Nate pivots toward the entrance, his hand finding Lola’s without looking. She slides her fingers between his, their hands fitting together with the ease of a well-practiced dance.
Lola’s fingers circle my wrist, tugging. “C’mon.” Her voice rises above the bass thump. “People get crushed right at the entrance.”
I let her pull me forward, though I’ve navigated worse crowds in darker places.
Nate catches the bouncer’s eye. A barely perceptible nod passes between them, and the mountain of a man steps aside without checking IDs or collecting cover. The steel door swings open.
My eyebrow twitches upward.
Sound slams into us like a physical wall—a tsunami of shouts, grunts, and impact thuds crashing together. The door seals shut behind us with a pneumatic hiss, trapping the chaos inside. Sweat-soaked bodies press close, their heat radiating. Someone nearby bleeds; the copper scent mingles with spilled whiskey evaporating from concrete.
The crowd parts just enough to reveal the layout. Four chain-link octagons punctuate the warehouse floor. In one, a fighter collapses to his knees while across the room, another pair circles each other, fresh and hungry. The timing feels orchestrated—as one fight concludes, another intensifies, keeping the mass of bodies in constant migration.
Between the cages, folded bills slip from palm to palm. Men in black T-shirts thread through the crowd, collecting slips of paper, their eyes constantly moving, calculating. All paths lead to the raised octagon at the center of the room—empty of fighters but surrounded by the thickest knot of bodies. Money changes hands there faster, more urgent.
Violence shimmers in the air like dust motes—suspended and waiting. One spark, and the whole place goes up.
I let my gaze move the way it always does, tracking exits first, then flow, then faces. Who’s watching the fights. Who’s watching the people watching the fights. Where the pressure points sit if something shifts the wrong way.
And under all of that—something else. Apull. Low and steady, curling just under my ribs in a way I don’t let myself sit with too long.
Because I know what it is. And I know better than to lean into it.
Nate looks back at Lola, his mouth curving.“You picked a good night.”
“Yeah?” Lola says, leaning into him until their shoulders touch.
East slides up behind her, his palm settling at the small of her back. “This one’s gonna be good. The guy’s undefeated.”
The crowd thickens around the far cage, bodies pressing forward. A woman stumbles into me, beer sloshing over her plastic cup onto my shoe.
I tighten my grip on Lola’s wrist. “Don’t wander off.”
“Relax, Bells.” She tosses the words over her shoulder, already moving deeper into the crush. “We’ll be fine.”
The crowd shifts around us in restless waves as we settle in and wait for the next fight, bodies milling around the space as the fight winding down in the far corner pulls to its brutal, inevitable close. The whole place feels like it’s balancing on the edge of something, all heat and pressure and appetite, and the worst part is how quickly my body remembers the rhythm of it.
If I were here alone—I cut the thought off before it finishes.
I keep my attention split between the cage and my sister, tracking the way she leans in toward Nate when he says something in her ear, the way East glances over his shoulder and throws a quick nod to someone deeper in the crowd.
It’s less to do with trust and more to do with knowing how fast places like this can change shape.
Someone clips my shoulder as they push past, harder than they need to, and I stumble into the guy behind me. “Shit, sorry.” The apology is automatic, out before I even look at the person I hit.
He’s already staring at me. A beat passes before his face splits open. “Bellamy fuckin’ Hale.”
I blink. “Ryder?”
He lets out a low whistle. “Holy shit, man. I haven’t seen you in years,” he says, leaning in and hugging me. “How the hell are you?”
I push onto my toes and hug him back before I’ve decided to. “I’m good. What about you?”
When we separate, I get a proper look at him. Same jaw, same grin, but the grin sits differently now—less like something he’s performing and more like something he’s allowing. The restless, look-at-me energy he used to carry in high school is gone, or at least it’s been folded down and put somewhere less visible. He holds eye contact a half-second longer than the Ryder I remember would have bothered to.
“You visiting or you back?”
“I’m back for now.” I pitch my voice louder as the crowd noise swells.
