“She sure is something,” Ryder mutters, watching me. As always, his eyes sadden when they spot my chest. He blames himself, I know it. Always does when one of us gets hurt, always thinking he has to protect us. Save us. He doesn’t, but he won’t listen to me, not that we ever spoke about what happened. “Maybe you shouldn’t be around her, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about what it would do to bring her here…” He scrubs his hand through his hair, mussing it slightly.
That, in Ryder standards, is a meltdown.
“No, it’s fine,” I snap, turning away, not letting him see how close I came to losing myself to those emotions. To that darkness…those demons, the ones I fight every day. The ones I beat down with pain, fists, and kicks.
“I can kill her, she wouldn’t be a problem then,” he muses, so calmly, but when I drop the towel, yanking on my grey shorts, I look over to see his lips tilting down. He doesn’t want to kill her. She’s under his skin as well—interesting.
“No, it’s fine. I wasn’t prepared, I will be now. I’ll stay away from her until we decide what we’re doing with her,” I reply, as I tug on a shirt and grab my bag, tucking my gun into my waistband.
“You going to the pits?” he asks, letting out a long breath as he slicks his hair back.
“I need to.” I sigh, looking at my back, and his hand lands on my arm again.
“I know, go, do what you need to do to beat this. But then come back to us,” he orders before leaving.
Sucking in a breath, I let his words guide me. Come back to us. How does he know I’m so close to being lost? So close to dropping my guard ever so slightly to let those flurries of fists connect, killing me? It would be easier, but it’s not our way.
Vipers never give up.
Vipers never stop fighting.
Vipers are winners.
Striding from my room, I ignore the others who are sitting downstairs as I slam the door behind me. They will never know how close I am to the edge. Diesel went over it a long time ago, but he learned how to live in the dark. Kenzo walks that line, and Ryder? Ryder holds it all back with pure fucking strength.
Me? I beat it down.
Again and again, no matter how much this body gets broken. It’s the only way I can function. To feel that adrenaline pumping through me, releasing my fury on another person. They often don’t leave the ring on their own two feet. Those people there scream my name as blood drips from my bulging muscles, and they love it.
I hate it, but it’s a necessity.
It once wasn’t. I was the best, even did it professionally before I realised how much money could be had in underground fighting. Now I have no other choice, I’m too brutal for professional fighting. I want my opponent to hurt, to bleed. I want their bones to break under my fists, their eyes to blacken.
I want their pain.
I paint them with the destruction of my fists.
* * *
I pummel the man.He tries to block, to duck behind his arms, but he can’t stop me. I give him everything, handing myself over to those emotions until I’m nothing more than anger. He falls to the floor, and I follow him down.
Pinning him there, I smash my fists into his unprotected face. My knuckles crack, splitting open. My own blood coats his face, but even then I don’t stop. The crowd screams, pressing closer so they can almost taste the bloodshed. They love it.
They scream my name, but it all fades to a buzz as I swing fist after fist. The man passes out, but I still keep going, his head jerking to the side with each hard punch. Someone tries to get me to stop, but I push them away. I can’t stop. I can’t.
I need this.
I need him to bleed.
I need the pain.
I’m yanked away from the man, his chest is barely rising, his face caved in. Turning, I snarl, punching anyone who gets too close until the ref’s, and the four security guards’ currently trying to stop me, faces come into view.
Chest heaving, muscles screaming and soaked in sweat, I stand in the middle of the ring with the spotlight on me. I nod to let them know I’m back, that I’m okay. It goes quiet until the ref grabs my damaged hand and lifts it into the air, shouting into the mic about me winning. I don’t care.
I stand there as the crowd surges, screaming, chanting, and stomping in the basement of the old paper factory. The stands are made from what they could find, and the ring is basically a chalk drawing with ropes around it.
But some of the richest people in the city are here, as well as the poorest. Yet they are the fighters, street kids like I once was. Anyone trying to change their future, giving everything. The ref leans closer. “We have another guy, you look like you need it.”
I nod, he’s right, I do. Roxy’s eyes keep flashing in my mind, and I need someone to beat them out. “Make it two,” I snarl, as I stride from the ring and throw back some water before letting it wash across my face. Peeling back the tape from my knuckles, I assess the damage—not too bad.
A woman sidles up next to me as they pick up the guy I almost killed from the ring and toss him aside like trash. The loser gets nothing, after all. I slip the money from my winnings into my bag, not that I need it, but it doesn’t hurt. The woman coughs slightly when I don’t look at her, her body almost pressing to my side…another woman did that once.
Her.
I should have known then she wasn’t right, but I was too fucking blind. Too trusting. Too naïve. Not anymore. Never again.
The anger comes back full force as I glance at the intruder. The dress she’s wearing is too tight, pushing up her fake boobs, almost making them spill from the top. Her red hair is curled, and her face is covered in makeup to within an inch of her life.
I can’t help but compare her to that firework back at our apartment. She has nothing on Roxy. “What?” I growl, done with being nice. I don’t have to be here, they all know me. Know what I am.
Women ache for a taste, thinking they can handle the madness in me. The men cheer it on, wanting to watch me kill. To get their own darkness out through me. They are all wrong. They have no idea what hides in my depths.
“Want some company, baby? You’re a winner, after all,” she purrs, running her hand down my sweaty arm. I grab her fingers and squeeze hard, she gasps in pain, her eyes widening and fear entering those orbs as she shivers under my gaze, shrinking back.
They all do.
They all think they can handle me, but they’re wrong. Even if I wanted to fuck any one of them—which I don’t, not anymore—I couldn’t. I would kill them.
