Chains (3 page)

TWO

“Come on, Ty. Wake up.” Mike’s voice drifted into my head followed by the vise grip of pain in every part of my body.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

I did, but couldn’t see a thing through the black-gray clouds of what I assumed were broken blood vessels. “Can’t see,” I croaked, my voice raw.

“Jose and his gang of maniacs were arrested,” Mike said, putting a hand behind my head. “Try to sit up and drink some water.”

A cool, wet glass touched my lips, and I drank deeply. “Someone’s swinging a sledge hammer inside my head,” I said, wincing.

“I debated taking you to the hospital, but I’ve seen you worse.”

I struggled to sit up, but Mike pushed me back down. “Take it easy. You have one hell of a concussion.”

It all swam back into focus inside my mind. “Danny,” I said, shooting up into sitting position. Agony crashed through my skull. “Fuck.”

“Lay down!” Mike took both of my shoulders and forced the issue.

“Danny was there,” I said, trying to find leverage to sit back up. “I have to get to her.”

“Nobody’s there anymore. Once the cops came they all scattered like roaches.”

“Shit.” I grasped his wrist. “Was she arrested? Did you see a blond girl get arrested?”

“No. Only Jose and the thugs pounding the snot out of you.”

“I’ve got to find her.” My pulse sped while my mind played out one fucked-up scenario after another:

Danny dead on the street from an overdose.

Danny blowing some sleazebag for drugs.

Danny alone, crying that I left her—again.

“How you gonna find her when you can’t even see?” Mike pressed against my shoulders again. “Lay down and rest, then you can find her.”

“What time is it?” I could make out the glow of red numbers on the digital clock on the nightstand, but not their shape. “I can’t get on a plane without finding her first.”

Mike sighed. “You’ve been a pain in my ass from the day you walked into my gym with Ben Wallace talkin’ about finding you an outlet for your defiance disorder, PTSD and anxiety attacks—boy you were fucked up. Now you’re even more of a pain in my ass.”

He stood up and I heard him pad across the carpet. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll call Jose’s trainer and see if he can find out anything about Danny.”

A hundred pounds of guilt and regret lifted from my chest. “Thanks, man. I owe you.”

“You’ll be owing me past my expiration date. Let’s just call it something friends do.”

Mike was more than a friend. He was the closest I’d gotten to a role model—a father figure. He took me in when I had nowhere to go. I still lived over the gym and worked there to pay for rent.

The day he was talking about—the first day I came to his gym with my parole officer, Ben Wallace—I’d spent six months before that in prison for assault. For breaking all the bones in that abusive fucker’s face. I should’ve done it when I was a minor, but I wanted to stay with Danny as long as possible. Plus, I thought putting the fear of retaliation into Baron Striker—showing him what I could do if he gave me a reason—would keep her safe.

I should’ve taken her away from him.

Far, far away.

I’ll never forgive myself.

“By the way,” Mike said, “I told the ref what happened, how you were taunted with personal information from your past. He said it’s no excuse—and I agree with him—but he’s not lodging a complaint to keep you out of the cage. He agrees that it was an isolated incident, and as long as it doesn’t happen again, he’ll look the other way this time.”

Mike walked back toward me. “Now, before I call Jose’s trainer, I think it’s best if we use our advantage in this situation to get information out of him about Danny.”

I fingered the egg-shaped knot on the back of my head. “I know I got the shit beat out of me, but I don’t follow.”

“They’re going to want to know if you’re pressing assault charges. Let’s see if he can deliver the girl before we let him off the hook.”

I blinked and squinted and could barely make out Mike’s wide smile. “What would I do without you?” I asked.

“Your ass would’ve been six feet under in a pine box a long time ago without me. Don’t kid yourself.”

I laughed and cringed, grabbing my ribs that he’d wrapped tight with an ACE bandage. “Shit. Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m walking outside to call so you don’t butt in and wreck the conversation. If you move from that bed you forfeit the next five matches. Got it?”

“Got it.”

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. If I stayed still enough I could almost breathe without excruciating pain.

Please, God—if there is one—let Mike find out where Danny is.

“Come on, Ty. Wake up.” The words were déjà vu. I cracked my eyes open. Things were fuzzy around the edges, but I could see. Mike was packing my razor. “We need to go,” he said, turning from the sink to look at me.

I rubbed my head and sat up. The pain had dulled—not by much—but my head still had its own heartbeat. “You found her then?” He must’ve if he was packing my shit.

“No,” he said. “Not exactly. We’ll work on it more at home. After Austin.”

I pounded my hand against the mattress. “I told you I’m not leaving without her.”

“Plane tickets aren’t cheap. We’re not pissing that money away. When you turn pro you can piss away all the money you want.”

When I turn pro.

I was well on my way before losing to Jose. The semi-pro circuit was a cake-walk. “I can go pro tomorrow. You know it, too.”

“You can’t snap and get disqualified when you’re pro,” he said, pointing at me with my toothbrush. “A pro keeps his head in the ring.”

“I’ve been keeping my head—”

“I know you have. Hell, compared to where you were two years ago when you started training, you’re practically a saint. You’re almost ready, Ty, but not yet.”

“I’m ready,” I said, gripping the side of the mattress.

“We’ll see how you do in Austin in two days. Prove it to me there.”

“I’m ready,” I said again. “What did Jose say?”

