: Chapter 1

Ten years later I might kill a man tonight.

I’ve fallen in the ring before. Broken bones, spilled my own blood on the concrete floor, yet I’ve never taken my last breath in front of people betting on my demise.

The roar of the crowd vibrates through the walls and rattles the metal lockers. Incomprehensible jeering, intermittent cheers, and collective gasps fill the space of the decrepit room. Life exists beyond the stained four walls surrounding me. But here, with the yellowing plaster and cracked basin, it feels like a place where people come to die.

Every time I sit on a bench, wrapping my hands with gauze, bandages, and tape, I picture myself stopping someone’s heart with a single strike. I imagine the crowd will explode with delight at the sight of death and the ensuing riches. I thought my mother’s wrath and my father’s disappointment were the worst I could endure. I was wrong.

This? There are no words to describe the seventh level of hell I’ve found myself in. I didn’t fall from grace; I was ripped away from it. Two and a half years ago, my wings were torn and my armor turned to dust. All within three days.

Flexing my fists, I focus on the wooden door. Any second, there will be a knock. At any moment my heart will remember it isn’t dead, and my brain will feel something other than oblivion.

I trace the scorpion tattoo hidden beneath the wrapping on my hand, with a pincer reaching for my thumb and pointer finger. Parts of it are still raised above the skin despite the months that have passed since I got it. My sister has an exact replica of it on her ribs.

Had.

What’s left of it is ash in the Atlantic Ocean. Along with the debris from the plane crash. Gaya finally got the freedom she wanted.

I had told her the heavy-handed tattoo would look ridiculous against the patchwork of all the fine line art she etched into her body the second I got her away from our parents. But she flipped me off, called me an idiot for not appreciating the reference she was making, and got it anyway.

A chorus of cries and shouts blare through the warehouse, echoing through the concrete corridors. It sends a ripple of anticipation down my spine as I roll my shoulders, stretch out the tension coiling my muscles tight.

Three consecutive knocks boom through the room. “We’re ready.”

Two words and my blood soars. Two words and I feel alive again. Adrenaline pumps through my veins and howls in my ears. My skin prickles with warmth at the impending feel of skin against skin. We all have to get our kicks somehow.

Gone is the thrill of falling out of helicopters. There’s no going back to the life I had before I failed my sister and my team.

Cheap thrills and blood money are my penance.

Unclasping my necklace, I press the gold coin pendant to my lips and try to remember the last time I saw Gaya wearing it, but the picture is all faded and murky now. I’m losing her more and more every day.

I tuck the necklace into the pocket of my pants and check that my dog tags are there. The wooden bench creaks as I rise. I have to adjust my sports bra again because the band has loosened after one too many wears, and my wallet is far too thin.

I stop at the end of the hall and peer out at the masses congregating around a center point. The exhilaration in the air is palpable.

The place reeks of cigarettes, piss, beer, and stale body odor, just like every other club I’ve ever been to these past two years. As disgusting as it is, the foul smell centers me until I notice every single minute detail of my surroundings. The weight of my leather boots. The pins holding my braid to my scalp. The woman in gray picking the pockets of unsuspecting men. Five exits: the one I’m in, the two roller doors, one at eleven o’clock, and the last at three.

Men and women from all trenches of society are here too. The Wall Street types, gang bangers, made men, and the unassuming neighbors next door.

Another city. Another fight club. Another chance to die a soldier’s death. All guts and no glory.

“Ladies and gents, we’ve got a crowd favorite up next.” The commentator’s voice booms through the megaphone, barely drowning out the sounds of excited chatter. He turns around on his stool to suck in the entire audience. “Five foot seven, with six consecutive knockout wins, and Colorado’s newest fighter.” The six knockouts happened months ago, and I haven’t had a decent win in over seven weeks. And unless there’s a stack of cash in my hands at the end of the night, I’m losing my apartment tomorrow. “She’s venomous, she’s a striker, and she’s out for blood. Give it up for the Deathstalkerrr!”

The room erupts into shouting and screaming. I glance down at the tattoo on my hand. The deathstalker scorpion.

Sergeant of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Eleven Bravo. Special Operations Forces.

Codename: Scorpion.

The sound slams into me when I shove the door open and stalk toward the center of the warehouse. People part like the sea, giving me a direct line to the makeshift ring. The rush of power that comes from the simple act used to make me heady, but it’s been a long time since the attention of the crowd has done more than spike my anxieties from being the center of attention.

Stacks of green are passed around in exchange for tokens that are quickly tucked away into pockets. The guy uses a marker on each note to check that it isn’t a counterfeit before moving to the next person to repeat the same process. I’m going to make someone rich tonight.

Some men leer, others salivate at the prospect of thickening their wallets. But some? They look like they can’t wait for me to die. It’s a look I became familiar with the second my mother birthed a daughter and not another son.

As I close in on the empty, circular space in the middle of the room, the noises drown beneath my racing pulse. Crimson and brown splatters decorate the gray concrete floor, working their way into every crevice and pore, leaving a near permanent mark of another fighter.

I fold my hands behind my back once I reach the middle of the ring, keeping my gaze directly on the commentator. I never asked who I’ll be facing. I never want to know more details than how much I’ll make if I get the other person on the ground. Or under it.

The commentator drones on about my opponent, but I can’t make sense of his words when his deep brown eyes meet mine for half a second too long. My lungs constrict and my ears ring with the sound of a phantom explosion. I’m back there. My skin crawls with the imaginary feeling of having shrapnel piercing my flesh, as I watch my best friend’s eyes grow cold and vacant as he bleeds out onto the asphalt.

