by Nikki Wild
“You betcha, shit-stain,” Jabberjaw grinned, bouncing forward with a strong jab.
I moved out of the way – but it was a clumsy move, weakening my position. It wasn’t as natural as it should have been, and it left me wide open. Still…
Jabberjaw landed a fierce fist to my gut, but I was ready to take the blow. While he came in close, I tried to bop him in the ear with the side of my fist. He wove out of the way just in time, slipping around to thrust another jab.
I took that blow too, using my shifting body weight to half step backwards. Planting my foot with the momentum, I shifted gears forward, feinting a thrust but bear-hugging his neck instead.
Jabberjaw was caught off-guard. Expecting a blow, he’d been surprised by my grapple, and began to pummel his fists into my ribs. I braced myself against the blows and forced him backwards against the cage wall, when he suddenly sank his teeth into my shoulder, jerking them from side-to-side.
“FUCK!” I snarled, halfway expecting Vinnie to jump to attention. That’s when I remembered: no rules.
I slammed him against the cage wall, dislodging his bite. That was going to sting with every punch, but he’d attacked my lesser shoulder – leaving my dominant punching hand unhindered during the rest of the bout. I managed a weak punch to his stomach before he could escape, which was strong enough to slightly wind him.
Still, the sly little bastard slipped out of my striking range, wiping the stray blood from his mouth.
“You’re going to resort to biting?” I felt the shoulder with my fingers – it was a little messy, but I could withstand it.
“I fight practical-like, Fucker.”
“No, you fight dirty.”
“Call it what you want.”
The game has changed, I reminded myself coolly. With that acknowledgement, I immediately slipped back into my emotionless persona of the mindless street-fighting machine.
Launching forward with a powerful blow, I watched him sidestep before landing another strong jab. I took the blow and used the momentum to hurl a spinning backfist, a move easily dodged as well.
“If I’d known that’s all it took to rile you up,” Jabberjaw laughed, “I’d have bitten you from the start!”
He skated behind me, and instead of turning, I launched backwards, tackling him with my back. He dodged out of the way, but not before I grabbed his shin.
“The fuck you don’t,” he snarled, trying to slip the sweaty limb free, but I dug my fingertips in and yanked, drawing him down onto me. As he toppled down on top of me, I let go of his shin, bracing myself and taking his weight as he landed across my chest.
The window was brief. For the first time in the match, he was off his game. I grabbed him around the neck, rolling and dragging his scrambling body with me. Within seconds, I had him beneath me, my knee in his back, and I delivered a solid blow straight down to the side of his head.
Unfortunately, it was my weaker arm – the one with a chomp mark in the shoulder. Not enough to knock him out, but enough to briefly daze him.
He managed to dislodge me, shakily jumping to his feet, and I dove across the padding for the shin again. Jabberjaw was focused enough to weave a step backwards, but I had anticipated that. Instead of falling flat on my face, I shoved my palm downward and propelled myself forward, thrusting my other hand out and – barely – clasping around his leg again. With a fierce tug, I yanked him backwards, his head and shoulders slamming into forgiving fence of the cage wall – but I wasn’t done yet.
I pulled myself up as he kicked his feet along the padding. He was desperate to catch his sweaty heel against something and force himself back up. I took the opportunity from him, grasping his sole with another flailing kick and yanking him towards me.
My opponent landed on the floor at my feet, striking upward between my legs. But I’d already slipped out of the way, avoiding the game-ending low blow that would have left me at his mercy. Instead, I swiped my heel into his ribs with a quick thrust, and he rolled with the momentum. It was enough to cause him a little pain – just enough to keep him from whipping back up and dominating.
His eyes were off of me for a moment, and I struck my heel down into his abdomen as his roll finished. The blow caught him completely off-guard and winded him, and I dropped onto his head with a powerful elbow bash. He barely slipped out of the way, but that was fine – I was on the floor with him now, and he expected me to be thrown off by the miss.
