“Roll it up,” Caroline instructed, as she took hold of Alice’s hips and folded the skirt at the waistband, significantly shortening its length. Looking at her living paper doll, she handed Alice a pair of gold flats. “Perfect. Now, we’ve got to do somethin’ about that makeup.” She went off to the bathroom and returned with arm full of products. “Okay, hon’,” she said, dropping the makeup on Alice’s bed, “we’re gonna have to do this quick.”
Concealer, foundation, bronzer, blush, eye shadow, liner, mascara, and lipstick. She piled it all on Alice’s freshly cleaned face as if she was a painter herself. When she finished, she stood back, studying her masterpiece. “Well,” she sighed, “it ain’t my best work, but it’ll have to do.”
A buzz sounded, filling up the silence space of their apartment with noise. Caroline grabbed Alice’s hand, as they ran down the stairs to meet Jace and Pete at the doorway. Without a beat, she fell into Jace’s arms, pretending to trip. Both laughed, as they remained in a tight embrace.
Suddenly, Alice felt silly. Pete stood before her in his new outfit, a black button down and a pair of jeans. His hands were tucked in his pockets, as he avoided eye contact with Alice. He reminded her of her date to the homecoming dance ten years ago. Wordless, they followed the locked couple to the black beater parked across the street.
“You…uh…you look really nice, Alice.” His voice was raised awkwardly, perhaps even surprised at his own bravery.
“Thanks!” she squeaked. “You do, too. It’s nice to see you out of a work shirt.” She floated a smile his way.
“It’s nice to see you out of a shirt,” he said, grinning. Then, realizing his mistake, he quickly amended, “Wait. I mean…uh…you know…like, a work shirt.” Alice could practically watch the sweat drip off of him, as he fumbled his way through an explanation and an apology.
“Smooth, man!” Jace raised his hand to give him a high-five, keeping his other hand on the steering wheel. Caroline just giggled foolishly.
The rest of the ride was dominated by Jace going on and on about the fights they were about to watch. “Wait till you see this guy, Anders. He’s a beast. He is going to tear down Micah. It’s not even going to be a competition. I mean, Micah is scrappy, but he’s no Anders. This is going to be awesome.”
“I know this is going to sound really silly, but what is MMA? I mean, is it like boxing or wrestling?” asked Caroline. Alice, for once, was grateful for Caroline’s ability to turn on the feminine charm. Her question was certainly at the forefront of Alice’s mind, considering she had never been to a wrestling match, let alone something like this spectacle.
“Well, MMA is mixed martial arts. Basically, it’s three rounds of two guys going at it in a cage. They can punch and kick, which makes it so much more fun than boxing.”
“Wait, they can kick? Isn’t that dangerous?” Alice piped up from the back, as flashbacks of her own beating jumped in front of her thoughts, derailing her.
“Yeah. They can kick. It gets really brutal. I mean, there are some things you can't do, like punch a guy in the throat, but it’s pretty much wrestling meets boxing meets kickboxing.” Jace continued on, explaining the rules to Caroline, as she stared with wide eyes at Jace and his knowledge of the sport.
Alice, on the other hand, cringed. The idea of someone watching another person get beat up for entertainment was almost sickening to her. She wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to stomach the night ahead. As they pulled up to the sports arena, Alice attempted to steady herself.
The booming sounds coming from in Tiger Sports Arena wasn’t helping much. Inside, the noise wasn’t much better. The crowd was already rowdy, cursing and screaming at one another. Gamblers hawked their receipts in darker corners of the twenty-chair rows. Jace and Caroline went off to mingle with some of Jace’s friends, leaving Pete and Alice alone in search of their seats.
The two took their place in the second row of green folding chairs, directly in front of the action. In the center of the room, stood a large, black metal cage with eight sides elevated by platforms. From her vantage point, she could see drips of blood staining the blue mat floors of the ring. And already, her stomach began to churn.
“Those are the judges at that table.” Pete noticed Alice checking out the surroundings and piped in a quick word to her. “They are the ones who decide a match. It’s like boxing where they give the fighters a score and then use the score to determine a winner.”
“So, it’s not like they go until they kill each other?”
Pete laughed in her face, obviously unsure if she was serious or not. When Alice’s expression hardened, he quit. “No, they don’t kill each other. There’s a ref in there to make sure things are safe, and the rounds only last about three minutes. But Jace is right. It gets bloody and pretty vicious. Winner walks away with a huge chunk of money, so there’s a ton of the line for the guys.”
“Jesh.” It was all Alice could think to say. She scanned the back walls for a quick exit route, just in case she truly couldn’t handle what was about to go down.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” A crackling voice came over the speakers as the music died down. “Welcome to Tiger Sports Arena! Tonight we bring you three of the best amateur match-ups this side of Steubenville.” The announcer continued as he introduced the judges, the ring assistants, and the ref. It was all a noisy, hectic blur for Alice.
“Hey, Pete. I’m going to be right back. I’m going to go grab a soda from concessions. Okay?” Pete nodded his head at her mindlessly, too focused on the announcer and the female fighters being introduced to care about where she went.