“Do. Not. Touch. Me,” I snarl, just as I hear my name announced. I push her backwards, and she falls to her ass, the people around her laughing. Turning away, I head back to the ring, ready to lose myself in the fight once again.
Maybe I’ll get lucky, maybe they will be a good opponent. Maybe they will give me the pain I need, maybe they will finally kill me and end this misery…
ROXY
Iheard the door slam not too long ago. I’ve been hiding in my room ever since the run-in with Garrett, trying to slow my heartbeat. The worst bit is that underneath all that fear I’m trying to hide…there’s something else. Something darker that wanted him to squeeze, that wanted that anger I could see controlling him.
That wanted to see just how far I could push him…and how far he would take it.
I’m fucked up.
Pushing off the door, I stagger into the bathroom, ripping off my clothes. I didn’t shower earlier. I had fallen back asleep, but with the feel of Garrett’s hand still wrapped around my throat, and the smell of sweat and man coating me, I need to.
I need to wash it away, the way I felt in that moment. I wasn’t scared to die, I wasn’t even scared it would hurt…I was scared I would never know how it felt to feel all that power.
To get revenge.
Fuck.
Slipping into the shower, I scrub my body, ignoring my traitorous pussy, who seems way too interested in these snakes. Once I’m done, I feel slightly better, and after drying off, I find my way back into the wardrobe and slip into an old, holey, AC/DC t-shirt. One of my favourites, my comfort shirt. Then I curl up in the perfect bed. Ryder was right, they made the room so it looks like my tantrum never happened. Though I poked the mirror in the bathroom and realised it was coated so as not to shatter.
Smart man.
I want to hide in here forever, but that’s not my style. I still want to be free of these men, and to do that, I need knowledge. Knowledge is power. No one else is coming to help me, and the world doesn’t give a shit. It doesn’t care if I’m a good person or a bad person. Fuck, I’m not even sure which I am anymore…maybe somewhere in the middle.
So, on bare feet, I slip out into the apartment, pressing my back to the wall where they can’t see me as I eavesdrop. “You think he’ll be okay?” Kenzo drawls, his voice distinctive with the warmth he infuses in it.
“Yes, he just needed to get it all out,” Ryder replies, his tone cold.
There’s a sigh and some shifting. “Do you ever wonder if it wouldn’t have been kinder…”
“Stop right there,” Ryder snaps. “He’s our brother, his demons are our demons. He survived, we do whatever it takes to ensure that he stays that way.”
“You’re right,” Kenzo agrees, but sounds sad. “I just wish there was something we could do. I feel useless watching him struggle.”
“This is his battle, not even we can help him this time. Only he can, he must decide to keep going. He’s been in limbo ever since it happened, just living. I have a feeling that having Roxy here will shake that up. Force him to face it once and for all,” Ryder murmurs.
“Y-You knew that when you brought her here, didn’t you?” Kenzo snaps, angry now. “You might be smart, Ryder, but sometimes you’re a fucking bastard. He’s our brother.”
“He is!” Ryder growls. “I’m trying to save him!”
“You are trying to control everything, like always!” Kenzo yells. “For once, stop trying to be in charge, just be there for him. That’s all he needs, not your fucking experiments. We aren’t another one of your challenges to conquer, we are your family. I swear, Ryder, sometimes you remind me of—”
It goes quiet, and I can almost feel the drop in temperature, and when Ryder’s voice comes, it’s deadly, dark, and oh so cold. “Say it.”
“Of Dad!” Kenzo finishes. “You do, I love you, brother, but you get more like him every day. I’ve spent my life fighting to not be like him, but sometimes I wonder if you don’t think it’s just easier to give in. Remember what happened to him, brother, don’t end up like him.”
Peeking around the corner, I see Kenzo disappearing upstairs. Ryder is standing in the kitchen, his head hanging as he presses his fists to the worktop there. “One, two, three, four,” he murmurs. “One, two, three, four.”
He repeats it again and again, until I see his body calming, once more hiding behind that ice. When he pushes away from the worktop, he straightens, once again in control. His face is cold as he buttons up his suit and heads out the front door.
I try to dart after him, to escape, but a hand clamps over my mouth and I freeze, my eyes going wide as my heart slams and my breathing picks up. A mouth meets my ear, the smell of smoke and petrol wafting to me.
Diesel.
Fuck, they all warned me to stay away from him, and now Ryder is gone, Garrett too, not that they would save me. Even Kenzo is gone. It’s just me and the crazy, psychotic Viper.
“Oh, Little Bird, I caught a little bird,” he murmurs, licking my ear. “Tut, tut, eavesdropping like that, naughty little bird. Do you know what they get?”
I shake my head, my gaze locked on the opposite hallway, not daring to turn in case it triggers him in some way. True fear pounds through me. This man doesn’t follow the rules. He kills for fun, tortures for laughs. Wants to see me squirm, to see me suffer. I don’t know what to do, how to act around him. After all, prey always recognises a predator, and Diesel?
Diesel is all predator.
Unpredictable and consuming everything in his path, like the fire he loves so much. Even now, I can smell the cigarette on his breath, his hand rough like it’s covered in burns as he presses it harder to my lips, pushing it painfully into my teeth.
“Punished.”
I freeze as he laughs, pulling away from me as suddenly as he came. I spin, my hand going to my heart as he strolls down the corridor, the click of his lighter loud as he flicks it open and closed.
Fuck.
I really need to stay clear of that man. Something tells me he’s going to be my death. I need to escape before he decides to stop torturing me and just go for the kill.
Because right now? I’m being hunted.
Four hungry vipers are slithering closer, wrapping tighter and tighter, their dark coils shining in the light as they prepare to strike.
And I’m in the middle.
* * *