Please log in to recommend or discuss...
My dad graduated first in his class in economics at Stanford. He was the youngest person at Harvard Business School, and he irons his sheets. He’s uptight, exacting, and brilliant. Meanwhile my mom’s a psychic who often keeps her hair in dreads because it’s more environmentally friendly not to wash it very often. She wears sarongs, and she does henna tattoos as a side gig, and she believes crystals carry energies that alter the aura of the people and the room around them.
They could not possibly be more different.
When Dad met Mom, she was reading people’s futures at one of his company events. She was a curiosity. A party entertainer.
Nothing.
But Dad and Mom were drawn to one another like opposing magnets—I was conceived the night of that stupid party, apparently. Cue my retching.
From that day forward, they took things one day at a time.
No one that either of them knew or loved thought they would work. Heck, I didn’t even think they’d stay together. They regularly fight like dry lightning strikes on a hot summer night, and it’s usually over something stupid, like what to do with the snake who ate one of our chicken’s fake eggs. Dad, of course, wants to kill it with a hoe and be done with it. Mom insists on spending the next two days nursing it and calling every rescue from here to Waco.
But even more fiercely than they fight, they love passionately and with every part of their being.
Maybe that’s why.
Maybe that’s the reason that, of all the people in the universe I might love, I’m falling for the absolute worst. I’m falling for the man—a beast—sent to slay everyone I know. The prince of the dragons, the creatures who invaded our earth with no regard for our past, our present, or our future.
I should be plotting his demise, but with every moment that passes, my resolve crumbles. And all I can think is that it’s my parents’ fault, because it must be in my DNA. Opposites really do attract, apparently.
How can I save the world when I’m falling for the powerful, savage being capable of utterly destroying it?
Fear makes men forget, and skill that cannot fight is useless. -Brasidas of Sparta
I was a very fearful child. Sometimes people don’t believe me when I tell them that, because who would believe that an up-and-coming UFC fighter could only sleep with the lights turned on when she was seven years old?
After enduring my sobbing fits for months, my parents decided to put me into martial arts. Mom hoped learning to defend myself properly might eliminate some of the fear. Dad just thought taking a few punches might toughen me up.
I started with kendo, because I wanted to hold a weapon and a sword felt like a good one. To this day, fighting with a sword in my hand has always been my favorite. It quickly became apparent that, although fear had brought me into the ring, it was the absence of fear I felt in the heat of a fight that allowed me to excel.
See, most people, and by most, I mean quite a bit more than ninety-nine point nine percent of people, when they’re punched, experience an acute stress response—their sympathetic nervous system goes haywire, basically. This causes tunnel vision, loss of hearing, and a short-circuit of all critical body systems. It renders you unable to think at all, much less respond to the danger that’s right in front of you.
But the rare one in less than ten thousand people. . .just don’t.
Most people don’t even know whether this might be them, because not very many people in this day and age actually get punched in the face. For most people, the only way to deal with the acute stress response is to work to condition it out with enough time and training. In such a way, when trauma or stress strikes, you can often power through.
Mostly.
But when your opponent’s trash talking, threatening, and intimidating you, when the audience is jeering and shouting, and when that first blow slams into your jaw, it often takes over in spite of your best efforts.
And that’s where I have a serious edge.
If you’ve ever seen Conor McGregor fight, you’ll know how someone like me looks. Even after a fight with months and months of trash talking and lead time, he waltzes into the ring calm and relaxed. His timing remains flawless. His reflexes are consistent, because unlike a normal human, he’s genuinely not stressed. His nervous system is fully functioning and ready to respond to any hits that come his way. It’s the reason his timing and accuracy are consistent. It’s the reason he consistently wins.
And like McGregor, in spite of my terror at night, in spite of my bad dreams, when I’m confronted with a terrible foe, I remain calm. Actually, I usually focus better. My reflexes heighten. My senses sharpen. My brain kicks into overdrive.
My perfect track record in UFC matches, the fact that there are way more men at my gym than women, and the fact that most women can’t keep up with me means that I spar with men more often than not. It’s certainly true today, though this is the third time I’ve taken someone down in under three minutes. I release my rear naked choke, which was way too easy to get, and drop Holden on the mat.
“What’s going on?” I kick his hip, not savagely, just enough to make sure he’s listening. “Why aren’t you going hard?” I spin around, looking at the guys who are watching. “You too, Javi. You barely even tried to avoid the armbar.”
Javi looks away.
When I look back at Holden, he won’t meet my eye either.
