The Only Way (7 page)

"You're only twelve."

"And you're a girl!"

Hart sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, letting Penny come to rest in her lap.  "No one has to know that."

"Is that why you cut all your pretty hair?" Roe asked, crawling up beside them.

"It's not fair," Finn persisted.

"No," Hart snapped. "It's not fair. It's not fair that Dad died, and it's not fair Mom ruined her back, and it's not fair I can't get a real job. It's not fair I have to do this to make sure we have food. But life isn't fair."

Finn's eyes widened, but the frown didn't leave his face.

"Look. You're helping too. You're making money off the heap, and you're looking after the girls, and that's just as important. We all have to help now."

Finn shifted slightly, dropping her gaze. "But what if you get hurt?"

"Hey, come here." Hart held out her arms and after a moment Finn climbed onto the bed, tucking himself against her. "If I get hurt, then you're in charge, okay? So you've got to practice now. Keep everything together while I'm gone all day."

"I can do that."

"Good boy." Hart gave him a squeeze, marvelling at how big he felt in her arms these days. She remembered so clearly when he was just a baby, toddling around after her on chubby legs. Now he was all gangly limbs, his baby fat scrubbed away too early by the life they led.

When her mother finally came through the door, she found the four of them curled up together, Hart dozing in their midst.

Chapter Five

"You call that a punch?" Ruby taunted, moving lightly on her feet.

Hart narrowed her eyes and drew her fists up higher, determined. Ruby just laughed.

"Oh, little Hart can't handle some fighting words," she smirked. "How are you supposed to make it in a real fight?"

Hart growled. Ruby obviously thought she was ridiculous:  small, a terrible fighter and destined to lose. And she wasn't afraid to tell Hart that directly to her face. She knew she shouldn't let Ruby's words get to her, but it was a bit too much like the jibes thrown at her by the other Gutter girls. It seemed no matter where Hart was or what she was doing—or
who
she was pretending to be—she wasn't quite good enough. 

"I don't remember
real
fighters talking smack in the ring, actually," she snapped.

Ruby didn't look at all abashed. Instead, she just threw her head back and laughed loudly. "My fists are preparing you for the other fighters," she said, getting up in Hart's face. "My words are preparing you for the
audience
."

She laughed again and danced back, eyes shining. "Now, come on. Hit me!"

Hart narrowed her eyes and tried to do just that. When she missed again, Ruby's giggles reverberated through the whole gym.

*~*~*

Leo directed most of Hart's training, having her run laps around the block and jump rope endlessly in the gym. He told her how much weight to lift, how many times and when. He told her what to eat and when to sleep. But in the ring, it was mostly just Hart and Ruby. Leo would set them to it and wander away, off to deal with the business of running an arena or the other fighters.

Hart and Ruby sparred, and she tried to put the moves Leo had taught her into action. 'Tried' being the operative word.

Ruby laughed at her more than anything else, taunting her about her form, her footwork, her punches and even her height. Given the steady flow of abuse from the other girl, Hart doubted she was ever going to be good enough to get back in the ring, but Leo still tossed her a coin every night—to keep her coming back, he said—so she must be doing something right.

"Come on," Ruby said, looming over her. "Get up."

"Yeah," Hart wheezed, struggling to prop herself up on her elbows. "Just give me a second."

Ruby arched an eyebrow, looking singularly unimpressed. She planted her feet on either side of Hart's splayed legs, hands on her hips. "They won't give you a second to catch your breath in the ring," she pointed out. "You stay down and you're out."

"I know," Hart snapped, struggling to sit up, extricating herself from under the girl. Ruby had knocked the breath right out of her in that last takedown, and it burned as she sucked air back into her lungs.

"Look at that," a deep male voice snickered. Hart bristled, preparing for more mockery. "Always knew Ruby was the kind of girl who'd want to be on top."

A tall, muscular man leaned in the doorway with a leer on his face. From his build, it was clear he was another fighter.

Hart snuck a glance up at Ruby, but the girl just rolled her eyes.

"You ever want to climb on top of a real man, sweetheart," the guy continued. "Let me know."

