“Ha!” Eli shakes his head. “Good luck with that.”
Carrie walks in the door and our eyes meet but we immediately look away again. Eli doesn’t miss this at all and seems very amused by the whole thing as Carrie hangs up her coat and goes over to the mat to do push-ups and warm up.
“Are you…” Eli looks between us. “Did you two fuck? Are you a thing? And now you have to fight?” He claps his hands. “That’s hilarious!”
“Will you fuck off?” I say to Eli. “Or I can make you.”
“I’d love to see you try,” he says, smirking at me.
“Eli!” That’s one of Remmy’s guys at the door, motioning him over. “You’re up!”
“Catch you later, punchy.” Eli throws me a wink. I’ve seen him around but never spoken to him. I decide I despise him. Fuck that guy.
The fights go on. It’s packed in The Ring tonight. I feel anxiety coursing through me as Carrie and I near our fight. Every time two wolves come back my hands start to shake. I shift and run around the room to try to take the edge off. I wish I was drunk this time. Carrie has a couple fights that she barely seems to feel. She beats everyone. Of course, she does. She’s amazing. If I didn’t feel like the worst person in the world, I’d go over and tell her, despite everything. But I don’t even feel worth speaking to her. She doesn’t approach me either. She’s probably super pissed at me and I can’t blame her.
I rub my eyes, squeezing them shut, and I see Carrie in my head, and Alice, and Lorna, and I see Dax, my old asshole alpha, just laughing at me.
“Jason!” It’s Jack, one of the fighters at the door of the gym. “You and Carrie are up! C’mon!”
I shift and trot out to the cage like I’m going to my own execution. I don’t look at Carrie or anyone else. I don’t really have a plan but the only thing that’s keeping me from bolting or refusing to fight is Carrie’s insistence that it will be worse for her if I won’t. But I’m not going to hurt her. I can’t.
The crowd is going wild. I get the sense that I’ve been talked about even though I didn’t perform well last night, my first night fighting was good enough to give me an air of mystery or something. And everyone likes watching Carrie fight somebody new, especially if they’re good. Carrie’s in front of me, already shifted.
She’s a beautiful wolf. I wish I’d told her that before I left. She has a silvery gray coat and her face is lovely. I can’t help but think we’d make beautiful pups.
She told me not to throw the fight and let her win. But now we stand a few feet apart from each other in the cage. My heart’s thudding so hard in my chest, it’s painful and the roar of the crowd and the flashing lights isn’t helping any. It’s all so much. I want to run. Carrie’s giving me a careful, grave look. I feel like she’s trying to tell me something and I don’t know what.
My mate.
She shakes her head. I don’t know what that means. She growls and then stops and nods. She’s telling me to fight. She’s telling me not to be afraid of hurting her…
The bell rings and Carrie pounces and we’re on each other.
The crowd is roaring both our names. The two of us wrestle and Carrie nips at my shoulder. She’s holding back. I know she is. And after telling me not to throw the fight… I growl at her, pissed off as she pins me to the floor, and she growls back and snaps. I throw her off and we circle each other again. The crowd is screaming for our blood and it all hits me how sad this is. I grew up in a sad pack that thought it was so tough and this is just the same. They’re unhappy with their lives, partly because they’re under the thumb of their asshole alpha, and they come here so they’re thinking about something else, anything else, and it only helps the alpha hold on to his power. It’s like they’re on a loop they can’t get out of.
Carrie comes at me again and I dodge, just twisting away, avoiding contact.
I see Alice and I hear the echo of her screams in the cave. I see the older wolves who taught me to hunt getting my throat in their teeth and holding me there when I was a pup because I was acting up or because I wasn’t a good enough hunter. I see myself turning into them, feeding off brutality…
I start shaking. I can’t do this. I don’t think I’m able to anymore.
Fuck this. I figure I can stall as much as I can and then I’ll let her win. How are they going to prove that I threw the match anyway? They’ve only seen me fight a few times.
Maybe I can make it look good for a minute just to be sure..
