Untamed (46 page)

One charge, a flurry of punches, and Duncan’s opponent is reeling. Each hit is a loud thump that makes me wince. It’s like the beat of a bass drum.

The aggression I suddenly see in Duncan shocks me. He’s turned into a creature in the cage. He’s right up on his opponent, crowding him against the chain-link barrier, landing punch after super-quick punch into his gut, side of his head, mouth, neck.

His opponent blocks one fist, Duncan swings with the other. His opponent flails wildly, and Duncan easily slaps the errant hook, lands his own counter straight at the man’s eye.

Finally, when his opponent drops to his knees on the ground, Duncan wraps his arms around his neck from behind, pushes his knees into his lower back, and bends him backward, using his own bodyweight to choke him.

It’s not long before he’s tapped out.

Duncan gets up the winner, pulls the loser to his feet, slaps his head with the kind of affectionate camaraderie I only expect fighters to have, and then is out of the cage, storming past Dad, who looks on in wide-eyed surprise.

The whole basement has fallen silent. The aggression, the violence everybody just witnessed has shocked them speechless.

A bunch of fucking mobsters and gangsters who kill and prostitute people for a living are beyond words.

And so am I.

I turn toward the changing room, see the door swing closed.

I go back there, see Duncan on a stationary bike.

“Lock the door,” he tells me, and without hesitation, I do.

He looks at me, almost as if he’s worried I disapprove, but then starts pedaling faster.

“That was insane,” I tell him.

“I saw it in his eyes.”

“What?”

“He was all about the show,” he says between pants. Sweat drips off his chin. “Expected us to test each other, dance before we fight. Embellish. He’s a show fighter.”

“And?”

“So I got up on him hard and fast. Overwhelmed him.”

Duncan’s voice is completely neutral. He explains it to me matter-of-factly, as if recapping last night’s news.

How the hell can he divorce that kind of aggression from his natural emotional state?

He wipes blood off his knuckles, and I go to him, brow pinched together, a surging worry in me. “Are you bleeding?”

“Yeah,” he says. He lifts his knuckle up to me, shows me, and I gasp, covering my mouth.

“Oh my God!” I cry, stepping back. There’s a tooth lodged in between the knuckles of his middle finger and forefinger.

“Idiot didn’t wear a mouth guard,” Duncan says, and he pries the tooth from his flesh, pushes a towel against the open wound that immediately bubbles blood. The sound of the loose tooth dropping against the floor is just a dull clack.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, feeling stupid the moment the words leave my mouth.
Of course it hurts
.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s fine, though.”

“Did that guy even get a hit on you?”

“No.”

I take a trembling breath of air, then calm myself down. I guess I’d never expected it to be that brutal. I guess I’d expected it to be more of an artistic dance, like martial-arts movies, than a tooth embedded in a fist.

“How long before the next round?”

He glances up at the clock. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Are you serious?” I ask. “You don’t get to rest?”

“Better that way. Won’t cool down.”

He hops off the bike, digs into his locker and pulls out a jump rope.

I feel so awkward just standing there, watching him do his jumps, cross the rope over effortlessly, reverse his swing so he’s going backward.

His timing is damn-near perfect, and he’s skipping faster than I ever could. Better than I ever could in gym class.

When he’s out of breath he throws the rope against the bench, almost violently, puts his hands on his hips, sucks in huge gulps of air.

There’s a knock at the door, and Duncan walks toward it, slides open the rusty deadbolt.

Dad’s head pops in again. “This guy is Falcone’s fighter,” Dad says. “Quick hands.”

“Right.”

Duncan shuts the door, turns to me, wipes his face with a towel.

“Kiss for good luck?”

I frown at him, make a face. “Are you serious?”

But just as I finish the sentence he’s closed the distance, grabs me by my waist and kisses me. I’m caught by surprise, let out a yelp, and when he sets me down I slap his sticky chest, a little grossed-out by the thought of his opponent’s sweat being there, too.

He looks into my eyes for a moment, as if searching them.

“What are you doing?”

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he tells me, “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

He nods.

“Kick his ass.”

Duncan’s face hardens, all emotion and softness drain from his features. He becomes an iron statue, almost lifeless.

He turns around, leaves the changing room a charging hurricane.

I watch from the doorway of the changing room as he climbs into the cage. The referee starts the fight, and this time his opponent immediately gets up on him, throws a quick punch and Duncan takes one above the eye.

