‘You look unhappy,’ the man beside me said, turning back. ‘You want drink?’ He tipped a flask in my direction.
I waved him off. ‘I think I’ve had enough.’ I was already feeling the sad stage of vodka.
The match was about to begin, but I couldn’t help but spare one more glance up to the man in the stands. There was something about him … something almost familiar … something that made my chest feel a little tight.
The opposing entourage came into view and snapped me from my thoughts. The entire crew wore camouflage overalls and cowboy hats. Two female bodybuilders stood in the middle, their overalls cut into shorts. ‘Whoa, which one is Lana fighting?’
‘Both.’
I scoffed. ‘Well, that’s not fair.’
The big man looked at me sideways. ‘This was not surprise.’
‘Oh, right.’
Suddenly the voice of the announcer boomed through the auditorium. I plugged my ears, but that only earned me another elbow to the ribs.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in this corner …
I got up on my tiptoes to shout in my underground fighting mentor’s ear. ‘Is this going to take long? I’ve got a date.’
His eyes widened. ‘Down. Scary face.’
I dropped heavily back down to my heels. Scary face. I blew a thin stream of annoyed breath through my lips. Pouty face would have to do. I should be back in my apartment right now, putting on a dress, having fake conversations with Pierce, drawing hearts on my mirror with lipstick. Okay, maybe not drawing on my mirror—that was a fine waste of both lipstick and spray cleaner, if I had any—but the spirit of the fantasy was bang on. I watched all three women enter the ring and circle each other. Lana spat on the floor again. This sucked. I should just leave. I mean, what could they really do to me? Everyone was focused on the fight. They wouldn’t even notice.
I took a half-step backwards.
‘You sure you don’t want drink?’ Suddenly the flask was back in front of me.
Without thinking, I grabbed it and took a swig.
Hot alcohol exploded in my mouth before it burned a hole down to my stomach.
‘You like?’ The man asked with a smile in his potato-like face. ‘I make it myself.’
‘It’s great,’ I croaked.
A loud roar rose up from the crowd as Lana threw one of the duck hunters into the air.
I sighed heavily.
I should call Pierce.
I pulled my phone out from my belt and tapped his number.
‘Bremy?’
I plugged my other ear with the index finger on my free hand. The crowd thundered around me. Hopefully, Pierce could hear me better than I could hear him.
‘Hi!’ I shouted.
‘Where are you?’
‘Oh,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘it’s hard to explain.’ This was a problem. In the month or two I had known Pierce, I had told him a few lies. Needless to say, this had left us with some trust issues. As a result, I had made a promise to myself that I would not lie to him anymore. That being said, I thought my accepting a job as an errand girl for the mob was really something that should be explained in person and not over the phone.
‘It sounds like you’re in a death match at the Coliseum.’
‘In? No, no. That would be silly,’ I replied with a chuckle. ‘I’m just watching.’
He didn’t say anything for a second. ‘Oh, um, okay. I thought we had plans?’
‘We do! I’m just running a little late,’ I said, noticing out of the corner of my eye that one of the hillbilly cowgirls was leaning on the edge of the ropes staring at me while her partner was trying to pin Lana to the floor.
‘Oh.’
My concentration snapped back to Pierce. ‘No, oh. No, oh,’ I said, waving my hand as though he could see me.
‘Bremy, are you okay?’
‘Awesome possum.’
‘Have you been dr—’
‘You know what? Forget the whole late thing. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there. I … will … so … be … there.’
‘Okay. Well, good,’ Pierce replied, voice brightening. ‘You know, you don’t have to be worried about telling me what’s going on with you. I just want you to be safe.’
I shook my head. ‘I so want the same thing.’
‘Right.’
I tilted my head and smiled. ‘We have so much in common.’
‘Do you need me to pick you up?’
‘Ha! No,’ I said, imagining the horror of that. ‘I’ll meet you at the restaurant, okay?’
‘I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Me too.’
‘Good.’
I smiled again. ‘I mean, really, me too.’
‘Okay.’