I charge Carrie just like she wants me to and I bite her flank, just hard enough to draw blood but not enough to cause any damage. She pins me again and I throw her off and she charges. I leave myself wide open and she swipes with her claws and I turn just right so she can catch my throat. I feel her hesitation and I suspect we’re right on the edge of making it too obvious but then my throat is in her jaws. She’s got me.
The fight is over.
Everyone cheers for Carrie which is just how it should be, as long as she has to be fighting. I shift back quickly and head to the gym. Carrie shifts back and I glance over my shoulder as Remmy holds her hand up, declaring her as still undefeated. She’s ignoring the roar of the crowd. Instead, her eyes on me. She doesn’t look happy.
I have to get out of here. I grab my coat and glance around to make sure I’ve got everything. Some of the fighters are hooting at me as if I’ve just humiliated myself which is weird, since they’ve all lost to Carrie too. I’m sort of amused that they couldn’t tell I was fighting shitty on purpose. What kind of asshole would just leave their flank open like that?
I head out, shoving my way through the crowd. We were the last fight of the night but Remmy is still on his spiel talking about the new fighters and how they should all come back Thursday and make that Big Money if fortune happens to favor them. There’s an air of desperation in the room that practically chokes me and I feel like I’m only just now seeing it.
I want to beat the crowds before they all leave at once though some are leaving already and I shove past a few people to run up the stairs. I have to get outside and get some air. I feel like Carrie’s eyes are on me but I don’t bother to look behind me and see.
When I finally make it outside, I take a deep breath and shiver. This town made me sad, but its air feels so clean even if it’s cold. I take a few deep breaths, heading out to the back and around the side where I can be alone and have a smoke.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. If Remmy keeps making me fight, this isn’t going to be the last time I fight Carrie. Not by a long shot. And I’m guessing Remmy’s patience with my shitty performance is about to run out. He’s going to want to see me really fight and then what?
I suddenly realize I left in such a rush, I didn’t get my money. Well, I’ll get it next time. I don’t even care about that now.
“Hey, asshole.” Carrie is walking up to me, holding a wad of cash. She doesn’t look happy. She stuffs the cash in my hand and leans next to me. “Remmy gave me your pay to give to you.”
I don’t talk. I shouldn’t. I should ice her out.
She gives me a second, waiting for me to say something or take back the break-up, if that’s what it was. I smoke and stare down at my shoes and I hear her huff in irritation and start to walk away.
“I can’t fight,” I mumble. “I can’t...fight.”
“You can’t fight?” She says, marching back over to me. “Or you can’t fight me.”
“I dunno.” I shrug.
“I told you not to throw that fight,” she says, shoving me. “I told you!”
“I didn’t throw it!” It’s a bald faced lie, of course. “I didn’t throw the fight. I tried, alright?”
“Bullshit!” Carrie shouts in my face. “I fuckin’ told you, Jason! You don’t know Remmy! You don’t know what he’s like!”
“Can he hurt you?” I say softly. “If...if he knows, if he thinks I… Will he hurt you?”
“He’ll hurt you,” she blurts out, looking teary. “He’ll hurt you, y
ou asshole!”
That actually makes me sigh in relief. “Oh. I don’t care about that.”
Carrie makes some kind of noise kind of like a scream and kind of like a howl and shoves me hard against the wall and I feel it, wincing a little. “He’ll hurt you and I don’t want him to hurt you! He’s taken everything from me and he’s going to take you too!” Now she’s crying and I feel like my heart is breaking. “He doesn’t care who he hurts, Jason! He doesn’t care about his own people! He just likes the power and the money and everyone being afraid of him!”
“Carrie…” I reach out for her reflexively. And she sobs and pushes me away.
“No!” She shifts then and starts to run and I should let her.
Let her run, I tell myself. Leave her alone. Let it be. It’s for the best.
My mate.
I feel like my own body is betraying me as I shift and chase after her down the street.
