♦𝕭𝖑𝖆𝖐𝖊♦

"You walked this road at night?" The tension in my shoulders gets stronger. We're ten miles down a heavily forested road, there are no lights and I've only seen three driveways since we turned out of the city.

How the fuck did she even see where she was going?

"Yeah. I was walking as it got dark though, so my eyes adjusted well." The words leave her mouth like it isn't a big deal. Like hell it isn't a big deal, anyone could have stopped their car and snached her up, and no one would have been around to see.

"It's right past this corner." She says. Isaiah and Ace haven't said much since the house, I think they can feel the murderous tendencies I'm feeling.

The only thing that's keeping me sane is that Rose is sitting safely in the passenger seat of my car.

We turn around the corner, but I don't see her car. I look over at Rose in question, to see her frowning at the road.

"I thought it was here." She mumbles.

"Maybe it's down further?" I say, but my heart sinks, because I see fresh tire marks on the side of the road where she probably would have pulled off.

She nods her head, but I can see the wheels turning, she knows it's not.

I won't turn around until we know for sure though, maybe it's a coincidence and those tire marks are unrelated to her car.

We drive for a while longer, each mile we pass looks more grim.

"We can turn around." Her voice cracks and she brings her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

Fuck, what's the world got against this girl?

"Are you sure? We can keep going." I offer.

I hate seeing her like this, when she's all curled up like that the pain in my heart burns harder.

"We passed the place I was working at. It's gone." She's trying so hard to conceal the pain in her voice, but I can hear it.

She leans her head against the window and hugs her knees tighter as I flip around. My fingers grip the steering wheel with enough force to turn my knuckles white.

"I'll call around, see what towing company got it." I want to see her smile again, like at the waterfall. But I don't know how to make her happy, and it's killing me.

"No. I don't think I would have been able to fix it anyway. I'm pretty sure the motor is toast." Her voice is even again, she takes a deep breath and lets her legs go back to the floor.

"Sorry for wasting your time." Her green eyes travel over to me as she forces a smile onto her plump lips. "But I'll figure it out from here."

"Rose." I grit. She's pushing me away again. "Don't apologize." I'm at a loss here, she's so important to me already, but there's no way she feels the same about me.

So I chose my words carefully, I can't risk scaring her away.

"We can get your car back, figure out what's wrong with it and go from there." It shouldn't be too hard to track down.

"No. It's not worth it. Even if we did find it, it'd cost hundreds to get it back." Her voice reasons.

"If you can't afford it I'll help." I glance over at her stiff posture and dig my fingers into the steering wheel.

I know she won't accept my money, but God I wish she would. Can't she see I just want to help her?

"He isn't worth that much, I'd be better off getting a new vehicle." She won't look at me, her eyes stare out the window as she speaks.

It makes me feel like shit, I haven't felt this helpless before. How am I supposed to help her if she won't accept my help?

"We can go to a dealership then. See if they have anything you want?" I'm basically begging her at this point. But every offer I give her, she turns it down. Her fingers dig into her thighs as she takes a deep breath.

"I prefer buying off people, not dealers. Don't worry about me, I'll figure something out." She's not telling me something, she won't even give me the satisfaction of seeing her beautiful eyes. I'm left looking at the side of her head when I take my eyes off the road to peek at her.

"Can you drop me off in front of the apartments?" She sounds detached and it worries the shit out of me.

"Of course. Are you hungry, should we get something to eat first?" I want to keep her with me longer. Just hours ago I thought she might have been in serious trouble, and now she wants me to drop her off like nothing happened.

I really don't understand these feelings I have for her, never felt this way for anyone else.

"I'm not hungry." She says simply.

"Ok." I sigh. No matter how much I want to force her to stay with me, I can't. She's had a rough couple days and probably just wants to snuggle up in bed and sleep it off.

"Do you need anything?" I draw out carefully. I don't know how many more questions I can ask before she gets upset with me for it.

"No." She says, her voice still sounding detached as she continues to look out the window.

I swallow the lump in my throat as I pull up to the apartments.

I want to lock the doors, to make sure she's ok before I leave her, or not leave her at all.

I'll take her home with me, she can have my room, I'll take the couch. Just as long as I know she's ok, the way she's shutting down has me worried it's more than her just being tired and stressed.