‘No. I mean, I really—’
‘Bremy, are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Don’t question the awesome possum.’
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Where are you? I’m coming to get you.’
‘Hey!’ A new voice shouted seemingly at me. I looked up to the redneck huntress in the ring. She was pointing directly at me. ‘Aren’t you …’
‘Pierce, I gotta go. I’ll see you at the restaurant.’
I ended the call before he could say anything. I held the gaze of the ‘roided up woman looming above me.
‘I think she is talking to you,’ the man at my side said.
‘I got that.’
The woman shifted back and forth on her feet with a pretty serious thinking face on. ‘You’re that little socialite bitch.’
I chuckled awkwardly. ‘Me? A socialite?’ Oh, this was bad. I really didn’t need to be recognised here. I looked around the stadium at the hundreds of spectators, but all I saw were hundreds of phones with cameras.
As I said, my father and I have a complicated relationship. I hate him with the hatred of a thousand white-hot suns, and he occasionally tries to kill me for my lack of family loyalty. I couldn’t be absolutely certain, but aside for the occasional no-neck man in a suit following me, I was pretty sure my father was leaving me alone. The no-neck man was just his way of saying I can take you out anytime. If I got caught embarrassing St. James Industries by say, being part of an underground fighting racket, well, I was guessing that the anytime part of the take you out threat would come sooner than later, and I couldn’t take on my father just yet. Not until I found Ryder.
But wait! All was not lost!
I had a mask!
I quickly felt around underneath my jacket for the silky piece of black fabric. I strapped it over my face, and instantly felt better.
‘What are you doing?’ the man beside me asked. ‘You want to go in?’ He jerked a thumb towards the ring.
‘Oh, no,’ I said, pulling a face and shaking my head. ‘Actually, I really need to go.’
‘Hey!’ the voice yelled again. ‘It is you!’
I rolled my eyes slowly back up to the ring. Why couldn’t this chick just go and shoot the hell out of some poor duck already?
‘What? You think you’re cool, slumming it with the rest of us?’
I took a quick glance around. This was getting worse by the second. Most of the crowd was still focused on the throwdown happening between Lana and the other hillbilly, but a growing number of people was trying to figure out what her partner was yelling about.
‘I really have to go,’ I told the man quickly. ‘Maybe I’ll come back another time.’ I sidestepped around one of Lana’s men before pushing past another.
‘Hey! Get back here! I’ve always wanted to beat a rich girl’s ass!’
Nope. Nope. Nope. She may have thought her smack talk was going to get me in that ring, but all it was doing was making it clear that I did not have time for these shenanigans. I had a hot, sweet reporter waiting on me, and I already had some egg-splaining to do.
‘Hey, look Daisy!’ she called out again. ‘She’s leaving!’
I peeked one eye over my shoulder. Lana had the so-called Daisy in a headlock, but she still manag
ed to grunt, ‘Who’s leaving, Lee Lee?’
‘That girl. The socialite. You know the one with the sister who’s a retar—’
A lot of things happened really quickly after that.
I tossed the package to the man I had been standing beside.
‘What are you doing, Little Chicken?’ he asked, glancing down at the package. ‘You fight now?’
‘Oh, you bet I fight now.’
Chapter 5
The crowd swelled to its feet—probably because they had never seen anyone fly before. And that’s what had to have happened, because suddenly I was in the ring, and I swear my feet never touched the ground.
Next, the sound of a battle cry exploded in my ears. It took me a second to realise that it was coming from me. Lee Lee’s eyes widened … and that just made me hungry for her blood.
‘You wanna go?’ I shouted. ‘You wanna go! Let’s go!’
My eyes scrambled around their sockets like wild animals tearing through the prison of my head. I balled my hands into fists. I couldn’t see what Lana and Daisy were up to. My vision had tunnelled to a sphere of rage that spiralled its way to Lee Lee’s face.
The spectator’s screams reached a frenzied peak. We kept our face-off for a moment longer, but I couldn’t hold back the beast within. Sure, I had already been in one fight tonight, and it had not gone spectacularly well, but I hadn’t had the eye of the tiger then.
