The Only Way
The Only Way
Jamie Sullivan
In the Gutter, there are only two ways for a girl to earn a living—among the trash or on her back. When Hart decides that’s not good enough for her, she takes on the high stakes world of no-holds-barred fighting. There's just one problem: women aren't allowed in the ring.
Hair cut short and dressed in her father’s old clothes, Hart ventures into the Alley and the world of arena fighting. There she meets Ruby, the daughter of the Arena owner and a brilliant fighter in her own right. When she offers Hart the chance for friendship, Hart cannot resist.
But Ruby thinks Hart is a man, and as she and Ruby grow closer, it gets harder and harder to maintain the façade …
Book Details
The Only Way
By Jamie Sullivan
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Keith Kaczmarek
Cover designed by Aisha Akeju
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition March 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Jamie Sullivan
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 9781620043288
Chapter One
"It's late."
Hart watched her mother pace the small room, her nervous eyes fixed on the door. The other kids were tucked into the bed in the corner, long asleep. The church bells in the Alley had stopped chiming at midnight, so it was hard to say how late it really was.
It felt late, though.
"It's probably just running long," she told her mother, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "Or maybe he's gone celebrating his win."
Vivien arched an eyebrow and Hart could only shrug. Her father wouldn't do that. He always came straight home.
Vivien paused at the window, peering out into the dark night. There wasn't anything to see. Few of their neighbors had electricity, and the night-time candles had long since burned out. A single taper lit the room they sat it, burned down to a nub as they waited.
"Something's happened," her mother said, voice tight.
"No."
"But—" She turned from the window.
Hart shook her head, glancing over at the sleeping children before continuing in a low voice. "Don't say that. Not yet. We don't know anything. He's probably fine. He's
always
fine."
Everyone was always fine, right up until they weren't. A few years before, Hart's father won every time he fought. He brought home purse after purse, and they were practically rich compared to the rest of the Gutter. But Duncan was getting older, and now sometimes he came home empty-handed, shame scrawled on his face along with the bruises. Money was tighter than it had been since she was a little kid, before her father had taken to the ring. Every fight, Duncan said this would be the one, the one where he turned it all around and became a champion again. But Hart saw the gray in his hair and the bags under his eyes.
When Duncan entered his first fight, he had been a little soft, doughy despite his time at the plant. But soon, he hardened. He got up early and ran the Gutter, his heavy feet pounding the pavement. He did sit ups and push ups in their cramped living space, babies crawling all around him. He shadow boxed in the streets. And Hart followed right along behind him. She punched when he punched, ducked when he ducked; she did push-ups and sit-ups and jumping jacks until her little body was completely spent. As Duncan came home with purse after purse, the fights seemed more and more glamorous, and Hart hung on his every move. She rose early and followed him on his runs, keeping up and then overtaking him as her legs lengthened. Now she was harder than he was, lean muscles where age had started to soften Duncan again. The fights had lost their glamour for Hart, but the time she spent alone with her father, jumping rope, trading punches, or running long miles, still retained every ounce of joy they had ever had. She and her father had gone for a run just that morning, silent beside each other in the soft dawn light. It had never occurred to Hart that, eventually, one of those runs would be their last.
She slumped against the wall, the patchwork corrugated surface creaking under her weight, and rubbed her tired eyes, trying to calculate the time. The fight had started at ten. Fights never lasted long, even with strong, experienced fighters like her father. It was too brutal, too bloody, to drag out. The men fought hard and someone went down.
Then her father would come home, the purse of winnings clutched in his bruised and scabbed hands. Most nights, Duncan was home before the church bells stopped ringing. That's the way it was supposed to happen.
It felt like an eternity since the last chime, but realistically Hart knew it had probably only been an hour or two. Late, but not too late.
Footsteps in the street had her head snapping up. Her mother gave a gasp of relief and wrenched open the front door. Only, it wasn't her father standing in the narrow lane. A grubby boy Hart didn't recognize stepped forward out of the darkness and her heart dropped.
"You Duncan's lot?"
Vivien whimpered and stumbled back, away from him, as if distance would stop what was coming. So Hart stepped forward, meeting the boy's eyes.
"Yes."
The boy gave a nervous little shrug. "I'm sorry." He pulled his cap off, a momentary gesture of respect, twisting it in his small hands. "It was a good fight, though."
Hart's stomach knotted, bile rising in her throat. She could hear her mother stumbling into a chair, sobs rising in her throat. The children shifted in the bed, but didn't wake. Hart wanted to cry, to scream, but she couldn't, not while Vivien was falling apart. It was up to her to get the information they needed.
"The body?" she asked, making herself choke out the word.
The boy shrugged again. "They'll bury it for you, if you want. Fighters' lot."
"No," Hart snapped. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to continue. "No. We want him back."
The boy looked bemused. "Okay. I'll tell them. You wanna come by the gate tomorrow, pick it up?"
It
. Hart shuddered.
"We can't—" Her mother choked out behind her. Vivien had her face buried in her hands, muffling her words. "We can't afford that."
Hart closed her eyes, anger and pain and anguish welling up inside of her. Of course they couldn't. Burials cost money just like everything else.
