The Only Way (17 page)

Jackal took to the center of the ring, smiling at the gathered crowd. "Good evening, and welcome to the first ever female-only fight!"

Hart winced as it became immediately clear that many of the people gathered were there just to express their disgust at the idea as publicly as possible. She tried to tune out their screams and jeers, focusing on the prize.

"In this corner, we have the beautiful Jade, one hundred and ten pounds of loveliness. But don't let her face fool you! She's a tough one." Jackal laughed as Jade waved jovially at the crowd.

Hart wondered where Jackal had found her. Was she one of the girls who sold herself every night? Did this seem like a step up? Letting them look but not touch?

"And in this corner, the infamous cross-dressing sensation herself, Hart! One-hundred and forty pounds and hard enough to fool the whole of the Alley into letting her fight!"

Laughter bubbled up from the crowd, mocking disdain for the people of the Alley and for Hart herself. She scowled darkly.

Jackal moved from the center of the ring, letting Hart and Jade approach and shake hands. Jade had long nails, painted a vibrant red, which pressed sharply into Hart's palm. Jade smiled insincerely as she dug her nails in.

Hart clenched her jaw and refused to react. She appreciated the warning; now she knew that Jade fought dirty and wasn't afraid to use her claws. She had been viewing this as an easy win, but for the first time she realized that Jade was here for the exact same thing she was:  a fifty-dollar purse and the chance for more. Gutter girls were just as hard and desperate as the men; they'd do anything for a leg up in the world, same as Hart.

It was important to remember that.

The bell rang and the girls raised their fists.

Jade swung immediately. She didn't know to draw it out, to get a feel for her opponent. Hart ducked the blow easily. She moved back, forcing Jade to turn, watching how she moved.

She was obviously unsure of herself in the ring. Hart suspected that Jade had been in her share of fights but always on the streets; the kind of violent brawls that involved more slapping and scratching than actual punching. Her fists were curled awkwardly, and she kept her weight rocked back on her heels.

Hart moved around her, waiting for an opportunity. But that never came as Jade charged forward again. She ducked, locking her shoulders with Hart's, grasping at her upper arms. They grappled. Hart staggered under Jade's weight, but kept her feet. The girl wasn't nearly as heavy as the men she had fought. Hart almost wanted to laugh; there was no way Jade could bear her down to the mat.

The noise of the crowd rose as their bodies locked, skin sliding against skin. Trying to tune out the catcalls, Hart got a hand up behind Jade. She skimmed over the smooth skin of Jade's back until her fingers hit tangled locks of hair.

It only took one sharp tug to pull the girl off her. Jade howled at the pain in her scalp, her back bowed under the onslaught. Hart turned quickly, moving behind her. Keeping a hand wound in the blonde locks, she forced Jade down to her knees.

Jade clawed desperately behind her head. Angry red nails slashed at the air as she tried to get a hold of Hart. Hart leaned close. "Go down now, and you won't get hurt any worse than this," she encouraged.

"Fuck you," Jade spat. She grabbed Hart's face and dug in. Her nails sunk into the flesh at Hart's jaw, stinging. "I'm not getting beat by some ugly dyke."

She pushed, forcing Hart's head back. Her neck strained and she grunted, tightening her hold on Jade's hair. Planting a foot against Jade's back, she pushed hard. The tautness of the hair in her hand loosened as some of it wrenched free from Jade's scalp. The girl screamed and let go of Hart's face to clutch at her scalp.

Hart abruptly released the blonde locks in her hand, letting Jade's momentum carry her face-first down to the mat. Ignoring the screams of the crowd, Hart dove forward to kneel on Jade's back, forcing the air from her lungs. Jade's arms flailed and Hart grabbed one, twisting it sharply behind her. She grasped Jade's jaw, pushing the girl's face viciously into the mat. Her nails might not have been as long as Jade's, but they could still do some damage.

She had to hand it to the other girl; Jade struggled even as the count rang out, sagging only when Hart was declared the winner.

Hart stood, moving over to Jackal, trying to ignore the shouts from the crowd. Some of the men, a few drinks into the evening, roared:

"Kiss and make up!"

"Take your tops off!"