Now I’m royally ticked. “I have to fight in just under two weeks. Coach is about to cut to just training and no sparring, and now’s when you girls decide to go easy on me?” I swear under my breath, getting ready to pummel the next guy within an inch of his lousy life.
“It’s not our fault,” Holden mutters.
“What does that mean?” My eyes narrow.
“Nothing,” Holden says.
“Shut up.” Javi mouths something angrily. “Idiot.”
So someone’s telling them to go easy on me. . .but who would dare? Everyone knows how much this next fight matters to my career. It’s almost a miracle Coach even got me the fight, and it’s being broadcast on prime time. My opponent, Gisele Costa, is technically way above my paygrade. I need to bring my A-game, and that means training my very hardest.
Why would anyone at my gym want me to fail?
Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. There aren’t many people all these guys would listen to, other than Coach Sousa. In fact, I can only think of one.
“Gideon!”
He’s sparring across the gym, but both he and his opponent freeze, so I know they heard me.
“Gideon Evans, get over here right now.”
He ignores me.
Fine. I’ll go to him. I hop out and jog toward the corner where he’s still holding Frank’s wrist. Javi, and Holden, and Isaac take my departure as their cue to leave, ducking out the back door before I’ve even reached Gideon’s ring.
Frank wrenches his hand free and moves away as I hit the edge of the ring and swing up. He ducks out nearly as fast as the other guys did.
“What’s going on?” Coach Sousa was wrapping an ankle in his office, but he must have abandoned that. He’s nearly reached the edge of our octagon.
“Gideon told the guys to take it easy on me.” I cross my arms. “And I want to know why.”
“He’s your biggest supporter,” Sousa says. “He wants you to win as much as the rest of us. . .” I notice he’s not saying Gideon didn’t tell them to ease up.
And we can both see the set of Gideon’s jaw and the flashing of his eyes.
“Tell me it’s not true,” I say. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Gideon shrugs. “So what if I did? Getting injured before your fight won’t help you.”
“But if I don’t train well enough, I’ll get injured worse later, with everyone watching.”
“You’re already great at holds,” Gideon says. “Javi’s a boxer, and Holden’s kicks are infamous. If one of them broke—”
I’m done listening. He took my decent partners, so he can take their place. I spin a kick toward him without thinking, and it lands hard on his shoulder.
“Whoa,” Coach Sousa says.
But it’s too late for him to stop us. I’m furious, and Gideon looks nearly as angry. We’ve been in school together since I started kindergarten and trained together since I was seven years old and he was eight. He has always thought he knows better than I do, and I’m heartily sick of it.
He’s had a few big wins, just like I have. He has a few decent sponsors, just like I do. He’s tall, just like I am, only, tall for him is four inches over six feet. Tall for me is an inch shy of six feet. Still, by the percentages, I’m more impressive than he is.
Like me, Gideon’s not afraid to take a punch. When he fights, he’s relaxed, calm, and focused. My holds and kicks are better than his, but his strikes are much stronger than mine. Luckily, I’m fast enough to evade the force behind most of them.
His left hook’s famous, and it’s coming right at me. I shift slightly, and then I elbow the inside of his wrist, throwing him off balance. His hook glances, but it still stings.
That’s part of the reason we train. Even without fear, we still have to learn to deal with pain and move through it. Now that I’m inside his guard, an elbow to his gut causes him to fold inward, which gives me the opening I need to go for an armbar.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t doing these.” Gideon’s low tone is a little too close to a whisper, maybe because it’s right in my ear.
“We agreed on nothing,” I say. “But even if we did, that was before you started giving people orders behind my back.”
“Why do you think I did that?”
I put more pressure on his arm, realizing belatedly that he’s not even trying to get loose. “Hey.” I knee him. “Fight.”
“Fight what?” he asks. “You got me.”
I’m actually angry enough that I want to break it. He’s doing the same thing he ordered them to, not going full-on. Instead of doing something monumentally stupid, I throw his arm away and stand up in disgust. “Why?” I kick his side as hard as I can. “Why aren’t you trying?”
“Last month, Holden broke your nose.” He stretches and bounces lightly. “Last week, Javi gave you a black eye.”
And I’m swearing under my breath again. “That’s the game, Gideon. It’s how it works. You know that better than anyone.”
He drops his voice and ducks his head. “Well, maybe it’s different for me.”
“What dumb crap are you saying?”
“Alright, you two. My office.” Coach Sousa looks ticked, and when he’s that mad, we can’t ignore him. He’s been known to cancel fights, or worse, sub another fighter in your place.
