Page 170 of Rebel Hawke

With all the adrenaline coursing through his system and his focus—hopefully—on the fight, a little bit of blood isn’t going to stop him.

“I know…”

But she’s wrong.

Thisisn’tthe worst part.

I’ve seen him hurt.

I’ve pushed him through Pilates flows and done massages on him that made him grit his teeth and curse me under his breath.

I’m almostusedto seeing him in pain at this point and understand he can handle it.

Not knowing his intentions tonight—thatis what makes it difficult to pull in a deep breath.

I try anyway.

More of a gasp than anything, but at least it gets some oxygen into my lungs.

Astrid squeezes my hand again as we watch Grayson and Pope work to fix him up. They use the enswell around his eye while applying the epinephrine and hemostat to try to stop the bleeding, then smear more Vaseline into the wound so it won’t bleed enough for the ref to call the fight.

Atlas’ leg bounces wildly, his shoulders bunching and flexing while he listens to whatever Isaac and Bishop are saying to him and glares at Gordon across the ring.

They may respect each other, but this is becoming an all-out war.

Neither one of them wants this to go to a decision.

This is a knockout or nothing.

And they both have the power to do it.

If Atlas uses it…

The bell sounds again, and they both move to the middle of the ring and restart the fight. Long past feeling each other out or tentative movements, they each dive right in.

Swinging powerfully. Jabbing fast. Landing blow after blow on each other.

The ribs.

The belly.

The face.

Each one makes me wince and my chest tighten more.

Atlas takes a massive hit to his right ribcage and cringes.

That one hurt him.

Probably a cracked rib, if not worse.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

A chopping overhand right slips past his guard, and he takes it on the cheek, whipping his head sideways. He stumbles, retreating to the ropes to save himself from Gordon’s onslaught, giving himself time to recover from what surely shook him.

Unless it’s an act.

Unless this is him putting on a show so that when he loses, he has an excuse for it…

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