Fight 247
1191 Words
My wolf wanted blood, and tonight he got it. He'd always craved it.
I caught my reflection in the blood-smeared steel. The feral edge clung to me, the broken alpha who saw everything as threat or prey. I've been fighting ever since. It was easier to become a monster than to remember I was once a man.
The cell door slammed shut behind me, finally as a coffin lid. Fight 247 complete. Three more until Knox kept his promise. Three more deaths before freedom.
If I still believed in promises. If freedom meant anything other than a different cage.
Blood flaked off my knuckles as I flexed my fingers. Not my blood. I'd honed the art of efficient violence over fourteen years. Quick kills. Clean kills. The kind that didn't slow me down.
My cell was six paces long, four paces wide. I'd measured it ten thousand times. Concrete walls, floor, and ceiling, all cold to the touch. A cot bolted to the wall. A toilet-and-sink combo that barely qualified as plumbing. No windows. Just the flickering fluorescent light that buzzed like dying insects.
Home sweet home for the arena's undefeated champion.
I stripped off my fight gear, the torn leather pants stiff with someone else's blood. The shower was a rusted spigot that ran cold more often than not. Tonight, it was freezing. No windows. Cold kept me sharp. Kept memories at bay.
The water ran red at my feet, warm against the cold, swirling down the drain. I watched it spiral away and felt nothing. That was the trick. Feel nothing. Be nothing except the weapon they'd forged from my guilt and grief.
Fourteen years ago, I was Lieutenant Ryder Maddox, Elite Guard. Tasked with protecting the Royal bloodline. The highest honor a wolf could earn.
I'd failed spectacularly.
My unit massacred. The royal family were slaughtered. I pulled from the rubble, the only survivor. Court-martialled for failure to protect. Dishonorably discharged. Rejected from every pack in North America.
Two years as a rogue before, Knox's scouts found me half-dead and willing to die. Except Knox didn't want me dead. He wanted me useful.
Welcome to The Crimson Cage, where broken wolves become entertainment.
I've been fighting ever since. Winning ever since.
Killing ever since. 247 fights. 247 bodies added to the count of lives I'd failed to save or taken myself. After a certain point, the numbers stopped meaning anything. Just marks on a wall, tallying a debt I couldn't pay.
The water shut off. I dried myself mechanically, pulled on the gray sweatpants, and sat on the cot. Routine was everything. Predictability was safety.
247 fights. I existed in numbness, a space between fights.
At six-foot-four and two-hundred-thirty pounds of solid muscle, I'd been built for combat long before The Crimson Cage refined me into a killing machine. Scars crisscrossed my torso, some from fights, most from the explosion that killed my unit. My right shoulder bore the arena's brand, a deep burn that reminded me Knox owned me until he decided otherwise.
My black hair had grown longer than regulations allowed back in my Guard days. I kept it short to stay out of my eyes during fights. A broken nose that had healed crooked. Storm-gray eyes that used to hold warmth, back when I remembered how to feel things besides rage and emptiness.
People used to say I was handsome, but now I am terrified.
Good. Terror kept people away. Kept them safe from the monster wearing my skin.
"You look like hell."
I didn't turn at the voice. Hunter Cross leaned against the bars of my cell door, his signature cocky grin firmly in place despite the bruise darkening his left eye. Twenty-six years old, a middleweight division fighter, and my closest friend in this place.
He was everything I wasn't. Light where I was darkness. Hunter stood maybe five-eleven, lean, and quick where I was heavy and brutal. Sandy brown hair that fell across his forehead no matter how many times he pushed it back. Green eyes that still held laughter, even in this hellhole.
The crowd adored him. "The pretty boy fighter with charm and skill," I said, shrugging. "He played to them, gave them a show, made them feel like they were watching art, not murder.
Smart strategy. The crowd's favorites lived longer.
He shouldn't be my friend. Friends were liabilities. But Hunter had decided three years ago that I needed someone to annoy me regularly, and I'd been too tired to argue.
"You should see the other guy," I said, the expected response to the expected comment.
"I did. They're still mopping him up." Hunter's grin faded. "That was brutal, even for you."
I shrugged. Brutal kept me alive. Brutal kept me winning. Brutal meant three more fights until Knox's promise of freedom.
"I've been thinking," Hunter said, his voice low.
"Don't hurt yourself," I said."
" Funny," he wasn't smiling anymore. "There's talk, okay? Underground channels, people who get fighters out. Real escape, not Knox's garbage."
I stood, crossed the bars, looked him dead in the eye. "No."
"Ryder, come on. You think Knox will let his undefeated champion walk away? You're his biggest draw. He'll keep you here until you're dead.""
"Three fights," I said flatly, my hands clenching the bars. "Three fights and I'm done." "
Knox gave his word. Knox doesn't free fighters. He retires them, six feet under."
Then I'll be the first exception," I had to believe it. I had to believe there was an end to this nightmare. "I have to be."
Hunter studied me for a long moment, something like pity crossing his features. I hated that look. Pity meant he saw me as broken. As less.
He was right, of course. But I still hated it.
"Three more fights, then," Hunter said quietly. "And if Knox doesn't keep his word?"
I met his eyes. "I'll die trying to leave. Either way, I'm done."
Hunter's expression shifted to respect. "At least let me watch your back until then. Deal?"
I wanted to say no. But Hunter was stubborn, loyal to a fault. He was the kind of friend I didn't deserve but couldn't quite refuse.
"Deal."
He grinned, the darkness lifting from his face. "Good. Because I already bet fifty bucks, you'd make it all the way through. Don't make me lose money."
Get out of here before the guards fine you for visiting after hours."
"Yeah, yeah." He pushed off the bars. "Try to sleep, old man. You look like you need it."
"I'm twenty-nine."
"Like I said. Ancient."
He walked away, his footsteps echoing in the corridor. I returned to the cot, lay down, stared at the ceiling. Counted the cracks in the concrete. Anything to occupy my mind until exhaustion dragged me under.
Three more fights.
Three more deaths.
Then, freedom, or the closest thing to it a monster like me deserved.
Sleep was starting to pull at the edges of my consciousness when a scent drifted through the ventilation system.
Vanilla and wildflowers.
My wolf, dormant and dead for months, slammed against my consciousness like a freight train.
- Writer