I rocketed my body forwards, just in time to see Lee Lee’s fist.
Smack!
Pain exploded up from my nose into my brain.
I was falling. Nothing in my body worked anymore. Right before I hit the mat, hands caught me. Next thing I knew, I was spinning, spinning in the air like the blades of a helicopter.
The moment lasted an entire nauseous lifetime before Lee Lee launched my body into space.
I fell for an eternity then landed with the force of a meteor hitting the earth.
A few sickening moments passed.
I could no longer hear the crowd, just a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
Lately, I had, on more than a few occasions, thought death was coming for me. There had been the feral strippers attack, the nearly being crushed to death by the clown-faced hot air balloon, and the being torn to pieces by the techo-zombie inmate army. This had led me to expand my musings on ways to die. I had come up with scenarios like bear attack on the subway, hit in the head by falling airplane meal tray, swarmed by rogue robots … but being crushed to death by lady wrestlers? I hadn’t seen it coming.
I blinked my eyes open, but all I could see was a bright light.
Actually there were a bunch of bright lights … and something in the middle of them … or someone … perched in the rafters like a beautiful spider ready to drop on me.
Dark Ryder.
Great, I was dying, and the last thing I would ever see was a hallucination of the woman I could never be. I waited for the light to take me.
It was taking an awfully long time. But then again, time had no meaning in limbo.
I coughed weakly and felt something wet hit my chin. Hey, did dead people still cough?
My hands fumbled over my body. I could still feel it. Maybe I wasn’t dead after all. But that meant Dark Ryder was really hanging in the rafters! I blinked my eyes a few times.
Yup, she was still there, but now she was swinging towards one of the exits! I had to get her! If only I could remember how to work my limbs!
Large cowboy boots crowded my vision. Suddenly Lee Lee’s giant hands clamped down on my prone form. Up I went again. This was good. I could use this. Lee Lee started to turn me again with her hands. ‘No! Stop! I’ve got to go!’ I yelled. ‘Besides, if you spin me again, I’m going to barf, and I promised the little hat woman I wouldn’t do that.’
‘Then what do you want me to do with you?’
Blood rushed to my face, making my eyeballs bulge as I stared down at the dirty mat. ‘Could you just toss me back in the direction of Lana’s people?’
‘What? You’re just giving up?’
‘I gotta see a woman about a thing, but, so help me,’ I said, wriggling in the air, ‘if you ever—’
The screaming crowd zoomed by me as Lee Lee launched me out of the ring towards Lana’s entourage. For a brief second, I thought they might catch me, but they all scattered at the last moment. I hit the concrete hard, gritty dirt scraping against my face.
I grunted before placing my palms flat on the floor to push myself up. I took a mental check of my body. Nothing broken. Just bruised everywhere. And my cheek felt like it was on fire.
The large man I had met before grabbed my elbow and helped me to my feet. ‘Little Chicken, that was very bad fight.’
I spared one look back at the ring, and I noticed the aviator guy on the second floor was raising a glass to me. ‘Yeah,’ I said, quickly turning back. ‘That’s been happening a lot lately. Where’s my package?’ I asked, flapping my hand at him. I could see Ryder scaling down the wall headed for the exit. He shrugged. ‘I placed bet, like you said.’
‘What?’
‘You tossed me money, and said, you bet.’
‘What? No, I didn—that’s not what I meant— Gah!’ I hopped angrily a few times before I realised how much hopping hurt.
‘You could go back in,’ he said helpfully.
I looked back at the ring to see Lana smash a chair over Daisy’s shoulders just as Lee Lee jumped on her back. Mr Pushkin’s skull eyeball flashed through my mind, but I couldn’t worry about him now. I had to catch up to Ryder.
Someone in the crowd shouted, ‘Get back in there and punch her in the lady parts!’
I spun to see the speaker, a grimy-looking man standing by the aisle, lazily eating from a large bag of chips, wearing a t-shirt that didn’t fully cover his hairy belly.