The need to escape overwhelmed Alice, but her desire to stick around for Caroline’s sake held her at the stadium. But there was no way, no way that she was going to be able to stomach the fights ahead. Already, just at the sight of the blood smears and the sound of crowds, her palms had begun to sweat, her heart raced, and her mind rushed dramatically to memories of her own fight several months earlier.
She walked quickly, searching for the ladies room, hoping for refuge there or at least an opportunity to put some water on her face. As she turned a darkened corner, she felt herself smack squarely into a much, much larger body. Like a spring, she fell backwards, hitting herself against the wall. She let out a small yelp of pain, as she could feel her chest tightening where her broken rib had just healed.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there, lady.” A large, tan hand covered in black tribal tattoos emerged in front of her face. She refused it, using her hands to crawl back up the wall to a standing position. She dusted herself off, feeling quite silly at the whole thing. “Are you alright? I body slammed you pretty hard.” The voice was low, but soft—tender with an edge of darkness.
Alice looked at the man towering at least a foot over her. He was shirtless, yet like his hands, his body was covered in carefully selected tattoo art, each with its own specific piece to play. Mingled with the black ink were scars, hundreds of them both big and small. Some ran the length of his tight, muscular torso while the rest just pinched into tiny crevices. His face was more of the same with an angular, razor sharp jaw. Wooden-colored eyes with a touch of honey-hazel stood out on his tan face. His fully shaved head gave him an ethereal look.
Finding her voice, Alice quietly said, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” She turned to leave, hoping to stave off embarrassment for as long as possible.
“Wait! I need to check you out. You’re bleeding.” The man grabbed her arm with a soft force, pulling her closer to him. He spun her around to her right, as he studied the side of her body.
“I’m not bleeding…” She, too, looked down at her emerald green halter searching for any sign of injury. Both of them spotted it at the same time, a small bit of blood stained the seam.
“Come on. I’ll take you back to the medics.” He continued to hold on to her arm. Yet, while Alice felt she should be wary of this shirtless man, she couldn’t find a reason to argue with him. Plus, she was certa
in that she wouldn’t win if she tried to resist.
Without another word, he circled the hallways with her in tow. Occasionally, he would take his thumb and forefingers to her arm, rubbing the skin near her underarm gently as if to reassure her that he was not as scary as she thought he may be. At the same time, he would smile back down at her, crooked lips parted just a hair.
The medic’s office was located near the locker rooms. Small and damp with a flickering overhead light, it felt like it was straight out of a horror movie. It was certainly the last place she had imagined finding herself that night.
“I didn’t expect to see you in here so soon, Micah.” A short, unimpressive woman smiled at the sight of Alice’s companion.
“Not here for me. I slammed into this lady in the hallway, and she’s bleeding. Can you take a look?” He led Alice further in the room, guiding her to a metal folding chair. She demurely lifted her shirt, exposing the pale skin underneath and the curve of her hip.
“Just a scratch. Nothing big. Must have scraped it on the brick.” The medic turned to grab an extra-large Band-Aid.
“She’s going to be okay?”
The medic laughed at him, reassuring her that he was making a mountain out of a molehill.
“Good, good. I’ve got to run then. Dean is going to kill me if I’m running late. I’ll see you out there…” He searched for her name in his memory but came up blank.
“It’s Alice, Alice Cross.” She winced, as the medic sprayed rubbing alcohol on the wound. “Thanks for the adventure. It’s been swell.” She wasn’t exactly in the mood to play nice. Despite that, he still raised his lips, admiring her spunk and taking a glance at the wound once more. He nodded, tipped his head, and walked backwards towards the locker rooms. Out of sight and out of mind.
When the medic had finished, she returned to the stadium and back to Pete. None of her party had apparently noticed her absence. Instead, they were wildly yelling at the match in front of them. Two large men of about 200 pounds pounced on one another. The man in tight blue shorts fell forward, placing the other man in a sort of choke hold as he pounded his side with his other fist.
As Alice sat, a piercing buzzer rang as a cheer rose from the crowd. The ref separated the fighting men and then conferred with the judges table. When he was satisfied, he drug both fighters to the center of the octagonal ring and raised the arm of the man in the blue shorts victoriously. Yells and shouts in favor and against escalated the noise and chaos, as photographers and officials stood for photos with the winners.
Caroline, finally taking her eyes and hands off of Jace, gave Alice a minute of her attention. Of course, she noticed her shirt’s blood stain to Alice’s dismay.
“Girl! What in the hell happened to you in that bathroom?” The boys turned their attention to her, as well.
“Some guy slammed me into the wall on accident. I’m fine. He brought me to the medic, and they gave me a bandage and a lollipop.”
“Seriously?” Pete asked dumbfounded.
“No. I didn’t get a lollipop, Pete. Just the bandage and the annoyance.” She rolled her eyes at her date, bemused at his ability to ask such an obvious question with sincerity.
“Who hit you?” Caroline leaned in, coyly smiling, “And was he cute?”
Alice whispered back, “Some guy, Mike, maybe. I don’t know. He was shirtless though, so there’s that. Not really my typ—” She stopped mid-word as she started to take note of the men entering the octagonal ring from the cage. She stood to get a better view, dragging Caroline up with her. “It was that guy.”
