10

♦𝕭𝖑𝖆𝖐𝖊♦

My hands are raised in victory after the guy drops to the floor. Adrenaline rushes through my body as the crowd erupts into a fit of violent yells.

They finally gave me someone who kind of knew how to fight tonight. He landed a few hits on me, I feel a slight throbbing on my face, but the adrenaline pumping through me is numbing the pain.

The crowd roars, praising me for giving them the show they came for. I'm a crowd favorite, when I step into the ring they know I won't show mercy. Everyone who comes to these fights wants a brutal and bloody battle, and that's what I give them. Time and time again.

I used to feel like crap every time I knocked someone out, but I quickly came to terms with it. Everyone who enters the fights do it for their own reasons, some because they want to vent, others for money, but most of us do it for both reasons.

Pride builds up within me, I feel like I'm on top of the world. This is what I needed, these last few days I've been off, Rose was constantly in the back of my mind, throwing off my usual routine.

I couldn't focus.

But now, as I step over the unconscious body, I feel alive again.

A smirk tugs at my lips as I scan the crowd, men throw their fists up as they scream, spit flies out of their mouths. People pass money around, settling bets they placed before the match.

Everything feels normal in the world again, then my eyes meet forest green ones and it's like the world stops.

Rose stands not too far in front of the ring looking at me, her face is pale and my gut twists in ways it never has.

She shouldn't be here, why the hell is she here?

My hands drop to my side, the victorious feeling once flowing through me is replaced with one of dread.

She saw me fighting, if there was any chance of her not being scared of me, it's gone now.

Rose's eyes leave mine as she flies backwards, her tiny body crashing into the front of a much larger man. A man in a security shirt has his hands on her, he yells at her, but I can't hear what he said over the loud roaring of the crowd. I can tell it wasn't friendly when she flinches back and her eyes slightly widen.

The guys' hands forcefully push her into the crowd of disgusting men. All I see is red as my eyes zero in on his grip that's on her arm, his fingers are dug into her skin, surely she will be bruised from his brutal grip on her small arm.

Fucking bastard.

He pushes her further into the crowd and her short frame disappears. I can still see the guy as he pushes through, but Rose is too small, all the men around tower over her, making it so I can't see her.

Anxiety builds as a cold sweat covers my body. Why the hell are his hands on her and where is he taking her?

I need to get to her before something bad happens. There is no way I could make it if I go through the crowd, especially after winning a fight. Everyone wants to talk to me and pretend like we are friends and shit.

It looked like he was pushing her to the front entrance, so I'll have to go out the VIP, run around the building and meet them out front.

I rush over to the gate of the cage. "Open up!" I yell at the security who keeps people in, or out of the cage while a fight is going on.

I'm not one to stick around for long after a fight, but the shock on the guy's face tells me I'm rushing off a little faster than I usually would. He opens the gate and I barge through, the medic enters the cage to check on my opponent right after I step out.

My feet pound into the ground as I pick up speed running through the people in VIP and slam open the door to the locker room.

Ace stands by the exit door with our bags. "I saw her too. I called off my fight." His voice is heavy with worry. Fuck. If he's worried I must not be overreacting.

He throws my bag at me and opens the door. I swing it over my shoulder and rush past him while he holds the metal door open.

"Where did he take her?" He yells following after me as I jog along the side of the building.

"Looked like they were heading out front." I shout back.

If that motherfucker hurt her... I swear to God I'll make him wish he was never born.

I push my legs faster when I see the corner of the building and start to hear worried voices.

Fucking hell, why was she even in there in the first place? I round the corner and the site makes me stumble.

There is somebody on the ground, with someone else hunched over them. I'm still too far away to see who they are, but my best guess is that one of them is Rose and that sends a surge of panic through me.

"Rose!" I yell out as I sprint towards the silhouettes.

"Blake?" One of the silhouettes says. I'm close now, close enough to see that the body crumpled on the ground is Rose, and the body hovering above her is Isaiah.

"What the hell is going on, Isaiah?" I shove him to the side and kneel beside Rose. Her body is shaking and her breathing is rough, scaring the hell out of me.

