Page 108 of Entwined

“It’s not your last wish.” Gisela’s voice is iron. “I’m going to win the money tonight for the enrollment fee for the clinical trial. You’re not going to die yet. You can’t, Mom.”

I snatch my water bottle off the ledge and pivot, desperate to get away from what I just saw. She wants to use the fifty thousand dollars prize money to pay for her mother’s medical care? Ugh.

“What’s wrong?” When I reach him, Coach is frowning. “You look like someone squashed your kitten.”

I shake my head. “No, nothing like that.”

He drops a hand on each of my shoulders. “You’re here, Liz. This is what we’ve always wanted, what we’ve trained for, and you can do this. You can destroy her. Remember what we practiced. Her kicks may be killer, but when you duck around them, she leaves herself open for the choke.”

We’ve gone over and over the tapes. He’s right.

I can do this.

When we walk out, the crowd goes insane. The media has been hyping this one as a scrappy underdog taking on the establishment. Gisela has been a fixture within the MMA for a while. She’s a solid fighter, but she has some gaps that result in her losing almost as much as she wins.

She’s flashy, with her insane roundhouse, so the MMA keeps her around, but she’s always as likely to go down as she is to take down her opponent.

Today, she’s going down. When she walks out to mixed shouts, I realize that she knows it.

But she’s walking out anyway, her face desperate, because unlike me, she’s not fighting for position, prestige or glory. She’s fighting for her mom. Like me, there may not be much else she can do to make money. There may not be many options for her—I can’t help thinking about how powerless I would feel in her position, if I needed that money.

My coach is shouting. “Focus, Liz. You look for that opening, and you stay clear until you see it.”

I nod, and as she walks in, I put everything but the fight out of my mind. If I hadn’t walked in when I did, I would know nothing but the fight. I would only know what I’d prepared. I can’t save her mom. That’s her job.

But I do know.

If I lose this match, my MMA career may be over before it starts, but if she loses. . . I can’t even imagine losing my mother. It would wreck me. And her mom’s saying she has a sister to care for, too.

That makes me think of Jade, of Coral, and of Sammy.

What wouldn’t I do for them if Mom died?

I shake my head, and as she comes after me, I sink into the fight. Not thinking. Moving. Reacting. Closing the gap. Then I see it—my chance. She’s lining up to kick me, and it’s painfully obvious. She’s too slow. She’s old, at least, for this sport she is.

I can dodge her strike easily.

But I don’t. Her heel connects with my solar plexus and sends me sprawling on the mat. In that split second, everything slows. My coach’s face looks almost frozen in place, spit spewing at me as he shouts, his mouth twisted, his nostrils wide.

You must choose—the power to dominate, or the strength to endure.

The words that spread through my mind make no sense. Who’s speaking? Why did time slow down? What’s the power to dominate and the strength to endure?

And endure what? The misery of losing? The shame of my career ending before it’s begun?

Or I can destroy her, how? From the ground?

But when time snaps back, I see it. She’s overbalanced, and even from the ground, if I snap upward, I could topple her. The hold would be easy to make, even now, from the ground.

I could still dominate her.

My career rolls before me, as I come from the bottom to take my position alongside the greats like Amanda Nunez and Ronda Rousey. I can do it—in that moment, I know it.

Or I can endure the shame, the humiliation, and the misery of defeat, but I will know that I didn’t steal someone’s mother’s last hope. I’ll know that, deep down where it matters, I’m whole and complete.

I don’t take the window.

I let Gisela Lopez pin me, and I prepare myself to endure, my conscience clear. But instead of hearing the shouts and jeers and cheers of the crowd, I’m thrust back into a room that’s nothing but light and whiteness.

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