Carrie is fast, and it’s a real chore to keep up with her. Luckily, the fights didn’t hurt me much and I’m at full strength, pushing myself as hard as I can to keep up with Carrie. I have no plan. I know I’m the worst thing for her, but I just want to make sure that she’s okay. I feel like she wants me to chase her and we seem to be going nowhere in particular; up streets, around a building and back down the street, shortcutting through alleys only to come back down a road. She makes me chase her down the main drag by the docks and the fog is rolling in and it’s beautiful. I have an abrupt affection for this grim, little town. It wouldn’t be so bad if Remmy wasn’t running it. Carrie makes me chase her to the woods and I feel a jolt of fear that we’re going to come across hunters. I still have to tell somebody about that body…
Carrie stops not far into the woods and I’m sort of impressed with how quickly she whips around and charges at me, tackling me into the dirt. She doesn’t bite me, but we wrestle around, fighting for control and I can feel her frustration.
Growing up the way I did, I wasn’t taught to value my human body. I feel like it’s something I only started to appreciate at the Mulligan even when I felt too frail and fragile compared to being a wolf. But now I wish Carrie would shift. I want to feel her warm arms around me. I want to see her human eyes even if they’re sad or angry. I want to see those eyes forever if I’m honest with myself. So I shift, which is a terrible risk when there's an angry wolf on top of you. It knocks the wind out of me. She could so easily kill me right now but she stops cold and then sits up before pinning me down, standing over me, her paws on either side of my head. She looks down at me and for a moment I think she has shifted because I’m lost in her eyes and they suddenly seem indiscernible from her human eyes.
“I fucked up,” I say quietly. Carrie won’t shift. She stares at me. I’ve never seen a wolf cry but I swear she’s about to. “I felt good fighting for about five seconds and now I just… I don’t want to be somebody that hurts people anymore. I’m not...the man I could be. Not yet. But I’m not who I used to be either. I had a long time by myself to think about the shit I’d done. It changed me. And I just don’t want to ever have to hurt you. Not more than I already have.”
Carrie waits. I know she understands me but she seems to be searching my eyes for something. Maybe she’s waiting for me to take the break-up back and tell her we can be together. Everything is fine. Happy ending.
But I don’t say anything else and she climbs off me and takes off running back toward town, leaving me alone in the woods.
I lie there for a while staring up into the canopy of trees. It’s late and dark and lonely. It feels like I feel.
Chapter Eleven: Jason
I get home late that night and crawl into bed, feeling miserable. There won’t be any fights for a few days, which means I’m working at Casey’s. I don’t sleep much and when I do I sleep fitfully, with nightmares about Hardwidge and Alice. I dream I’m fighting Alice in the cage. When I wake from that dream, I don’t fall asleep again for the rest of the night. I drag myself out of bed before dawn, bleary eyed and desperate for a distraction. I drag myself to the docks and beg work and blessedly they give me some labor to do. If nothing else, I guess being in a terrible mood makes me some money. All I want to do is work.
I don’t look for Carrie. I try to stay away. But nearly everyone I meet makes me think of her because everyone wants to talk about the fight. They all seem to assume we’ll fight again. Everyone seems to assume I’m a better fighter than I’ve proven to be so far. Which is right, but I wish they didn’t know that.
I work so hard, I feel like I’m going to drop any second, because I’m sleeping so little. I try to make up for it by keeping myself fed. I make sure to tell Gary about the body I found in the woods on Monday. Normally, that information would go to the alpha. Gary only shrugs and says Remmy won’t care and I just shake my head. Instead we get the word out, telling the regulars, in case they know of anyone who’s missing.
The days pass too quickly with all the work I’m doing. I’m dreading the next round of fights on Thursday, even though it will mean more money.
But finally, it’s time. I decide to take advantage of the gym this time. I have a vague idea of a strategy. It’s just a job. I’ll do my best. Try to get out of my head and let my wolf run the fights. I’ll try to just turn off my human brain. At half past seven, I head down there and I focus on my body. I lift and run around the track. I do pull-ups and punch a sandbag. When I shift again to see how I feel, I do feel stronger and it surprises me how much one body affects the other.
I guess that’s just another reason why Hardwidge was bullshit.