I grip onto her trembling shoulders, an ache starts in my chest when she doesn't respond to my touch, it's like she doesn't even know I'm here.

"What the fuck, Isaiah!" I growl out. I need answers, and I need them now before I lose my Goddamn mind.

"I-I don't know. Security separated us when they escorted me out, but that was a while ago. I've been trying to get back in, but they wouldn't let me. One of the guys just shoved her out here a minute ago!" Isaiah is pacing, running his hands through his hair and looks completely distressed.

"She hasn't said anything, just fell to the ground as soon as the door shut." He takes a breath then marches over to the door using both his fists he pounds against it. "You fucking bastards!" He yells.

"She's having a anxiety attack." Ace places a hand on my shoulder and speaks quietly to me.

"No shit." I snap. It's fucking obvious she having a anxiety attack, but the question is why, and how do I stop it.

"Rose, sweetheart, what happened?" I whisper, but she doesn't respond. I try to get down lower so I can see her face but it's covered by her hair. I gently take a piece and tuck it behind her ear as best as I can. Then her body jolts forward, she starts dry heaving.

Fuck, my heart squeezes painfully in my chest. I support her upper body as she continues to convulse.

"Cupcake!" Isaiah yells as he runs back over to us abandoning his mission of going after the security guard.

Chaos erupts as I hold her body while she trembles, Isaiah starts cussing up a storm as he bundles her hair behind her head and Ace joins in on the swearing, but I blur them out and focus on Rose.

Nothing comes out as she gags and I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

After what felt like an eternity she stops dry heaving but her breathing picks up more. She pushes herself up slightly, I follow her line of sight as she looks at the bottom of her light blue shirt. Her eyes go wide, sound makes its way out of her mouth, but the only thing that I can make out is the word 'blood'.

Her eyes are locked on a splatter of blood staining her blue shirt.

"Fuck, Ace, grab my jacket out of my bag! The blood is freaking her out, I need to cover it up." I shout the order out as I try to cover the blood from Rose's sight. I'm gripping the bottom of her shirt in my hand, the blood concealed inside my fist. Not that it's doing much good, my fist is also covered in drying blood.

Ace rummages through my bag looking for my jacket. Rose's trembling hands lift off the concrete as she brings them to her neck, clawing at her skin.

"Rose, Rose? Breathe for me, please breathe. Your scaring the fuck out of me right now." I plead.

I don't know what to do for her. I don't know how to make this better and it's killing me.

Thick tears roll down her face, but no sobs leave her mouth. She gasps for air, but hardly any make it into her lungs. Ace wraps my jacket around her shoulders.

"What do I do?" I look up at him, agony fills my body and seeps out into my words. I'd do anything to make this torture stop.

"Keep calm. We don't know what exactly triggered her, so I'm not sure what we can do other than stay calm so she can feel safe." Ace says gently, stepping back to give her some space. I stay beside her.

Safe. The word echoes in my brain, she doesn't feel safe right now. A sense of hopelessness engulfed me. How can I manage to make her feel safe when she is constantly put in danger because of me?

Her body sways, then collapses onto me. "Rose!" I cry out. Flipping her over, I pull her fully onto my lap and cradle her now unmoving body to my chest.

"Rose, wake up." I beg, lightly tapping her cheek, but I get no response from her, causing my heart to race.

"Calm down, man." Ace speaks up. "She worked herself up and her body couldn't handle it so she passed out. She'll be fine though. Calm down and look at her, she's just sleeping." He reassures me.

"Give me the keys, I'll get the car. We should get her out of here before the last fight is over and people start to leave." Isaiah says.

I grab my bag and dig out my keys with one hand, my other hand holding Rose close to me.

I throw the keys at Isaiah and tell him where I parked. We all drove here in my car, but we dropped Isaiah off a block away at a burger joint, so he could get something to eat before the fight because he kept complaining about being hungry.

"I feel for her." Ace says. He takes a seat on the curb next to me, places both hands behind him slightly and leans back.

