Page 102 of Pulse
Chapter 31
Ren
I’d been enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks from a young age.
Lesson number one was…the only way to get over fear was to face it head-on.
It was just another way of saying ‘fighting’ and that’s what I did best in all senses of the word. I fought when my mum was sick, I fought against my opponents in the cage and I fought against the fear of being attacked again.
I never understood what it was like to have that constant sensation prickling at the back of my neck, not until Ash and I had come back to The Underground. Hammer lurked, he taunted from a distance, but it was a coward’s game on his side. He’d only win if I lost another fight because of his words. So, the solution was easy.
Get back in the cage and fight through it.
Ash…Ash was just another roller coaster. The fact that he’d even thought about leaving me again, even for a second, hurt. It more than hurt, it cut deep into my heart. If he left again, it’d destroy me. Totally and utterly. There would be no coming back from that heartache.
Everything that I’d been through, it’d been for us because life without Ash Fuller would be bleak and desolate. In the months after my mum had died, it’d been much the same. I’d rebelled against her dying wish to find my dad, but deep down I knew something had to change. I’d fallen onto a path of self-destruction and it hadn’t been until I’d stepped over the threshold of Beat that I’d felt something change.
Mum had brought me to Dad and inevitably to Ash. Nobody could replace her, not by a long shot, but I knew one thing. She’d want me to fight for him. For us. She was my mum and she wanted me to be happy and if Ash made me happy, then so be it.
I walked through The Underground in a daze, my body zinging with the built up tension of the past few days.
I ignored the looks and snide comments as I walked through the change room and opened my locker.Bitch has been brought down from her pedestal now. I pulled out my gear and stripped off my T-shirt.She thinks she’s all that. I kicked off my boots and dumped them into the locker.Look at her parading around this place like she owns it.
I didn’t think I was any of those things. Were they just trying to get into my head? Was it jealousy? No, it couldn’t be jealousy; I didn’t think I was that great.
Maybe it pissed them off that I’d gotten into pro and had dumped it to come back here. They couldn’t know the circumstances, but that had to be a kick in the guts. Maybe it was jealousy, but maybe it was just about the money. Money did crazy shit to some people.
I felt a looming sensation behind me and my heart began to thump in my chest.
“Spitfire,” Ash murmured before reaching out for my hand.
I was glad he’d announced himself before touching me, otherwise I would’ve decked him one and kneed him in the balls for good measure.
I curled my fingers around his as he tugged me toward him. “Hey.”
“All good?”
The answer to that was ‘somewhat’, but I couldn’t get the words past my throat.
Instead, I said, “I need to know you’re with me.”
Ash sucked in a breath before saying, “Of course I’m with you.”
I tightened my fingers around his hand.
“I’ll be watching you from the side of the cage,” he said. “I won’t take my eyes off of you.”
I smiled, trying to push down all the doubts I had weighing on my chest. “You better not.”
The only way through this was one step at a time. Then the next and the next until there was nowhere else to go. When we got to the end, then we could look up and wonder about the future. Getting back in the cage tonight after my epic KO was just another of those steps. A bite sized chunk of the prize.
Ash walked hand in hand with me out into the arena and I strode into the cage, shoving my fear to the back of my mind. I came face to face with Fury and rolled my shoulders. I was ready.