I sense Carrie is nearby before I see her and I begrudge how close we’ve become. She definitely is my mate. I can’t stand that the fates have done that to her on top of everything else.
Remmy calls me over before the show begins and I feel a cold sense of dread. He’s sitting in his little VIP spot on the bleachers as people file in, puffing on his cigar like usual and fixing me with his cold, blue eyes.
“Stop throwing fights,” he says simply. He doesn’t look like he’s about to kill me or anything but he looks like he might be thinking about it. “It was cute for a minute there but playtime is over. You fight for real this time. Everybody’s interested in you. And I want a new star. I know you got juice, I can feel it. Am I wrong?”
I clench my fists at my side. I want to shift right now and rip out his throat and that’s considering that I really don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. But I can make this one exception.
“You’re not wrong,” I say simply.
Remmy does look like a fighter, which is annoying too. But I’ve never met an alpha who didn’t. Still, I’m about twenty-five years younger than him if I had to guess. I’m sure I could take him if I had to. He claps a hand to my cheek and I flinch. Corporal punishment at Hardwidge was usually done while shifted, but I still got hit plenty, which is why I started hitting everyone else. Those reflexes will stick with you.
Remmy pats my cheek and I just stare at him. “Make me some money.” He grins and puffs on his cigar and then pushes me away by the shoulder. It’s like he thinks I’m his pup or something. Gross. “Go out there. Have a good fight.”
I think he’s actually trying to buddy up to me? It’s wild. Or maybe this is how he shows power over you. It’s just a different approach than I’m used to.
Remmy has me fight Eli and I take him down and I feel okay. I don’t hurt him too badly. I probably could have taken him down quickly, but I don’t have the stomach to be brutal anymore. Then I fight Jack who genuinely gives me a hard time but eventually I take him and this time I leave him bleeding. I start to leave the cage and I’m waved back again. I’m going into round 3. I shift back and the crowd is cheering for me but I just lean against the bars for a minute, trying to shut it out. I squeeze my eyes shut and it’s all a dizzying hum around me. I have to keep winning or anyway I have to try my hardest to actually win, but if I do keep winning, it’s going to be Jason vs. Carrie. Shit. Maybe I can th
row the next one and be more careful. When I turn around it’s Ray, the skinny kid who is quick but weak and still beaten to hell. He’s shifted and his wolf already has his tail between his legs.
This is sadistic. More than anything else, this makes me realize how much of a psychopath Remmy is and then I realize that maybe I’m not quite as bad as I think I am. Anyway, I’m definitely not Remmy. Because I can’t do this. I would have a few years ago. Not now.
I look over at Remmy in the VIP seats and he’s so amused, cackling around his cigar. The crowd is actually turning on him a little bit. They’re booing and it’s obvious they’re booing the very idea of me fighting little Ray right now. Huh. That’s interesting.
But I shift, having no idea what I’m going to do. The bell rings and Ray looks me in the eye and then charges at me, turning his head so that he’s practically sticking his neck in my mouth. I grab it in my jaws and he goes still. The crowd cheers but it sounds more like relief.
Well shit, I didn’t throw the fight, but he clearly did. When we shift back, Remmy doesn’t look happy about it. Remmy gestures for me to leave the cage finally. People cheer for me. I won all my fights. They’re shouting my name. It still makes me sick. Back in the gym, I find Ray and pat his back.
“You alright, man?” I ask him.
He looks up at me with wide eyes and says, “Remmy’s going to kill me.” He shakes his head and starts to cry. “I didn’t know it was gonna… He has it out for me! I just wanted to make some cash for my mom’s medical bills! But it’s like the fights aren’t fair and… I haven’t healed yet from the last time and…” He claps his hands to his face. This kind of thing really isn’t in my wheelhouse but I pat his back and awkwardly attempt to comfort him. Carrie’s about to head out to fight and I see her watching us, a soft smile on her face until she catches my eye and looks away. I get a bottle of water for Ray and stick with him. We sit on the bench, we don’t talk much, it feels uncomfortable and weird. But Carrie’s fighting now and I don’t want to watch.
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