Heart of a Savage

by Lashanta Charles

  I stare at her in silence, waiting for her to say more, but she doesn’t. Instead, her gaze darts from me to the floor as she tries not to fidget. I shake my head and exhale before reaching to turn her to the group. My hand stops short when she shrinks away from me. I want to call her on it. Pull her away from the group and the prying eyes to demand she tell me what has her so scared. Who makes her feel so unsafe? And while I’m doing all this bullshit, I figure I might as well just cut my dick off and give it to her. I give myself a mental shake.

  “My volunteer today is Rochelle. I’m going to walk through – “

  “Bailey,” she mumbles.

  I look at her, but say nothing. Is she saying what I think she is? She clears her throat before speaking again.

  “My name is Bailey Ross.”

  I think she mumbles an O’Malley on the end.

  “I knew it! I told y’all it wasn’t Rochelle,” Van yells.

  I’m not really known for my patience. I don’t have much in me when it comes to self-control either, but somehow I manage not to explode. I even calmly tell the jackasses by the door to either shut up or get out.

  “Well, Bailey, let’s get started. If it seems like someone is going to get violent, what’s one of the first things you want to do?”

  “Brace.”

  Her answer comes with no hesitation. I hear a muttered curse from East who’s moved closer and now stands among the class. This is her answer to an attack? I try to keep my voice soft, but the thought of her only bracing like she’s in a crash instead of fending off an attack has me about to blow.

  “Why would you brace? That won’t stop them from attacking you.”

  “I know that. That’s why I need you.”

  I stare at her, speechless. Why does hearing her say she needs me affect me like this? I like that she needs me. I like that she recognizes that she does and has no qualms admitting it. Even knowing she meant that she needs me to teach her, my dick is throwing a fucking luau. I squat down on my toes in hopes of hiding my arousal before speaking again. Fucking pre-cum.

  “Don’t brace. Bracing makes you an easy target. It lets them know you’ll take whatever they decide to give.”

  I keep my eyes trained on the group as I speak. If I look at her my erection will never go away.

  “Instead of bracing, you push back. Literally, push them away and yell for them to back off or leave you alone. That draws attention from bystanders and lets people know you’re in trouble.”

  “And if you’re secluded?”

  Because of course, she’d be secluded. Most likely in her own home, where she should always feel safe. At least that thought takes care of the never-ending boner. I glance at East and can practically see the rage rolling off him. Facing her, I rise to my full height. Her eyes follow me, head tipping back as I move closer to her.

  “Then you give them hell. The key is to conserve energy. In an attack, you only have a few seconds to defend yourself and eventually you may even need to run. Go for the spots that will do the most damage: eyes, nose, neck, groin, knees. Their proximity to you determines what you do to them. Never move closer to the target in order to land a hit.”

  I move to stand within inches of Bailey—fucking Bailey—and go over the most efficient ways to hit eyes, ears, noses, and necks. After that, I move away and go over how to attack knees, groins, and legs. Bailey’s eyes follow my every move with her brows knitted in a slight frown.

  “Pair up, go over lower body attacks first.”

  Bailey’s head snaps up at the sound of East’s voice. She looks panicked; as though I’d go back on my word to work with her.

  “You stay with me. We can walk through it until you get more comfortable and then we can do it at full speed. Everyone will switch to upper body attacks after half an hour.”

  She watches me for a moment then glances around the room. Her fingers twitch and she shifts from one foot to the other.

  “What?”

  Her gaze meets mine for a second, but then she drops it. Using my index finger beneath her chin, I force her head up until she looks at me. Since I’m not a creep or anything, I won’t admit to brushing my fingers along her throat for a second. How is her skin so soft?

  “Rule number one: always know where your opponent is. Never let him out of your sight. Rule number two: stop fidgeting and tell me what you’re thinking. Moving around like that only makes me nervous and me being nervous is usually followed by me attacking.”

  She swallows hard and takes a deep breath. On the exhale, her eyes meet mine and she stops moving. My dick jumps and I beg him to stay down.

  “I don’t need to go over it anymore. I’ve got it.”

