Yulia’s birthday. Her sweet face, her laughter. It’s all getting buried in this shitstorm, and it’s tearing me apart.
Everything’s fucked. Aleks, Yulia, Luka, my life. All of it.
Tomorrow’s her day, but all I can think about is killing. Tearing Aleks apart.
The crowd’s roaring, the blood’s flowing, but all I feel is rage.
The guy swings at me, but I dodge and return with a knee to his gut. He doubles over, gasping for air, but I don’t give him a chance to recover. I grab his head and slam it into my rising knee. Teeth scatter across the floor.
I roar, yanking my opponent up by the hair and unleashing a barrage of punches. I can feel his face cave under my fists, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Not until Aleks’s smug smile is wiped off the face of this earth.
With one final, thunderous punch, the guy’s body goes limp in my arms. I toss him aside like trash, my chest heaving, my blood singing in my veins.
I don’t feel bad for the guy; he chose this life.
That’s the fucking truth of choosing to be a fighter. There’s no room for sympathy here.
Not in this hellhole.
A fleeting memory sears through my mind – me, at the age of sixteen, fists bloodied, teeth clenched, fighting older boys in grimy alleys for a handful of cash. Cash that would buy food for another night, alcohol to keep my father’s rages at bay, drugs to numb my mother’s despair.
Fighting to survive, always fighting.
The crowds are chanting now.
“More!”
“More!”
“More!” they howl, hungering for blood like a pack of wild animals.
They want more. Fucking cowards – all of them.
I look up, a sneer on my face, and show them a middle finger.
“Boooo!” they shout back, voices dripping with disappointment and anger.
“That was fucking brutal, man. You sure you’re alright?” Erik is there, slapping me on the back, his face flushed with the thrill of the fight.
I wipe the blood from my mouth, my eyes dark. “I’m fine. Just thinking about that son of a bitch Aleks. I want to do the same to him.”
Erik’s smile fades, and he looks at me seriously. “We’ll get him tomorrow. But we have to be smart. And you need to cool down.”
“Cool down? He’s fucking with us, Erik! Someone’s feeding him information; I know it. I’ll rip their fucking throat out when I find them.”
And then, she comes strutting out. This woman with a dress so tight it looks like it’s painted on. Half her fake tits spilling out, and her lips so big and shiny they look like they could be popped with a pin. She licks those fake lips, thinking it’s sexy, but it makes my stomach turn.
I’m thinking of that girl – Wren. My mind goes to her lips. Real, plump, sexy lips like Angelina Jolie’s. Those eyes, though…wild and fierce, they ignite something in me that I’ve never felt before. I’ve never seen anything like it – her, naked, blood splattered all over her body, a knife in her hand, ready to fight to the death. She’s ferocious, untamed, and something in me desires that wildness, that fire.
The fighter in me wants to battle her, to dominate her, but the man in me wants to possess her, to claim her as mine.
What the fuck?
I shake the thoughts away, knowing they’re dangerous. But they linger, like the scent of blood in the air, taunting me, challenging me.
I chuckle, a dark sound, at the memory of those bastards on the ground, both dickless and lifeless. Pathetic. She’d been terrifying, and goddamn, it’s attractive.
Never in my life have I seen anyone like her.