“Wait! What? That guy? The guy in the black biker shorts and red gloves? He was the one who pushed you?” She was as stunned as Alice.
“Yeah. It was that man for sure. He went back into the locker room after he brought me back to the medic’s office, but I thought he was an official or a trainer or something.” The two continued to stand as the announcer entered the ring with the men.
“In the red and white shorts, champion MMA fighter for the 190 weight class at Tiger Sports Arena, Anders Thompson.” A deafening sound rang up as the bettors raised their tickets in the air like flags in the wind. “And in black, a new fighter from Chapel Hill’s All In Gym, Micah Anderson!”
Micah took his lap around the blue mat, unfazed by the lack of support or the occasional boo tossed his way. But as he turned the corner, he stopped, spotting Alice and her green halter from the mixture of shouting men and women. His eyes, burning and powerful, sparked on hers. He placed his mouth guard in and raised his arms to stretch, his entire wingspan on display for the arena to see. But despite the show and the spectacle of the two men gearing up for a fight, his focused continued to remain directly on Alice.
Chapter 3: The Fight Night
At the bell, Anders and Micah dove right in without any hesitation, neither backing down from the onset of the starting handshakes. Anders, clearly the more experienced one of the two, almost tauntingly danced around the edges of the cage while Micah remained calm and steady in a hunched position.
And then the scene changed dramatically. Without a beat, Anders pushed into Micah, handing him body shot after body shot while locking his head with his arms. The crowd’s roar was almost deafening with the sound of Micah hitting the mat and the sight of him rubbing up against the black metal wires.
It was vicious and cruel—yet Alice couldn’t take her eyes off of the man on the ground. In her mind, she was screaming at him to get up and finish the match. She could see his eyes bulging a bit, his face turning red from the pressure. The referee stopped Anders from hitting him to check on his condition, but Micah gave a thumbs up and Anders continued.
Just as suddenly as Micah was thrown down, he used his own body to flip the larger Anders. And now, he was on top delivering jabs to Anders’ body and face in a rhythmic, almost musical progression. His face was serious, and his eyes were steel to his purpose. He maintained his position, digging every jab into the man harder than the one before. His wrapped knuckles looking raw with each quick hit.
With equal precision, Anders managed to grab a hold of Micah and fling him forward, both men landing deftly on their feet. Both returned to their dance. Anders continued to play up the crowd with quick jumps around the ring with Micah tailing like an alligator stalking his fanciful prey.
More punches flew, almost as fast as Alice’s heart beat in her chest. Her nails dug into the side of the chair, as she held her breath. A clock on the judges table ticked down seconds, but every click of the clock wasn’t soon enough for her, especially as Micah again was slammed to the side of the cage with Anders’ punches.
The buzzer rang, startling Caroline in her seat. Like the rest of the crowd, Alice stood to her feet, watching Micah as he took a long drink of water and spit into the a metal bucket. His coach, an older, beefy man was behind him, whispering urgently. With only one minute between rounds, there was little time for the fighters to plan an attack, let alone catch their breath.
Everyone besides Alice was abuzz about the first round. Men with their betting tickets seemed to hold them closer to their jackets, unsure about what they saw. Clearly, Anders was the winner, but he appeared stilted by the unknown fighter. Jace was positively angry with the situation, as he screamed, “WHAT THE HELL ANDERS!” over and over again. Pete, on the other hand, laughed absurdly, as if he could have predicted it.
In the ring, Micah was counting down seconds. He did this every time he hit a break period. His routine was to count it backwards, taking quick breaths between. It was supposed to cleanse him of the first round jitters and bring back the oxygen to his head. Yet, with Dean giving commands like a drill sergeant, he could barely remember what number he was on last, let alone keep up with his commentary.
Making it more challenging was that woman standing and staring at him. This woman in her green halter with pin-straight hair touching the curves of her bare shoulders had him looking straight back. Her steamy green eyes had followed him throughout the fir
st round, almost as if he could feel her physically there with him, fighting by his side.
A woman in a tight pair of spandex shorts and a white cut-off tank passed him by. She held the round two sign, and he suddenly snapped back into time and space. Even Dean had left him seconds ago. It was back to being him, Anders, and Alice’s eyes fighting for the prize once again.
He glanced to his left, taking in one more moment with her before the buzzer sounded. She had broken her gaze and instead focused it on a stubbly red-haired man next to her— obviously a date or a boyfriend. Seeing her with him was almost reassuring. There was apparently no one to impress there.
Micah and Anders knocked knuckles, and the buzzer sounded. Each took their position, circling and sparring. Neither landed a first hit or their second. Micah took a chance combination that rarely worked. He delivered a quick right jab and then outstretched his leg to the man’s chest landing the kick squarely.
It surprised Anders, and he fell back to his end of the cage, tripping over his feet and falling to the ground. Micah pounced, placing his body onto Anders to trap him squarely to the ground, his arm pinned around Anders’ neck.
Hooked (The Submission Fighter Book 1) Page 2
