I found one of the guys running the fights sitting at a folding table with a clipboard in front of him.
“You fighting?” he asked without looking up.
“Yeah. Keaton Stafford.”
He jerked his chin toward the back. “You’re late. You’ve got the next fight.”
I moved past him toward the far side of the warehouse, where a few other fighters were already hanging out, stretching or bouncing on their feet. One of them had a split lip, with blood still fresh at the corner of his mouth. Another guy paced back and forth, muttering under his breath as if he was trying to psych himself up.
I set my bag down and rolled my shoulders, loosening up as best I could. My knuckles throbbed faintly as I flexed my hands, and I quickly wrapped them.
A roar erupted from the crowd as the fight inside the cage took a turn. I spun around in time to see one guy slam the other into the corner so hard that the entire structure rocked.
These fights weren’t about skill like the competition I’d attended a few years earlier. They focused on who could be more ruthless and violent than their opponent.
“Stafford!” I looked up at the sound of my name and saw one of the organizers waving me over. “Let’s go.”
I popped in my mouthguard and followed him toward the cage. The noise grew louder with each step, the crowd’s excitement building as a new fight was about to begin.The door creaked open, and I stepped inside.
The guy across from me was bigger, and he grinned as if the fight was already over.
The door slammed shut behind me, and within seconds, the bell rang.
He came at me first without hesitation and started swinging wildly. I ducked the first punch and felt the rush of air as it passed over me. Spinning around, I managed to drive my shoulder into his stomach, and we slammed into the chain-link wall. He was strong, but he lacked skill. His next punch caughtmy jaw hard enough to snap my head to the side and blur my vision for half a second. I shoved him back just enough to create space and swung. My fist connected with the side of his face, and the impact jolted up my arm. He stumbled a bit, then came right back at me as if my hit was nothing.
We traded blows, trying to land whatever we could. My back hit the fence again, harder this time, while his forearm pressed into my throat, cutting off my air.
“Done yet?” he growled.
I didn’t answer; instead, I drove my knee up into his ribs. He grunted, and his grip loosened just enough. That was the opening I needed. I twisted out from under him and swung again, this time hitting him squarely across the jaw. His head snapped back, and I didn’t give him time to recover. I stepped in and hit him again. And again.
Each hit landed harder than the last, driving him backward. He tried to throw a punch, but it was slow, uncoordinated, and easy to slip past. Then I hit him one more time, enough to make his knees buckle.
He went down.
The crowd surged forward, pressing against the cage and shouting. I stood there, chest heaving, waiting to see if he would get back up. He didn’t.
One of the officials—if they could be called that—lifted my arm in victory, and I dragged my other hand across my face, smearing sweat and blood on my skin.
I stepped out of the cage and made my way back through the crowd. Feeling someone staring at me, I turned my head and scanned the area until my eyes landed on a guy off to the side. He stood a few feet behind the cage, arms crossed, watching me like he was sizing me up. I held his gaze for a second, then spun around. I picked up my duffel, thinking that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t.
“Hey.” The voice came from behind me.
I turned. He was closer now and taller than I’d initially expected. He appeared to be in his early to mid-thirties and was clean-cut but not in a way that indicated a corporate job. More like someone who cared about how he presented himself.
“You always fight like that?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re not worried about getting hit.”
I let out a quiet chuckle. “Worrying about it doesn’t stop it from happening.”
He grinned. “True.”
His attention shifted toward the cage, where the next fight was already starting, then returned to me. “You train anywhere?”
