Clinched

by Nikki Ash

  As I am leaving my room, I get a text, so I stop and check it.

  Lucas: Wanna hang out?

  Me: Can’t.

  I stuff my phone into the front pocket of my hoodie then pull it back out.

  Me: Sorry. Another time?

  Ever since starting high school this year, it feels like everything is changing. For so long, I was just Bella, the MMA fighter. Guys always saw me as one of them. But this year, something shifted.

  I look at myself in the mirror to see if anything significant has changed but I’m still just… me. I have chocolate brown hair that has a natural curl to it and matching brown eyes just like my dad. I am on the skinnier side from years of working out but was blessed with decent cleavage. I take a closer look in the mirror. My lips are naturally full like my mom’s and my skin tone is an olive color like my dad’s. Most people say I am the perfect mixture of both my parents.

  While I don’t think I’m ugly, I don’t think I’ve suddenly morphed into some hot chick. I don’t wear makeup, my hair is almost always up in a ponytail out of my face, and I can usually be found wearing nothing but athletic attire when I’m not in my school uniform since I pretty much live and breathe fighting.

  My phone dings again.

  Lucas: Sure. Maybe we can go to the movies?

  Not having any idea how I want to respond to his question, I close out the text and put my phone away. I don’t think I look any different than I did last year but for some reason the guys are acting like I’m the new girl in town. I was born in Las Vegas and have lived here my entire life, so I don’t get it. I take one last look at myself in the mirror then turn my light off and head downstairs.

  “Mom! Dad!” I yell as I walk through the living room. “I’m going running with Marco.”

  No answer.

  I get to the kitchen and see my younger siblings—Nathan and Lilly—sitting at the bar eating a bowl of cereal. Nathan is five years younger than me and Lilly is seven years younger. Long story short, my parents met when they were young, real young. My mom was eighteen and fresh out of high school and my dad was twenty-two. They fell for each other instantly but were both heading in different directions in life. My mom had no idea she was pregnant when they parted ways, and once she knew, she had no way to get ahold of my dad. Five years later, they found each other and surprise! I was in tow. Once they fell back in love, they got married and then came my brother and sister.

  “Hey, where are Mom and Dad?” I grab an apple from the fridge, my go-to fruit in the morning, and take a bite, then fill up my bottle with cold water and ice.

  “In their room,” Nathan says through a mouthful of cereal. I look at the clock. It reads 8:00. There’s only one reason my parents would still be in their room this late and I don’t even want to think about that reason. Sure, I’m aware that’s how my siblings and I were brought into this world but still…

  “Ok, well let them know I went running with Marco.”

  “Ugh. Running.” Lilly scrunches her little nose in disgust. She clearly takes after our mom when it comes to exercise, which means it doesn’t happen. Like at all. Give my mom a book and a comfy couch and she’s good to go. My dad, on the other hand, is a retired UFC fighter and owns a UFC training facility here in Las Vegas called Cooper’s Fight Club. While I enjoy curling up with a good book on a rainy day, I have grown up in the gym and will choose anything athletic over lounging around like a couch potato.

  “Can I go?” Nathan asks. Like me, Nathan enjoys the more physical activities. He’s not really into fighting but he loves to sweat. He usually spends his days at the recreational center my dad and his friends started years ago. It’s a sport’s complex for kids and teens to spend their time at as opposed to running the streets. Nathan is really into football and for only being ten years old, he’s actually really good at it.

  “Not today. I’m hoping to get in at least seven miles. How about we go for a run together around the neighborhood tomorrow after school?”

  “Ok, cool,” Nathan says, shoving more cereal into his mouth. I finish eating my apple and throw the core in the garbage. I grab a cereal bar and my bottle of water and head toward the front door to wait for Marco as my parents come down the stairs.

  “Morning. Just getting up?” I give them a knowing look.

  “Actually, we have been up for a couple hours. We just had to go upstairs to…” My mom blushes at the realization she’s about to be busted.