She opens the door as soon as the car comes to a stop, grabs her bag and steps out.

"Thank you." Her eyes still don't meet mine.

I suck in a harsh breath when I realize she's going to walk off without letting me figure out what emotions are swimming in her forest greens.

"Call me if you need anything." I say, trying to remind her to charge her phone without actually telling her to.

"Ok." And then she shuts the door and walks off, leaving me feeling empty, and concerned, as her body disappears around a corner.

"That was a roller-coaster of a night." Isaiah mumbles from the backseat. My head falls back onto the headrest as I let out a long sigh.

Fucking hell, I forgot they were even here.

"Yeah it was." I agree. Ace hops up into the front seat, without saying a word. I shift into gear and take off towards home.

"We have a fight tonight." Ace points out as we pull into the parking lot at my apartment. I forgot about that too. I forget about anything else when Rose is involved.

"How much time do we have?" I'm not in good shape for a fight, the effects of not sleeping last night and being worried out of my mind is starting to take a toll on me.

"Five hours until we need to be there." Ace's voice is thick with exhaustion.

"We can crash here. I have leftover pizza we can eat." I yawn. We could always cancel the fight, but there is a penalty fee for that.

And it goes on the record, it doesn't count as a loss, but having anything but a win doesn't look great. Dean sets up the fights and keeps track of the victors. At the end of the year the guy with the most wins gets a cash prize of thirty grand and the title of champion.

Also any losses you have take away a win, sometimes people will pull out of fights they know they won't win.

So to elaborate, one win and one cancelation is better than one win and one loss, for the cash prize anyway.

If you want respect, you fight no matter what. And if you pull out too many times, Dean will cut you out of fighting completely.

He understands that sometimes things happen, but he's running a business and if he thinks for a moment that you pull out because you're too chicken to fight, you're out forever.

People pay good money to get into the fight and even more on placing bets, if Dean lets wimps in that won't fight if they think they might lose, he would end up losing a lot of money.

People come for a show, and that show involves people getting beaten nearly to death. It's not a place for kids who think they're cool to play around until the real danger starts.

Those people belong outside the cage, not in it.

"Sounds good to me." Ace says as he walks towards the apartment door.

⇼♢⇼♢⇼♢⇼♢⇼

I take a swig out of my water before throwing it back in my bag. "You okay?" Ace asks from across the locker room.

Short answer, yeah I am. Long answers, hell no, I thought Rose would go home and charge her phone, see all the missed calls and messages and send something back.

But I haven't heard anything since I dropped her off, I just want to know she's ok.

I shrug my shoulders at Ace. "She probably fell asleep and hasn't woken up yet. I would still be sleeping if we didn't have this fight tonight. Even Isaiah is still sleeping." He points out.

We couldn't wake Isaiah up, so he's still asleep on my living room floor.

Everything he says is true, but I can't help the worry that swarms my thoughts.

A knock on the door signals that it's time for my fight.

"Knock em out." Ace slaps my back as we separate, leaving him in the crowd in VIP and me walking to the ring.

Once I step through the cage it's like I travel to another world.

My opponent steps in and the door to the cage slams shut behind us. All the worries of today vanish as I circle the man in front of me.

He's taller than me and might even weigh more, but I've seen him fight before, he lacks skill.

He'll try to overpower me, but the skills I've learned over my lifetime of fighting will serve me better.

Big men get cocky when it comes to fighting, and while it might have it's advantages, you need skill to back it up.

I've knocked out guys bigger than he is in a matter of seconds, he won't be any different.

Although for fun, I might let him throw a few punches, maybe even let him land one, it'd make the fight more interesting.

Dean stands at the bar in VIP with a smirk on his face, he knows I'm going to win. But also that this guy I'm fighting thinks he can take me, he's been talking shit, that means bets will be higher than usual.

More money for Dean if I win, and no way am I losing to a punk like him.

He bounces around on his feet like a bunny, I almost roll my eyes but stop myself. Fuck, I could really use a good fight right now, I almost wish he was good enough to beat me.

When the fight starts he swings first, almost landing it on my jaw. Even though I have the skills to beat him, the adrenaline of being in a fight returns. Then he whispers something that catches me off guard.

