CURSED 1

THANK GOD

The next week was all about preparing for my fight with Tommy. I tried to

keep my mind off Lena, but I had never genuinely felt these kinds of have

before. I knew I couldn’t deal with them right now because it would only be a

distraction. I needed to do what paid the bills.

On the Friday before the fight, we had our weighing in Anaheim. I easily made

weight, as did Tommy. Tommy looked surprised to see how inshaped I appeared.

in such a short amount of time.

I didn’t hate Tommy, and this was going to be the hardest part of the fight.

If I beat him, Tommy would lose a chance at the title. If I lost, it would be an

enormous setback for me, one that I might never come back from.

In sport, you’re only given a couple of shots to prove yourself to the

Commission. And if you get a chance to fight someone of Tommy’s caliber,

well, that someone needed to take advantage of it. And that someone, of course,

was me. I needed to knock out Tommy.

It was the night before the fight, and I was going to bed earlier. I went to my

room and found Daphne sitting at my window. She turned her head slightly and

looked at me with what appeared to be concern in her sharp eyes. Or maybe I

I just needed sleep, since I was seriously exhausted. I went over to the window,

bent down, and stared at her. I looked deep into her hawk eyes, which I found

oddly comforting. Daphne dipped her head in a seeming nod, as if to say: “You

Work your butt off, buddy, now go take care of business.”

“Don’t worry about me, Daphne,” I said. “I’ll make both of us proud.”

And with that, Daphne flew off. I crawled into bed and was out cold in

seconds.

*

The next day, I took things easy. I met up with my trainer, Mike, at 4:00 p.m.

My fight was scheduled to come at 6:30. It was the third fight on the card.

In the locker room, Mike and I went over a few things.

“Just keep your head in the fight. If you do that, you’ll beat him.” Mike said.

to me, while he taped my knuckles.

We did our usual pre-fight routine, practice moves, going over pointers,

stretching and loosening up, and before I knew it, it was time.

Mike and I walked out of the tunnel. I have to admit it was weird not having

Tommy in my ring corner for support. It was the next best thing to having

my dad, or an older brother. I walked out into the arena. Tommy was already in

the ring. His eyes were locked on me. I refused to look at him. I didn’t have to

do that to get psyched up. I would let him exhaust himself, mad-dogging me.

The announcer introduced both of us, and I headed to my corner. I looked

into the crowd. There were about fifteen hundred people in the stands. I scanned

the crowd to see if anyone I knew was out there. Sure enough, sticking out like a

A sore seven-foot thumb was Atticai. In fact, the whole gang was with him.

Surprisingly, Yari and Lena were sitting next to each other. I made eye contact

with Atticai. Atticai pointed to Tommy and drew his finger over his throat. Was

he serious? I didn’t enter the ring to hurt anyone. At least not permanently.

I looked at Yari—and, man, she looked sexy as hell. I could see her red

lipstick from the ring. Lena looked on with concern. Our eyes met, and she

smiled. That was what I needed.

As I stood in the corner, Mike rubbed my shoulders and said in my ear, “This

is it, Josiah? Tonight, Tommy is not your friend. Tonight, he is someone who

wants to rip off your head. No mercy. Strike first and strike hard!”

The bell rang, and Tommy and I both ran out into the middle of the ring and

hit gloves.

We circled one another for about 30 seconds, both trying to find an opening.

in each other’s stance. I noticed that Tommy would lose his focus about every 10.

seconds, as if trying to regroup his thoughts or something. Weird what you

notice when you’re fighting someone, but you always look for a advantage.

You can find. So, I counted off ten, and sure enough, his eyes dropped a little,

and I swung a hard right hand that landed on the side of his face. He stumbled

backwards a couple of feet.

“Watch his right hand!” Tommy’s coach yelled out.

Too late, I thought.

That right hand would have been enough to lay out anyone during a street

fight. Tommy wasn’t just anyone. He was strong as hell, and I was going to need

more than one punch.

He shook his head and went back at me. Then we circled each other again.

Once more, I counted off ten seconds and threw a five-punch combination that

ended with an uppercut that landed directly on Tommy’s chin. Tommy fell to the

mat. I jumped on top of him and landed a series of punches. As I did so, Tommy

grabbed my knee and was attempting a submission move. I knew better. I kicked

it out. As I did, I hit my nose on Tommy’s right thigh. It blurred my vision, so I

decided to jump up and go back to a neutral standing position.

I looked up and saw that we were three minutes into the five-minute round.