  I fight the urge to smile because she seems very confident.

  “You’ve got what?”

  “Everything. All of what you just did. Upper and lower.”

  I raise a brow. That was barely ten minutes of instruction and this is only her first class.

  “Really?”

  “I’ll show you, just don’t get mad if I hit you. Okay?”

  Her voice is pleading. I’ll let her hit me, but it’s as if she really thinks she will hurt me. If I weren’t so intrigued, I’d find that adorable. She no longer looks terrified, only scared. We’re improving.

  “Do you want me to tell you when I’m going to attack?”

  Her brow furrows and she narrows her eyes.

  “I doubt my attacker would –“

  Smart-ass. She lets out a squeak as I lunge for her. I would have never guessed what she did next. Pain explodes in my nose first. Not enough to break it, but enough to stop my movements. Pressure hits my neck and in a rookie move, I bring my hand up to check it, leaving my entire body open. Before I can do anything else, my right knee is hit from behind and when it buckles, my weight takes the rest of me down with it. Just before I hit the ground that dumb ass saying about the bigger they are plays on a loop in my mind. Shocked gasps and a few curses are the only sounds heard in the silence of the room. That is, until Petra lets loose her signature cackle. I lift my head and search for Bailey, finding her against the wall. If I had to guess by the hunched shoulders and arms hugging herself, this is her “braced” posture. I slap away East’s offered hand and bounce to my feet. If I’m honest, nothing she did hurt me physically; my pride is a different story.

  “What the hell was that?” East asks, beating me to the question.

  She flinches and draws further into herself as we approach her. I stop East with a hand to his chest.

  “What did you just do?” I ask.

  “You told me to do it. You said you wouldn’t get mad if I did it,” she answers, her voice pitched higher than usual.

  Her eyes bounce between East, the door, and me. She’s on the balls of her feet and it doesn’t take a genius to know she’s thinking of escape.

  “I’m not mad, I promise,” I tell her as I hold my hands up.

  Her eyes track my hands before jumping to East, then finally settling on mine. Whatever she searched for in my gaze, she must have found because her shoulders slump and her stance eases.

  “Then why are you still looking like that?”

  “That’s how he always looks: permanent scowl,” Petra offers helpfully as she waddles towards us. “That was so bad ass! How in the hell did you do that?”

  Question of the hour. I don’t know if I should be embarrassed that she took me out so quickly or proud that she actually fought back. Why in the fuck would I be proud, though? She’s not mine. I don’t even want her and even if I did, she’s still too damn skinny. She obviously doesn’t eat the tons of sugar she cooks. Her voice brings me out of my internal rant.

  “I’m a quick learner, kind of similar to a photographic memory if I see something enough times and concentrate hard enough. It’s not always that easy though, usually never that easy. I mean, I can remember any recipe after I cook it once and I graduated top of my class from Rice University, but I never tried any type of fighting, so I di
dn’t know it would happen. Plus, I told him I had it and I asked him not to get mad, but I should have known he would because technically he never actually said he wouldn’t, I just assumed and . . .”

  She suddenly snaps her mouth shut and folds her arms tightly across her chest. The movement draws my eyes to her breast, two tiny mounds barely visible under her t-shirt. Not nearly enough for a handful. You’d think that would stop my dick from jumping for joy again, but nope. The fucker is already at half-mast. At this point, I’m convinced he’s irreparably broken. Petra turns to me, her eyes bright and shining, a smile gleaming on her face.

  “Can you show her more, Nico?”

  I don’t even get to answer. East declares her the newest member of Team All-Star and tells her if she’s good enough she can fight in the exhibition match we’re hosting in two months. Two months is not a lot of time in the world of MMA training, but my protests are ignored and once she clarifies that it’ll be other women she fights, she semi agrees under the condition that we have to teach her self-defense. I don’t point out that if she can compete in MMA she’s probably already mastered self-defense. She seems reluctant about fighting, but her need to defend herself is dominant and wins out.