"That girl of yours is pretty cute. I'll make sure to show her a good time after the fight tonight." He snickers.

My blood runs cold, then heats up a thousand degrees as lava flows through my veins. My fist collides with his diaphragm, he stumbles back as he tries to gulp in air.

"You don't talk about her." I slam my fist into his kidney. Those hurt a lot when hit, and I want him to fucking suffer.

His face contorted in pain, a flicker of worry flashes in his eyes when he realizes that angering me probably wasn't in his best interest.

"You don't look at her." I growl. I grab his head and kick my knee up when I force his head down, breaking his nose in the process.

"Don't even think about her." I make my voice deadly, because if he lays a hand on her, I won't hesitate to kill him.

I swing my fist as hard as I can, letting the anger push it to a new level of strength. It collides with his jaw, his head swings to the side, body following as he drops to the ground underneath me.

He's alive, I can see his chest slightly moving, I wish he wasn't though. No one who talks about Rose that way needs to be walking around.

I regret that I knocked him out so soon, I should have done more than a few hits and a broken nose, I should have broke his fucking legs too.

I stock out of the cage and take a seat at the bar still fuming. Ace walks over to me with creased eyebrows.

"What happened." It's not often that I leave a fight feeling worse than before.

"He was shit talking about Rose." I mumble. The bartender slides me my drink, a non alcoholic lemonade.

I ordered it because it reminds me of her, and non alcoholic because I don't drink, not after all the things that happened in my childhood because of drugs and alcohol.

Ace doesn't drink either, and Isaiah rarely does. "Well you stopped that from happening again anytime soon. I think you knocked some of his teeth out." He eyes my drink.

"No alcohol." I confirm.

Ace and I watch out for each other, we've both expressed our want to never drink. But life gets hard and temptations happen, so when someone is feeling off, the other pays extra close attention, just in case we need a reminder.

He nods his head. "I gotta go, I'm up." I give him a pat on the back.

"Knock em out." Ace walks off and I turn my attention back to my drink.

"Good fight." Dean says from a couple seats down. I roll my eyes and down the glass of lemonade.

Good fight? Yeah right, it was more of a one way beating than a real fight.

"You're currently seated at the top. Don't fuck it up and you'll get the jackpot this year." He reminds me.

Ace and I are both undefeated this year, but I've fought more fights than him, so I'm currently first.

Ace took a few months off of fighting at the beginning of the year, did some traveling and stuff, so he's ranked fourth.

Ace and I have always agreed to split the money, that way we don't compete against each other for it. This is also the first year that Dean has a large cash prize, previously it's only been a few thousand, but the agreement still stands nonetheless.

"Well I've got business to attend to. See ya around, chatterbox." He mocks. Bastard thinks he's funny.

I motion for the bartender to get me another lemonade.

Someone slides into the seat next to me, my jaw clenching in annoyance. I'm not exactly in the mood for talking.

"Sullivan."

The man greets. I already want to punch his teeth out, I hate it when people like him use my last name.

I look over and see a fighter, particularly the one seated in second place, only one fight separating him from taking first.

"Conway." I grit out. We've only met once, he was talking shit to Isaiah. I punched him in the face as a warning not to mess with my friends, and he's been swearing revenge ever since.

"I can't beat you this year if you win all your fights." He says, leaning his back against the bar top.

"Therefore, you won't beat me this year." I state.

"Eh, well if you miss a fight we'll be tied." He points out.

I roll my shoulders to ease the tension in my neck. I really just want to deck this guy right now and walk off.

"I'd still win, you have a loss this year." I remind him. A smirk tugs at my lips as I see his body tense up in anger.

"I don't plan on losing to you in our fight, Sullivan." He spits out, grabs a beer from the bar and chugs it down.

Oh no, tough man alert.

I almost laugh at his attempt to show dominance over me. "I look forward to it." I cheers my lemonade with his half empty beer, causing his face to flare up with rage.

The only way for him to take first is for him to beat me in a fight. Deans already told us he's saving the fight between Kyle Conway and I for last this year.

That way the suspense will be up, and there'll be a huge turnout for the fight.

Conway storms off as I turn my attention back to my lemonade.

Good riddance.

I look over to the cage and watch Ace's fight, only to see him walking out already with a smile on his face and a body on the floor behind him.

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