To Live Is To Fight (#2)

Chapter 38

Sorry for being gone for so long guys 🙏🏻

'Hell was about to break loose' was all I could think about while I power walked down the corridor down to where the ring was set. I was feeling so much pent up anger in me and it wanted out. I know a lot of people tell you that it's not smart to fight with anger clouding your mind but I'm not feeling particularly smart tonight so I wouldn't count on coming out of this fight unscathed.

They say your focus tends to be blunt when you're angry. Your ability to predict your opponent's next move decreases and it's probably stupid to still enter the ring full with anger when you've realized all this but again, I'm not feeling particularly smart tonight.

I was risking everything, risking my family's and my friends' safety, and for what? For the guy who basically rejected me for a traitorous two-faced bitch who's my brother's murderer's accomplice. Well, fuck you, Adam.

I was just arriving at the bottom of the steps leading up to the ring when my name was called out and I tried my best not to stomp my feet as I climbed the steps up to the ring. As much as I hated it, I missed Levi. He's an asshole but the friend he played as while he was undercover was a good one. He was there to cheer me on at every fight and he had my back. Well, at least I thought he had my back.

I turned my gaze away from the empty corner of the ring and felt the anger rushing back with a new fervor. Fuck Levi, Fuck Adam, Fuck Dom, Fuck Kiara, Fuck Scowl-face, Fuck Baldy, Fuck every single person who had played a part at making me feel this angry and twisting my life into this huge pile of mishaps.

Before I knew it, I was staring into the cold eyes of my opponent. Good. He has a look of malice beneath his cold exterior. My heart hardened at the sight of  those eyes and any empathy my small heart contained for possibly making my opponent my punching bag tonight vanished just like that. With a look like that, I'm sure he can hold up against me well enough to survive the night.

Five minutes into the fight and I finally came to my senses only to realize that I've severely underestimated the guy standing before me. My anger was extinguished not long after the fight started, blurred by the pain from the blows that got landed on me in my haze of fury. It didn't take much to land this hits on me since I fought him like I was fighting an immobile training dummy. My defense was little to non-existent and I was solely relying on my attacks.

I was barely holding up when someone finally called out for a time out and we retreated back to our corners to take a brief break. I stumbled back to my corner and tried to breathe correctly again. Every breath I took hurt and my hammering heartbeat wasn't doing any good to the pain. My head was pounding and I couldn't be sure whether the substance that was trickling down my temple was sweat or blood.

Through my daze, a couple of fingers snapped in front of my face and brought me back to the presence. I lifted my chin up to see who was disturbing my pained daydreaming to see Preston standing there along with Maddison, tucked close to his side. I would have expressed how shocked I was if it wasn't for the pain that was making my body throb.

Preston had a hard expression on his face that was a contrast to Maddison's concern one. I took it that they witnessed the early minutes of the fight because Preston's disapproval shone bright through his narrowed eyes.

"What was that? What were you doing? Honestly, Case, that was a shit show and I know for sure that you didn't get this far into the competition fighting like that. You would've died years ago if you fought like that. Get your shit together. You're going to die the second you get back there if you don't start getting your shit together. So start getting your shit together." My eyes were as wide as they could be in their swollen state. Preston's voice rang in my head. He's right. What am I doing?