  THE NEXT DAY, still skeptical and wanting to gauge her ability to actually hit head on, I have her work with the heavy bag. She’s able to hit, but doesn’t have much strength behind her jabs. Somehow, she has great technique, but she’s weak. Before I can point that out to her, she stops hitting the bag, turns to face Cade and Mark, and pulls her wireless ear bud from her ear. Apparently, that’s her thing. One ear bud attached to her shirt, the other on her right ear so she can hear her music. Don’t Let Me Down by The Chainsmokers and Daya is one of her favorites.

  “What’s Cade doing?”

  “Focus sparring. Mark wears the focus mitts, the gloves, but generally keeps the palm, which is the flat side, from showing. Cade has to really focus on pretty much everything because the only time he can hit is when Mark shows the flat side of the mitts. He can’t hit anything else. His focus matters most because Mark could just hit him instead or even throw elbows, knees, or kicks.”

  While I explain, she methodically drifts towards them. Curiosity has me following her instead of making her focus on the heavy bag. Not that it matters since I know what she needs to work on. I watch her watch Cade and Mark and after a few minutes she turns to me, eyes gleaming and a radiant smile on her face. I inhale a sharp breath as I finally realize what it is that’s kept me from thinking she was beautiful. Her smile. Her happiness. This was the first time I’d seen a genuine smile on her face and it leaves me dazed. It may be without thought, but she wears her sadness for all to see. It blocks the beauty of the goddess that stands before me. And fuck me, she is beautiful. She stares at me expectantly; her smile a full-blown grin now, and I realize she must have asked me a question. Holy shit, she’s fucking phenomenal.

  “I heard you put Nico on his ass yesterday. That gets you a free pass with me, so sure. Come on over,” Mark answers the question I didn’t even hear.

  She switches places with Cade and after a few whispered instructions Mark tells her to begin. The first three times Mark swings for her, all she does is flinch. If I had to go by looks alone, I’d think she was about to run. She takes a deep breath and her lips begin to move as though she’s chanting something. Just as I’m about to tell him to stop she grins and nods her head at him. He asks if she’s sure and she nods again. Two minutes in and my dick is hard, pre-cum might as well be leaking from it, and I wouldn’t believe what I’m seeing if I wasn’t physically standing there. She’s fast. Every time he flashes the mitts she hits them and it’s obvious that he’s only able to land any blows because she can’t block for shit and she’s gotten too close to move away.

  “How is this possible? She came in here for self-defense classes, but she can actually fight?” Van asks as he stands next to Cade and me.

  I shrug my shoulders and Cade barks out a laugh.

  “Y’all seriously have no idea who she is?” he asks.

  “A fucking alien apparently,” Van says with a jerk of his head in her direction.

  She’s laughing. Flat-out giggling as Mark shouts instructions at her and the sound has a straight shot to my dick. I should really have someone check out my lower bits. This shit is getting painful now. With a shake of my head, I turn my attention back to Cade. “Should we know her?”

  “Her last name is Ross–O’Malley.”

  He waits for us to respond, but I’m sure we just stare at him blankly. So she’s married and obviously married to an abusive jackass, who was too weak to get her to drop her maiden name. Fucking pussy.

  “Ross, as in Victor Ross and his son, Verion,” he says, one eyebrow raised and speaking slowly - as though we’re idiots.

  When the names finally register, I actually do feel like an idiot. Everyone involved in the fighting world knows this story. The details can still be found online – all except the one pertaining to Verion’s child. Bailey, if what Cade is saying is true. Everything about her was shielded from the media. “Bullshit.” I meant that as a statement, but it comes out sounding like a question. Victor Ross was a boxing legend, heavyweight champion of the world, undefeated until he died from a bad hit in the ring. He was in a coma for months even though doctors had declared him brain dead. His son, Verion, picked up the mantle and was well on his way to his dad’s status until one day he just vanished. He was a legend in his own right and was set to win the title fight. There was a scandal about Verion marrying a poor orphan chick that Victor never approved of because she was supposedly after his money. Then there was a rumor about him going into accounting after his dad died and building a fucking empire, billionaire status. I never believed that, but I do remember hearing that he’d died from cancer. Eyes bulging out of their sockets, Van lets out a low whistle.

