Strong Hold

by Sarah Castille

  “So this fight you’re talking about was three weeks ago?” The ring doctor waves his shiny flashlight in my eyes.

  “Just over three weeks. And don’t listen to him. He’s making a big deal out of nothing.”

  “You can’t let her fight,” Zack says to the ring doctor as if I’m not there. “She might have a serious head injury. Sometimes they don’t present themselves right away. Or sometimes it takes a few hits to the head—”

  “Zack!” I push to my feet, shout his name. “Your issues about Okami are not my issues. I say I’m fine. I was medically certified as healthy before the fight. The ring doctor says I’m fine—”

  “Okami?” The ring doctor frowns. “Zack? Zack Grayson! Slayer! You’re Slayer!”

  Zack shrugs. “Yeah.”

  “Big fan.” The ring doctor pumps Zack’s hand. “I watched that Okami fight. Sorry you had to go through it. I don’t know how everyone missed the signs when he stepped into the cage. I would have had him DQ’d before the fight even started. It was only thirty days after his last knockout.”

  Zack freezes, and his face shutters, but not before I see a flicker of pain. I open my mouth to assure him that the signs a professional ring doctor would have noticed are not the kind of signs a fighter would notice when the doctor shakes his head.

  “You know, that does raise a concern here.” The doctor gives me a gentle pat on the arm. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to end the bout. Slayer is right. We can’t be too careful with head injuries, and talking about the Okami fight just reminded me of the rules.”

  “What?” I stare at him, aghast. “It was nothing. I didn’t even need to see a doctor the second time. He’s just being overprotective. I’m good to go. A no-contest result means I can’t get into the finals. I have a professional contract riding on this fight.”

  “I’m sorry.” The doctor shakes his head. “I’m not ending it because of what happened in this fight. I’m ending it because of the thirty-day rule. You aren’t allowed to compete within thirty days of a knockout. You’ll be disqualified for breaking that rule. Gordon will advance despite the final. I hate doing this, but part of my job is to protect fighters, even from themselves. And I’m sure Slayer can attest to the devastating effects of a head injury, not just for the friends and family of the injured fighter, but for the opponent as well.”

  My heart drops into my stomach, and not just because of the doctor’s decision. This wouldn’t have happened if Zack hadn’t opened his mouth.

  “No. You can’t.” I try to stand, and my knees wobble. Grabbing the rope for balance, I take a step toward the doctor as he picks up his bag. “He’s not right about that last fight. I didn’t lose consciousness. And not in the fight before that either. Tell him, Zack. Tell him you made a mistake.”

  But Zack doesn’t tell the doctor anything. He just glares at me as if I’m the one doing something wrong.

  “Wait. Please.” I grab the doctor’s arm. “Ask Torment. He’s really my head coach. He runs Redemption. Or Sadist. He’s a pro fighter, too. He was at the last fight. If you just give me a minute to find them—”

  “My decision stands.” The doctor shakes Zack’s hand. “Good to meet you. Hope to see you some day in the cage. Everyone’s rooting for you to come back. You were my son’s idol. Your fights were really something to watch.”

  He crosses the ring to speak to the ref, who then goes to speak to the judges. Within minutes, I have been disqualified for fighting while on a “CAMO ill” designation, meaning I have been accused of doing exactly what Okami did—fighting after a concussion when I should have been on the unavailable list. Carla Gordon shrieks with joy when she hears the news, and bounces around the ring.

  “We should go.” Zack moves to help me stand, and I slap his hand away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “You can’t walk alone, Shay. You were unsteady even when you stood up.” He puts an arm around me, and I push him away.

  “I said don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. Don’t speak to me. You know I didn’t lose consciousness, and he didn’t need to know what happened at that fight. It was an underground fight that you set up. I shouldn’t have a CAMO ill designation from an underground fight, but I couldn’t tell him I was in an underground fight or I’d lose my amateur license. Is that what you planned? Did you set it up so I couldn’t fight again?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Of course not.”

  “Then why?” My head is hurting so much, I can barely see. Every time I shout, the world turns red, and I don’t know if it’s because of the blow or my anger or the tears that are leaking from my eyes. “Why did you do that? Why did you think you knew what I needed better than me? Why did you betray me all over again?”

  I’m losing it so badly, both physically and emotionally, I know I’ll never make it out of the ring on my own, but damned if I’m going to lean on him ever again. “Sadist!” I shout for my Redemption buddy. “Sadist!”

  “Shay. Let me take you home. We can talk.” Zack holds out his hand, and I step away.

  “You thought this was Okami all over again, didn’t you?” I am reaching, but when he flinches, I know I’ve hit the mark. “Is this your idea of redemption? You save me from an imaginary danger to make up for what happened with Okami?”

  “No.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Of course not.”

  “I’ve got you.” Sadist’s deep voice rumbles through me. Warm broad hands reach through the ropes, and he helps me through. He doesn’t ask if I need help. He just puts his strong arm around me and half walks, half carries me away from the ring.

