Ria
Lachlan was bleeding again.
Not the dramatic kind—no gush, no theatrical drip. Just the quiet, persistent kind. The kind that stained gauze and wouldn't stop no matter how tight you wrapped the tape. A line down his brow. A split on the lip. Skin like paper stretched too thin over a body that had taken too many beatings in too short a time.
But he didn't stop.
Didn't slow.
He moved like he was being chased.
Chiron circled him in the makeshift gym, eyes sharp, one hand clutching a stopwatch, the other twitching toward a cigarette he wasn't allowed to light inside. The gym smelled like rubber mats, old sweat, and blood that had long since dried into the concrete.
Thwack. Thwack.
Lachlan's gloves collided with the pads Chiron held out. His breath came in short bursts, lips parted, jaw clenched. Every movement calculated—efficient, ruthless, without hesitation.
He wasn't fighting someone in front of him.
He was fighting everything behind him.
I sat on the edge of a battered bench, arms crossed, trying to ignore the fear clawing up my throat. It always showed up like this—when he was training, not fighting. Because this was when I saw the truth of it.
That he couldn't stop.
That something inside him wouldn't let him.
Chiron stepped back suddenly and let Lachlan finish the round throwing punches into air, testing his range, his stance. When the timer buzzed, the room fell quiet. Just the sound of his breathing and the faint creak of leather on leather.
Chiron tossed the gloves to the floor with a grunt.
"He's almost ready," he said. Not to Lachlan. To me.
I looked up.
"For what?"
Chiron didn't answer right away. He pulled the sweat-soaked towel off his neck, wiped his face, and lit that cigarette he'd been twitching for. One long drag. Exhale.
"There's a name on the list. Big one. Ex-pro, banned for life after he broke a guy's skull in Macau. Calls himself 'The Prophet' now." He flicked ash onto the floor. "Next fight's him."
I stood up, throat dry. "You said the next fight would be tough. You didn't say suicidal."
Chiron didn't blink. "Lachlan can take him."
Lachlan said nothing. He just leaned against the wall, chest heaving, looking somewhere far away. Somewhere I couldn't follow.
"He's a monster," I said.
Chiron blew out smoke. "So's your boy."
That made me look at Lachlan again. Really look.
He wasn't blinking. He was just staring—like he was already in the cage, already watching The Prophet walk toward him. Already calculating the angles of pain.
"Do you want this?" I asked him softly.
He didn't answer.
But something shifted in his jaw.
"I need it," he said.
Not want. Need.
And that scared me more than anything.
Later, after Chiron left and the gym emptied out, I helped him peel the tape off his hands. His skin was raw underneath. Blistered in places. Red where it should've been white.
"You can say no," I told him. "You don't owe anyone anything."
He didn't look at me.
"I'm not doing this for others."
"Then for who?"
His eyes finally met mine. Tired. Black-ringed. Full of ghosts.
"For me," he said. "For the part of me that needs to know I'm not the disappointment."
I didn't know what to say to that.
So I pressed my forehead to his and let the silence stretch. Let the ache of him seep into me. Let myself be angry—not at him, but at whatever made him believe that he had to bleed in a cage just to prove he deserved to keep breathing.
"Then win," I whispered. "If you're going to do this… then you better fucking win."
He didn't nod. He didn't speak.
But his hand closed around mine.
Like he was already holding on to what he didn't want to lose.
Lachlan
Day of the fight, three weeks later - Detroit, Michigan.
The cage door slammed shut behind me.
Thick iron. Rusted hinges. It sounded like a cell locking.
My bare feet stuck slightly to the canvas—old blood dried into the fibers, slick patches where someone had bled too long. The lights above were too bright, a sick fluorescent glare. I didn't look for Ria. Couldn't. Not yet.
The Prophet stood opposite, back against the mesh, his arms down at his sides like he was bored.
He didn't bounce. Didn't test his range.
He just stared like he was looking through me.
He spoke only once:
"You don't walk out clean, boy. None of us do."
And then he charged.
He exploded forward like a riot. No rhythm. No setup. He led with a feint—a flicking jab—but the real threat came from the right elbow behind it. I barely pulled back in time. Felt the wind on my cheek.
His left hand caught my ribs. A straight shovel hook. Thud. White pain flared up my side. My vision narrowed.
I clinched. Hands locked behind his neck, forcing his head down. He smelled like copper and something rancid. His breath was hot and ragged, lips peeling into a grin as he rammed a knee up toward my stomach.
I twisted, caught most of it on my hip. He still clipped my liver. The world tilted.
Had to reset.
I ducked, pivoted, shoved off and broke free—bounced back to range.
He licked the blood from his knuckle.
"Got more in you than I thought," he said.
I didn't answer.
No corners. No cutmen. You bleed, you keep bleeding.
He started to circle now. More deliberate. Less wild.
I watched his feet.