  So, of course, my dad saves her. “Find something. Where are you going?” Good change of subject, Dad.

  “I’m going jogging over at Red Rock with Marco.”

  “Have a good run, honey.” My mom gives me a quick kiss on my cheek before going to the kitchen.

  “Make sure you warm up good, first,” my dad says. Always in trainer mode.

  “You got it!”

  Marco pulls up in his black Audi A5, a birthday present from his parents for his eighteenth birthday. I yell bye to my parents and run out the door toward his car. I still have ten months until I turn sixteen but I am hoping I get something half as hot as his car.

  “Hey!” I say getting in and putting on my seatbelt.

  “Morning Belles,” he replies. Just like I do every time I get in his car, I begin to mess with the music. I grab the auxiliary cord and plug my phone in, clicking play on my playlist.

  “Damn, Bella. It’s too early in the morning for your girly shit.”

  “Don’t talk trash about Avril. She’s badass.” I stick my tongue out and Marco rolls his eyes at me but still lets me turn it up.

  The ride to Red Rock is about twenty-five minutes and the entire way I sing the lyrics to the songs obnoxiously. Marco shakes his head but I can see him smiling. Our friendship has always been easy. Even when he hit high school, and I was much younger, things pretty much stayed the same between us. Sure, he made new friends and would hang out with them occasionally, but he still made fighting and training his number one priority which meant I still saw him daily at my dad’s gym. He didn’t care that I’m six years younger than him. He has always treated me like his equal.

  Then, when he turned eighteen and started fighting professionally, I was a little older, and in the back of my mind I thought for sure he would forget about me and our friendship, but here we are almost three years later and still hanging out like we always have. Marco knows what fighting means to me and he is amazing about encouraging and supporting me.

  The only person I am closer to than Marco is Tristan. Tristan and I have been friends since we were born (OK, not really, but pretty much). But while Tristan loves to fight and enjoys it as a hobby, he doesn’t really plan to go professional with it. He has mentioned taking the training route like his dad or even possibly becoming a sports agent one day. Who knows.

  Fighting, in some shape or form, has been a part of our lives for as far back as I can remember. Marco’s dad, Caleb, is a retired fighter from the UFC just like my dad, and Marco’s mom is a doctor who runs a sports medicine clinic. My mom does the accounting at the rec center and at my dad’s gym. Tristan’s dad, Kaden, is a trainer at the gym and his mom, Ashley, runs the rec center. My dad’s best friend Bentley used to be a UFC fighter but quit to become a stay-at-home dad years ago, and his wife, my Aunt Kayla, who pretty much helped raise me for the first four years of my life, works with Marco’s mom at the sports clinic as a physical therapist.

  See what I mean? Fighting is my life. My dream is to one day become a UFC women’s champion. Marco understands where I’m coming from because his goal is just like mine. Since he started fighting, he has been in several fights in the last couple years and he is undefeated in his weight class. His most recent fight was a few weeks ago and he was the main card event on Pay-Per-View. It’s the first fight he made seriously good money on, especially since he won, but more importantly he has become a household name. He has women showing up to the gym wanting to go out with him, they are stalking his social media, and guys will ask him for his autograph
while we are out somewhere.

  Watching him fight and win is amazing. If Marco can do it then I know I can as well. He might be older but I’ve been fighting longer. I can’t wait to turn eighteen and join the UFC, and I will join the UFC because I am determined.

  “You ready to do this?” Marco parks his car in the parking lot and turns to me, his smile making my heart beat just a little out of rhythm. With black eyes the color of onyx, dark black hair shaved short, and caramel colored skin courtesy of his Hispanic roots, Marco Michaels is a damn good-looking guy. Then you add his carefree attitude and his fit body, and it’s no wonder girls swoon over him on a regular basis.

  I ignore the way his smile makes me feel and answer him. “Yep!”

  We get out of the car and walk to the trail. After warming up and stretching, we start on our run. While Marco could easily outrun me, he always runs next to me, keeping at the same pace. We run side by side in comfortable silence. The only noise is my app letting us know when we hit each mile. After the third mile, Marco slows down.

