12 Rounds

Chapter One

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver

Chapter One

With the roaring spectators surrounding him, Jackson Teller swung his fist through the air, connecting with his opponent's jaw. He reared his head back, relishing in the jeers and the energy buzzing around him, and slammed his forehead right into the nameless Mayan's face. That last hit wasn't necessary to win, but it felt good. Too good, and it sent shockwaves through the rest of his body as the Mayan fell to the rubber mat underneath their feet.

Happy leapt forward to raise Jax's right hand in the air, signaling his victory. Even as his brothers and his club rallied around him, all he could feel was the high. The problem was that in a few minutes, the high would wear off. So, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, he wiped the blood from his chin and allowed his club to huddle around him to celebrate the fruits of his labor.

Each fight netted the club a nice pile of cash, depending on the opponent, but it wasn't about the money for him. He needed the burn of his face ripping open, the crunch of his fist slamming into the faceless body in front of him. It was better than the shit he had to deal with as soon as the high faded away.

Chibs pulled him over to a side picnic table near the makeshift ring on T-M's parking lot and someone, probably Happy, held a beer out in front of his face and Jax took it willingly.

"You're a fuckin' madman in that ring, brother!" Tig was saying to him now as he clapped a hand on his shoulder. "A fuckin' madman!"

A madman with nothing to lose, Jax thought bitterly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his mother's dark silhouette, her hands perched angrily on her hips as she watched the scene from a distance. Gemma did not understand his new addiction to the ring and hated the truth they both knew - that it was really the pain he was hooked on because it was pain he could control.

"You just haven't been the same, baby," his mother had told him earlier this morning. "It's like you're a completely different person. It scares me."

Truth be told, it scared him a little bit too, but fuck if he'd ever admit that out loud. And it definitely didn't scare him enough to stop.

Gemma was right. The man that went inside Stockton and the man that had come out a month ago just weren't one in the same. Everything was so much easier when he just tuned out his emotions - because when he did let himself feel something other than the pain and the high and the adrenaline he felt in the ring, none of it actually felt good.

But it was more than that though.

This life had hardened him and the byproducts of everything he'd lost because of it only added to his armor. Fourteen months in Stockton was really just the catalyst.

Maybe that was why he craved these bloody, bare-knuckled fistfights. The raw recklessness of the ring drew him in like a siren call - and maybe that was what scared Gemma the most. The club, and everything that surrounded it, used to be the only thing he needed to sustain him, to give him energy, to give him reason to wake up in the morning, but not anymore.

It was dangerous, but he was past the point of caring.

When his club president and stepfather, Clay Morrow, nodded to the parking lot, it was obvious that their special guests were ready to get down to business now that the show was over.

"C'mon, brothers," Clay gestured to where their guests were waiting as he clamped his cigar between his teeth. "We got some Irish callers to attend to."