Page 7 of Scorpion

I fold my hands behind my back once I reach the middle of the ring, keeping my gaze directly on the commentator. I never asked who I’ll be facing. I never want to know more details than how much I’ll make if I get the other person on the ground. Or under it.

The commentator drones on about my opponent, but I can’t make sense of his words when his deep brown eyes meet mine for half a second too long. My lungs constrict and my ears ring with the sound of a phantom explosion. I’m back there. My skin crawls with the imaginary feeling of having shrapnel piercing my flesh, as I watch my best friend’s eyes grow cold and vacant as he bleeds out onto the asphalt.

TJ needs help. I need to call for backup. But I can’t move, there’s something on top of me. I have to help—

I suck in a sharp breath and snap my head up at the commentator when he says the two syllables that turn my blood cold “… let’s give up for H-Brawn.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Screams erupt through the room, piercing through my eardrums as a brick wall pushes through the crowd without a care for all the men and women he bulldozes over.

My breathing staggers as I eye him up. All three hundred pounds of him. Bald with a deranged stare. Brawn’s lips peel back into a smile that’s all teeth.

I’m screwed. I’ve taken men his size in a fight before, but my body takes this exact moment to send a searing shot of pain through my foot. I need treatment I can’t afford, and it gets worse every time my brain thinks I’m back there. The sound of everyone betting in his favor has sweat building between my shoulders, sticking my ripped tank top to my skin.

It’s getting incrementally harder to pull air into my lungs. If I tap out, I’ll never get into a fight again, and the feeling of fists against skin is the only thing getting me through. My knuckles turn white as I stare H-Brawn back down.

Tension winds my muscles tighter as H-Brawn stalks forward. I try cataloging all his weak spots: throat, the slight lag in his left foot, his speed, raisin-sized balls—cheap shots will still pay rent.

He looks me dead in the eye as he stretches his neck from side to side, cracking his knuckles. “Hope you said your goodbyes, Princess.”

My lip twitches. No, I didn’t get the chance to. They died before I could.

Like a barbarian, he throws his arms up in the air and roars. The audience eats it up, matching the sound with feral cries and hoots as he beats his chest. All the while, I stay perfectly still with my legs shoulder width apart and my hands folded behind my back.

“Get your bets in—my money’s on H-Boy.” The commentator snickers into the megaphone.

I don’t even dignify his comment with a glare, instead pretending like the muscles in my foot aren’t cramping under my weight. Two and a half years later, and there’s still no escaping the traumas of my last mission.

“Who’s ready?” Another chorus of cheers spreads through the room, and H-Brawn rolls his shoulders before raising his arms into a fighting stance. “Three, two, one… fight.”

The last word doesn’t make it out before he barrels for me. I drop onto one knee at the very last second and kick my leg out. His lower stomach collides with my boot, and agony thunders up my leg, sending bolts of pain up my spine and over my skin as if I’m back to bleeding out a couple of feet away from the burning armored car.

He grunts at the impact, buckling over ever so slightly as he reaches for the foot I can barely feel because of the damaged nerve. I manage to escape his grasp to weakly bury my heel into the soft area on the inside of his legs, just above his knees. The move makes him stagger forward, and I leap up onto my good foot to smash the hard surface of my palm against his nose.

The crowd goes wild as his head whips back and blood spurts out of the crooked line of his nose. Any sense of triumph is short-lived when his fists knock my raised hands aside and clock me in the jaw.

Both of my feet weaken, threatening to send me tumbling. I manage to hold myself up despite the agony. Pain blooms across my cheek. Blood coats my tongue.

I’d be a damn liar if I said there isn’t something glorious about external pain. It’s liberating and self-destructive. Grounding me and setting me over the edge.

I don’t notice the second hit until the air whooshes out of my lungs, and I fold over.

This is the type of crap that happens when I never get my ass out of bed: I get weak. Worse, I get slow. The people I served with would be appalled if they saw what I’ve become.

I slam my fists against his ear and narrowly dodge his next attack, sidestepping and ducking over and over before snagging his rib with my elbow. H-Brawn’s blow hits me right against my mouth. Blood spurts from the split in my lip, and I bite back a cry as I pivot on my bad foot, unleashing another pathetic kick to his side.

We go back and forth for minutes, with me spending more time dodging strikes than landing one. But everything I do makes him increasingly pissed off, and his hits seem to do increasingly more damage. Blood mixes with sweat, dripping down his forehead and torso in streams of pink. If my leg wasn’t playing up, I could climb onto his shoulder and bring him down onto the floor, then try to dislocate his shoulder or break his elbow.

For a split second, I swear my eyes lock on a pair of striking green ones. Mathijs. It’s gone the instant H-Brawn clocks me in the ribs.

God, I shouldn’t have come back to this city. I knew it would mess with my head, but I came back anyway. I don’t want to be back here among the ghosts of my past, but I couldn’t stay in California seeing Gaya in every corner of the room.

Closing the gap, I lift my knee to shove it in H-Brawn’s gut, but his arms encircle me before I can, lifting me up and slamming me onto the concrete. Pain radiates from every bone in my body, and a sickening crack echoes through my skull from the impact.

Cotton-wrapped knuckles meet my cheek, sending white dots scattering over my vision, blurring his vicious face as another strike hits my brow. Meaty fingers wrap around my throat, cutting off all oxygen. White spots turn black, and my lungs burn as if I’ve been left for dead at the bottom of the ocean. I try breaking his hold, twisting his wrists away, clawing at his skin, and bucking his weight off. Nothing works.

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