"Why?" Ruby asked, feigning interest. "Do you know one?"

Hart couldn't help but snicker as the guy scowled, pointing a meaty finger at Ruby. "You think you're so tough, prancing around in the ring. Everyone knows you're just a slut who wants to roll around with a different man every day."

From her vantage point, Hart could see the way Ruby tensed, but her tone was light when she replied, "If I'm such a huge slut, then you must be
really
pathetic since you've been failing to talk your way into my bed for months."

"Whore," the man muttered and stomped down the hall.

Hart shifted uncomfortably, climbing to her feet. She may have bristled at Ruby's brand of ‘instruction', but she didn't think Ruby deserved to be talked to that way. No girl did.

Ruby caught sight of the expression on Hart's face and shook her head. "Oh, please. Stop with the pitying looks. I'm not some delicate flower. I can handle guys like Lunn."

"I never said you couldn't." Hart held up her hands, placating.

"Damn straight, you didn't." Ruby gave her a wolfish grin. "Since I'm not done handing your ass to you."

It seemed so unfair that even here—in the Alley, in a gym owned by her father, in the ring where she proved herself as a boxer—Ruby still couldn't escape the kind of comments that got thrown at the girls back home. Hart had assumed it was just the Gutter girls who had to deal with the lingering eyes, the rude words, the belief that they were always up for it just because of who they were and where they lived. But Ruby was getting that same shit in her own home.

"Do they …" she began, as they took their fighting stances. "Do they talk to you like that a lot?"

Ruby's eyes cut away, and she shrugged, a tense movement of her narrow shoulders. "Sometimes. Doesn't matter, though."

That's what all the girls back home said, too. It 'didn't matter,' it was 'just talk.' Like Hart didn't see the way it hurt them.

"They shouldn't be allowed to get away with that."

"I don't let them get away with it, do I?" Ruby said sharply.

"No," Hart conceded with a wry smile. "You're pretty tough."

"The type of guys who come in here … they don't know what to do with a girl in the ring," Ruby said. "Guys like that only have one use for girls. And it isn't fighting."

"Well, that's bullshit," Hart said with a frown.

For the first time that week, the smile Ruby gave her wasn't taunting. Hart smiled back.

She paid more attention to the people in the gym after that. Occasionally other fighters passed through, peering in to the practice room and stopping to talk to Leo. Hart understood why Leo never introduced any of them to her. She wondered which of them she'd be fighting first.

They were bigger than her and slightly older; men in their twenties who had filled out through their shoulders in a way Hart never would. They were all from the Gutter, rough around the edges.

As they passed, they leered at Ruby, making comments about her presence in the ring, calling her 'honey' or 'baby' or 'sweetcheeks.' Every time, Hart bristled even as Ruby shrugged them off, offering snide remarks in return.

"Eventually, I'll get to kick all their asses," Hart finally said as yet another muscled lughead strolled away, his remarks about Ruby's ass lingering uncomfortably in the room.

A small smile twitched over Ruby's lips. "You know, I think you just might."

*~*~*

"Gunnar is out."

Hart paused on her way to the changing room as Leo's voice drifted in from an adjoining hall.

"What do you mean ‘out'?" Ruby demanded. "He's got a fight tonight."

Hart remembered Gunnar from that first day in Leo's gym; she lingered in the doorway, waiting to hear what Leo might say.

"Injured."

"Bad?"

Hart couldn't see his face, but she could imagine the imperceptible shrug Leo would give. "Bad enough. Snapped collarbone."

Ruby let out a small noise, a choking in the back of her throat. "Will it heal?"

"If he saw a doctor, probably."

"But there are no doctors in the Gutter," Ruby finished, bitterness dripping from her voice.

Hart imagined Leo shrugging again; that was just the way things were. There were women who'd help you set your bones, splinting as best they could with whatever was lying around. But no one in the Gutter had ever been to a real doctor.

She leaned back against the wall as Ruby continued angrily, "He's got kids!"

"I know," Leo sighed.

"So what's going to happen to them?"

"Ruby, not this again. These things happen."

"Yeah, because you put him in the ring against someone ten years younger than him and fifty pounds heavier," Ruby snapped. Hart's eyes widened.

