Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Charming.
When we walk up, Lawson is taking bumps of coke off the back of his hand while Silas is texting on his phone, pretending not to notice.
“Welcome to the festivities, gentlemen,” Lawson drawls. “I hope all your affairs are in order.”
“Ah, God. What’s that smell?” I groan as the odor of rancid garbage and dead animals burns my nostrils. It gets stronger near the entrance.
Silas lifts his head from his phone. “About forty years of mold, rotting plants, racoon shit, and sweat,” he answers dryly.
“Just wait.” Lawson smirks, somehow enjoying this. “It gets worse.”
We make our way inside, where the bodies are packed in like slabs of meat in a truck. It was humid outside, but in here I can barely breathe through the thickness of sweat and testosterone. Condensation drips in greenish-yellow trails down the glass as if it were raining.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe dipshits in polo shirts slap-fighting for their daddies’ car keys. But this is intense. Guys are walking around shirtless, smacking themselves in the face to get pumped up. Cracking their knuckles and eyeing the crowd for victims. As I walk through the crowd, I see faces in the shadows salivating for carnage.
Damn, these dudes really came to beat the shit out of each other. All around me, hands are flashing wads of cash and flipping through handfuls of hundred-dollar bills like they’re tossing singles at a strip club.
Without any ceremony or pretentious pomp, two skinny shirtless guys meet in the center of the concrete floor, shaking out their arms before launching at each other like their plane went down two weeks ago in the frozen wilderness and they’ve run out of caviar and protein bars. It’s bloody and primal. Splashes of red stick to the bottoms of their feet and trace their dance as they move, creating footprints in the mud of dirt and body fluids.
The sounds of bone on bone and the smack of flesh against wet flesh make me wince. That squishy, puckering noise of landing a blow on an already broken, tender face.
At some point, they’re not even breathing air anymore. Just exhaust and marrow.
When the former champ collapses and his noodle arms can’t lift his body weight from the muck, they declare the mangled thing standing over him the winner. Five hundred, a thousand moves from one hand to another within the crowd, dozens of bets trading a month’s tuition without a thought.
“Gonna get your hands dirty, New Kid?” Carter slides up beside me in the mayhem.
I spare him with a cursory look. “Nah, I think I’m going to hang on to my teeth. Might need them some day.”
Another guy steps up to fight the winner. Which hardly seems like a fair deal when the winner gave everything he had in the last bout and is barely on his feet. Unfazed, the tall, lean senior strips off his T-shirt and steps into the circle.
“Worried you might embarrass yourself?” Carter bumps my shoulder to try getting a rise out of me. “Nobody expects the new guys to win. But you might figure out you like it.”
“Yeah, what’s not to like? Letting some asshole take out his daddy issues on my face. Sounds like fun.”
The new fighter pumps the crowd for approval and applause before dancing around, daring the other guy to hit him. At one point he puts both hands behind his back and sticks his face out to his reluctant opponent, who at least knows better than to take the bait. The guy can barely see through the swelling and blood in his eye. Still, when his new opponent lashes out with a jab, the skinny guy lands a devastating uppercut that draws a gasp from the spectators, and the fight begins in earnest.
“That’s coward talk,” Carter informs me. “What, you afraid to get hit?”
“Nah, I’m good.” If I could be goaded into a bare-knuckle brawl by the dumbest kid in remedial pre-school, I wouldn’t have this well-developed sense of superiority.
As a matter of fact, after the initial shock-and-awe campaign wears off, watching dudes go at each other for shits and giggles gets a little tedious. There’s only so much porn and gore a person can watch before it loses the effect. I guess illicit violence doesn’t get me hard. Maybe it’s a money thing. I wouldn’t understand.
So I tell Carter to fuck off and head for the exit, searching the jam-packed space for Fenn or Lucas. Hell, I’d even welcome a high-on-coke Lawson at this point. But they’ve all been swallowed up by the crowd. I fish my phone out of my pocket and type a one-handed text to Fenn, telling him I’m bailing.
Before I can slip out, however, Duke corners me near the door. He’s wearing gray track pants and his trademark white T-shirt that shows off every ridge and ripple of his chest. I’m surprised he’s even wearing a shirt. He’s the guy who always needs to be flashing his abs to the world.