  “She’s Verion’s daughter,” he nearly whispers, but the awe is evident in his voice.

  If I could speak right now, I’d probably sound the same. I can’t get a word out though. All I can think about is that if her dad hadn’t died from cancer, she wouldn’t have ever needed to come here. He must be rolling in his grave at the thought of not being around to protect his daughter. Then it hits me that her mom, an orphan, died in a car accident. Her dad passed away from cancer. Her grandparents are also both dead. She has no immediate family. What’s the rest of her story?

  “Yup, and we only know about her because some asshole is putting his hands on her,” Cade says.

  As the crowd around us grows it dawns on me that we may have officially found a new professional female MMA fighter. I make a vow to find out what her story is, but over the next few weeks I get nothing. She shows up to train and she improves by leaps and bounds, doing more than what’s expected, staying more than ten hours some days, but most of all she remains tight-lipped. Not even Petra has a clue about her home life and they’ve become as close as sisters. She’s a pro at deflection and half the time she flat out ignores any personal questions. And my dick? We’re still at odds because the fucker still only works for her, but she’s not my type and I know that she’s married, even if unhappily. So I keep my distance, just as I do with any other female and before we know it, fight night is two weeks away.

  I SIT STARING AT my phone, my leg bouncing like a jackhammer. I haven’t heard from Connor in nearly two weeks. The last time we spoke I told him I was going to fight. He mentioned something about me ending up like my granddad, but when I asked him what he meant he changed the subject to Kael. He said I need to make a choice. I could either be a fighter or a mother. How is that a choice? Why would he even want me to choose? One has nothing to do with the other. I tried to video chat again, but he wouldn’t pick up. When I spoke to Rory yesterday and told him what Connor had said, he let me speak to Kael and told me not to worry about any of it. Everyone knows that telling someone not to worry only makes them worry more. I pull up Rory’s number, but before I connect
the call, Cade knocks on the door and sticks his head in. I’m surprised he’s even here. Petra had the baby a week ago. A beautiful little boy they named Cadent. He’s been by her side since she went into labor.

  “They’re ready for you, Bay.”

  I don’t even bother objecting to the nickname anymore. I figure if I ignore it enough, it’ll go away. I tuck my phone into the pocket of my sweatshirt, pull the hood up, and follow him out to the octagon. Turns out, it’s not called a boxing ring after all, and some people get very defensive about it. Go figure.

  I WATCH SILENTLY as Bailey stares at her ringing phone. She’s trying to video chat with someone, but they’re not answering. She stares at the phone for a moment more before scrolling through her contacts to an actual number. I see the name Rory, but decide to get her attention before I’m accused of eavesdropping. I knock on the door and push through before telling her they’re ready for her. She nods her head before pulling up a picture of a little boy. I should give her some privacy, but I think this is the first clue to her home life. The little boy is smiling and reaching for the camera. The curly light brown hair falling into his face confuses me. “Cute kid, who is he?” She stares in silence for a beat longer before slipping the phone into the front pocket of her hoodie and standing.

  “My everything,” she mumbles as she slides her wireless headphones around her neck.

  I nod my head and say nothing as I follow her out. The kid is obviously mixed. Mix that with her last name and puzzle pieces begin to come together. Her husband is either Irish or Scottish. She stops at the entrance to the octagon room and slides her hands into her pockets after a slow exhale.

  “How long is this supposed to take, again?”

  “Not too long. Once the photographer gets the shot, we’re done.”

  “And tell me again why I have to be practically naked?”

  I fight back a laugh and shake my head. She never gave us any issues when we told her to do something. She was always willing to listen and make adjustments. At least she was until we told her what she’d be wearing for the photo shoot and the fights. I don’t think I’d ever seen her argue with any of us before that moment and I was sure she was going to quit altogether. Somehow Nico convinced her to go along with it. We’ve never seen her in anything other than baggy sweats or tights and oversized tees. Something tells me she’s hiding an incredible figure under it all, but she’s hesitant to show even a hint of it. “This is what’s you’ll wear when you fight, Bay. It’s just shorts and a sports bra.”