We walk making our way into the wide ally. The lower level fighters are on right now. The owner, Liam, sets this up and helps get bids in. Since a lot of bids are on me, he makes a lot of money and I get a portion that increases with every fight.
We watch and cheer on the fighters. I turn away and I take a quick look at my phone. Ten minutes till I fight. I got to go now.
The guys try to explain what is going on even though I know exactly what is going on in the fights. I have never seen them here before, wonder if I am normally just that distracted, or I didn't know who to look for.
"Sorry to interrupt but I really have to go, my parents will be home soon and I will be on lockdown if I don't get home before seven."
"Champions about to come out, say you had to do some extra work," Trever says looking at me and back to the fight.
"I really can't."
"Alright, you want a ride back?" A says turning his attention to me and away from the fast-moving fight.
"That's alright, I can find my way back, thanks for the night though."
"No problem. See ya later."
"Bye."
I walk away but once I turn the corner I bolt around the building and into the old bathrooms turned into locker rooms. I hide my bag in my locker and quickly put on my gym shorts that are too short but all I have, my boxing shoes, a tank top and my black hoodie over it.
I put my hair in a messy bun and pull a beanie over my eyes just a little but still able to look through the holes then I put my hood over it. I wrap my hands in a baby blue wrap matching my shorts. I finish quickly. I close my locker and re-write my name on the whiteboard duck taped to it. I stretch and warm up a little before Liam knocks on the door. I run over and open it. I'm mute now, all part of the role. He walks in a little
"You ever gonna show your face to anyone? I mean I give you a paycheck, and I still don't know your face."
I shake my head 'no' and smile. Especially not now. I don't want anyone knowing who I really am. I don't need to get into fights at school. And I don't need to start looking like someone else and appear that way to everyone at school.
"Alright, let's go. Your fight is almost ready."
Nerves flow through me but I shake it out as I walk out behind Liam. I walk into the circle and cheers start to sound. I look seeing the bad boys cheering. Funny how they aren't fighting and I am.
I stand in one end while the other girl stands opposite of me. Her eyes trail up my body as if surprised that she has to fight me and not someone bigger. To bad this girl is gonna take your title.
"Finally, for the fight of the night, Tori V.S Alisha! Alisha with a hundred three wins and three losses and Tori, ninety-nine wins, zero losses. For the champion belt, here we go."
We walk up to each other. Like every fight, you do a small high five followed by a fist bump. I hold to my word and attempt one but the other person has the choice to be brag full when they win or win with dignity. Or, you know, lose with no dignity. Which is normally the case.
I reach my hand out but as she goes to reach out she slides her hand back and runs it through her hair with a deep smirk etched on her face. I walk back, turning my back to them then turning back around as I reach the end.
"Fighter you ready? Fighter you ready?"
I nod my head.
"Go!"
I walk towards the center and we both high five before she takes one huge step towards me turning her whole body and hips into a punch aimed right for my face.
I arch my back and bend my knees, almost laying on the ground to avoid her before turning my body to roll past and behind her, standing up facing her the second my feet touch the ground.
She quickly goes to throw another before I duck, locking my leg by her and my foot behind her's before I come back up to throw a punch of my own.
Like expected she trips over my foot and rolls into a somersault before her head hit's the ground but instead of rolling to her feet she rolls to her knees.
I throw a quick kick towards her face but just in that second she grabs my foot and stands up with it, shoving me back about to drive pile me into the ground. I hop on my one leg as rapidly as I can before she piles me, trying to think of a way out.
Jump high, kick your other leg into her face while turning your body, land in an almost push-up position when and hopefully if she lets go of your leg.
Without another thought, I jump up and swing my leg around to kick her and twist my body, forcing her to let go so she can catch herself while I fall and land almost flat on my stomach making it lurch and my head pound from the shock and sudden stop.
Ugh. Need to work on sticking the landing.
I roll away further from her before pushing myself up and before the bat of an eye, I feel a hand wrap around my thigh and shoulder and I am lifted into the air.
She picked you up. How dumb can you be? This is gonna hurt.
I curl up and protect my head before I'm hurled into the brick wall.
I can just feel every bit of air I had, escape all at once the second I hit and hitting the ground didn't feel to nice either. My eyes turn blurry and I feel a copper tasting liquid flow from my lips as she turns her back to me.
My stomach and back screaming at me to not move and my heart pounds so hard that I am almost sure that it could just jolt me tostand on my throbbing legs. Even the thought of getting up though makes my head pound worse.
The ref begins to count.
Get up.
"One."
Get off your lazy butt and go kick her's.
"Two."
You're not hurt that bad. Get up.
"Three."
You can die later.
I watch her dance around and the guys look to me still wondering if I'm gonna get back up.
Remember what happened today? All that happened, you're still alive. You fight back so fight back now!
"Seven."
I sigh and put my palms flat on the ground pushing myself up as if I were a zombie. Cheering increases as the ref backs up and I wipe my blood away, walking towards her, my feet dragging like they were covered in bricks.
She goes to turn to see the rest of the crowd and turns right into my punch, knocking her back before I throw a hard kick to her leg, knocking her back to the ground.
She goes to get up but I am already on top of her and throwing punches to her face.
The ref pulls me back and Alisha gets pulled up to her feet by the crowd.
Someone got a pay raise, didn't they ref?
He lets me go and backs off. Alisha smiles as blood leaks from her nose and forehead, her lips swollen and painted red.
I take in a few deep breaths, lowering my blood pressure and try to keep air flowing. My lungs burn like every breath I take is made of fire.
I quickly spit out the blood that had pooled in my mouth making my entire mouth taste like copper. I can tell my lips are red from the blood that now covers them. My body is so slow now that I have to watch my punches and moves.