I see the spill of crimson, but the ref doesn’t stop the fight. I turn my eyes to Dad and he just shrugs.

They dance for a while, tip-toe around each other, size each other up, but again, in a flurry of fast and hard movement, Duncan lands hit after hit, thumps the wind out of his opponent before going for a mid-waist takedown and locking his knee.

The guy taps out just when I think his lower leg is going to separate from his upper leg.

Duncan stands, doesn’t gloat, doesn’t show off. He just throws open the door to the cage, storms back into the changing room past a once-again silenced crowd, and hops on the bike.

I lock the door behind him.

“I feel like your trainer or something,” I say, offering him a smile.

He returns it, and warmth floods back into his features.

It’s like he’s a different person in the cage. I guess he has to be.

“Two down,” he grunts at me. “Three to go.”

“Is this how you always fight?”

He stops, then, stops pedaling. I feel like I’ve touched a nerve or something, but I don’t know what.

“I’ve never fought like this before,” he says slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“Organized, pitted against someone like a fucking dog.”

I hear some anger in his voice, feel its sting. Is he regretting this?

“You don’t have to fight, you know.”

Duncan shrugs. “What the fuck else can I do?”

He lowers his eyes to the digital readout on his stationary bike, and starts pedaling harder.

Another knock at the door: Dad’s voice floats through.

I slide open the deadbolt, and Dad pushes in, looks at me. “Why the hell did you come if you’re just going to spend all night hiding in here?”

I’m taken aback, don’t know what to say, but Duncan is off the bike, walking toward us.

“Get out,” he says to Dad.

“You’re winning too quickly,” Dad protests.

“Get the fuck out, Glass, I need to concentrate.”

Dad looks between him and me. “What about her?” he asks.

I’m surprised by the tone of his voice. It was almost… petulant.

“She’s helping me.”

“How?”

“You want me to win these fucking fights for you or not?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“Then I do it my way. I’m not here to put on a fucking show for you.”

“Yes, you are, boy,” Dad says, his voice rising.

Duncan immediately starts to unwrap his wrists. “Then I’m done.”

“Wait, wait, wait no. That’s not what I meant.”

“I fight my way, or I don’t fight.”

There’s a standoff between them. Duncan’s so deftly turned Dad’s anger that was once originally aimed at me straight onto him.

It’s not like I don’t know how to handle Dad, but I appreciate it.

Dad puts on a stony front, but slowly he retreats.

The only person I’ve ever seen Dad retreat from is Duncan. It’s honestly shocking, and a little confusing.

Duncan slams the door shut, slides the deadbolt across, then looks at me. His Adam’s apple jumps up and down as he swallows.

“I don’t need you to protect me from him,” I say to him. I add, “He’s such an asshole, but I can handle him.”

“I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then you and I are on the same side.”

“I don’t want to take sides against my Dad,” I tell him truthfully. “Not really, anyway.”

“It’s too late for that, Dee. Protect yourself, first and foremost.”

“You don’t need to get in between us.”

He shrugs. “I do what feels right.”

There’s a pause, and we look at each other.

“We’re a team now, Dee.”

“What, like brother and sister? Ganging up on Dad?”

“Maybe. You want to come outside and watch the next round? Be where I can see you.”

“I do,” I say truthfully. “It’s a little exciting. But…”

“But?”

“Everyone else…”

“So?”

“I don’t know.”

“Show them what you’re made of.”

“They intimidate me.”

He spaces the words out, almost savagely. “Shine brighter.”

A bell dings, he throws open the door and goes toward the cage.

I watch him for a moment before taking off my coat, and walking out as well. I do as he says, walk my best walk. I realize, belatedly, that as many eyes are on me as they are on Duncan.

I go to Dad’s side. He regards me with little more than a grunt, but I stand there, and when Duncan looks at me from inside the cage, I meet his eyes.

We share a look, and nobody in the room misses it.

We’re a team
.

In this big old fucking boy’s club, I’m the one he looks at.

He beckons me to the cage, and so I go toward it. He falls into a squat, checks the wraps and tape on his hands and wrists. Then he pushes his fingers through the cage.

I take them quickly, give them a quick squeeze. I don’t care who is watching now.

“I prefer you out here,” he whispers.

“Why?”

“Because losing in front of you is unthinkable.”

He jumps up quickly, and I step back, falling in line with Dad again.

We watch, everybody, the whole crowd in anticipatory silence. The ref starts the fight.

Duncan and his third opponent begin their dance.