Instead, I instinctively knew how he’d move, and I whipped up my arm to clothesline him as he attempted to struggle up from the floor. My arm shot down, carrying him straight down onto his back again, and I pushed up from above him and kneed him in the abs again. I stayed there, holding him pinned beneath me, and swung a powerful blow that struck the side of his head. He spat blood across the mat, reacting just quickly enough with a well-timed fist to capitalize on the moment.
With a precision strike, he punched me straight in the dick, missing my balls but still temporarily crippling me. The opening was just enough for my knee to weaken, and he pulled back, scrambling up to his feet. I shakily reached my own, and we faced each other down with our fresh injuries.
“Been waiting for this for years,” he laughed, spitting a fresh burst of blood onto the mat. “Win or lose, I get to say I punched Bonesaw in the dick!” He gave me a sideways glance, his cheek puffy from my earlier blow. “I’m the first motherfucker to do it, right?”
“Yeah,” I groaned, straightening myself up. “Of course you’ve got to go below the belt to knock me free. Anyone could have done that.”
“Maybe,” he chuckled. “Maybe. That’s the difference between those little bitches and me, eh? I get the badass in the ring and I punch his fuckin’ dick. Almost worked, too! If that had been a straighter shot, you’d lick my balls just to get me to stop beating your shit-stain face!”
“Shall we end this?” I asked, steeling myself for the coming fracas.
“We’re in your town, jackass. You call it, we finish it.”
I lunged into another flung fist, but I knew I wasn’t ready. My footing was wobbly after the dick-punch. That’s not what I was counting on, though.
He dove clear out of the way but shakily, as if his depth perception was just a little off.
Exactly what I needed to know.
I’d only gotten one good punch in, but I had made it count. With the puffy cheek clouding the vision to his eye, he’d been just barely off his game – enough for me to change the flow of our match. I could dictate things now. As long as I kept reasonable expectations for his unpredictability, I could force him wherever I needed him.
I could scare him.
He realized this as I dove another fist at him, then another, using my momentum to carry me around the ring. He dodged and wove beneath or around my thrusts, crosses, and jabs, but each step confessed his greatest fear now: from his left side, he could barely see. He knew where I was coming from, but he couldn’t trust his eyes anymore.
It was when he closed his left eye, relying completely on the right, that I knew it was close – as long as I stayed smart, the match was practically over. He was seeing everything slightly off, and I knew that he could counter some but not everything of what was coming his way.
I lunged with a punch; he sidestepped.
I delivered a powerful elbow; he dodged.
I feinted a blow and kicked; he weaved.
I threw my arms around him; we fell.
Slamming against the cage wall, I gave him a punishing blow to the gut. Weakened, he managed a strong jab to my jaw – at full strength, it might have knocked me out. But I was able to shrug it off enough to bury another fist into his gut, then another.
Jabberjaw ripped forward from the cage wall; I pulled back. I delivered a cross into the crippled side of his head again, and his body weight shifted with the blow. I took the opportunity to slam my sole against his buttock, surprising and throwing him in front. He whirled around with a devastating fist in motion; he whippe
d straight into an undercut that I had lined up. The fist landed against my face, knocking me sideways but, again, robbed of some power.
Forcing myself forward, I struck upwards with a shin, catching him along the side of his face. If it had been five minutes before, he’d have caught my leg in an ironclad grasp and delivered a crippling blow to my balls. I hadn’t dared to open myself like that during the match, but he had lost the upper ground between us.
My opponent staggered to the side, close to the cage wall, and I whipped back my fist. He immediately composed himself and tried to duck out of the way, but my whirlwind fist connected, punching him straight in the nose and teeth and sending him staggering backwards again.
Blood pooled down his lips; if I hadn’t dislodged a couple of teeth, I’d be almost disappointed.
“You stupid fucking bitch,” he spat, spraying blood towards my eyes.
I quickly wiped my face clean, but he came at me, thrusting a strong jab into my stomach. I tried to deflect or dodge it, but he landed it before giving his own, mighty uppercut. I was sent careening backwards, sending an errant bop towards his head. Jabberjaw ducked beneath it and sprung back up, landing a strong hook to the side of my face.