Southpaw. Lead right foot forward. He had a tell-when he was going to throw his power left, he shifted his weight just a little too much onto the ball of his foot.
I baited him.
Dropped my left shoulder, showed him the line.
He took it—stepped in with a left cross.
I rolled under. Came up inside his guard. My right hand smashed into the hinge of his jaw.
CRACK.
He staggered.
I kept going. Left elbow, up under his chin. Spinning back kick to his ribs. Felt cartilage give under my heel.
He grunted.
No taunts this time.
Just murder in his eyes.
He closed the distance. Clinched hard. Headbutt.
Forehead smashed into my brow. A crack of bone on bone.
Blood poured down into my eye.
He bit my shoulder—deep, right through skin. My scream was half fury, half pain. I drove my thumb into the soft part of his throat to break the grip.
He coughed—spat blood and spit.
I didn't give him a second. Stepped in. Shoulder bump to his chest—off-balanced him.
Then I unloaded.
Right hook. Left hook. Knee to the stomach. Uppercut.
He took all of it and laughed.
But his knees were wobbling.
We stood toe to toe.
He screamed something—gibberish, prophecy, madness.
Then he charged again, swinging from the hips. Wide looping haymakers.
I kept tight. Compact.
Waited.
Dodged the right.
Dodged the left.
Then countered—
A vertical elbow from the clinch that smashed into his orbital.
I heard it. A pop. Felt the fracture through my forearm.
He screamed and swung wild—desperation now.
I slipped to the left, stepped deep, planted my feet and launched a devastating uppercut.
It landed square under his chin.
His head snapped back like it was on a hinge.
He dropped. Just collapsed. One leg kicked out. His body twitched once. Then nothing.
Silence.
The crowd screamed, but it felt far away. Like I was underwater.
My arms shook as I lowered them. Blood dripping from my knuckles.
I looked down at him.
He was smiling, even unconscious. Mouth full of blood. One tooth missing.
I didn't feel triumphant.
Just… hollow.
Like I'd looked into the abyss and understood something about myself I didn't want to know.
The cold bit deeper in the locker room.
It wasn't the temperature—it was the silence. After the screams, the lights, the stink of sweat and violence, the quiet was suffocating.
I sat on the bench, hunched forward, elbows on knees.
My hands trembled.
Blood—mine, his, someone else's—coated my fingers, caked under my nails. My wraps were shredded, soaked through. The skin across my knuckles was split open, flesh peeled back like torn paper. I stared at the wounds like they weren't part of me.
The med tech—a kid, no older than twenty—moved like I might bite him.
He tried to clean me up. No eye contact.
"Got a cut above your brow," he said. "Might need stitches."
I didn't answer. Just stared at the floor.
He dabbed at the wound with gauze. It stung. I didn't flinch.
The blood on my shoulder was darker. Almost black.
The bite. The Prophet had bitten me.
The tech stopped when he saw it.
"Jesus," he muttered. "You want me to—?"
"I'll deal with it."
He stepped back fast. Left the bottle of antiseptic and the gauze. I heard his footsteps fade. Then the door creaked shut.
I was alone again.
My reflection in the cracked mirror.
Swollen face. Split lip. My left eye nearly swollen shut. Blood smeared down my chest, dripping slowly onto the floor.
But it wasn't the damage that unsettled me.
It was the grin.
The faint one. Still clinging to the edge of my mouth.
Like I hadn't just survived it—like some part of me had enjoyed it.
I closed my eyes.
Saw The Prophet twitching on the canvas. His smile. That fucking smile.
He'd known. He'd seen it in me. Before I had.
The violence. The emptiness. The thing under the skin.
A rusted metal locker groaned as I slammed my fist into it. Pain shot up my arm, fresh blood trickled from my knuckles. Good. I needed it. Something real.
I leaned my head against the cold steel.
Breathed in. Out. My ribs ached on every inhale.
Footsteps again. Slower this time. Heavier.
Chiron's voice, low and even:
"You got lucky out there."
I didn't turn.
"Don't confuse that for being ready."
Still, I said nothing.
He stepped closer. I saw him in the mirror—his face unreadable, arms crossed.
"He was just the beginning. The next one—" He stopped himself. "You need to be sharper. Cleaner. That rage you're carrying? It's a blade. But if you don't learn to control where it cuts, you'll slit your own throat with it."
I looked at him, blood dripping from my chin.
"I didn't lose."
"No," he said. "But something in you broke a little more."
And with that, he walked out.
I sat in the cold.
Let the silence soak in.
Then, slowly, I picked up the bottle of antiseptic, unscrewed the cap, and poured it straight onto the bite wound. It burned like hell.
I didn't make a sound.
Not even a hiss.
Because I knew, deep down—
This wasn't over. Not even close.
And next time, I might not be fighting someone else.
I might be fighting whatever's waking up inside me.