Page 4 of Possession

It’s the only time I’m free.

I pause at the door and wait for Briggs to take the collar off. I hear him draw his gun, but it’s part of the routine, so I don’t react. The collar tugs at my throat as he works the strap at the back of my neck. When it lifts away from me, I shove the door open.

I’m still shaky from the shock as I walk out into the crowd, which parts for me in comical haste. People shove into each other to get out of my way as the multicolored lights slash through the air overhead.

The usual stupid commentary is coming through the speakers, working up the already agitated crowd with a story about me that’s about a quarter true. I did indeed spend yearsfighting in a secret gladiatorial-style arena, but I wasn’t born there like they’re claiming, nor did I earn the name Beast at the age of seven for killing a man who stole my breakfast. But I have killed men for less, and I have been known as the Beast for a long time.

No one here knows who I really am. Half the time, I don’t remember either. Like I said, reality changes in dark places.

The environment overloads my senses with too many sights and sounds. I fucking hate that because I can’t track every potential threat, but it’s so much that it almost becomes nothing. Usually, I just tune it out and focus on my opponent strutting around in the cage as I approach.

Tonight, however, I look around, hunting. It’s a sea of faces, all meaningless, no one standing out to me—until I spot him.

He’s definitely pretty, but I don’t think that’s what’s drawing me. I don’t even remember the last time I had a sexual response, and I don’t feel anything in my cock. It’s in my gut. It’s in my whole body.

I think I want to kill him, but I’m not sure.

He’s looking around like he wants to escape, but the doors always lock before I’m brought out.

An image flashes through my mind: him fleeing through the crowd, me chasing him.

I imagine him darting around people, ducking, hiding, scrambling as I pursue him. Adrenaline spikes at the fantasy. Feeling tingles unexpectedly into my balls.

What the fuck?

When I notice the man hovering at his side, the man who talked to Briggs in the locker room, I growl. I don’t like him.

There’s a war in my body as I reach the steps leading up to the cage, where my opponent is shaking the heavy chain link fence and roaring at the crowd.

There’s the usual buzz of anticipation. My fists are clenching because I’ll finally get to use them. My body is hot instead of the usual cold stiffness of my cell.

There’s the frustration of my hunting fantasy and the fact that my prey is unavailable to me. The heavy, tingly feeling in my balls is getting worse, and I don’t like it. It’s making me angry.

Then there’s the heaviness creeping through my blood. The shock collar’s zap along my nerves is mostly gone, drowned out by all the rest, but the effect of whatever drug Briggs hit me with is starting to kick in.

The gate is open at the top of the steps. As I step into the cage, my opponent smacks his fist into his other hand. Tendons strain in his neck as he shouts wordlessly in my direction. His face is red above his dark beard.

He’s big, matching my 6’4” height and outweighing me by a good thirty pounds. Fat-lined muscle is heavy in his abdomen above the waistband of his camo cargo pants.

I’ve killed men bigger than him, however, and there’s a good reason for it. It’s not because I’m more skilled. It’s not because I’m smarter. It’s certainly because I’m calm.

It’s because his rage is for show. Mine is real.

His is temporary. Mine is ever present.

Mine doesn’t always show because it’s not on the surface. It lives inside me. It goes all the way down to my soul—or the place where a soul is supposed to be. Because when I unleash it? There’s nothing human in me at all.

I stalk straight across the white octagonal floor, picking up speed. By the time my opponent realizes that I’m not going to parade around the ring, it’s too late. He takes a belated swing, but the blow glances off my shoulder as I slam into him.

I drive his huge body across the ring until he crashes into the fence. The fence is strong but has some spring. I’m ready for thebounce back and use it to throw my opponent. I kick his knee as I do it. He hits the ground.

I go for a head stomp, but he rolls out of the way and scrambles to his feet. Now he actually is mad. He comes at me swinging a meaty fist. It connects, but so does mine.

Shit gets brutal fast.

We work back and forth across the ring. Our fists thunk into each other’s ribs and bellies, backs and faces. I almost take a knee to the groin but twist so it strikes my quad. My elbow cracks into his nose. He staggers back, blood gushing from his nostrils.

I stagger too as the world spins around me. The drug has been eating at me slowly, putting a lag in my reactions that has meant taking more hits than usual, but it really catches up with me now, sloshing through my blood—and right at the moment when two hunting knives get hurled down from the balcony. They embed themselves in the white floor.

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