Evan muttered beside me, low enough that only I could hear. “Damn. For a ROD kid… I get it now.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My mouth went dry.
“He’s good,” I finally said, my voice quieter than I intended. “He came straight from the indies to here?”
Evan let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Heard he was in the Pennsylvania circuit. From what I understood, he bounced around a few indie promotions, ended up training with some real old school guys. But, Si…” He paused, eyes flicking back to the ring. “He might be the only other person here on your level.”
That landed. Not like an insult.
Not like a threat.
Like recognition.
Something sharp and unfamiliar sparked in my chest. Not pride, I’d been compared my whole life. Not fear, either. This was something else. The awareness that something dangerous had just stepped into my orbit, and the world wasn’t going to feel the same with him in it ever again.
I ducked back into the locker room to change into my own training gear. Evan was already ahead of me, muttering something under his breath about “walking chaos in designer boots.”
I stripped down and pulled on my gear, tightening the laces of my boots with practiced efficiency. Wrapped my hands in black tape. Flexed my fingers. I’d done this dance a thousand times. But today, my pulse felt off. Quicker. Louder.
It annoyed me.
By the time I stepped back onto the training floor, Deadlock was still moving, shadowing another trainee with judgment written across his face and a condescending smirk across his lips. The atmosphere had shifted. The tension. The way conversations dipped when he passed. The way trainers watched him a beat longer than they meant to. And he didn’t care. Hell, I’m not even sure he noticed all the eyes in his direction. His arrogance wasn’t loud. It wasn’t performative. He didn’t posture or puff his chest.
The trainers paired us without discussion. No announcement. No explanation. Just a look, a nod, and suddenly it was obvious to everyone.
This wasthematch up.
We stepped into the ring together, the noise around us fading into something distant. It almost felt deafening.
We circled, slow at first. Testing. Measuring. I watched his eyes, sharp, the hazel color seeming to drain into darkness as he cataloged my stance, my weight distribution, the way I favored my right side when I moved.
“Didn’t expect you to look like that,” he said casually, making me hyper aware that he knewexactlywho I was, even without an introduction from the trainers.
I blinked. “Like what?”
His gaze slid over me, my light brown hair, my freshly clean shaven face, the lack of ink, the simplicity of my gear.
“Sober,” he said matter of factly.
Not an insult. Not a compliment. A statement.
My mouth twitched. “Disappointed?”
He smirked. “Curious.”
We locked up instantly, and then the world around us narrowed even more. I moved first, quick and precise, taking the opening without hesitation. He countered swiftly, slipping out like he’d known it was coming before I committed. We reset and collided again, bodies hitting with a crack that echoed through the facility. The trainers leaned in, calling adjustments we barely needed. People stopped what they were doing. Evan went quiet on the ropes, arms crossed, watching like he already knew he was witnessing something he’d tell stories about later.
Deadlock wrestled like a technical powerhouse, something only legends were considered capable of being. But here he was, doing it all, maybe even better than those before us. He was grounded, punishing, efficient. Every hold had vicious intentions.
Every transition flowed seamlessly into the next. This was indie wrestling stripped of its excess and polished through discipline and repetition until it gleamed.
I answered with speed.
High flying wasn’t about flash for me. It was about timing. Angles. Technicality. The highest form of efficiency you’ll ever see in motion. I wrestled like my father and uncle had wanted to, like they had the potential to, like the future they could have had if they’d stayed sober long enough to reach it.
We pushed each other faster, harder, cleaner. It wasn’t chaos. It was a conversation. Ten minutes of mostly improvised grappling later, we broke apart, breathing hard, sweat darkening the mat beneath us.
“Damn,” Evan muttered.