  “Holy shit! I feel like I haven’t run in years.” Marco comes to a standstill, sitting down on a rock on the side of the dirt trail.

  “What have you been doing the last few weeks since you won your fight?” I laugh, continuing to jog in place to keep up the momentum.

  “Basking in the glory of my win,” he jokes.

  “Well, you need to bask in the glory of this run. Let’s go!” I take off running to get a head start knowing Marco will follow and catch up to me in no time, but when I turn the corner, I don’t see the huge ass rock in my way. My foot hits it, and because there’s nothing but air around to catch my fall, I fall onto the ground right onto my knees.

  “Ow!” I roll over onto my butt, holding onto my legs. My knees hit the hard ground and that shit hurt. Bad.

  “You ok?” Marco bends down to check on my knees.

  “I’m fine. It just hurts.”

  “Let me see.” He sits down next to me and grabs my legs, putting them on top of his. Both my knees are bright red and lightly bleeding.

  “We need to clean these up in case there are pieces of rock in your cuts.” Marco rubs his hands down my leg causing my stomach to do flip-flops.

  “I’m fine,” I insist, and try to move my legs out of his reach.

  “Stop. Let me clean your knees.” He grabs my legs and holds onto them tight. Then he grabs his shirt from the back and lifts it up over his head, leaving his sweaty front on display. I divert my attention back to my cuts.

  Taking his bottle of water, Marco wets the shirt and gently rubs each of my knees. I flinch when the material hits my cuts.

  “Sorry,” he says softly. He leans down and gently blows on the cuts, making my stomach clench and my heart go erratic. After both my knees are clean, he stands up then reaches down to help me up as well. As I come up onto my feet, my body hits his, not realizing how hard he was tugging me up. Our faces are close, only inches apart. He glances down at me and sighs, and I can feel his cool breath hit me. It smells like the peppermints he’s always sucking on. Our eyes lock and we kiss.

  And holy. Shit. Do we kiss.

  His lips start off soft just barely touching mine like he’s testing the waters, unsure of himself. Our eyes are still open, neither of us daring to be the first to blink. My heart is pounding, and his breathing is heavy. When my lips move in sync with his, his eyes close, his kiss becoming more aggressive. My head tilts to the side and his tongue finds its way inside. Marco’s hands leave mine and land on my butt, pulling me closer to him until our sweaty bodies are lined up with no space between us.

  Our kiss goes from sweet and gentle to frantic and desperate within seconds. Our tongues entwining with each other. I finally close my eyes and sink into his hold. Just as I think I am getting the hang of this, it stops. Marco’s lips leave mine and he backs up.

  “Shit.” His hands come up to his face, his head shaking in disbelief, and I don’t even know what to say. I would be lying if I said I’ve never imagined what it would be like to be kissed by Marco. I’m a teenage girl, of course I have. But I never imagined it would be so… Wow! This is my first time being kissed and if this is what my first kiss feels like… well, I can’t even imagine it getting any better than that.

  “Shit,” Marco spits out again. His head is tilted to the sky now like he’s praying to the heavens above. He’s breathing like he just ran ten miles and his fists are clenched at his sides like he’s pissed.

  “Umm…” I start to say having no idea what to continue with. What I want to say is “let’s do that again” but something tells me, Marco’s “shit” isn’t a good shit, more like a ‘what the hell was I thinking’ shit.

  “We need to get back,” he says, and without waiting for me he turns around and starts running back to his car. I run after him but unlike every time we have run together, this time Marco doesn’t wait for me.

  “Should we… maybe…talk about this?” I finally ask when I catch up to him outside of his car.

  “Later,” is all he says.

  He hits the key fob unlocking the doors and gets in, and without waiting for me to turn on the music like he always does, he turns it on himself. He turns it up loud, making it clear he doesn’t want to talk. Ok, fine, I think to myself. We will talk later, like he said. It will give me time to process what happened.

