Broken Beautiful Hearts(95)

My whole body is shaking, and I try not to cry. I don’t want to do anything to fuel Owen’s rage. Anger blinds a fighter. It has them fighting their demons instead of their opponent.

“Get your fighters in their corners!” the ref yells at Cutter and Reed’s trainer.

Cutter exits the cage, and she’s on the arena floor before Reed’s trainer. She pushes past Reed, bumping his shoulder so hard that he actually moves. He looks impressed.

She marches up to Owen. “I don’t know what’s going on over here, but you’d better get your ass in that cage right now, or I’ll forfeit.”

“You can’t do that.” Owen watches Reed over her shoulder.

“Watch me.”

Lazarus surveys the scene from behind the rubber-coated chain-link.

Owen’s eyes flicker to me and Cutter turns in my direction. “Peyton? Are you all right?”

Tucker slings his arm around my shoulders, like we’re at an eighth grade mixer. He gives Cutter the thumbs up. “She’s good.”

Reed’s trainer finally makes an appearance. “Michaels! Inside!”

Reed smiles at me. “We can talk later. This won’t take long.”

“I’m gonna take you apart in there,” Owen shouts at him.

Reed starts to walk away, then stops and points at Owen. “Second round. That’s when I’ll knock you out.”

“Hey.” Cutter snaps her fingers in front of Owen’s face to get his attention. “You better get your head straight before this fight starts.”

Owen clenches his jaw and watches Reed walk away.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Cutter barks. “You need to focus on the fight in that cage, not the one out here. Do we understand each other? We’ll figure out the rest after you kick his ass.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Owen nods, but he’s still tracking Reed and his body language hasn’t changed. He doesn’t seem focused.

“Get moving.” Cutter waits until Owen starts walking and she follows him.

Owen enters the cage and walks to his corner, where Lazarus is waiting. Cutter and Lazarus are both talking to him, but Owen keeps looking over at Reed’s corner, where my ex appears uncharacteristically calm.

“This isn’t good,” I tell Tucker and Christian.

“What do you mean?” Christian asks.

“Reed is acting weird. He’s too calm. Usually, he’s on the offensive from the second he enters the cage. This is the regional championship, and Reed is hanging out in his corner like he’s bored.”

“Owen will kick his ass,” Tucker says. “Right?”

After watching Owen in the ring, I wouldn’t have doubted him for a second. But the guy in the cage tonight isn’t the same Owen I’ve watched so many times in the gym. There’s nothing calm and calculated about his expression or his posture. Tonight Owen looks like he’s running on a dangerous mix of rage and adrenaline.

An announcer enters the cage with a mic and hypes up the crowd.

I try not to look to the right, where Reed’s team is getting him ready, but the way Reed is behaving worries me. Billy walks around the outside of the octagon and sits in one of the empty seats in the front row, behind Reed’s corner.

I catch a glimpse of the girl next to him, the pale blond hair she never wears down hangs loose around her face. She has her feet on the seat and her arms wrapped around her legs.

Tess looks up and she sees me.

She doesn’t give me a dirty look or turn away. She opens one of her hands as if she’s going to wave at me. Instead she holds it open like she’s pressing it against a window. I hold up my hand, too.

Billy turns to tell Tess something and she lets her hand fall back to her leg.

“Who are you waving at?” Christian asks.

“Nobody.”

The microphone crackles and the announcer’s voice booms through the arena. “From the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, weighing in at one hundred seventy-nine pounds, Reed ‘The Machine’ Michaels.”

Reed holds up his hands and the crowd cheers.

Lazarus rushes over to the announcer and tells him something. The announcer nods and returns to the mic. “And from Knoxville, Tennessee, weighing in at one hundred seventy-two pounds, Owen ‘The Law.’”

“Why did he say Owen is from Knoxville?” Tucker asks.

Cutter and Lazarus are watching me.

“Maybe he just got it wrong,” Christian says.

No. Lazarus gave the announcer the wrong information on purpose.

The trainers and cutmen follow the announcer out of the cage.

The bell rings, signaling the start of round one.

Owen comes barreling out of his corner, throwing punches, knees, and elbows.

Reed blocks most of the strikes, and he doesn’t launch the lethal offensive I’m used to witnessing. He’s playing games—letting Owen come after him, blocking punches instead of throwing them, and showboating instead of trying to pound his opponent into the floor.

Reed hasn’t shut his mouth since the round started. He knows how to psych someone out during a fight. Intimidation is his specialty. What is he saying?

Round two is a replay of the first round—Owen throwing sloppy combinations, Reed taunting him, and Cutter screaming her lungs out from behind the chain-link. Reed turns up the intensity a minute before the bell—probably trying to make good on his promise to knock Owen out in the second round. Reed throws a jab followed by a right low kick that clips Owen’s leg hard. The knockout doesn’t happen, but Owen is wearing himself out fast.