Page 18 of Violent Possession
I lock my left hand on the strap of my own shoulder and thrust my body forward with everything I have. The prosthesis comes completely loose, slingshotting the dead weight into Ryan’s face.
This creates my only opening. I launch myself upward, reversing our positions. Suddenly, I’m the one on top. He blinks, stunned, unable to understand how his certainty turned into fragility. I press the advantage, grab his neck with my forearm, and pull the loose prosthesis against his head, smashing the bastard’s face between the metal and the mat. I can never let a son of a bitch like this finish the job the machete started.
My left hand finds his eye. It’s the oldest move in the book: gouge the eye, bite the ear, kick the balls. It’s the kind of thing nobody teaches in a gym because it’s not a real move, it’s a dirty one. It only exists outside of professional mats and multi-million dollar fights, and that is Ryan’s sin: fighting clean in a dirty ring.
He screams, so I hit him more. The first blow catches the side of his head. Metal against bone, flesh against hardware. His forearm breaks first. Ryan tries to protect himself, but his hand is bent at an impossible angle. I grab the prosthesis by thewrist—what’s left of the socket creaks, but it holds—and I start swinging. There’s no technique or method, just impact, impact, impact. His face comes apart quickly, his nose disappears, his cheekbone implodes, his left eye bursts like a grape, and every time I land a blow, I feel the impact reverberating through my flesh arm, up my dislocated shoulder, and ricocheting in my brain.
I hit him until I feel no more resistance. Then I keep hitting him, because Ryan is still in there, even if his face is no longer a face. I only stop when they tear me off him. Three security guards and the organizer pull me by the shoulders, and even then I still try to twist my body one last time to hit someone’s jaw.
The metal arm dangles from its safety strap, stained red to the elbow. I’m worse than any killer Karpov has ever sent into this ring.
My shoulder throbs like there’s a hornet’s nest inside it. It’s only this pain that brings me back. I taste blood in my mouth, I don’t know if it’s mine or his, and then I realize: the silence. Fuck, the silence. Not a whisper from the crowd, not a hiss from the speakers.
They drop me in the corner, where someone throws a towel in my lap. The metal arm hangs uselessly.
I stare at the audience. Wide eyes, trembling cell phones.
Ryan doesn’t move. He’s become a pile of meat occupying two square meters of canvas, and nobody knows whether it’s better to try to resuscitate that thing or just cover it with a black bag and send it to the morgue. The makeshift medical team jumps into the ring with the energy of people who weren’t trained for half of what they’re seeing: one guy is pulling at Ryan’s head to try to open his airway, while another just flails his hands, looking at the destroyed face as if it were a Picasso melting out of its frame. Most doctors who contract withunderground fights have seen bones sticking out, teeth on the floor, blood gushing from chests, but it’s not every day they have to deal with an eye socket full of prosthesis fragments and brain matter leaking onto the mat.
The warehouse falls completely silent. No one breathes. No one blinks. The bettors, who just ten seconds ago had their hands in the air, are now covering their mouths. It’s the quietest an illegal fight club has ever been. I should do this more often.
The luxury whores Marcus brought to liven up the crowd are frozen, looking at me, at the bloody arm, at what’s left of my opponent. It’s as if no one expected the spectacle’s violence to be paid for in such literal flesh.
The first reaction comes from a guy in the back, who claps three times, hesitantly. Another joins in, and then another, and suddenly a round of half-hysterical, half-forced applause invades the warehouse. The noise grows quickly, but it’s a shaky thing that seems more like a collective attempt to cover up what they just saw. They’re clapping to convince themselves they aren’t accomplices.
The organizer, his face as white as paper, approaches me without looking at Ryan. He takes my left hand and raises it.
I look to my right. Blood drips from the exposed stump where the socket tore the skin. The prosthesis dangles from the strap, dripping red. The medallion is stained crimson again.
It’s not the first time I’ve lost a piece of myself in a fight. It’s just the first time in public.
We enter an empty,sterile, cold room. Three metal benches, two public bathroom sinks, lockers sealed with police tape.
I hate it. I throw myself onto the bench.
“For fuck’s sake, Marcus, where’s the old dressing room?”
On instinct, I try to adjust the socket with my left hand, but the blood and sweat make it slip, and I only manage to spread the carnage. Marcus paces the room, hyperventilating.
“Holy shit, Griffin. The guy wasn’t getting up! The doctor was white as a ghost!”
“He was breathing when I left,” I lie. I have no idea. I don’t care. “Help me get this shit off.”
I point with my chin to my shoulder. Marcus hesitates, looking at the blood and torn skin where the socket came loose. He swallows hard but approaches. His hands tremble as he fumbles with the security straps.
“Jesus... Beautiful! Terrible!” he whispers, finally undoing the last buckle. The prosthesis falls to the floor. The relief from the weight is immediate, but the pain that remains is worse.
“Now, the money,” I say, my voice hoarse.
The mention of money erases any trace of euphoria from Marcus’s face.
“The money? You said Karpov paid to see you get your ass kicked, right? This guy’s a real Russian, if he thinks you set something up, he’s going to fuck me up good.”
“You think it matters that much? You’re just a pawn. He just wants to keep the circus running. Stop shaking and go get the cash.”
Marcus scowls, but some part of the logic makes sense to him. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and tries to wipe his hands, but only smears the blood.
“Fine. I’ll wait for you here. If I’m not back in ten minutes, call an ambulance, the police, I don’t know...”