  I don’t even look back at Zack, and Sadist doesn’t ask why we’re leaving my coach behind. When we reach the changing room, I rest my head against the cool door and let out a sob.

  “What happened?” he asks quietly.

  “He told the ring doctor I was knocked out in my last fight, which wasn’t true. I was DQ’d under the thirty-day rule, and I couldn’t tell them it was in the underground, because that would be a breach of the rules. I could have won that fight, or at the very least had her disqualified. It was an intentional foul.”

  “They ruled it accidental.”

  “Then I could have had a no contest and fought next week. Now I’m facing a penalty, and I’m on CAMO ill for at least another week, which means no training. I’ll need a doctor’s note and permission to compete again. There’s no chance I’ll make it to the state finals now. And I will lose my shot at a professional contract. Zack is still carrying that damn chip on his shoulder about the Okami fight, and today, he gave it to me.”

  Sadist gives me a friendly hug. “You want me to talk to Torment? See if he can appeal the foul? Or maybe he can smooth things over? He knows everybody. There’s gotta be something he can do.”

  Defeated, I give a shrug. “I can’t imagine he’ll be pulling strings to get me another fight when he thought I wasn’t ready for this one, and on its face, it looks like I proved him right.”

  “I’m sorry, Shill,” he says, inadvertently reminding me that I will be stuck with that damned ring name for at least another year, maybe forever. “I wish there was something I can do. Maybe Zack—”

  “No. I’m done with him.” I push open the door, look back over my shoulder. “I’m going back to how things were. I want Torment and Fuzzy coaching me again and Stan beating me up on the treadmill when I show up late in the morning. I want to train like I was training before. Things were simple before Zack showed up. I want them to be simple again.”

  “You improved a lot when you were training with him,” he calls out.

  “Maybe I did, but the price was just too high.”

  24

  Shayla

  “So, no more Mr. Hotness.” Cheryl follows me into Symbian the week after my devastating fight. I was off work for a few days on doctor’s orders, and our shifts haven’t
coordinated until today. We’ve spent the last hour catching up while we patrolled the grounds, and she now sums up a few hours’ worth of considered reflection in five succinct words.

  “No, he’s gone. He came to the hospital where I was being checked over after the fight, and I asked him to leave. I’d had it with him interfering in my life, and I told him I didn’t want to see him again.”

  “You didn’t pull any punches.”

  I roll my eyes at her pun. Cheryl can always find the bright side to any bad situation. “I could have said a lot of things to him, but I bit my tongue. For a while, I thought things were different between us, but in the end, he was still his same overprotective self. He thought he knew what was best for me, and this time, it cost me a fight and possibly a professional contract.”

  We head over to the security desk, and I sit in Joe’s chair while she checks the monitors. “I think it’s for the best. Things were getting too intense. He was pretty much living at my apartment, and I was starting to feel about him the way I did in Glenwood. I felt like I wanted to drown in him back then. I couldn’t breathe unless he was around. He made me feel safe and protected, and I don’t want that anymore. I can’t rely on anyone else. I need to look after myself.”

  “You loved him.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was infatuation. I was very young, and he was my whole world.”

  “I thought I had that with Amber’s father,” Cheryl says. “I lived and breathed him. He was everything to me. I thought he was perfect in every way. I gave up everything to be with him—my job, my family, even my dog, because he was a cat person. And then six months after we got married, I found him in bed with the next-door neighbor and her sister. Instead of apologizing, the bastard asked me to join them. It took me another try before I realized the difference between love and infatuation. Love does not explode onto the scene and utterly consume you. It grows, wraps around you, holds you tight, and no matter what you do, it won’t let go. Sometimes you don’t see it or feel it, but love is always there. I had that with my first husband, and I’ve been looking for it ever since.”

  “I once thought Zack and I had love. I even started thinking we were finding it again, but now, I’m not so sure.”

  We study the monitors for the next few minutes. Everything is quiet outside. Joe is due to arrive shortly to take over desk duty, and Cheryl and I will head out to relieve Sol on patrol.

  “Is he still in town?” Cheryl asks.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen or heard from him since I told him to leave the hospital, and my friends at the gym haven’t seen him either.”

  “Holy crap. Lookit your face.” Joe walks in the door, and I manage a smile now that the swelling has gone down and my bruises are fading.

  “Better or worse than the raccoon look I had going last time?”

  “Any bruises are bad bruises.” Joe grimaces. “At least tell me you won.”

  “No. My opponent fouled but it was ruled accidental.” My voice tightens, because the ruling still irritates me. “How is it an accident when someone grabs your hair, smashes your face down into their knee, and says ‘take that, bitch’? I asked Torment if there was anything we could do, and he said he’d look into it, but he didn’t seem very hopeful. Not that it would matter. I was disqualified because they thought I’d had a concussion in the last thirty days and tried to hide it. It ruined my chance of getting into the finals and maybe going pro.”

  I give up my seat to Joe, and he signs in on the computer. “Don’t you dare give up,” he says as he pulls up the security log. “You’re a damn good fighter. Look what you did the other week here at Symbian. Maybe it won’t be this year, but your time is coming, and Cheryl and I will be there when it does, and we’ll be expecting front-row seats.”