"Were yours ever this bad?" I push some of the Roses hair that is wet with tears off of her face and behind her ear.

"Yes and no. I never passed out, but they were some of the worst moments in my life." He answers sorrowfully.

"You haven't had any lately, right?" I've been wanting to ask for a long time, but it never felt like the right time. I didn't want to bring up his past if he didn't want to talk about it, but we already are so I'm not going to miss this chance.

"Not since I moved out. I got lucky that way, my only trigger was that man's power over me. So as soon as I got away from him they stopped." He answers.

I always admired him for being able to get away from his dad at the age of sixteen, and not fall into a pit of depression, drugs and alcohol. He never let Isaiah or I help more than crashing at Isaiah's house for a few days. He wanted to take care of himself and within a few days he had rented a rundown room and never went back to his dad's.

My car rolls to a stop in front of us. "Get in losers." Isaiah hollers after he rolls down a window.

"Oh shoot! Not you cupcake, I would never call you names like that." Isaiah rushes out leaning closer to us.

"She's sleeping, she can't hear you." I grumble while I stand up with her still in my arms.

"You don't know that. Maybe she is listening, and thinks I'm insulting her. Better safe than sorry."

"She's sleeping, not in a coma." I swear one of these days I will shove his head in a toilet, jackass probably would think it was fun though.

Ace opens the back door of my car. "Ok, that's enough. Let's just go home." Ace mutters.

I guess my tone wasn't very friendly the last time I spoke, because Ace is giving me the stink eye. That's been a favorite of his since the little beauty in my arms has come into our lives.

⇼♢⇼♢⇼♢⇼♢⇼

I close the door to my room after tucking Rose into bed and meet the guys back in the living room where I left them only minutes ago.

Everyone is in their usual spots, but nothing feels right, because we all know that just down the hall there is a girl who just passed out after an anxiety attack, a girl that we all seem to care for in different ways.

"Start talking." I say, looking at Isaiah. He mentioned earlier that he was with Rose and they got separated by security. Ace and I only saw her as she was being dragged away, so Isaiah is the only one who might have a fucking clue as to what the hell happened tonight.

As Isaiah fills me in on what he knows, I find it hard to keep my anger contained. He told me how he found her when he was walking back from the restaurant and that some guys had their fucking hands on her.

He told me that she wouldn't say what all happened but he could tell it wasn't good from how pale her face was and my gut sinks as he explained her eyes looked lifeless as he approached her.

He told me how he suggested that she stick with him for the night and she agreed. And my heart feels like it's painfully being ripped out of my chest and beat with a hammer when he says that he tried to take her to me in VIP, but I never put him on the Goddamned list.

He explains that after they went into general admission, that Rose seemed so uncomfortable and even voiced her worries so he tried to sneak her into VIP, only to be kicked out.

Each word that falls out of his mouth makes my whole body hurt, because if I would have put him on VIP, he would have brought her straight to me, and maybe none of this would have happened.

Fuck, she could have stayed in my locker room with Ace and Isaiah if the crowds and fighting were to much for her, but our on going gag of not putting Isaiah on the list really came back to bite me.

"Cash kicked me out without listening to what I was saying, and the security guards at the front locked the doors from the inside and wouldn't let me back in. I kept banging at the doors until eventually they opened again, only to shove Rose out and slam it shut in my face again." Isaiah finishes telling us what happened with a miserable look on his face.

Fucking hell, every time this girl shows up I somehow manage to find a way to screw up, without even knowing she's around.

"She watched me fight." I speak up.

"The security must have separated you guys because he wanted to watch the fight. She was probably within a few feet of the cage for the whole fight, but I didn't see her until after." I mutter out in distaste.

"No. Don't do that to yourself. We don't know why she reacted the way she did." Ace swiftly cuts me off knowing exactly what I'm thinking.

"Well it seems pretty damn logical to me." I snap.

"I'm not following. Explanation please." Isaiah says puzzled.

"Blake is jumping to conclusions and is blaming himself for her anxiety attack. Thinks seeing him fight sent her over the edge or some shit like that." Ace says with a knowing tone. "But we don't know what exactly caused it, so stop the blame game." He scolds me.