"You're still ugly!"

Hart glowered at the crowd. Half of them seemed to be jeering at her despite her win, screaming that Jade should get the money just for being so 'hot.' That Hart should be punished for not looking as cute in the little shorts.

She snatched the purse right out of Jackal's hands, raising it above her head defiantly, refusing to be cowed by the ugly words hurled at her. She stared them down, her face blank.

"Don't listen to them," Jackal murmured. "You were great, kid. Loved you tugging her around by her hair. Bet half these idiots are going home to thoughts of
that
tonight."

Hart grimaced, stepping away from the organizer. "Can I go home now?"

"Gotta wait for me to take you. But you can go change if you want."

"I really do," Hart snapped, storming out of the ring. She pushed through the crowd, which surged forward off the stands. Bodies bumped against her as people pushed and shoved. Suddenly, amongst the chaos, she felt a hand on her buttock, giving a deliberate squeeze. With a yelp she whirled; men pressed in around her, smirking and sneering and reaching out with greedy hands. She didn't know who had touched her, couldn't tell who was
still
touching her.

She practically ran for the changing room, hands trailing over her flesh as she went by.

Hart slammed the door behind her, sucking in deep breaths of air. The quiet was a relief after the roar of the arena, the dim lights and empty room soothing. It was like she could still feel hands all over her body.

Only one person had ever touched her like that before, and Ruby's soft, gentle hands were a far cry from the grasping fingers of drunken men. Hart clutched the purse to her chest, trying not to cry. She had fifty dollars, after all. It was all worth it.

Wasn't it?

*~*~*

Jackal dropped Hart off at the gate to the Gutter, letting her find her own way home from there. She took her time, letting the residue of the fight fall away as she walked through the familiar streets. She suddenly, desperately, wished she could talk to Ruby. She felt like the taint of the fight was burrowing into her very pores, becoming a part of her, changing who she was. And of all the people Hart knew—her mother, Leo, Jackal—Ruby was the only one who seemed like she might understand:  understand what it was like to be a girl in a man's world, understand what it was like to feel their eyes, and sometimes their hands, all over her body, as if they had some right to her just because she was a girl.

Hart didn't know how to deal with that, didn't know how to laugh it off the way Ruby did and go on being a strong and happy person. She thought maybe Ruby could tell her how— if only they were speaking.

Hart sighed, trailing her fingers along the rows of buildings, feeling the ridges and corners of the pieced-together scrap metal. Everyone said the Gutter was dangerous, with criminals lurking around every corner. The Alley and City people never deigned to come there, convinced they would be robbed and raped and murdered. Yet Hart never felt as safe as she did in the close confines of the Gutter, the shacks pressing in around her and keeping her secure. She certainly felt safer than she had in the City, tossed to the hundreds of groping hands that seemed to want a piece of her.

She ducked her head, staring at the ground as she dragged her feet, reluctant to go home while she felt this way—used. Damaged. Disgusting.

Hart had fifty dollars in her pocket and the promise of another fight. It was more money than they had ever had in just one day, and she vowed to spend it well. Budget, save, scrape by. It was the desperation that put her in the ring, the desperation that let the Alley and City men treat her like the trash they thought all Gutter girls were.

She was determined to fight back, to make sure that Roe and Penny never felt that same desperation.

She saw a few other girls on the streets, straggling home from a night of work, makeup smeared under their eyes, hair bedraggled. Some of them had ripped clothes or dark shadows on their faces that Hart suspected would blossom into stark bruises by the next morning.

They were all desperate. And Hart wanted out.

The kids shuffled in bed as she slipped into the house, snuffling into pillows and rolling over at the light sound of her feet. Hart slid her winnings into their hiding place, pressing the boards down firmly over it, and gazed down at her siblings. Finn had the girls on either side of him, curled into his chest. He was too old to be sharing with his sisters, Hart knew. She had seen the way people lived outside of the Gutter now; brothers and sisters didn't sleep together. Children got their own rooms. Even in the poorer parts of the Alley, they insisted that privacy was important.

Hart didn't even know what privacy was. There wasn't a single aspect of her life that was just hers; her secret in the ring had been the closest she had ever come to feeling like a part of her could be kept hidden from the masses.