Gideon stops in front of the office and waves me in. I kick him as I pass. Stupid jerk, acting like he’s all chivalrous. Coach Sousa closes the door, which is basically a red flag to the entire gym that stuff’s about to go down.
“Alright. What’s going on?” I ask.
“I can’t keep watching you get hurt,” Gideon says. “Don’t get mad at me for trying to help.”
“Help? I’m a fighter, not some elderly lady who bought too many groceries.” I slam a fist into his stomach as hard as I can. “It’s not helping, you jerk. We go hard so we can win. Your idiocy might cost me the fight.”
He barely grunts, and then pushes past me and sits in a chair, like nothing even happened.
Coach reams us for fighting on the floor, and tells us how we set the example for the other fighters, yada yada. It’s nothing that we haven’t heard before. But then, he stops.
He yelled at both of us.
Like I was the problem. “Did you hear what he did?” My hand’s itching to punch Coach in the stomach, now. “He told the guys—”
“Liz.” Coach Sousa grits his teeth.
“What?” I look from Coach to Gideon and back again. “What am I missing here? Or did the two of you suddenly break misogynist for no reason?”
Coach Sousa sighs. “I have to tell her now—that’s on you.”
Gideon exhales.
“His next fight, the one the week after yours, is Gideon’s last.” Coach Sousa’s words are flat, his mouth a grim line.
“What?” My eyes fly to Gideon’s face. “What’s he talking about?”
Gideon shrugs. “My heart’s not in it anymore.”
“No way,” I say. “I don’t buy it.”
He shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter whether you do or not.”
“Our finest fighter is enlisting.” Coach Sousa spits on the floor. His voice goes up when he says, “Special ops.”
Why would Gideon do that now, when he’s finally on top?
My oldest friend—my self-appointed nanny—doesn’t give me any kind of answer. He just stands up and heads for the door.
I’m left scrambling after him. “Hey, whoa!” I grab his shoulder just outside the office. Everyone in the gym’s watching, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“What?” Gideon spins around, his dark blue eyes flashing. “You gonna tell me I can’t enlist? Are you my mom, now?”
“Umm,” I say. “You’re the one who kept telling people what they could do with me.”
“Why do you think I’m quitting after all this time, Liz?”
That’s what I can’t fathom. He’s so close to breaking through! He could be the world champion in under a year if he keeps pushing and gets lucky. Why would he throw it all away?
“Think about it.” His lip curls up into a half smile, and his voice drops to a low, husky rumble that only I can hear. “Think really, really hard, you idiot.”
“You said your heart’s not in it,” I say, “but you love fighting.”
“I need a cause,” he whispers. “I don’t feel like I have that anymore, but there’s another reason. My real reason.” His eyes meet mine, and I’ve never seen them look quite so intense, not even in the ring.
“Is your family alright?”
He waves his hand through the air, like he’s shoving that thought away. “Fine.” He points at me. “But you are denser than I thought.”
“I am?” Why’s my heart galloping?
He steps toward me, and for some inexplicable reason, I back up. He steps closer, and I scramble backward again. He repeats that move, again and again, until my back hits the wall.
Finally, he says, “We can’t date anyone at the gym. That’s always been the rule.” His voice is still low—clear, strong, but low, the volume turned up just loud enough for me.
“Okay.” Something inside my belly twists.
“I’ve hated that rule for years, Elizabeth. Tell me you haven’t.”
My mouth goes dry. Is he saying. . . For years there’s been something between us, yes. It’s not like I never noticed. But like he said, we can’t date. We’re both focused on our careers. He’s been the best friend I’ve needed, and he’s been a constant force in my life.
“I got sick of waiting,” he says. “So I’m not going to do it anymore.”
“But you’ll be—”
“I’ll be in training for six months,” he says. “And after that, I’ll be on one- and two-month missions. I negotiated for that. It turns out, when you have some skills, you have something called leverage, even with the federal government.”
“But—”
His head drops toward mine, his eyes staring at my mouth. “Tell me you understand, Elizabeth. In three weeks, we won’t be at the same gym anymore.”
I swallow. “I do.”
“You think it’s the right call, too.”
“But—”
His hand slams against the wall, inches from my head. “You agree. Say it.”
I look up at him, immediately realizing my mistake. His deep blue eyes. His locked jaw. The sweat beaded on his brow. His hair, falling across his face. It’s too much. “I agree,” I whisper.
His smile’s devilish, and his presence is intoxicating. He leans even closer, so that only a hairsbreadth separates my mouth from his. “Three weeks, Liz.”
I’m not sure I can survive them.