He had learned to take some serious damage. By now, I’d hoped to have already won the match, especially with that last fist to his face. Broken nose and all, he was still coming at me, and I was already growing tired.
If I didn’t find an opening and defeat him now, I was only going to grow sloppier, and he’d come back out on top.
He threw another couple of blows to me as I was kept on the defensive. I blocked a few with my forearms, but I could sense that he was dangerously close to knocking me out.
No rules.
Don’t overthink.
Just react.
Throwing myself forward was, theoretically, a stupid move. But that’s precisely what I did, lunging a shoulder into him and closing the distance. I was well within his strike range, and he took advantage of this, jabbing another fist into my face. But as I did so, I threw an arm around his head, pulling him close around the back of his neck. In the same movement, I drew his face down, where my knee flew up into the bloody mess that was his face. He reeled up and backwards, and I lunged forwards with a hand around his throat. With some help from my momentum, I lifted him from the ground by his throat, throwing him up and backwards against the cage wall – lifted just enough for his head to barely miss the padding.
It felt like he was held up against the cage wall for an eternity. The moment was frozen in time as he started sliding down, opening his eyes to face me. My fist was already coming up…
…And it plowed directly into his gut, halting his fall. He clenched at his abdomen before sinking back down, his feet hitting the floor, and I kneed him higher up in the chest – close to his solar plexus. Then came another hook to the weakened side of his face. I stabilized my footing, and then gave a sweep that dropped him to the ground.
I descended after him, my knee hitting his chest as I gave him one, two, three strong punches to the better side of his face. His adrenaline couldn’t save him; his ear was falling apart. I grabbed him and tugged him to his feet shakily, then threw him sideways against the cage wall.
“I…I give up! I tap out!” He cried out, slapping his hand against the cage wall.
“No tapouts. Only knockouts,” I reminded him with a growl, grabbing him by his long hair and wheeling him towards the center of the cage. He stumbled along with it as I half-dragged him, then let go. He staggered for a moment, turning around to beg for mercy, but my fist was already in launch sequence.
“Please!”
My knuckles connected with his forehead, and his footing gave out beneath him. Jabberjaw slipped with the force of my punch, crumpling to the floor, and I jammed my heel down into his stomach and pressed my weight against him. My defeated opponent didn’t move a muscle, his hands out at either side. After five seconds, Vinnie hastily unlocked the cage and rushed in, checking on my downed foe.
The crowd was going absolutely insane. With my senses returning, I glanced around, watching spectators cheer with their smartphones up. Darren and Luke stood at the front, their jaws practically dropped…and then I saw Saffron, standing beside them and absolutely quivering with, what? Fear? Concern? I couldn’t tell.
Oh boy, I thought to myself, suppressing a weakened chuckle. I’m really in for it now.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the New Horizons Cage,” Vinnie finally bellowed out, grabbing my wrist and throwing my fist up for all to see, “…the match goes to the reigning veteran, Booonesaaaw!”
Nineteen
Saffron
Pensacola, Present Day
The match was absolutely incredible, and I felt as if I was truly seeing my stepbrother for the first time. I knew that Sawyer had reinvented himself, pushing his body into phenomenal shape. I also knew, logically, that he was seriously tough.
But what I saw was way more than that. Sawyer was astonishingly powerful, and he seemed to just let himself get lost in the fight. When his face was in sight, his eyes were all but completely glazed over. His complete, undivided concentration was focused on the other guy, and he didn’t back down. When he took a hit, he came right back, either throwing his opponent off his balance or smacking him again.
The other guy was fast. He was able to keep the upper hand for a while, and he was clearly hard to pin down. Jabberjaw, they had called him. He’d certainly done a lot of jabbering at the beginning – something about a police raid?
I would have to ask Sawyer about that.
As long as he’ll tell me, I thought to myself.
