“There’s nowhere else youwantto go,” he replies, lighting a cigarette and letting it dangle from his lips. “That’s why I’ma fire you right now.”
My stomach sinks. “What the fuck you mean? Fire me? What am I supposed to do?”
“Get out of here. Go. Leave.”
I laugh meanly. “That’s not an option for me.”
The Grot is all I know. My mom was addicted to meth when I was a baby. She came here from the city looking to score and had nothing but me and her body to trade for her addiction. Word is after she fucked through the gang, she sold me into this life forone more hit. After she died, I bounced from trailer to trailer until I was old enough to work the shop and earn money for my own place. Ronnie pops his head into the room, sees us, then leaves.
“You weren’t born here.”
“I bleed here,” I counter. It’s the same thing.
“Do you know how many of these motherfuckers wish their lives would go up in smoke so they could do something, anything else? All of them. Including me.”
He might own and run the automotive shop, but he doesn’t run anything outside of this place. Only one man does that, and he isn’t lenient in any way.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone wants.”
He clears his throat. “You’re fired.” He stops smoking and makes direct eye contact with me before he finishes speaking. “Promise me if something comes up, something that sounds too good to be true, you won’t think twice. You’ll go.” His eyes, dark and unscrupulous, bore into mine. “Promise,” he says once more.
“Fuck off, man. Whatever,” I say. “You’re talking crazy.”
“Get out of here,” he deadpans.
I go. Instead of anger or rage, I’m just numb. Maybe Ronnie will let me crash at his house. Or Jennifer. She might feel bad for me and give me some relief tonight. I’ve burned her so many times in the past, I doubt any warmth or hospitality resides in my direction, though. I tremble as I get back on my bike and tear off toward The Grot. It’s an enormous pit in the center of a neighborhood that was never completed. Over the years, seats have been dug into the slanting dirt walls. It’s a poor man’s coliseum.
There are several lots in this neighborhood that have a foundation and some drywall that’s been spray painted and destroyed but plans for happy homes have been abandoned. Some idiot didn’t do a proper survey job all those years ago and didn’t realize that the sand out here can’t support the frames that houses need. Everything but the machinery was abandoned the moment they figured it out. What’s funny about it is the foundations have lasted decades. Some people speculate they were afraid they couldn’t change what this place is. What is at its core.
I park my bike on a concrete slab inside one of the lots that has a little more wood and drywall than most, and turn it so it’s out of view and not an easy target. It would make perfect sense if my bike blew up or was stolen because it seems today, there’s only people who want to take from me.Take it all,I think. A tumbleweed blows by as I peer toward the pit. I pull a plastic water bottle from my backpack and head for a corner that’s protected from the sun. I could stay here tonight, I think. After everyone leaves, it should be safe enough. It’s a no-man's-land. The Grot is a lawless place, and it’s why the house I’ll squat in tonight will keep me safe.
Sighing, I lay down with my head on my backpack and finish the water. I throw an arm over my face and try to erase the thoughts flitting through my mind. The memories always start and end with killing her, the record player, her voice, her body, who she stole from me. I wish it wasn’t this way. I wish I thought of other things first. Bethany’s face after I knocked out her brother. Back to her body. The last time I saw her before she lit my life on fire and killed everything that mattered.
The wind wafts the scent of death to my shelter, and I wince, doubling over. “Hey man, you Jesse?”
From lying down to standing takes less than a second. “Who’s asking?” I chirp, heart pounding. A bead of sweat rolling down my face.
The man I assume will be my opponent tonight extends his hand as he introduces himself as Riley Astor. I look at it like it might have razor blade teeth. He’s from a different place, somewhere civilized. His nails are clean, and I can smell laundry soap clinging to his clothes. That doesn’t say much, anyone from anywhere else is more civilized. “I didn’t hear you pull up.”
He smiles and doesn’t have any signs of rotten or missing teeth. “You were out of it. Listen,” he says, peering over his shoulder. “I don’t have a lot of time but was told I could find you here.” Ronnie is telling everyone everything today, that fuck. He’s the only one who would know where I’m at.
“And you found me,” I say, still trying to catch my breath. My fight or flight response is fucked. I think it might always be this way now.
“If you throw the fight tonight and make my bosses money, I’ll give you more than you’re expecting.”
Ronnie already told me the inordinate sum if I win. This guy is from a whole different class. The kind of people who fight because they have family issues, or just for fun. Riley isn’t like me, no, he’s something else entirely. “I don’t throw fights,” I deadpan, then think of the promise I just made to my boss. How could he know? “How much we talking though?” I can’t resist.
I twitch, my hand rubbing against my dirty jeans. “It’s more than how much… it’s… well, it’s your freedom, man. A hundred grand is yours and protection to start over in a new city. The only reason we’re offering this to you is because we know you’ve got no one else. You don’t have family. It’s just you. A solitary person. We don’t need to protect anyone else, and one person? One person can get lost. A family? It’s harder to make offers like this.” He’s rubbing salt in the fresh wound.No family.A lump forms in my throat, and I think it might stay there for the rest of time.
“I’ve never lost a fight,” I say, but my voice cracks as his offer trickles into my senses.One person can get lost.Those words ricochet in my brain, tingeing my heart with… hope. Is this a dream? A true second chance to get the revenge I so desperately crave?
He smiles. “That’s why I’m offering what I’m offering. You don’t lose.”
I nod, cracking my knuckles by my sides. “Where would I go?” Even as I say the words, I’m thinking of the men who would want to kill me for denying my forced blood oath. People don’t just leave. “Who would I be working for?”
He raises one brow. “No one. Yourself. Sit down. I’ll tell you where and what I’m thinking.”
I sit, folding my legs in a way where I wouldn’t be able to get up quickly. I feel safe with Riley and a pang inside my hollow chest stirs to life. Are the things he’s saying true? Is there a place where they wouldn’t follow? A world in which a twenty-year-old man can start anew without anything from my past haunting? No, I decide. I’ll have to make friends with my ghosts and the things I’ve done, so not anew, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a half-life. Something new and improved from the slum of The Grot. He keeps talking about how he knows people where I’d go and he tells me where I’ll live, and the jobs he can connect me with, and how school can be arranged. School? This asshole must be crazy. School is a privilege I was never granted, but he’s talking about it like it’s mine for the taking.