’s gaze flies up when I put my hands on the sink on either side of her, and I push my chest against her back as she swivels her hips against my hard-on. Our eyes are locked in the mirror, but neither of us says a word as the last line left to cross evaporates. My lips land on the curve of her neck, and my hands slip under the sides of her tank top, raising it as I go. Once it’s past her stomach, Drew pulls it off on her own.

  I have to concentrate to stop my movements from becoming anxious, because her body is both new and familiar to me. I palm her breasts, and her head falls back onto my shoulder when I roll both nipples between my fingers. One of her hands comes up, nails digging into my neck, and she grips the sink harder when I dip my hand into her underwear. I thread my tongue up her neck, and Drew moans softly as I work my finger over her clit. I bend her forward just slightly, bringing my other hand down between her thighs, and push my fingers into her until they’re drenched.

  She says my name and her nails press painfully into my shoulder blade. “Fuck,” I whisper, loving what my touch does to her. “I want you so fucking bad, Drew…but we don’t have any condoms…”

  “Yes, we do.” She reaches for her makeup bag on the counter. “Miguel gave me these as a gag gift after, um, Las Sirenas…anyway, I put them in here.” Drew hands one to me, and I feel like I’ve struck gold. “So…have me. Take me,” she says softly, inviting eyes pinned to my reflection. “Fuck me.” I stop touching her only to pull my pajama pants down, and Drew yanks her PJs and panties off, almost ripping them. Then her hands are back on the sink, her legs spread. I jerk my cock with her wetness and put the condom on before I slide into her. She clenches around me so tight my legs shiver, my ravaged body welcoming the sensation of pleasure. Reaching around for her clit again, I drop my face to the bend at her neck and I rock into her slowly.

  “Jess…” My name melts into a hiss on her lips and she bucks against my hand, losing herself to an orgasm. It’s hard not to come as I watch her, but I pull out without finishing and spin her to face me.

  There’s only hunger burning in her eyes before she starts to run her lips over my chest and the hard ridges of my abs. Drew licks my neck as I lift her to the wall behind me, and she kisses me like she might devour me. I express the same wild craving in return. I whip my tongue all around her mouth and drag her lip between my teeth when I press into her again with a single thrust that pounds my hips into hers. Drew’s body jerks and she cries out, her nails shredding my back. I rock in and out of her in a quick, eager rhythm, our foreheads touching, the two of us shuddering, and my palm braced on the wall. When she arches against me, my mouth goes to her neck and a coil tightens in my stomach.

  “Drew…” I moan with her, feeling no ache in my body, just the surge of pleasure that sweeps over my nerve endings with each thrust. Drew takes every pump I give her, grinding her pelvis on me, digging her teeth into my shoulder. Grabbing the nape of my neck, she throws her head back and screams out.

  “Shit. Right there…like…that…” she sputters. It’s too much, and the pressure inside me explodes out. As spasms ride down my core, her legs vise my waist, and I go faster and deeper, coming until she squeezes everything out of me. My head falls to her shoulder, and I stay in her for just a moment longer as her hands move along my damp back. “Wow. Someone’s definitely not a teenager anymore...” she says with a labored laugh.

  I slide out of her and set her feet on the floor. “Hey…I was a champ at this back then.”

  Drew gives me a side eye, and before I can get too offended she says, “You seem really winded. Maybe we should’ve saved your energy for the fight.” Oh, wait, she wanted to offend me more.

  “Now, you tell me…” I laugh, happy that she can have a sense of humor about the fact that Carlos is probably going to disembowel me tonight. I don’t see the point of terrorizing ourselves about something we have no control over.

  I’d rather enjoy each other’s company and not think about what’s to come. So after we shower, we order expensive room service and climb back into bed to watch even more expensive movies on the hotel’s pay-per-view channel. I don’t watch much of either, though; I just relish having Drew nestled in my arms and her soft hair right against my face. The whole situation feels a little like an inmate getting his favorite meal before he’s led off to the death chamber, but I go with it and ask her what I may not be able to later. ‘Cause my jaw wil
l be wired shut. “Why aren’t you in Glory, Drew?”

  She rolls over to face me and strokes the light stubble along my jaw. “Because you told me you loved me…and I never got a chance to say it back.” She hooks her finger onto the guitar pick necklace.

  My pulse races. “You and Buck?”

  She shrugs, sadness forcing her to drop her gaze. “Shaky since I left. Over since I decided not to get on the plane. He told me if I didn’t come home then, I shouldn’t bother coming at all.” She sighs and meets my stare again. “I’m letting him go. I’ve been unfair to him. I love him. I really, really do. But…it was different when I saw you in Glory. It’s been different. Probably has been forever. I’m still in love with you, Chance. In the worst kind of way.”

  “Nothing about you loving me could ever be bad, Spark,” I say as I pull her on top of me. Straddling me, Drew strips off her top before leaning down for a kiss. It’s sweet and soft, and I pull off my shorts and flip her to her back. We laugh and talk and fuck, and let ourselves have our fantasy for as long as we can.

  The countdown to reality is on…

  And it’s getting really close to zero.

  ****

  El Americano’s fights are lore now, spun on half-truths and a lot of made-up shit. Apparently, I killed Nico Nuñez in the cage, and I beat Daniel Killian until he had a seizure, then smeared his blood on the chain-links. I can’t laugh them off or get angry because, right now, I’m worried about the actual truth as Drew wraps my hands in the corner of an old industrial building. Here’s what I know to be fact: there are only two fights before mine, the first one is happening right now, and Carlos’s wrath has had a lot of time to develop in preparation for this. There’s another story I hear that people are telling: after I kicked his ass at Las Sirenas, I fucked one of his favorite groupies in the bathroom and made her say I was better than him. Fuck my life.