"It's a nice lot," the boy offered. "He'll get a marker and everything."
"Okay," Hart whispered, hating the thought of it.
"I'm, uh, sorry for your loss," the boy said, reciting the words mechanically. Hart wondered how many of these errands he'd had to run in his short life. How many tears he saw, how many lives ruined.
"Thank you for telling us," she said numbly, ushering him out the door and pushing it shut behind him.
And that was that. Her father had left right after dinner, kissing her mother and each of the kids in turn, a wide grin on his face. "Give them hell," her mother had whispered.
He had walked out the door, and now he was never coming back again. They'd never even see his body.
He took that chance every time he went to fight, but he was so
good
at it. It was like Hart had forgotten the risk. She remembered his first fight. He had been laid off at the plant, and they had lost their house and moved here, to this little hovel. Two ten-by-ten rooms held together with more prayers than nails. There was no money, no food, and babies underfoot, and all she could really remember was the gnawing hunger in her belly and the sound of her mother's tears. So Duncan had gone to fight.
Vivien had begged him not to. It was better to starve, she said, but they all knew that was a lie. The fights were brutal, but they were nothing like watching a baby sob from hunger, its little belly horribly concave.
Duncan had gone to fight, and Vivien had cried the whole time he was gone, convinced he was never coming back. But he did, with money in his hand,
good
money. And he kept coming home, and he kept bringing money. And they had food, and clothing, and wood for the fire and candles to keep the dark out, and books to teach Hart to read. It was even better than when he was at the plant.
And they had gotten cocky, Hart realized, sinking down at her mother's feet. Duncan had seemed unbeatable. He won far more than he lost, and the injuries were never that bad. A broken wrist here, a turned ankle there. A gash down one cheek that Vivien carefully sewed up, tiny, neat stitches like she was working on a dress of her own. Everything could be mended and put back together.
But not a life. Once that was gone, it was just gone.
And Duncan was gone. Hart dropped her head into mother's lap, muffling her cries in the fabric there. She didn't want to wake the other children.
*~*~*
In the morning, it was worse. Hart woke up, still curled on the floor, stiff and cold. And then she remembered.
The sudden force of her grief was like being barrelled down by a truck. She felt flattened, laid out and unable to get back up again.
Except the kids were stirring, turning and murmuring in the bed. They'd have to be fed, and bathed and dressed.
They'd have to be told.
Hart groaned, a wretched sound, and forced herself to her feet. She looked around the room, sunlight filtering in through the cracked shutters. There was no sign of her mother, so Hart took a deep breath and moved to the fire, piling wood on the grate and striking a match. She spooned oats into a pot, poured water over it, and hung it up to cook. Smoke swirled through the room, filling the air as much as it went up the makeshift chimney: a pipe perched precariously through a hole in the ceiling. Hart wafted a hand in front of her face and ignored the stinging in her eyes.
"Where's daddy?" Penny's little voice piped behind her, and Hart stiffened. She didn't want to do this, didn't want to have to be the one to break the news.
All three kids were sitting up in bed, looking sleepy and confused. Hart padded over to them, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling Penny into her lap.
Finn took one look at her face and scowled. "What is it? What's wrong?" At twelve, he idolized their father and the supposed 'glamour' of the fights. He would probably take it worst of all.
"Daddy's fight went badly last night," Hart told them, hugging Penny close. "He's—he's gone."
"He left?" Roe asked.
"No, she means he's at the hospital," Finn admonished.
"No," Hart said, squeezing her eyes shut. "I mean, he's never coming back. He got hurt in the fight. Too hurt. He's …"
"Dead," Finn said flatly, scrambling out of bed. "You mean he's dead."
Hart could only nod. Finn glared at her like she was the one who killed their father, like she was personally responsible for ripping their lives apart.
"He can't be dead," Roe whispered, eyes wide. "Who will take care of us?"
"I will," Hart said fiercely, squeezing Penny tight in her arms. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
"You can't promise that!" Finn slammed out of the house in his ragged pajamas, feet bare. Hart could only stare after him, cuddling the girls close. Penny cried wetly into her shoulder, probably more from the raised voices and confusion than the news that her father was dead. At six, she could hardly be expected to know what they meant, not really. To understand that she'd never see her daddy again, never hear his voice. It was incomprehensible even at eighteen. How could you possibly begin to understand that a person could be there one day and gone the next?
Hart quietly dressed the girls and spooned oatmeal into chipped bowls, ignoring the fact that they did little more than push the mush around with their spoons. She wasn't hungry either.
Finn didn't come back; Hart assumed he'd gone on to work.
Work. She sighed, rubbing tiredly at her face. The 'work' she and the kids did brought in mere pennies. Nearly all their money came from their father. From the fights.
What were they going to do now?
Hart led the girls out of the house, stepping over the makeshift gutters that lay in front of their door. Cracked concrete spread open to reveal fetid pools of trash and waste. Rainwater collected in the deep fissures, the stench rising from it almost rivaling the faint odor of the heap that hung over every part of the Gutter. The air around the cracks always smelled slightly of human waste, evidence of the last time the sewers flooded.