𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐂𝐊⠀ ⁽ ¹ ⁾

ALPHA

The crowd closes in, as I study everyone around me. There's no empathy, simply glares and excited, sickening, smiles. Almost as if we're here for entertainment, like a gladiator pit. "No one here to back you up, Marsden," Mitch states, raising his arms to the crowd.

He has the first move, a powerful fist hits me clear across the cheek. My head jerks to the side, as my feet stumble back. Feeling the saliva drool down my lip, the faintness of blood mixes as I spit on the ground. 

Wiping it away with the back of my hand, he takes a shoulder-length stance, knees bent, and arms propped up towards his face. "Caught ya off guard, didn't I?" He says, gesturing his fingers towards himself. "No tricks. I promise."

Settling into a matching stance of my own, I wipe my lip once more, keeping my face protected with my hands. Eyeing him down, my feet dig deeper into the earth. "No, you don't." Mitch grins as I catch his lie, with a determined howl, he jerks forward with his fist, but I duck easily out of the way. 

His fist hits nothing but air, as my fist makes clear contact with his chin. His feet sturdily planted on the ground, I drop to my hands and swing my leg out. Catching his ankle, and causing him to topple over, landing in a cloud of dust.

The crowd around us murmurs behind me, but Mitch slowly stands back up, rubbing his chin and nodding in approval. "For a small-town kid, I thought you'd hit like a girl. Glad I was wrong." Spitting onto the ground, he cracks his neck, along with his knuckles. "Now I don't have to hold back." He lunges at me, and I'm quick to duck to the side once again, although everyone shouts and curses at me. "Coward!" A girl screams. "He won't fight! What sort of alpha doesn't fight?" 

Mitch laughs, as we circle one another slowly. He understands more than anyone that the two blows we exchanged, were just a test of strength. Someone like him is already used to getting hit. "The kind that thinks running around with his tail between his legs, is supposed to protect him."

He reaches his hand back and someone from the crowd hands him a dagger, the same familiar dagger I saw Allison sharpening. "There are no weapons allowed in a challenge." I clarify. Again, he chuckles. "Well, in Brooklyn no one is allowed to give a damn." I lunge forward, summoning claws just as he twirls the dagger in his hand, and sprints towards me. Both our supernatural speeds clash, and we become almost impossible to see with the naked eye. 

One of my fists goes for a punch, but he deflects it with his raised arm, slicing through my forearm with the blade. He follows by grabbing my shirt collar, and bashing his head against mine. I stumble back, and he raises his leg, kicking me away as I crash on the ground.

Recovering from the blow, I see Mitch about to jump on top of me, I roll out of the way, but not before getting cut once more across the side. "Get up, Brom!" Allison's voice calls out, and I look over and notice I'm closer to the cage.

Standing up slowly, I feel the areas of blood burning uncontrollably. Even as I reach to cover it, I flinch my hand away as my teeth grit tightly. "Give it up, Marsden." 

Turning to face him, he starts advancing towards me once again. "Face it, you're no alpha. Even Heinrich Marsden can take six slugs to the chest and still live. Oh wait, he isn't." Deep in the pit of my stomach, there's a feeling of bursting energy to keep fighting.

Mitch races forward, he swipes across one way and I jump back, but upon swiping back he cuts me across the stomach of the hoodie. But just as he goes for a stab, I cut his centerline with my arm, grab his wrist and twist his arm back. He grunts and releases the blade, letting it clang to the ground, and I toss him up against the silver laced bars. Shoving his face into it, he howls.