Make Me Stay

4| NOBILITY FIGHTER

I tried to fight her but in the end, we ended up getting ready at mine and this time she was driving. I saw we left the town behind and I started freak out on the inside.

"I don't think there are such rules for newly made friends... but if they would, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't include taking her to an abandoned warehouse and kill her."

"Who said we are friends?" She joked. But this reminded me I didn't really know so much about her either. "Relax I'm just taking you to an abandoned warehouse, I'm not looking forward to killing you."

What!?

She didn't lie. We were in front of a warehouse. A packed warehouse. The place was filled with scary looking people with tattoos and piercings and I was praying to get out of this one alive. Lynn on the other hand looked right at home. I couldn't believe she was the same person as earlier. Every one in this place threw me weird glances making me know I didn't belong here.

It wasn't cold but I thanked God I changed my outfit to a pair of black skinny jeans with a beige sweatshirt wich made the shirt collar to be the only trace of the white bottom up shirt below. Also the ankle black boots kept me warm and comfortable. And I made sure not to take a purse this time.

When we stepped inside the warehouse it looked anything but abandoned. If I thought it was packed earlier I clearly didn't know the real definition of a cramped place. There were people and people and more people. There was so much noise I was deaf for a moment. But they all seemed to be gathered around something. Something Lynn kept pulling me closer to. Something rectangular, elevated. I stepped onto more feet that I could count and people continuously bumped into me.

When we reached the front it hit me. It was a ring. Everyone in here were the spectators of the fight. Oh dear, I'm in the front line of a probably illegal fight!

"Lynn! Lynn!" I tried to reach her through all the noise. She looked at me with excitement written all over her face. "I don't think this is an appropriate place for me."

She shook her head and held my elbow. "You're not leaving this place, not without me anyways and I, my friend, I'm not leaving."

She directed her stare to the ring. "This two fighters have been preparing this fight for over a month. It's going to be epic! Besides, I see the fire you got inside girl, something tells me you'll enjoy it more than what you think."

I sighed and took a look around me. Everybody was excited, yelling, shouting, there was no way to make out any voice. And there was something about this environment that actually did attract me. If it was the way everyone seemed so free or if it was the adrenaline of just being in in a place like this I don't know. But it certainly had its charm.

A voice spoke above all of us. "Goodnight everyone!" I wondered if he was aware of what he had just said. "It's been exactly a month, 31 days since this fight was set. Two of the best are fighting each other here and now! So please do tell me who is excited to see some suffering! Who is excited to see sweat! Who is excited to see blood! And who" he made a pause I tried to spot him but he must have been somewhere else. "is ready to see the two hardest bones fight till only one remains on both feet!!! Okay okay, I'm not holding you anymore."

And then then a little skinny and funny looking man jumped into the ring. He was white and thin like paper. He was holding a microphone and I realised it was him the one who was talking. "At dawn" he continued.

Lynn told me that the ring was estrategically built to recreate the morning and the night. Dawn, was the southern of the ring whilst Dusk represented the west side.

" There are two competitions, Servants and Nobility. Nobility's fights are the longest ones. They have two parts. The first one lasts fifteen minutes, then they have a break of five minutes, enough to recover and start round two, which is until one of them is KO or... well, dead."

"What!? Has people died in-" I was cut by the rice colored guy.

"At dawn, the one time Servants champion and three times Nobility champion... Derek!!!" A really tall and bulky guy slash monstruous figure appeared out of the crowd. He wore a black robe that hid his face. The crowd went crazy and the cheers made my eardrums cry out loud.

"And at dusk ladies and gentlemen. The twice champion of the Servants and last year's finalist of the Nobility... JC!!!" More people stood up and cheered but my mind was somewhere else or in someone else.

"Lynn, hey, I know this guy!" She looked at me in utter shock.

"What! You know JC?" Incredulity thick in her voice.

"Yes, he was the one who got my purse from another guy." When I said this she looked even more incredulous than before.

"JC... the same JC on the ring right now... got you your purse back?"

"Yes, he was really nice, or well, as nice as his own law enables him to be." I remember the warmth I felt when he was close to me. The way he made electricity run in my veins instead of blood. "Wait, you know him?"

"Yes of course, that's why we're here today. We're here to support my step-brother." My world froze. "This is the first fight of the season. It's a Nobility ritual for the first fight to be between the finalists of last season."

I was still trying to wrap my head around the piece of new, but I just couldn't relate both of them. Cheerful Lynn and... well, JC or whatever his name was?

He stepped inside with only a pair of satin boxing trunks. His body was a piece of art. It was covered by tattoos, maybe hundreds of them, on his thighs, his hands, his arms, his torso, his neck. I was so used to the Manhattan guys it's safe to say I've never seen so many tattoos in just one body. They were everywhere and I loved every one of them. He was really strong, not as voluptuous as his opponent but he could easily break someone's neck if he wanted to. His musculature seemed to be more subtle, more beautiful, the tattoos hid them and gave him a dangerous look at the same time.

"Gross. He's my brother." Lynn's voice made me come back to reality and my cheeks flushed like never before. Please swallow me dirty and dusty floor.

"I-i wasn't, I wasn't staring." Yet unconvinced who I was trying to persuade, Lynn or myself.

"Are you telling me you weren't just deliberately checking him out?" She was playing with me. She totally was, I flushed even more and she started to laugh.

"You're enjoying this way too much." But she kept laughing. "Stop please you're making me anxious!"

"Oh girl, don't worry you're already as red as a rudolph's nose. Don't beat yourself too much, it's you and the rest of female population."

I frowned at that. Somehow that statement bothered me. I didn't know why, but it did. We turned our eyes to the front where the fight was about to start. I was scared. Really scared. What if he didn't make it? The other was 60 pounds heavier than him.

Lynn sensed my anxiety. "Relax, he's got this. He lost the final to him, but I know he can do it."

"He was beaten by that same guy!" God help him.

The fight started and I found myself admiring the way this JC held himself. Unlike the other guy who seemed to create craters every step he took, his moves were perfectly calculated, his steps light and his standing position while he guessed his opponent's next blow told me he wasn't just a simple fan. He was good.

But soon I moved my hand to my mouth, a reflex movement when Derek cornered him and started to throw consecutive right and left hooks. Suddenly my boots seemed to be more interesting than the fight. I just couldn't see so much blood running down his face. I didn't want to look but yet I wanted to make sure he didn't die on the spot.

He managed to lift his hands to protect his head and the crowd roared. He didn't looked focused anymore, he wasn't. He was too beaten. While he left his arms up he searched in the crowd. He was searching for his sister I guess, but instead he made contact with me. His eyes widened and he froze. His arms fell to his sides and right when the first round was about to finish he received an uppercut that made him go up first and then back to the ground with a painful and loud thud.