It doesn't make the guilt I feel lessen any though. I tune them out and pick at a loose thread on the arm of my couch. No matter what they say, I'll still feel responsible.

Even if her being forced to watch me pummel a guy unconscious wasn't what caused it, I still didn't put Isaiah on VIP and nothing anyone says can change that.

"I'm assuming she'll be out for at least a couple hours. Why don't we watch a movie or something? Sitting around pitifully won't change what happened, we'll get more answers when she wakes up." Isaiah suggests.

I don't agree, I want to sit here and think about every last detail. Maybe I could figure something out, or remember a detail that slipped my mind.

But I hand Isaiah the remote anyway, if they want to get their mind off of it that's fine. I bet they'll pick some stupid movie, I'll end up zoning out through the whole thing anyway so it doesn't even matter.

⇼♢⇼♢⇼♢⇼♢⇼

Two hours later and we are still sitting around the living room. Only now we are surrounded by food Isaiah went out and bought.

"Did you buy out the whole Goddamned store?" He came back just minutes ago with enough food to feed a small army.

"Maybe," He chuckles. "I went in for a couple snacks but then everything started to look good. And my mom gave me her card yesterday to do some shopping for her, and she never asked for it back. So midnight snacks are on her." He cheers.

Olivia won't even mind. If he bought a plane ticket to Tokyo then she'd be pissed, but I've never seen her get genuinely upset if Isaiah uses her money to buy food.

It's strange for me to witness, it was the opposite for my mom and I before she left. I was the one providing money and food for us, but Olivia is closer to what I feel a good mom should be like.

"How is everything going between you and your parents?" I ask. He seems to be over at his house more and his mood surrounding his parents has brightened some.

"Good. I actually sat down with my mom and dad a few days ago. I fessed up about my math grades and being worried I'll have to retake the class. Guess what my dad's response was." I shrug my shoulders. My initial thought would be his dad would be pissed, but he's been too happy for that.

"He laughed. At first I thought he was making fun of me for failing. But it turns out it took him three tries to pass one of his math courses when he was in college! He slapped me on the back and apologized for passing down the inability to understand numbers. How insane is that?" He spouted, leaning back in his seat with a look of bewilderment covering his face.

"What's insane is that you've been worrying yourself over it for months now. Your parents are the most understanding parents I've ever met." I state.

They never even judged Ace and I for all our issues. Never tried to get Isaiah to stay away from us. They saw past our reputation of being troubled youth from bad homes and gave us the same respect they gave everyone else.

They also would sit us down for a good scolding whenever we would get into trouble, but as a group, they never blamed Ace and I when Isaiah got mixed up in trouble with us.

Ace and I for years would try to take the blame for everything, we saw it as the two of us didn't have much to lose and we didn't want Isaiah to lose his good relationship with his parents.

We eventually gave up trying to take the blame, when every time we would get the response of "Isaiah is responsible for himself, he made the choice to do it. I don't care whose idea it was. You guys are friends and everything you do together is your own choices. So you better stop thinking about what's fun in the moment, and about how these kinds of actions will affect your future. You guys care for each other, and one of these times, one of you might get hurt or worse." We never stopped doing dangerous things completely, but her words always ran through our heads.

It made us think twice about the thing we were about to do. If it wasn't for Isaiah's parents, I'm not sure where we would have ended up. Ace and I's heads were filled with so much pain and grief that we would lash out in very dangerous ways when we were in our young teen years. But having our friends' parents see good in us, it made us think that maybe we were worth something after all.

"Ok, yeah I get I was overthinking it, but I honestly thought he would be disappointed. I mean my sister was top of her class in almost everything." He mumbles.

"Yeah, but your sister is not you. How fucking boring would your family be if everyone was the same." Ace jokes.

A slight shiver runs down my spine at the thought. Don't get me wrong, Isaiah's sister is great. But I don't think I would be friends with Isaiah if he had the same personality as his sister. I can hardly handle her, I don't even want to think about what it would be like if there were two of them in the same room... Nope, no thanks.