Her boyfriend. That’ll cramp her style if she gets to meet this fighter.

“He’ll drive,” she says.

“Well, okay,” I say after a moment, grinning. “Why not, right? I’ve never seen a fight before.”

It’s dark, it’s cold, and as far as I can tell, we’re in some unremarkable lower-middle-class suburb.

“We’re here,” Jason says, and he meets my eyes in the rearview mirror.

“I thought you said this was a big event. I don’t see anybody around.”

“No parking on premises,” Rose says. I can hear the smacking of her lips as she chews her bubblegum. “Since it’s illegal and all. Five hundred cars would definitely look out of place at midnight on a Tuesday.”

“What is the, uh, premises?”

“Oh, just an old train depot that doesn’t get used anymore. It looks totally low-key on the outside, but they’ve done it all up real nice on the inside.”

“You mean like they used to keep trains inside?”

“The engine carriages, yeah,” Jason says. “That’s how there’s enough indoor space.”

“Ah.”

“We’ve got to walk there, maybe a ten minute walk?”

We all get out of the car, and I fall into step next to Rose. She’s holding Jason’s hand, and seems completely amped. I see goosebumps on her arms. She’s wearing leather pants she’ll have to peel off to get out of, and paired it with a tribal print crop top.

“You look like you’ve just stepped out of a Spice Girls music video,” I say.

“Nineties is the new retro,” she tells me. “Spice Girls were my favorite, anyway.” She blows a bubble and pops it with a bite. Rose definitely knows how to put on a show. She’s so confident.

We round a corner, and that’s when I see it, streetlamps glinting off train tracks and chain-link fencing. So we must be nearby.

There’s a scream of laughter behind us, and I see a pack of girls. They walk quickly by us, and we’re left in their perfume-soaked wake. Mini-skirts, platforms, skinny jeans, heels… they’re all dressed as if they’re going to a club.

“I thought we were going to a fight?” I say, looking at Rose. Suddenly I’m feeling a little insecure. I mean, I’m wearing loose jeans, a black Pink Floyd pullover, and a cardigan.

“We are,” she says. “Like I said, it’s the biggest fight. It’s going to be a huge party.”

“You could have told me what it was going to be like.” I fiddle with the buttons on my cardigan. “I’m going to stand out so bad. I thought it was going to be like, I don’t know, in a dusty basement or something.”

“Oh, don’t worry so much,” she says, waving a hand at me. But she doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are fixed on the big building in front of us. I can see that the windows are blacked-out, and from the outside it looks a little like an airline hangar. Huge, boxy, a real eyesore.

But I can hear it. The hubbub of excited people. It’s like a vibration in the air, a signal, and Rose is already tuned in to it.

She speeds up, excited, and I fall behind.

As we close in on the crowds, I realize that I don’t really want to be here anymore.

Chapter Six

They fucking love me.

I don’t just hear the crowd, I feel them. Their collective voices, the screeching and cheering, and all their clapping, it shakes the air. I feel it on the beads of sweat that sit on my skin, this buzz, this vibration. I’ve just been warming up in the back on the bike, but now, beneath the bright lights, with the audience chanting my name, I’m heating up.

I throw off my robe. I don’t do any bullshit showy poses. I don’t flex my biceps or my lats. I don’t howl or growl or woof or bark.

I just walk around the cage.

Tonight is fight night.

Illegal, underground, unlicensed, whatever you want to call it. You walk in, and you don’t win anything unless you’re the one walking out. It’s just one fight, and the winner takes the pot. That’s always me.

People in the front rows have their hands out. They want to touch me. They want to feel the slick sweat on my skin, the heat in my flesh, the hard muscle packed tight on my body.

Who the fuck am I?

I’m motherfucking Pierce Fletcher, and I’m the best underground fighter in Australia. Probably the world, too.

“Pierce! Pierce!”

The women are screaming my name. They’re everywhere, bikini tops and micro-shorts, crop tops and miniskirts, deep-Vs and backless dresses. Everyone from everywhere is here to watch me.

They’ve got their arms up, they’re dancing, sweating, oozing sex, with full lips or fake lips, and full tits or fake tits. They’re writhing and wriggling, shaking their hips, giving me the look.

I know that look. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. They all want me to make them scream.

“I love you, Pierce!” someone shouts, and I turn to her and wink. Her knees hit each other, and she drops into her seat. She might as well have had an orgasm.

There are six stands of people arranged in a hexagon around each face of the six-sided, steel-wire cage. The wire is sharp; get thrown into it hard enough, and it’ll slice into your flesh. You’ll walk away with a crimson stamp.

I’ve got a ritual. Fighters have rituals. People like to say we’re superstitious, that athletes are superstitious, but it’s not some bullshit belief in the uncontrollable, or the unpredictable, or the unknowable.

Ritual is rhythm, and rhythm is consistency, and consistency is king.