Focus. Stay calm. Then strike.
I raise my fists and go to back up. Alisha was never much of punch and kick kind of girl, always liked to try those fake wrestler moves like you see on t.v.
She struts over to me and I dance around the circle, trying to recover and put the pain in my back in the back of my mind.
I watch her steps. Her hands. Her eyes. Every movement she makes, looking for any sign of weakness.
Every two steps she lets up pressure on her right foot. At the same time, she shakes out her right hand.
I dance around a bit more before she charges at me and I twirl out of the way, turning back in time to see her stop on her left foot completely only barely touching her right foot to the ground.
I let a small smirk escape when she goes to tackle me. I slide my right foot back and before she sees what I'm doing I send a hard knee into her face.
She thought this would be the last move she needed to do.
Being off balance she still knocks me down but I can decrease how hard I hit and in just a second she rolls off me holding her gushing nose. I breath quick and push myself up onto my shaky legs threatening to collapse.
The ref begins to count her out and I refuse to take my eyes off her.
Cheers and gasps surround me when she decides to stay down.
I let a small hopeful smile out. I won. I won? I WON?!
Alisha was the top fighter, that means? No. No way.
I let out a bigger chuckle and look all around to keep myself awake. Liam comes over to me and puts my arm over his shoulder, slowly walking me back to our corner and sits me down, passing me a water and a rag.
"Holy-," he trails off with a few swear words, a low chuckle in every breath.
He takes the rag to clean the blood off my face that I can't even bother to notice or tell the difference between the sweat. My breaths are heavy and scratchy and I can't help but cough when my throat begins to sting from my burning lungs.
My back is numb now until I move it to stand up and go to the center. Someone is helping Alisha to stand next to the ref and he grabs one of our hands in his own.
I have trouble standing still and not swaying.
"And the winner for the championship in just the first round by knock out, is, Tori!"
He raises my hand in the air and cheers come from the crowd. I let out a loud exhale as he lets go of our hands and Alisha turns to me with a sour look before shaking my hand quickly as if I were poison. Or as if I could break her.
Liam comes over to me and brings me to my corner as the ref begins to call everyone back for the lower fights. He quickly slides me an envelope with '800$' written up in the top corner and I slide it halfway into the side of my pants before covering it all with my hoodie.
"Nice job, how is your back?"
I shake my head.
"Legs and arms?" I just shrug my shoulders.
"Do we need a medic?"
I shake my head 'no'.
I'd rather keep my bruise and cut covered arms to myself.
After doing this for a few years now I learned how to bandage and cover stuff that normal people would go to the hospital for.
"Hey, River and I met and we are discussing moving to a new area with another coach. It's an alley on 5th and it's a lot bigger with actual buildings we can get into and that have lockers for you and the other girls. What do you think about it?"
I give a thumbs up.
Shoot even my thumb hurts. The last time we were hurt that bad was,
Zip it.
You should go teach her a lesson to not mess with us.
I'm not going to go hurt her. The fight's over now. The money for mom and dad is what we fight for.
Sure.
"Alright, well go heal up. Your next big fight is still a while away, although you may have a few smaller fights between now and then."
I nod my head.
"Be safe Tori," he says before heading off to take care of some other fighters.
I turn to head to the room leading out to grab my things, struggling to not limp or bend over from the pain in my back before I hear a familiar voice.
"Hey, Tori."
I look over to see Mason, Gray and the rest of their group making their way to me. I quickly adjust my hood and hat to make sure that it covers every strand of hair and any defining features on my face.
I give a small wave and a polite smile. Please just let me leave soon, I'm broken.
"Nice fight, I'm Gray by the way," he says holding out his hand.
I shake his hand before he points to the rest of the guys.
"That's Mason, Trever, A, and L.J."
I shake each of their hands and try my hardest to not make up some random excuse to get out of here. I assume I would probably say something like 'I have to go water my fish now,' or something along those lines anyway.
"So our friend had to leave early but she would like to meet you, do you wanna hang out sometime?"
No. No, I would not like to meet me.
I hold up one finger and quickly rush into my bag in the changing room grabbing a notepad and pen before coming back out. I am mute, I can't talk and I can't use my phone, there are way too many risks for them to figure it out from there.
I write in sharp straight lines, as different as possible from my half cursive writing mess I usually do.
'My schedule this month is actually pretty full,' I decided to write before showing it to them.
"What school do you go to," Trever asks.
Name, name, logical name, uh, fish biscuits.
I take back my pad of paper and write.
'North Shores high school.'
They quickly read it.
"Wow, pretty far from here, we go to Ravenwood," Mason pipes up.
Go Ravens. Whoo.
I nod my head before I begin to write again, 'I should get going, it was nice meeting you guys.'
I rip off the piece of paper and give it to Mason who's closest to me before walking away.
I close the door behind me and silently thank Liam for giving me this small room for just my things.
I grab my bag and change my hoodie, un-wrapping my hands and taking off my hat as well. I take a huge breath of the cold air now that I'm out of that hot hat.
I sigh as I go over to a full-length mirror and look at the blood smeared across my cheek, that's still wet and how red stained my lips are from the blood. I go over to my bag and grab my water and a rag.
I can't walk home with this much blood on my face even if I do put my hood over it.
I clean up my face as much as I can and clean up my mouth that used to bleed before I put everything away.
I quickly but carefully turn around and pull up my hoodie and shirt just getting a glace at how torn up my back is.
That's gonna be fun.
I drop it back down quickly, making me regret life for a second before I go back over to my bag and put it over my shoulders as gently as humanly possible.
I leave and fling my hood up, careful to not make my bag move around too much on my back as I make my way home.
I open the front door to my house, wasting no time to put my things away and go to the bathroom. Time to become a doctor for a little while.
You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net