I almost called out his name when he took a vicious punch to the face, but I stopped myself. What if I distract him? What if I’m why he loses? Instead, I silently cheered my stepbrother on, willing him to win, willing him to keep fighting.
And then, at the end, Jabberjaw had started to overcome him – to win. I knew that Saywer was rapidly dropping in stamina, and I wanted to do something – anything.
“Is he going to be okay?” I pleaded to his bodybuilder friend. “There has to be something that we can do! Open the cage! Please, anything!”
The man turned to the other guy, the one with the dreads.
“This has gone on long enough, Luke! Listen to the girl! Open the fucking cage!”
“Dude, I can’t,” Luke protested, holding his hands up. “That’s not the deal! The deal is, the cage stays locked until someone doesn’t get back up! I didn’t make the rules up!”
“No, but you sure as hell broke them, didn’t you?” The bodybuilder grabbed Luke by the scruff of his shirt, right near the neck. He lifted him a foot up. “You see this girl? That’s his sister, you piece of shit. You’re gonna make her watch this bloodbath? Be a fucking man and open the goddamn cage.”
“Darren…dude, you’re hurting me…” Luke clasped at the bodybuilder’s wrist, trying to break the hold, but Darren was too strong.
“I will tear off your fucking balls and feed them to you if you don’t end this travesty NOW.”
“Wait…look!” Luke pointed.
“Don’t you try it,” Darren hissed.
“No, look!” I exclaimed, pulling on his shirt.
Darren turned his attention at the sound of my voice, his eyes locked onto the cage. Sawyer had regained the upper hand, and Jabberjaw was against the fence, begging for help.
“No tapouts. Only knockouts,” Sawyer reminded him.
He whirled his opponent around and decisively won the match with an insane blow to the guy’s face, knocking him clear off of his feet. The guy hit the ground, and Sawyer jammed a foot onto his chest, standing tall and proud.
“You just got fucking lucky,” Darren hissed angrily, dropping Luke to his feet. The scrawny rasta guy rubbed his neck and straightened himself out, and the thin referee with the crazy thick moustache fiddled with the lock on the cage. Racing in, he inspected the downed fighter. Sawyer turned to look around
at the crowd, and his face landed on us – and a brief flicker of panic crossed his eyes when he saw me.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the New Horizons Cage,” the referee called out in his deep, loud voice as he threw Sawyer’s hand up, “…the match goes to the reigning veteran, Booonesaaaw!”
The crowd around us had been boisterous before, but it whipped into a frenzied throng at that. I covered my ears; Darren stepped close, shielding me from the insanity of the cheering fans. This is what his life is like? I wondered to myself, a proud smile crossing my lips. They’re all here, just to see HIM fight some guy?
But my pride – and my spirits – plummeted when I heard a distinct thump against the platform.
The crowd slowed down in stages. It took the audience a few seconds for it to process that the champion had collapsed in the cage, and Darren turned to Luke furiously.
“Watch her. If anything – anything – happens to her, you’re going to have to deal with me…and God help you when he gets back up and realizes you let something happen to his sister…”
Luke gulped audibly, nodding furiously.
Darren gave me a quick Let me take care of this glance and immediately rushed for the gate. Flying up the stairs, he pushed the door open and dropped to his knees beside the referee.
“What happened?” He demanded.
“I…I don’t know! He just dropped!”
“We need to get him out of here, now. Give me a hand!”
“Which one?”
“I don’t give a damn about that one,” Darren glowered, looking down at the unconscious fighter beneath Sawyer’s legs, “but we’d better get him too. Bonesaw first.”
I wanted to rush in and hold him, but Luke shook his head.
“No, girl, you gotta let the big guy take care of this.”
“This is YOUR fault, isn’t it? YOU did this!”
“No, no, that ain’t true!” Luke sputtered, looking at me like I was some hideous monster with gnashing jaws, ready to rip him to shreds. “Look, it was that other guy in the cage! I didn’t know they had a beef against each other, alright? I just thought he was a fan! I thought he was just some other fighter who wanted to throw down with the legend, alright?”
