THAT EXISTS HERE IS THAT THERE ARE NO RULES!
SO LET’S. GET. REAL. TONIIIIIIGGGHTT!”
More screams from the crowd.
“You come here a lot?” Brent asks, his face tilting toward me. “I probably should have put two and two together with you being into MMA and all,” he tells me.
“Yeah, but this is a whole different ballgame, so I get why you didn’t,” I reply, looking at him with mild skepticism. “But I’m surprised to see you here, though. This doesn’t really feel like your scene.”
I peer down at his attire—a blue button-up shirt and black slacks. He looks like he’s about to walk up to the front of the class and deliver a presentation about quantum mechanics.
“It isn’t.” He shakes his head. “But Kayden’s my brother.
I come to every fight he’s been in.”
“Wait a minute.” Confusion ripples across my face.
“Kayden’s your brother? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
Brent merely shrugs. “It’s easier to say he’s a friend than having to explain the alternative.”
I scoot closer to him, curiosity getting the better of me when I recall Kayden’s facial features filled with sharp lines and comparing them with Brent’s chubby cheeks and round button nose. I also note the different colored eyes, with Brent’s seaweed green a wild contrast to Kayden’s grey ones.
“You guys look nothing alike.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot. We’re brothers, but not by blood.
My parents adopted Kayden four years ago, when he was seventeen,” he explains to me.
“Oh.” Is all I can say to that. “But if that’s the case, why don’t you live with him?”
“Kayden doesn’t go to BU. I wanted the college experience so I applied to be in the dorms,” he murmurs, sifting his fingers through his hair. “I still go over a lot just to check up on him and make sure he’s okay.”
Brent’s comments about Kayden puzzle me even more.
“Why wouldn’t he be okay?”
Before he can shoot back a reply, our conversation gets cut off by the announcer again.
“All right! Let’s get on with the fight, shall we?” The man screams again, and cheers reverberate through the crowd.
“On your left, we have fresh meat—Murphy ‘Menace’
Davisssssss!”
When Murphy emerges from the shadows, a slew of boo s and insults get hurtled his way from the crowd. It’s a response that I’m familiar with, as it’s their fucked-up way of humbling newcomers. As much as the underground welcomes fighters from any kind of background, it feels more like an elite club than anything else. If newbies don’t leave a strong impression in the community, they usually don’t last very long.
Which is why Kayden is all that more intriguing to me.
He’s one of the newer fighters to enter the underground, yet still causes quite a stir.
“And ooover to your left, we have one of our crowd favorites, the relentless, powerful, penultimate gatekeeper of death: Kayden ‘The Killer’ Williamssss!”
I watch as Kayden, draped in a dark-red satin robe, materializes from the shadows in the corner opposite from Murphy. Usually MMA fighters don’t wear robes—only professional boxers do—but the underground has a flair for the dramatic. And boy, does the robe fit Kayden well. He looks like a phantom king, ready to take his place up on the throne.
I’ve never heard a more energetic, deafening roar from the crowd as I do upon his entrance. He’s serious, his gaze hard as steel as he lifts his fist up to acknowledge the cheers, and then does a little jog around the perimeter of the cage, knocking people’s fists and waving to others. All of the girls within a mile radius of me jump excitedly, screaming all sorts of nasty, sex-fueled one-liners at him.
When Kayden finally climbs into the cage, he shrugs off his robe, chucks it to the side, and walks to the center of the cage. His opponent does the same. They touch fists briefly before moving in the opposite direction and easing into their stances.