But, of course, that had been stripped away too.

Her family had always been there; they ate, slept and bathed together. There was no room for privacy in the shanties that filled the Gutter. People slept where there was a bit of bed going with no worries about what people thought was right or proper.

Still, Hart thought with a sigh, sliding between the covers and curling up around Penny's back, she'd like to give that to her siblings. A sense of autonomy, of being people in their own right, not just part of the swarming mass of the Gutter. People who mattered. People who deserved to be treated with respect.

Chapter Twelve

Hart closed her eyes, as if that could close her off from the sounds around her:  even more people than the last time, their voices pressing in on her in a horrible cacophony of sound. It wasn't like this in Leo's arena even when they were screaming for her blood.

Because here they were screaming for something more, for every piece of her.

Men called out for her to fuck them, to fuck her opponent, to go fuck herself. Men with their wives or girlfriends beside them still hollered for her to strip, to show them that she really was a girl.

She held the purse tight in her hands, trying not to hear their voices, trying not to think of the girl she had beaten, her lipstick red and garish, her eyes dull.

It was for her family, she reminded herself.

"You'd be more popular if you talked to the audience," Jackal said pointedly. Her opponent was out there already, working the crowd, flirting with the men, letting them touch her, hands running over her hips and her buttocks as they drew her closer. Despite her loss, they lapped it up, ignoring the cut on her lip and the blood on her chin in favor of the depths of her cleavage.

"I don't want to be popular," Hart snapped.

Jackal fixed her with an unimpressed stare. "Popularity puts dollars in that purse, sweetheart. Popularity got your ass into this ring in the first place. But it seems people would be just as happy to watch Trinity there fight any girl I picked up off the street."

Hart snarled, drawing her lips back in a sneer that had Jackal laughing.

"Fine, run off to the changing room," he chuckled. "But it's not up to me if the people want to see you fight or not."

Hart stared out at the crowd and almost hoped they wouldn't want her anymore.

*~*~*

Each time a new girl stepped into the ring, Hart couldn't help but compare her to Ruby. She wanted to push Ruby out of her mind the way she had pushed her out of her life, to forget about her deep green eyes or her wicked smile or the way her lips had felt against Hart's. But memories of Ruby insistently bore down upon her every time she went up against another girl—none of them as good as Ruby. They weren't as beautiful as Ruby, they weren't as strong as Ruby, they weren't as quick, or funny or kind. They fought without her easy grace and lost without her good-natured charm.

They were brutal, as Hart imagined she herself must be, and crueler than she hoped she ever got no matter how long she spent in this life.

But no matter what vicious taunts they threw at her, it couldn't help the other girls win.

Hart's savings piled up fast—but not fast enough to keep her out of the ring. Each new fight promised more money, and Hart was beginning to be able to imagine a life away from
all
of this, not just the fights, or the heap, but away from the Gutter, away from the poverty, away from the people who treated her and her family as if they were no better than dirt.

And so she kept climbing into the ring, even as the jeers about her increased, the audience turning hostile towards her constant wins. Even as the grabbing hands grew bolder, fondling her as she tried to escape the press of the crowd. There was always one more fight on the horizon, one more purse to win.

Hart stood, staring blankly out at the crowd, letting the people's faces blur before her eyes so she didn't have to see their expensive, beautifully cut clothing or the bloodlust in their eyes. Jackal crowed to the room, lauding her accomplishments, but more boos drifted up from the crowd than cheers.

Hart didn't care.

"And in this corner," he called, pointing to the opposite side of the ring. A door swung open, and a lithe figure stepped out. "Misty! One hundred and fifteen pounds of pure terror, ladies and gentlemen."

The crowd laughed as the girl climbed into the ring, and Hart's eyes widened.

Misty, her childhood friend from the Gutter. Hart hadn't seen her since the day after Duncan's death, and the feelings of grief and shame and anger that she had experienced during their spat clawed to the surface the second she laid eyes on her. It was almost like her father had just died, his failure to come home and take care of Hart and her family blossoming like a fresh wound inside of her at the sight of Misty's sneering face.