RR&R 01 Real (37 page)
Heart twisting in anxious fear, I look for Nora among the crowd and try to locate her among Scorpion’s goons, but she’s nowhere in sight. My dread doubles when I wonder if all this I caused, all this … was for nothing?
Ting ting.
The bell rings, and all the atoms in my body hone in on Remington as both fighters go to center and toe to toe. Scorpion lands a punch in Remy’s ribs, then quickly slams his jaw back in an awful one-two punch that I can hear striking flesh and bone. Remington holds his ground, but shudders as he recovers and continues going toe to toe with Scorpion, his arms folded low at his sides.
My eyebrows draw together in confusion. In every fight I’ve seen him participate, and in the time I tussled in the ring with him and learned some boxing moves from him, Remy has never kept his guard this low. An awful premonition sinks its awful claws into my stomach, and I glance up to try to read the dark frowns on Riley and Coach’s faces. The grim lines etched on both their features only confirm my suspicions.
down
. His thick, muscled arms hang relaxed and idle at his sides, and now he’s just bouncing on his calves as if waiting for the next hit to come. His eyebrows are drawn, his eyes narrowed fiercely, but he looks almost … hungry for it, in a raging, reckless way.
suicidal.
I’m speechless.
unable
to stretch his arms out to punch?
He is. Not. Punching.
At all.
Scorpion swings out with his left hand and lands one in the jaw, then lands a straight punch in the face that knocks Remington to his knees. My throat goes raw with unuttered shouts and protests as the public begins booing.
Boooo! Booo!!”
“
Kill the bastard, Riptide! KILL HIM!”
In all of Remington’s fights, I would feel all kinds of twisting nerves as well as excitement, but now it is only anguish and pain roiling inside me as blow after blow, Remington takes it.
wrong!
Remy, fight him!” I suddenly hear myself scream, and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs in a way I have never in my life screamed before. “REMY, FIGHT HIM! FOR ME! FOR
ME
!”
He still doesn’t look at me. And the next punches that come in a fast series of jabs, Remy once again takes.
Ooof, ooff
, I hear, as his breath is knocked out of him.
crack!
A trail of blood that belongs to him is scattered all over his prone body. Raw, primitive grief overwhelms me, and a black snake of fear starts gnawing painfully into the thickest arteries of my heart. Remy’s face is swollen, and he’s panting for breath and shuddering with each breath as he plants one hand on the ground, and then the other. A chill black silence surrounds the room as the counting begins, and Remy tries pushing up.
for the love of god
, stop with this bullshit and just stay down now!
But Remy pushes up and spits more blood at the ground, using his arms to get back on his feet only to catch a powerful left hook right on his temple that swings his head around.
Riley and Coach yell loudly at him. “Your fucking guard! What the fuck is wrong with you?” they’re saying, over and over, their shouts loud and painfully distressed.
People yell across the room, every one of them unwilling to give up on him as long as Remy keeps standing.
KILL HIM, RIPTIDE!!! KILL HIM!”
they scream.
And as I watch him take another hit that splatters blood across the ring floor, I want to scream back at the public to please just
shut the hell up!
To please, for heaven’s sake, just let him
fucking stay down
and
stop this fucking nightmare!
I can’t control the spasmodic trembling within me. People shout their chant.
“REM-MING-TON! RE-MING-TON!”
But I can see Remy’s hurting. One of his arms is dangling at his side, hanging limply. He’s hurting and he’s still giving it his all, like he gives every fight, like he goes all the way in every training session. He’s going to go on until he
can’t
get up. When that realization finally sinks into my stunned head, I’m shattered to a million pieces. A hot tear streams down my cheek as sounds rip through the room when another series of hits lands on Remington’s flesh, the awful impacts backing him up toward the ropes.
“
Remy, Remy,
Remy
!” people continue yelling.
Remy spits right into the place where his tattoo should be, whispering something taunting that seems to anger the other man so much, he swings his arm back with a deafening roar and lands an uppercut that knocks Remy like lead on the floor. My heart stops.
Silence falls.
I blink in mute horror at Remy’s motionless form, fallen on his side, and I take in those perfect shoulders I know by memory, his beautiful bones probably broken, his beautifully trained and beautifully made body bruised purple and bleeding on that ring floor. His eyes are frightfully closed.
And I want to die.
There are gasps of outrage when the ring doctors appear up on the ring, and people start “booing” out loud as the announcer speaks.
Our victor of the night, Benny the Black Scooooorpion! The new Underground champion, ladies and gentlemen! Scooorpioooon!”
I never thought anything in my life would ever hurt me as much as breaking my ankle and wobbling off the field at the Olympic tryouts with my spirit broken.
But no. Now the worst day of my entire life has been this one. When I watched the man I love break his own body to unconsciousness, and every millimeter of every quadrant of my heart is broken.
Through burning eyes, I watch the medics haul his body to a stretcher, and the reality of the situation hits me like a cannon blast. I jump to my feet and am running like crazy through a throng of people as the doctors start carrying him away. I fling myself through a pair of them and reach for one bloodied hand and squeeze two bloodied fingers. “Remy!”
Strong arms wrench me away, and a familiar voice speaks close to me. “Let them look at him, B,” Riley pleads in a craggy voice, hauling me back as I struggle to be set free.
Spinning around to hit him so that he releases me, I notice his eyes are red as he tries to keep a hold of my struggling form, and suddenly, I break. Deep compulsive sobs wrack through my body as I grab his shirt, and instead of hitting him, I just cling. I need something to hang onto, and my big, strong tree is broken on a stretcher, beaten to a pulp.
I’m sorry,” I cry, every inch of me jerking and shaking as the tears tear out of me just like they had once before, six years ago. “Oh, god, I’m sorry
, I’m so sorry
!”
He sniffles too, then pulls away and wipes his own cheeks. “I know, B, I don’t know what the fuck… It’s just… I don’t know what the hell went on down here.
Jesus
!”
Nora. Oh, fuck meeeee, I still need to wait for Nora!
I grab Riley back, more tears threatening to unleash when I realize I won’t be able to go with him.
“
Riley, my sister! I told her to meet me here.”
Nodding miserably, I watch him leave, wiping away more tears and not even knowing what to do with the whirlwind of emotions inside me. I desperately want to go with Remington, but I can’t ask Riley to trade places with me. Nora doesn’t know him, might change her mind if she sees him instead of me. I swear it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to watch him be taken away, all bloodied, without running after him.
I lean on the door of the women’s restroom, and wait, and wait, restless with worry and haunted by what I just saw.
My mind keeps spinning and I feel I will wake up soon and realize this was just a bad dream, and Remy did not just commit the most painful almost-suicide up on that ring.
But he did.
had.
The man who played me “Iris.”
The man who laughs with me, runs with me, and says I’m a little firecracker.
The strongest man I’ve ever known, and the one who’s been most gentle to me.
The one who’s a little bit bad, a little bit crazy, a little bit too hard to handle for me.
When three hours pass, I’ve run out of tears, and my hope is gone too. Nora isn’t coming. Remington just let himself be knocked into a concussion, and I’ve been told where they’ve checked him in.