  “I’m not giving up, but I am stepping back to reassess my training strategy.” I lean against the console and fold my arms across my chest. “I’m training with Torment and Fuzzy again, and Stan is back to doing his old fitness torture sessions. But I’m off the competitive circuit, so I’m pretty much back to where I was two months ago, right down to the bruised face and black eyes.”

  His face softens. “She really did a number on you.”

  And Zack did a number on my heart.

  “What the hell?” Joe stares at the monitor. “Sol logged out half an hour early. Did you see him go?”

  Cheryl shakes her head. “We both got here five minutes before our shift was due to start.”

  “Christ. This is the last straw.” He picks up the phone. “I don’t know what’s been going on with him. Ever since he came back from suspension, he’s been acting strange. He’s been patrolling buildings he doesn’t need to patrol, not answering his pager, showing up late, and leaving early. At first I thought it was because he lost all that money and Babs left, but I’ve seen him go through that kind of rough time before and make it out the other end. It’s like he wants to be fired this time. And now it’s going to happen. I can’t cover for him anymore.”

  I tighten my utility belt and check my weapons. “Do you want us to get out there? If he did leave early, it means no one has been on patrol for about forty minutes. That’s a long time if the higher-ups have something secret in the works.”

  “Yeah.” He covers the mouthpiece of the phone. “You guys go. I’m reporting him now.”

  Cheryl and I make our way across the grounds, checking the buildings one by one. It’s a cool evening, the stars barely visible through the clouds. Cheryl fills me in on her most recent date with Officer Morrison and their plans for a weekend outing with Amber. We reach building three, and I give each door a perfunctory tug. Usually, everything is locked up tight, but the last door I check opens when I pull.

  “Unlocked door in building three,” Cheryl reports over her radio. “We’re going to check it out.”

  “Sol should have reported this,” I say as we walk down the main hallway, checking the office doors. “I don’t think he’ll get away with a slap on the wrist this time.”

  We check the upper levels, and Cheryl radios Joe to let him know we’re heading downstairs to check out the plant room and the building manager’s office.

  I follow Cheryl down the concrete stairs. The main electricity meters, electricity distribution board, and water and gas meters are located in the plant room, along with the building management system computer, a server computer, and the data backup storage tapes, which are accessible only by the building manager and authorized staff.

  We push open the door and step into suffocating darkness. Cheryl flicks the switch a few times, and then her hand drops to her utility belt.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The lights aren’t working.” She pulls out her flashlight and takes a few steps forward, shining the beam in an arc around the room. I hear a gasp, a thud, and the crack of the flashlight hitting the concrete floor. Through the stairway light behind me, I see Cheryl lying motionless on the ground.

  “Cheryl?” Heart pounding, I pull out my gun and take a step back. “Whoever is in there, I’m armed, and this is the only way out. Come out with your hands up.”

  “Put down the fucking gun, or I’ll put a bullet in her brain.” Sol emerges from the darkness, his gun pointed at Cheryl’s head.

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Rational thought is trampled by the fierce thudding of my pulse. My mind screams a warning, but my body won’t obey.

  “Now. On your knees. Left hand on your head, the other putting the gun down.”

  I do as he says, tightening my left fist in my hair in frustration. My radio has an emergency button, but it is holstered on my left side. I can’t press it without obviously reaching across my body. I can only hope Cheryl’s radio triggers the alarm when it senses she is no longer moving. One of the benefits of working at a high-tech company is the high-tech equipment they gave us. Our radio alarms are automatically triggered if
there is no response to a call or if the radio isn’t moving, is moving too much, or is out of range. But if I know that, Sol knows it, too.

  “One hand on the buckle. Take off the belt nice and slow.”

  “What’s this about?” I undo my belt with my right hand. “Is it because you were suspended?”

  He gives a snort of derision. “Throw the belt over here, and put both hands on your head.”

  I follow his instructions, throwing the belt as hard and fast as I can, hoping the excess movement will trigger the alarm.

  Sol catches it with his free hand and places it on the ground beside Cheryl. He points the gun at me and motions to the ground. “Facedown on the ground. Hands behind your head.”

  When I’m in position, he comes up behind me and drops a knee into my back. “Not so tough now, are you, bitch?”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I don’t recognize the second voice in the darkness or the shadow of the man sitting in front of the computer monitor that has just flickered to life.

  “She thinks she’s so tough playing at a man’s game.” Sol grabs my hair and yanks my head back. “Look at her now. How damn easy was it to bring her down and disarm her? Where’s your fight now, cunt?”

  “Fucking idiot.” Sol’s partner in crime taps on the keyboard in front of him. “We don’t have time for your stupid games. We’re already running behind. Give me the passwords and the flash drive. You need the money worse than I do.”

  “On the table beside you.” Sol releases my hair and jabs his knee harder into my back, hitting one of the bruises Gordon left behind.

  “You weren’t watching sports games in the computer labs, were you?” I say, putting the pieces together. “You were stealing passwords.”