"Just ring the bell, Trent." Clayton said mildly. Rusty walked to the edge of the mat holding a thick wad of bills. He looked at Clayton with genuine pity. ""All right.
Three minutes. You go limp, you tap, or you don't get up, it's over. No eye gouging, no biting."" "Easy money." Trent announced to the room, raising his taped hands. He bounced from foot to foot, his breathing hissing through his teeth in sharp, rhythmic bursts.
Rusty chopped his hand down. Trent closed the distance instantly. He didn't respect Clayton, which meant he didn't bother with a feeler jab. He threw a heavy looping overhand right, aiming to end it in three seconds.
Clayton didn't slip with the graceful fluidity of a boxer. He simply hunched his shoulders and tucked his chin, a brutal, pragmatic movement. Trent's fist crashed into Clayton's forehead, the thickest, hardest bone in the human skull. A sickening crack echoed.
Trent winced, stumbling back a half step, shaking his right hand. He had aimed for the jaw and hit solid bone. Clayton felt a flash of white light behind his eyes. A dull, sickening wave of nausea rolled through his stomach.
It hurt. It hurt badly. He wasn't invincible. He was 3eight years old.
His knees ached from the damp, and his lower back was a constant knot of pain. He tasted the sharp, metallic tang of blood where he had bitten the inside of his cheek. "Stay small." A cold, dead voice whispered in his mind. The voice he hadn't heard since the dusty streets of Al Anbar.
""Let him work. Watch his hips."" Trent, angered by his own mistake, unleashed a flurry. A jab snapped Clayton's head back. A vicious low kick slammed into Clayton's left thigh.
The sound of flesh on flesh, a wet, heavy thwack, made a woman in the front row gasp. Clayton stumbled, his leg buckling slightly. "Come on, dirt boy." Trent spat, smelling blood. He threw a high roundhouse kick, aiming for Clayton's temple.
Clayton's reaction was entirely devoid of grace. It was ugly, born of survival rather than sport. He didn't try to block the kick, he stepped into it. He lunged forward closing the space before the leg could generate full momentum.
Trent's shin slapped harmlessly against Clayton's ribs wrapping around his back. With Trent balanced on one leg, his momentum compromised, Clayton just leaned his weight forward and shoved. It was a clumsy, heavy push. Trent crashed backward onto the foam mats, his breath leaving him in a loud oof.
The crowd fell dead silent. The jukebox in the corner seemed to suddenly blare louder, a tinny country song mocking the tension. Trent scrambled to his feet, his face flushing crimson. The smirk was gone, replaced by a tight, furious grimace.
He felt humiliated. A dirt-poor farmer had just dumped him on his back. Clayton stood exactly where he had been. He wiped a streak of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his greasy thumb.
He looked at the red smear on his skin. He felt the heavy, rhythmic thumping of his heart in his chest. He didn't want to be here. He hated the adrenaline flooding his veins.
It felt like poison. "You're dead!" Trent hissed, shifting his stance. He dropped his hand slightly preparing for a takedown. He was going to take the farmer to the ground, mount him, and cave his face in.
Clayton sighed, a short, ragged breath that smelled of stale beer and copper. He rolled his shoulders feeling the joints pop. He stopped trying to look small. He squared his hips.
His stance shifted from the awkward slouch of a tired farmer to a grounded, perfectly balanced base. He didn't raise his fists like a boxer, he kept his hands low, open, relaxed. Trent charged fanning a left hook and shooting for Clayton's waist. He expected the farmer to sprawl or panic or stumble backward.
Instead, Clayton stepped slightly to the diagonal. It was a micro adjustment, barely an inch of movement, but it changed the angle of the entire fight. Trent was suddenly diving into empty air. As Trent's head dropped past Clayton's waist, Clayton didn't strike.
He didn't need to. He simply placed his heavy calloused hand on the back of Trent's neck, gripped the thick fabric of his board shorts with the other, and used Trent's own desperate momentum against him. With a sickening crash, Trent face-planted into the unyielding floor beneath the thin foam mat. Splinters of pain radiated up Clayton's arms from the sheer force of the redirection.
Clayton stepped back, his chest heaving, his left leg throbbing violently from the earlier kick. He looked down at the martial artist who was currently gasping for air, nose pressed into the duct tape. "two minutes left." Clayton said quietly. Foam squeaked under Trent's palms as he pushed himself up from the mat.
A thin, bright line of crimson leaked from his left nostril, tracking down his lip, and dropping onto his bare chest. He wiped it away with the back of his taped hand, leaving a smeared red streak across his knuckles. He didn't look at the crowd anymore. The performance aspect of the fight had evaporated, replaced by a hot, ugly panic that he desperately tried to mask with rage.
He had never been handled like that. He was used to guys who swung wild, guys who telegraphed their haymakers from the next zip code, guys who gassed out in 60 seconds. Clayton wasn't swinging. Clayton wasn't even breathing hard.