‘Why don’t you get in there, tough guy?’ I said, getting on my toes to look over the man’s shoulder at the back of the auditorium. There! I spotted Ryder’s silhouette standing in the exit. The man caught my attention again by shouting, ‘I would get in there, but I don’t have the cute little mask.’
I hurried down the thin concrete aisle, meaning to pass him by. I so didn’t have time for this.
Just as I crossed paths with the man with the hairy stomach, he shouted, ‘Who are you supposed to be anyway? The Lone Ranger? You wanna ride my Silver?’
Before I knew what I doing, I snatched the chip bag from the man’s hands and crumpled its contents in sharp angry bursts before passing it back to him.
‘Hey!’
‘Hay is for horses, numb-nuts.’
‘Hay is horses? What are you eight—’ I let the rest of what he had to say fade into the cacophony of stadium noise as I sprinted down the aisle.
Chapter 6
I stopped when I made it into the tomb-like hallway that ran along the back of the auditorium. I planted my hands on my knees in order to catch my breath as my eyes darted to either side. Where had she gone? I jolted up when I spotted Ryder in the darkness at the end of the longer hallway to my right. She stared back at me from the shadows. Even in the gloom, Ryder was insanely beautiful. Neon blue eyes. Hair the colour of fire. Flawless black skin. Flawless except for the angry webbed tracing of scars that ran over her one cheek. Ryder, the hero, wasn’t supposed to care about superficial things like beauty, but she had that side of her face turned to the shadows, making me wonder if she had human frailties after all. Sick guilt ran through my body. It had been my fault. Stupid father and his penchant for blowing up buildings.
I shook off the odd still feeling in the air and walked towards her. The sound of my footsteps echoed off of the concrete walls, throwing me off my earlier strut. Even though my heart was pounding against my ribcage with its little bloody fists, my resolve felt steely. Finally. Finally, I would get my explanation as to what the hell was going on with us and maybe, just maybe, an apology. Don’t get me wrong, I was totally going to take her back as my mentor, but I figured there was
nothing wrong with making her sweat a little.
Ryder remained staring at me. In fact, I was pretty sure she hadn’t blinked. God, she was so creepy sometimes … in the awesome-ist kind of way.
I stopped a good distance back from the spot of darkness she had claimed as her own. I didn’t have the nerve to go any closer. Heat rolled up to my cheeks as I said, ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t my long lost mentor. Dark Ryder, isn’t it?’
Suddenly she pulled out a rappelling gun from her belt, aimed the hook to the darkened ceiling, and pulled the trigger.
‘Wait!’
She pressed the winding mechanism at her belt and shot up towards the shadows above.
‘Ryder!’
I ran the rest of the way down to the end of the hallway and looked up. She was gone. Nothing but an open skylight. I stood frozen in the gloom. Some emotion, both hot and cold, rolled down my body from my scalp to my toes, making my eyes prickle. That had not just happened. That could not have just happened. All the waiting … all the hoping. An avalanche of too big thoughts tumbled through my mind, threatening to crush me. The biggest, scariest one carried the message, It’s over. But it couldn’t be over. If it was over, then that meant I had to face the reality of what my life had become. It wasn’t just the living in poverty away from everything I had ever known. It was the living with knowing what my father had done—with what I knew he was capable of—and not being able to do a single thing about it.
No. I shook my head fiercely. No.
There had to be some sort of explanation. I didn’t imagine the entire thing. That night at the prison really had happened. Something—
A buzz at my hip jerked me from my thoughts. I grabbed my phone to look at the text. Pierce.
At the restaurant. We still on? You okay?
I had to stop and think about that for a second. In the last couple of hours, I’d had my ass handed to me, not once, but twice, I had become an errand girl from the mob and had accidentally lost their money gambling on my first run, and now my mentor, the keeper of all my dreams, had apparently come down with a severe case of Bremnaphobia. So, how exactly was I?
I blinked the tears out of my eyes.
Sidekick Returns Page 4
