Page 54 of If You Fight

Chapter Seventeen

Ryder

Floyd’s voice boomed his orders around me as I struggled to keep my eyes open. I knew I’d taken an ass kicking, but I wasn’t sure if I’d won or lost. I hadn’t showed the signal to give in, but that guy had fucked me up pretty good. Whatever happened, I lasted a hell of a lot longer than I’d thought I could after being out of the scene for over two years.

“Ryder…Ryder, can you hear me, son? Answer me if you can hear me.”

I opened my eyes and saw him crouched down in front of me with a worried look on his face. Nodding, I croaked out, “I hear you.”

“You must have a guardian angel watching over you, son. There’s no way he should have given up after what he did to you. You must have gotten into his head, although I can’t for the life of me figure out how when he spent the whole time pounding the fuck out of you.”

His words floated in and out of my head, but I understood the gist of them and smiled. “So I won?”

“Fuck if I know how, but yeah, you won,” Floyd said shaking his head in disbelief.

“I wasn’t going to give the signal. He was going to have to knock me unconscious, but I wasn’t going to give up, Floyd.”

Closing my eyes, I cringed from how much my body hurt. Two years away from fighting had taken its toll, and that behemoth motherfucker Robert found to pound the piss out of me made it a hundred times worse. But even though I felt like a truck had driven over me, I hadn’t given up.

I wouldn’t let Robert have the satisfaction of seeing me surrender. Not in this fucking fight in this shithole of a place of his and not with Serena. If he wanted me out of her life, he’d have to kill me because I wasn’t fucking giving up.

Something cold pressed against my right shoulder, and I opened my eyes to see Serena holding an ice pack to my arm. Was I dreaming? Had I blacked out from the pain?

“Serena? Are you here?” I asked, reaching over to touch her hand to see if she was real or all in my mind.

She kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “I’m here, Ryder. You won.”

“Why are you here? I told you I didn’t want you to see me like this. This is no place for you.”

“My father brought me to see you fight. I didn’t see much, though. I’m sorry. I thought I could handle it, but it was so awful. How did you stand him hitting you all those times?”

Fucking Robert! What kind of father would bring her to this place? Son of a bitch! I didn’t want her around this. She didn’t deserve to be around these fucking animals who screamed for us to beat the fuck out of one another.

“I’ll be okay. I can handle it.”

“It looks a lot worse than it is,” Floyd said with a chuckle. “That blood isn’t his. He took a good beating tonight, but he busted up that guy’s nose pretty good.”

I looked down and saw my chest covered in blood. Smiling, I looked up and said proudly, “He must have been a bleeder because I didn’t think I got him that good.”

“He had you down on the ground, so I couldn’t see what was happening, but it wasn’t long after that he gave up. Did you say something to him?” Floyd asked as he wiped the blood off my skin.

Shaking my head, I tried to remember doing anything after he took me down. All I remembered was hitting the ground hard with all his weight coming down on top of me and me punching him as hard as I could because I was pretty sure I was fighting for my life at that moment.

“Ryder, where are you hurt?” Serena asked as she examined my shoulder. “Is it just your shoulder and where he hit you in the face?”

I didn’t know how to answer her. Everything on me hurt. Every inch of my body ached with pain. But I didn’t want her to worry.

“I’ll be fine. I just want to get back home and soak in a hot bath.”

From the doorway, I heard Robert say, “Two years and you still have it, son.”

I turned to look at him as Serena grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

“Some people are made for this. Looks like that junkyard dog is still inside you,” Robert said with a chuckle.

I wanted to tell him to fuck off. He’d set up this fight so I’d get my head crushed in, and I hoped he lost a ton of money when I didn’t.

Instead, I just nodded and turned toward Serena. “You should go home. I don’t want you around this. I’ll follow you in a few minutes.”

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