Which is exactly why they happen off academy grounds.
Things here have a habit of spiralling.
They become too bloody, too brutal, toomafia.
I’ve never attended one before, and honestly, I’m beginning to question why I allowed Adelaide to drag me into this tonight.
It resembles an underground fight more than anything else. At least MMA fights have rules.
Strict ones.
Here?
Rules barely apply at all.
Well… aside from the no killing rule.
And even if someone crossed that line, I doubt many people here would so much as bat an eye.
After all, on Elaris Isle rules tend to become rather flexible.
The academy belongs to our families. And so does the island. The police, the doctors, the authorities.
At the end of the day, they all cash cheques signed by the same hands.
“Do you want to wait in the office until I finish here?” Adelaide asks over the noise of the crowd.
I swallow hard. “I think I’ll have a drink first.”
We make our way towards a private section, a booth reserved for the Circle, I gather.
Adelaide tips her head towards the two men already seated there, and I recognise them as the right hand men to the Circle leader.
They acknowledge her with a nod of their own before their attention returns to the ring.
I glance towards it and realise we have a perfect view.
Probably the best in the entire place.
Only then does it properly register that a match is already underway.
Two men move around the ring as punches land hard and fast.
A waitress stops by to take our orders, and the second I look back towards the ring, one of the fighters hits the floor.
Hard.
He just lies there motionless while the crowd roars like lunatics.
The man acting as a referee—or whatever qualifies as one in a place like this—steps forward and raises the winner’s hand while the crowd grows even louder.
The fighters clear the ring, the unconscious man eventually regains consciousness and gets helped out while music blasts through the speakers and the next match is announced.
My strawberry daiquiri arrives, and I take a sip just as the hair on my skin rises.
Everything inside me stills.
And I don’t know why.
