Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(84)
The sound of the buzzer was music to his ears, and that pissed him the f*ck off. Meyers, forced to release him, cursed and shoved his head away to go back to his corner. Jon was waiting with water and an ass-reaming.
“Show me more combos, Mike,” he said, and the pack of ice they rubbed over his shoulders felt like pure heaven. “I told you. Are you not hearing me out there?”
Mike stayed silent, fingers wrapped through the fence, head bowed until they got him a stool. He wasn’t going to waste any energy on speaking.
“Stay off the cage. This isn’t his fight, this is your fight. I want you to use your legs, the way we trained. He hasn’t been preparing to defend against that kind of attack.” It all bled into the background as someone poured water down his throat. His fight, and it was shit so far. He glared across the cage at Meyers in his own corner. If Mike wasn’t careful, if he let the next four rounds go like that one had, then it would go to a decision . . . and he would lose. Again.
Jon’s last words managed to register. “Get your head in it, boy. Get your heart in it, don’t fade out on me.”
That was the problem. Neither was here. Twenty thousand people were chanting his name right now, and he couldn’t give less of a f*ck. The only thing motivating him at all was that the * on the other side had disrespected Savannah and her family. There was that score to settle.
“Are you all right, Mike?”
“I’m good. Let’s go.”
And his minute respite was over—a minute in the cage never went as fast as a minute in the corner.
Frank came at him hard, closing the distance between them and tying him up. All right. Mike answered with two quick uppercuts and then ate the knee Frank threw at him. He felt his lip split open, but it wasn’t pain so much as simple awareness he’d sustained an injury. Adrenaline did funny things to the pain receptors. A quick combination of punches to Frank’s head, getting a “Yeah!” from Jon, and he was free to deliver a stinging kick to the ribs. Oh, yes, he saw that grimace—it was the only thing beautiful about Meyers’s bloody face. Mike had no intention of letting the bell save his ass this time.
He conserved his energy, planning for this to go to the duration; he had no delusions of a quick end. Frank might be a bastard, but there was a reason he was the champ with very few losses behind his name. It was all pure endurance and skill. Knowing which form of fighting to call upon at any given moment. They tangled next to the cage, Jon yelling at him to get back to center mat—I f*cking would if I could, J—they rolled across the floor, and at last Mike managed to roll him into a full mount, pummeling Frank’s face until blood sprayed the mat. Left right, left right. Nothing had felt better in a long, long time than feeling those impacts jarring up his arms. For Savannah, you *. The ref came in close, waiting for Frank to drop his defense so he could call it, but it didn’t happen. The champ was a mess; blood covered his face, but he kept those hands up to guard his face, finally managing to twist to his side under Mike’s weight as the buzzer sounded.
Fuck! If he’d had twenty more seconds, that might have been the end, as Frank’s face was about to repeatedly become the target of Mike’s trip-hammer right fist.
Jon had nothing but praise this time. It was easier to listen to.
“You see him, Mike? You see what I see?” he asked excitedly as Mike was toweled off and iced and his cuts examined.
“He’s out of breath,” Mike said.
“Fucker’s tired and he’s hurt,” Jon said. “I told you. You trained harder, you trained smarter, and now he’s all yours. Go get him.”
He saw it as the round began and Meyers stayed away from him, his mouth wide open, showing his dark mouth guard. He was sucking air. His cuts oozed blood. But Mike wasn’t going to start celebrating quite yet, despite Jon’s pep talk. In his long fighting career, he’d underestimated opponents before to dire results.
Meyers was hurt, but he’d won the belt covered in blood too.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Meyers is fading,” Damien said, watching the two fighters circle each other as round three began.
“You think so?” Savannah asked hopefully. It looked that way to her too—Mike was far less bloody and looked far more alert, but she knew a dirty bastard might still have some dirty tricks. “Come on, Mike,” she muttered to no one in particular and, not for the first time, wished he could know she was there.
There came a time in every fight when he thought it would never end. Time seemed to stop and it was as if he’d always been here and always would be, and the rational part of him that knew that wasn’t the case faded into the background. It was when his killer instinct emerged—a phrase he didn’t like anymore, not since Tommy. But that moment came in round four with Meyers’s arm locked around his throat.
Mike’s opponent had made it through the third by running from him. It had frustrated the f*ck out of him, even if it was smart strategy to take a rest while making Mike chase him. It had ended with them hurling insults at each other, the ref keeping them apart as their teams ran in to pull them back to their corners, firing up the crowd again after a lackluster round. Problem was, the exchange had fired up Meyers too.
Both of them were equally bloody now, neither having been able to get the upper hand for long. The light blue mat was liberally smeared with the crimson evidence of their battle. When Mike was on all fours, he could watch it drip thickly from his head all the way down and splatter as if in slow motion. Jon had begun to look worried again.