TJ needs help. I need to call for backup. But I can’t move, there’s something on top of me. I have to help—

I suck in a sharp breath and snap my head up at the commentator when he says the two syllables that turn my blood cold “… let’s give up for H-Brawn.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Screams erupt through the room, piercing through my eardrums as a brick wall pushes through the crowd without a care for all the men and women he bulldozes over.

My breathing staggers as I eye him up. All three hundred pounds of him. Bald with a deranged stare. Brawn’s lips peel back into a smile that’s all teeth.

I’m screwed. I’ve taken men his size in a fight before, but my body takes this exact moment to send a searing shot of pain through my foot. I need treatment I can’t afford, and it gets worse every time my brain thinks I’m back there. The sound of everyone betting in his favor has sweat building between my shoulders, sticking my ripped tank top to my skin.

It’s getting incrementally harder to pull air into my lungs. If I tap out, I’ll never get into a fight again, and the feeling of fists against skin is the only thing getting me through. My knuckles turn white as I stare H-Brawn back down.

Tension winds my muscles tighter as H-Brawn stalks forward. I try cataloging all his weak spots: throat, the slight lag in his left foot, his speed, raisin-sized balls—cheap shots will still pay rent.

He looks me dead in the eye as he stretches his neck from side to side, cracking his knuckles. “Hope you said your goodbyes, Princess.”

My lip twitches. No, I didn’t get the chance to. They died before I could.

Like a barbarian, he throws his arms up in the air and roars. The audience eats it up, matching the sound with feral cries and hoots as he beats his chest. All the while, I stay perfectly still with my legs shoulder width apart and my hands folded behind my back.

“Get your bets in—my money’s on H-Boy.” The commentator snickers into the megaphone.

I don’t even dignify his comment with a glare, instead pretending like the muscles in my foot aren’t cramping under my weight. Two and a half years later, and there’s still no escaping the traumas of my last mission.

“Who’s ready?” Another chorus of cheers spreads through the room, and H-Brawn rolls his shoulders before raising his arms into a fighting stance. “Three, two, one… fight.”

The last word doesn’t make it out before he barrels for me. I drop onto one knee at the very last second and kick my leg out. His lower stomach collides with my boot, and agony thunders up my leg, sending bolts of pain up my spine and over my skin as if I’m back to bleeding out a couple of feet away from the burning armored car.

He grunts at the impact, buckling over ever so slightly as he reaches for the foot I can barely feel because of the damaged nerve. I manage to escape his grasp to weakly bury my heel into the soft area on the inside of his legs, just above his knees. The move makes him stagger forward, and I leap up onto my good foot to smash the hard surface of my palm against his nose.

The crowd goes wild as his head whips back and blood spurts out of the crooked line of his nose. Any sense of triumph is short-lived when his fists knock my raised hands aside and clock me in the jaw.

Both of my feet weaken, threatening to send me tumbling. I manage to hold myself up despite the agony. Pain blooms across my cheek. Blood coats my tongue.

I’d be a damn liar if I said there isn’t something glorious about external pain. It’s liberating and self-destructive. Grounding me and setting me over the edge.

I don’t notice the second hit until the air whooshes out of my lungs, and I fold over.

This is the type of crap that happens when I never get my ass out of bed: I get weak. Worse, I get slow. The people I served with would be appalled if they saw what I’ve become.

I slam my fists against his ear and narrowly dodge his next attack, sidestepping and ducking over and over before snagging his rib with my elbow. H-Brawn’s blow hits me right against my mouth. Blood spurts from the split in my lip, and I bite back a cry as I pivot on my bad foot, unleashing another pathetic kick to his side.

We go back and forth for minutes, with me spending more time dodging strikes than landing one. But everything I do makes him increasingly pissed off, and his hits seem to do increasingly more damage. Blood mixes with sweat, dripping down his forehead and torso in streams of pink. If my leg wasn’t playing up, I could climb onto his shoulder and bring him down onto the floor, then try to dislocate his shoulder or break his elbow.

For a split second, I swear my eyes lock on a pair of striking green ones. Mathijs. It’s gone the instant H-Brawn clocks me in the ribs.

God, I shouldn’t have come back to this city. I knew it would mess with my head, but I came back anyway. I don’t want to be back here among the ghosts of my past, but I couldn’t stay in California seeing Gaya in every corner of the room.

Closing the gap, I lift my knee to shove it in H-Brawn’s gut, but his arms encircle me before I can, lifting me up and slamming me onto the concrete. Pain radiates from every bone in my body, and a sickening crack echoes through my skull from the impact.

Cotton-wrapped knuckles meet my cheek, sending white dots scattering over my vision, blurring his vicious face as another strike hits my brow. Meaty fingers wrap around my throat, cutting off all oxygen. White spots turn black, and my lungs burn as if I’ve been left for dead at the bottom of the ocean. I try breaking his hold, twisting his wrists away, clawing at his skin, and bucking his weight off. Nothing works.

This time, when my ears ring, it’s a different type of siren than the one I heard while I had lain helpless and watched my friends die. Because this time, it sounds like a melody. A call from the beyond, beckoning me to fall over the edge and succumb to the darkness.

They say time heals all wounds. That as the days go on, you’ll stop grieving the ones you love. But I don’t want time. I refuse to sit around waiting for the pain to hurt a little less, for the tears to burn a little softer. I want to beat the emotions out of me until it stops hurting, and I go back to being the type of woman my sister could be proud of.

Some call my addiction to the ring having pain I can control.

I call it weaponizing death.

I’ve long since made peace with the grim reaper. He can take me whenever he wants. If today’s my day, I’ll welcome his cold embrace with open arms. At least if I die in the ring, I’ll get to feel alive one last time.

So when everything goes black, I don’t fight it.