This was already the longest professional fight I’d ever had. We circled each

Another some more. Tommy’s attention was now in overdrive. He stopped

whatever he was doing earlier. Smart move for him. Now, I was going to have to

strike him without an opening. I lunged forward and threw a powerhouse right.

Tommy blocked it with his arms. He winced, which meant that just blocking my

punches were going to hurt him and wear him down. Good for me. And so, that’s

was what I did. I came in throwing powerhouse rights and lefts. Tommy couldn’t

keep up with the barrage of punches. I saw an opening below and kicked

Tommy in his right thigh, sending his body spinning to the ground.

I heard someone in the crowd yell: “Finish him off.” My instincts, of course,

were to do just that. I jumped on top of him and wildly threw rights and lefts.

Tommy’s eyes were rolling back. Why the hell weren’t they stopping the fight?

Did they want me to kill him? I slowed down and pretended to be exhausted.

Those assholes weren’t going to stop the fight because they didn’t think that I

was capable of knocking him out. I looked down at Tommy.

“Don’t stop, Josiah.” Tommy said to me, his mouth guard muffling the words,

but I understood them. “You’re not even breathing hard.” I held him down until I

heard the bell. I went back to the corner.

Mike yelled at me. “What the hell, Josiah? Why did you stop?!”

“I was tired,” I said.

“You won that round. If you win this round, you have it. Just don’t get soft!”

I sat there thinking about the last round. Then, something dawned on me.

Tommy hadn’t thrown a single punch. Tommy was reluctant to hurt me. Tommy

was refusing to punch me. The bell went off.

Tommy and I circled each other. “You’re going to have to punch me,

Tommy. You can’t beat me unless you punch me. You need to forget who we

are. This is your fight. This is your career. You can go toe-to-toe with me, but

You will have to strike, also.”

Tommy nodded—then lunged forward and threw a hay maker. It landed

across my face. I stumbled back.

I grinned, despite the pain. “There you go, Tommy. Now it’s a fight.”

Tommy and I traded punches for almost three minutes. My arms were heavy.

I was getting pretty exhausted, and for just a millisecond, I let down my guard.

That was all that Tommy needed. He sprung in and grabbed my legs. I fell to the

mat. He whipped around me. He was trying to get me in his famous front-choke

submission. Luckily, Mike and I practiced defending this, but, damn, Tommy

got a good hold on me. Tommy was strong. Stronger than I remembered. He

locked his forearm under my neck and had it wedged in tight. I tried to fight it.

off but, I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe.

I totally blacked out.

When I opened my eyes, I could barely think clearly. I could hear someone

talking to me from seemingly far away. It was Tommy and, apparently, I lost.

Tommy and a paramedic team were crouched down next to me.

“Come back to us, Josiah,” Tommy said, and I had a feeling he had been

saying it a few times before that, too. Tommy gave me a big, relieved smile.

when he saw me blinking and breathing.

Now a doctor started asking me questions to see if I would be okay. I could

See they had brought out a stretcher, and with that, I jumped straight up. There

There was no way I would be hauled off on a stretcher.

“Stay down, Josiah.” Tommy said to me.

“No freaking way, Tom. You deserve a proper hug.” I reached over and

embraced Tommy.

Tommy grabbed my face, squishing my cheeks. We had always been like

brothers. “You kicked my ass that first round, you know that.”

“Only because you didn’t have the heart to throw a punch, dumbass. You got

me, Tommy. You deserve it.”

“I’m coming home tonight. I’ll take you out, and we’ll head up to Los.

Angeles and wreck that city.”

“Sounds good to me. I might need an aspirin first.”

“Me, too.”

We both laughed. I looked out into the crowd and both Lena and Yari were

standing ringside, both looking terribly worried. I gave them a thumbs up to let

They know it was okay. They both exhaled. The crowd cheered. Wow, two

beautiful women were deathly concerned about my well-being. Could be worse.

I noticed that Atticai was making his way to the ring, too. He motioned for

me to go to him, and I did.

When I reached the ropes, he said, “It’s bullshit, man. They should have

never allowed that thing in the ring.”

I blinked. “Thing? What thing?”

Atticai looked at me with cold eyes. “No, Tandra can handle a Carni. It’s not a

fair fight.” What are these words? Mani? Carni? Tandra. What the hell was

these people talking about?

I said as much to Atticai, and he just shook his head and walked away.

What the heck was that all about? I swore everyone in that group was bat-shit

crazy.

The announcer announced that Tommy had knocked me out, and I gave

Tommy got one more hug and told him that he’d see him at home.

TO CONTINUE...