Mike tossed my toothbrush on the counter and frowned. His nostrils flared a bit, and he crossed his arms. I knew this look well. It was his
bearer of bad news
look, and it never failed to make my jaw clench. “He picked her up last night at a hotel party at the Ramada. Says he asked her what it would take to have her a couple of nights and she agreed to a few hits of meth. He has no idea where she’s staying or how to find her.”

“Fine.” I got up and steadied myself, then looked around for my shoes.

“Fine, what?” Mike asked, stepping forward with his arms still crossed.

“I’ll meet you in Austin in two days.”

He stared at me, his eyes hard and not budging. Then he shook his head, defeated. “Two days. You win, you go pro. I’ll change your plane ticket and text you the details.”

When push came to shove Mike always had my back. He knew I’d be shit in the octagon with Danny hanging over my head. I’d find her and make her safe before Austin. “Thanks,” I said.

“Someday when I’m old,” he said, “you’re going to be changing my diapers and that’s all the thanks I’ll need.”

“Aw, God. Don’t even say that. I’ll stick your old ass in a home.”

He came at me and put me in a headlock. “Listen to me,” he said. “When you find her there’s a good chance she won’t be in a good situation. Keep your head. It won’t help her or you if you end up back in jail.”

I couldn’t let myself imagine the situation she was in—accepting hits of meth in exchange for sex with Jose. Un-fucking-real. How did it come to this? “I know how bad it is. I’m getting her out of here.”

He let me go. Questions swam in his eyes.

Questions I didn’t have answers for, like where the hell I was going to take her? She was like me. No family, no home, nowhere to go back to.

My mind told me she could come live with me above Mike’s gym, but my gut told me I was getting in over my head. Danny wasn’t my little blond girl anymore. She had a hardcore drug problem if she was giving herself away for it. Something told me Jose wasn’t the first.

Jesus, it made me sick. My chest burned. It felt like I’d been ripped open and all of this fucked up information had been shoved inside me against my will. I didn’t want to know about this, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already known. Four years had gone by and I didn’t look in on her one fucking time.

Not
one
fucking time.

When I knew what Striker was like—what he was doing to her.

What kind of selfish prick was I?

“I gotta go,” Mike said. “Don’t want to miss my flight.” He strode to the door and paused with his hand on the knob. “Don’t call me to bail your ass out. I won’t do it. You’ll stay there.”

“I know,” I said. He was a big believer in doing the time. “I’ll be cool.”

He nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “Two days.”

I held up two fingers. We locked eyes and he didn’t need to speak out loud what I saw in his:
I’m trusting you.

I stared at the door after he left. Trust was a spiked, angry thing I steered clear of. If you trusted me, I’d let you down. It wasn’t an intention, more an involuntary response. I didn’t want the responsibility of carrying around someone else’s misplaced trust.

I told him I’d be cool, that I’d be there in two days. He could take that at face value or leave it, but giving my word the weight of trust was asking me to suck down guilt for what would come if my best intentions got fucked up.

Life didn’t always let you be in control. It rarely ever let me take the wheel.

It took ten minutes to make myself as decent as it was possible to make myself look, all bruised with dried blood staunching cuts, covered in Band Aids. I called the front desk and booked my room for another two nights, then headed out to catch a cab to the Ramada.

Even if it was early morning, serious partiers never stopped to sleep. They snorted, sniffed, shot up and smoked to keep their dazed reality going. I knew because I’d been there. It was after I got out of prison and it didn’t matter what it was—heroine, crack, meth. Didn’t matter. I had nothing. Nobody would hire me. I was living on the streets. I beat the fuck out of people for money, collecting debts for bookies, mostly. Somehow I didn’t get caught and thrown back behind bars. But, there were also the bar fights and hell, fights anywhere with anyone I could get to throw a punch at me.

I craved it like air, like breathing—taking the hit, absorbing the pain, fueling the fury. I was a bomb and ticked down the hours until I could find someone to explode on. My parole officer saw the signs and dragged my ass to Mike’s gym. Mike had helped him before. There was a whole Mike’s Gym brotherhood you could say. I was the most recent of his fucked-up delinquents with pasts from nightmares. Mine wasn’t the worst, and selfish bastard that I was, that didn’t make me feel one ounce better about my own past. It should’ve. I know it should’ve, but it didn’t.

Saving Danny was the only thing that would ease the gouges in my sanity where the past dug in and held tight.

The manic dinging of slot machines in the Ramada’s casino was like a machine gun to the brain. The cloyingly sweet air freshener mingled with the smell of overcooked buffet food and made one nauseating assault to my nose. Striding through, I scanned the thin crowd for Danny but didn’t spot her.

Back through the casino, I took a turn to the hotel lobby. “Excuse me,” I said to the desk clerk, a paunchy man around fifty, “can you tell me if Danielle Debasco has a room in her name? I heard she’s staying here.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “What’s the nature of the request?”

The nature of…
“I’m her brother. I haven’t seen her for a long time—since I moved out. A mutual friend told me she was here.”

He looked me over, clearly thinking I was some abusive thug here to fetch my girlfriend who ran from me. “I’m an MMA fighter,” I said. “I had a match today—across town—did you hear about it?” I rolled my eyes in defeat and gestured to my beat body. “Needless to say, I lost.”

“Oh,” he said, his face sliding into a friendlier expression. “Sorry to hear you lost. That looks painful.” He pointed to my forehead where a black and blue knot had formed.