"He wanted that fight."

"He
needed
that fight. Those are two different things and you know it."

"Ruby," her father sighed. "What do you expect me to do?"

Hart heard Ruby let out an angry, frustrated noise and resisted the urge to peek around the corner to see what was happening. She was shocked to hear Ruby—Alley-raised and arena-bred—saying the same sort of things that had crossed her own mind, every time Duncan went out to fight.

"Something," Ruby said finally.

"I'm already doing what I can. You know that. I'm giving these guys a chance when no one else would."

Whatever Ruby thought, Hart knew Leo was right. He had helped Hart the only way he could. He couldn't change the fact that her father was dead and her mother was injured. He couldn't change the fact that there wasn't enough work to go around or the unfairness of how it was distributed. But he could let her fight.

"They shouldn't have to fight just to survive," Ruby said, defeat in her tone.

Hart knew she was wrong. Everyone was fighting to survive. That was the way the world worked. At the sound of footsteps, Hart turned and slipped into the shower room.

*~*~*

Hart stepped out of the ring, her thoughts already on the shower waiting for her, when Leo popped his head into the gym. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Your first fight."

Hart felt her pulse spike. "I already had my first fight."

Leo smiled. "Your first fight where you have a shot at winning."

He walked off blithely as Hart fought down the panic rising in her throat. She didn't think she was ready; she wasn't sure she'd ever be ready. She walked to the shower in a daze, turning on the spray mindlessly and just standing under it for long minutes, until the water turned cool. Leo thought she was ready, she reminded herself, trying to pretend it was the cool water that was making her shake. He wouldn't send her in unless he was sure.

She hoped.

*~*~*

In the morning, Hart went with Finn and the girls to the heap for the first time in a week, trying to keep her thoughts off the ring. She was getting better, or so Ruby and Leo kept telling her. But was she good enough to win? Ruby still pinned her one time out of two, and Hart couldn't pretend the other fighters wouldn't be at least as good as the daughter of the arena owner. She still had a blind spot a mile wide when it came to kicks being thrown at her. It would only take her opponent noticing that she tended to forget about the lower halves of their bodies to take her down.

As the day crawled by, anxiety worked its way into her bones, tugging at her sharply. She half-heartedly combed through the heap, placing items in her bag without thought. She wasn't even sure what she was gathering up was worth the effort of carrying it all the way to the fence. Hart prided herself on her eagle eye when it came to trash, but today she couldn't focus enough to tell the junk from the treasures. She handed her bag to Finn at the end of the day with a shrug. Hell, she didn't even remember what was in there.

Before she left that evening, she hugged Roe and Penny for a long time.

"You don't have to do this," her mother whispered, drawing her close.

"I'll be fine," Hart lied.

The arena seemed different late at night. The streets were lit, the glow of the streetlamps tucking its dingier aspects into shadow. A crowd bustled out front, queuing to get inside. Rowdy men, some already drunk, talked and laughed boisterously at the door.

Hart slipped in the back entrance, trying not to think how all those people were there just to see her bleed. The small changing room was empty, leaving Hart no opportunity to sneak a peek at her opponent, to size him up before they got into the ring. Sighing, she stripped off her sweatshirt and shoes and sat down on the bench, slowly and methodically wrapping her hands, trying to steady her breathing. Focus on the task at hand, moving the tape around and around. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but suddenly Ruby was right in front of her, looking down at her with kind eyes. "You ready?"

Hart looked up. "As I'll ever be."

*~*~*

She hit the mat with a loud groan, disappointment flowing out of her like air. The other fighter stood over her, his foot pressed sharply to her collarbone, just enough pressure to let her know he could break it if she so much as wriggled. She held still, her head ringing from the last blow.

"Better luck next time," Leo told her as she limped out of the arena.

*~*~*

Hart went down on her face, the slippery surface of the mat smacking loudly against her cheek. She closed her eyes, willing her vision to stop spinning as the fighter landed heavily on top of her, a knee in the center of her back to pin her while the count rang out. There was blood in her eyelashes, tinting everything red.