  Tomorrow.

  We will talk about this tomorrow.

  Once we have both processed what just happened we will discuss this.

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  Excerpt from Takedown

  Prologue

  Mason

  Sixteen years ago…

  I sit on my bed, staring at the door. Mom told me to stay in my room until she’s done working, but that was a long time ago. Usually she leaves to go to work and comes home after I’m already in bed, but sometimes her work comes here. I hate those nights. I hate having to stay in my room and listen to them screw her. And if it’s not them screwing her, it’s her pimp. She says she hates him but needs him to get her work so she can make money to take care of me. I can’t stand the guy. Every time he comes over, he sends me to my room and my mom lets him, not even caring about the fact he’s not my dad. My dad is dead.

  A little while ago when I heard the moaning and grunting of the guy getting off, I thought she was almost done. And then there was screaming and shouting and shortly after, a door slamming. Then everything went quiet. I thought my mom would come and get me at that point, but she didn’t. So now I’m sitting here and waiting for her, but I don’t hear anything, not a single sound. Maybe she forgot about me.

  Maybe I should go out there and make sure she’s okay. She might think she can take care of herself, but she’s delusional. She sees what she wants to see and believes what she wants to believe to convince herself working for that asshole pimp and having sex with those piece-of-shit guys is what’s best for us. But it’s not. She blames my dad, saying if he wouldn’t have screwed her over, she wouldn’t be in this position, and that might be true, but it doesn’t do any good to blame someone who’s dead.

  She cries every day, apologizing for not being able to take care of me—of us. She rarely has any money to buy us food, or clothes, or really anything. Our electric and water are shut off more than they’re on. I hear her every night when she comes home, crying herself to sleep. I hate when she cries. I wish I could make her happy again. I remember when I was I was little, and she would smile and laugh. I want her to smile and laugh again.

  I consider going against my mom’s wishes and heading downstairs to check on her when I hear sirens fill the silence. I go to the window, and drawing the curtains back, I pull down the blinds a little bit to peek outside. I count the police cars—six in all—surrounding our house. The house I’ve lived in my entire life. The same house that has notices on the door letting us know we have to move out soon—because we can no longer afford this house.

&n
bsp; My room is on the second floor and I can see everything down below. My mom promised me we wouldn’t have to move out. She promised me she would take care of it. But it’s a lie. It’s always a lie. I don’t even think she realizes every single word out of her mouth is a lie. I’m not mad at her, though. I’m sad. I’m sad that food and clothes cost too much. I’m sad that my mom doesn’t make enough money. I’m sad that she has to have sex with those nasty guys to take care of me.

  I watch as my mom is dragged forcibly by her elbow to the police car. When the car door is opened and her head is pushed down for her to get in, I notice her hands are behind her back. It’s then I realize my mom is being arrested. And she’s not the only one. Her pimp is taken in cuffs as well as the guy who came over for sex. She doesn’t think I know what she does in order to take care of me, but I do. I hear her and her pimp arguing all the time. She’s always begging him for more money, telling him she needs to take care of me, and he’s always saying she’s lucky she gets anything at all. I hate that my mom has to do this to take care of me. I hate that I’m such a hassle.

  My hand comes up to the window, my palm slapping the glass as I try to get her attention. It doesn’t work though, and seconds later the door is closed. I shouldn’t have listened to her. I should’ve known something was wrong. I should’ve gone out there to help her. Then again, it probably wouldn’t have mattered because she doesn’t want my help. Every time I ask her if there’s anything I can do, she cries. So, I no longer ask. I hate when I’m the reason she cries. I hate that I’m only thirteen years old and I can’t get a job. I hate that I can’t take care of my mom.

  Attempting to get to her before the police car drives away, I run out of my bedroom and down the stairs. “Mom!” I scream as my feet hit the front porch, but all that’s left are the taillights of the car. I’m too late.

  A police officer approaches me. “What’s your name?”