Page 44 of Nasty
“You’re funny,” Foster said, clearing his throat, after his amusement had waned. “Come on. We’re busy tonight. There’s a lot of fighters. Some of them are even pretty good.” High praise, coming from a man who considered everyone else inferior and weak. He pounded on the thick steel door, and a loud, metal clanging noise reverberated on the other side. The door swung back a second later, and Foster disappeared inside. I followed after him, and I was swallowed by the darkness.
******
Sweat. Bleach. Blood. The air inside The Barrows was just as I remembered it. The place reeked of violence and aggression—the stench was like a slap in the face as Foster lead me through the trashed lobby of the hotel toward the elevator. The ground beneath my feet rumbled, like an earthquake was trying to split the hotel in two. It wasn’t an earthquake, though. The vibrations were coming from the basement, where over a hundred people were all trying to kill each other. Their shouts and savage war cries could be heard even through the two-foot thick concrete flooring.
Foster stuck a polished silver key into the lock next to the elevator call button, and he turned it. A light came on, and then the numbers above the doors illuminated in turn as the car came down to meet us. When the doors rolled back, we were met with a smear of blood on the floor along with a dark brown stain that looked suspiciously like shit.
“Probably shouldn’t have worn those shoes,” Foster crooned, looking down at the white sneakers I was wearing. I didn’t bother replying. I entered the car, and I held my breath as they closed behind us; the cramped space smelled like a goddamn slaughter house.
Foster mashed at the buttons, and then we were moving. Not a word was said as we climbed. Not until the elevator dinged and began to slow. Too soon. The elevator was stopping too soon. I checked the number that was lit up as we came to a halt, and I clenched my jaw. Fucking hard.
“I’ve paid my dues,” I snarled. “We don’t need to stop here.” The twelfth floor. I’d fought my way up and earned my unquestionable right to head straight to the rooftop close to four years ago. Foster knew that, and yet he hadn’t taken me directly up to meet with Oscar. He’d punched in a floor that was insulting and downright unnecessary. The huge man smirked.
“Boss’s orders. Don’t shoot the messenger. He told you never to come back here after that stunt you pulled the last time. Said he wanted to make sure you’d earned the right to see him if you ever dared to step foot back inside The Barrows.”
“I don’t have time for this bullshit. I need to talk to him.Now.”
Foster shrugged—I don’t give a flying fuck.The doors rolled back, revealing a melee of confusion and blood beyond. “Think yourself lucky,” he said. “We said he should toss your ass back in the basement.”
Clearly Oscar had vetoed that idea, but even so…to shove me back onto a fight floor, after I’d already bled and broken bones to reach the roof? That was fucking unbelievable. Unprecedented. Foster hadn’t fought me downstairs when I’d threatened him, but I could see it in his lifeless eyes: he would fight me now, if I didn’t get out of the elevator and accept the work that I had to do.
I stepped out onto the floor, and Foster whistled to the floor boss. “Make sure this one’s shown the royal treatment, Jason. He’s been here before.” The tall guy standing in front of the tally board nodded sternly. The royal treatment was far from pleasant. Foster meant for me to be pitched against the toughest, most blood thirsty opponent available, and Jason was ready to oblige.
“Oh. And make sure you mark him down on the board properly,” Foster added. “We have a returning victor in our midst tonight. His name’s The Priest.”
Where there had been roaring and shouting only a heartbeat earlier, the floor suddenly fell silent. There must have been at least six or seven fights in play, but the moment Foster yelled that name over the hubbub and the brawling, everything just…stopped.
Bruised and swollen faces turned toward me. Black eyes, split lips, bleeding knuckles halted in midair.
Just. Fucking. Great.
There were people out there in the world who still called me Father. The odd ex-parishioner who recognized me on the street. Friends from seminary, who occasionally reached out to see if I was ready to quit my stubbornness and come back to the church. Monica still slipped up from time to time and used the title, though she knew how much I hated it. But I hadn’t been called The Priest since the last time I’d come to The Barrows. The time I’d won my rooftop match and claimed the pot—two hundred and eighty thousand dollars—and then proceeded to try and burn down the building with everyone locked inside it.
“That’s him?”
“That’s The Priest?”
“Nah. The Priest was way bigger. Weighed two-twenty. He was a fucking monster.”
Whispers filled the cavernous space. Twenty or thirty shirtless guys covered in tattoos, skin glistening with sweat, observed me with hard, cold, ravenous eyes, their brains kicking into overdrive. I was an opportunity not to be missed. I was a golden ticket.
“No fucking way,” the guy closest to me announced, laughing. He was missing one of his front teeth. “The Priest got to the roof in two tries. No one’s ever done that. Not before, and not since. This guy ain’t him, Jason.”
“He’s The Priest,” Foster repeated, his voice loud, bouncing off the walls. “Make him feel at home, gentlemen.” Then Foster winked at me, his laughter raucous and booming. “And you? Why don’t you get comfortable,Father. You’re gonna be stuck on twelve ‘til sun-up.”
He disappeared, the doors sliding closed, and the elevator car began its descent down to the ground floor, where Falco had probably been laughing himself stupid since I’d stepped inside The Barrows. This was fucking bullshit. Bullshit of the highest order. Oscar was expecting me to balk at the fact that I had to fight, expecting me to hit the call button to head back downstairs and leave for good. There would be no coming back here at all if I did that. Fighters who quit before the klaxon sounded were disgraced, never allowed to fight again.
Fuck Oscar, though. Fuck him, and fuck Foster. If I had to fight in order to meet with the boss, then that was what I was going to do. And woe betide the person Jason was about to match me with, because I would prove to these doubters that Iwasthe Priest. Just for tonight, anyway. Reaching the rooftop was the only thing that was going to keep Sera safe. And right now, in this instant, keeping her safe was the only thing I fucking cared about.
I discarded my bag of weapons, shrugged off my leather jacket, and I dumped them on the floor by the elevator. My shirt came next, and then my belt. No one breathed as I made my way into the center of the space, stretching my arms out behind my back.
I’d expected there to be trouble when I arrived here. Oscar was undoubtedly still pissed at me for what I’d done. They’d had to shut down the fights for two rotations in order to repair the damage I’d caused when I’d started that fire. I’d assumed there was going to be a lot of bowing and scraping on my part, but I hadn’t expected to fight.
I could, though. I would. And I was going to fucking win.
I cracked my neck, casting a disapproving glance around the sweltering room, at the sea of faces that were watching me intently, and then I grinned like the bastard that I was. “Come on then, Jason. Who have you got for me?”
NINETEEN
