“Do me a favor,” she says, plucking up the orange paint container and peeling it open. “Grab the paintbrushes in my bag, will you?”
“Um ...” I glance at the bag on the floor, still feeling a little too hollow for comfort, but also thankful she isn’t making me answer her question just yet. I need time. Not that I’m sure what good it’s going to do me. “Yeah. Sure.”
I spot the paintbrushes easily and set them on my desk when another thought occurs to me. “Does Tim know we’re doing this?”
“No.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. “Does he know you’re here?”
Mom doesn’t look up from the yellow container she’s opening when she says, quieter this time, “No.”
The word hangs in the air. She’s always been spontaneous, although I’m starting to see now that maybe some would describe it as flighty. The urge to ask why she didn’t tell him tastes like metal in my mouth. But all the turmoil that’s been eating at me lately wires my jaw shut. Everything I’ve been feeling has been exhausting, uncomfortable, and I can’t bring myself to open that door when my mom just got here. My questions can wait until tomorrow.
She looks at me and smiles.
I smile back.
After setting up the room and hauling a ladder upstairs, suddenly, I’m eight years old again. I pick up my paintbrush, Mom picks up hers, and, enveloped in a blanket of silence, we paint.
Hunt
WHAM.
My head whips to the right, a sharp sting cutting into the corner of my mouth, the taste of metal on my tongue. Shouts and cheers erupt through the warehouse. Loud and obnoxious as ever. When I bring my gaze back up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I lock eyes with Slick and cock a brow.
He bounces side to side, bracing for my move. When I just stand there, it’s almost comical the way his face falls.
I get why he’s confused. It’s the first time I’ve ever sought him out instead of the other way around. Not to mention, the only time I have ever—andwillever—let him beat my ass. Not that I’m happy about it.
When I texted Mac to ask about any local fights I could get in on today, he immediately called me back with an offer for two thousand five hundred dollars to jump in on this fight—five thousand if I let Slick win. In this line of work, the cash is always unpredictable, and the money my pathetic excuse of a father stole from my safe took three fights to earn. All of them brutal, all of them wins. Plus, while I’d never show it in front of this crowd, I’m still too sore from last night’s match to do any serious damage tonight anyway.
So, yeah, I’ll let the son of a bitch kick my ass despite the fire running through my insides, desperate for a release.
Knowing how much Slick will hate it, I smirk right at him.
That’s all it takes.
A solid fist digs into my rib cage, sucking the air straight from my lungs, then my head’s spinning to the left, his knuckle ring dragging across my jaw and splitting the skin open. I spit a mouthful of blood onto the concrete.
For the second time tonight, the fucker went straight for my face. My fists curl, and a sting pierces through my ribs as I take a swing, deliberately missing. The asshole laughs when I crash to the floor, catching myself on all fours.
Beads of sweat drip down my neck, my back.
Each inhale reeks, the rotten stench of too many sweaty bodies packed inside a windowless space.
Shaking my hair out like a wet dog, I stand, planting both feet on the ground.
Slick’s breathing hard as shit even though I haven’t touched him. He cranks his elbow back, fist ready. That’s when I notice him—the last person I ever expected to see in a place like this.
I look over Slick’s shoulder, and my brows crash together. Tim Everest pushes past body after body, Mac scurrying behind him.
I start to move forward, but a fist connects with my left eye, and searing pain temporarily blinds me. The force of the blow knocks me back a few steps. A wave of nausea bulldozes over me as I try to regain my footing, squinting to see past the black spots taking over.
Where the hell did he go?
For a fleeting second, I wonder if I imagined seeing him, until a hand clamps around my right shoulder from behind. I know it’s him without looking.
“Fight’s over,” he announces.
