For The One(123)

I’ve swept him in the final round, but suddenly the chinstrap on my helmet is feeling very tight. As the flag comes down and I’m declared the winner, I yank the chinstrap free to alleviate that feeling. I’m coming back from “the zone,” and I’m all too aware of the crowd again.

Everyone is cheering loudly, waving their hands and stomping their feet. “Huzzah!” they shout, and the ground starts wavering beneath my feet. I turn toward Jenna to find her gaze, and our eyes meet through my visor before her head jerks to the side. She’s looking off to my right and her eyes widen. Before I can even guess what’s happening, a weight slams into me from behind, knocking me to my knees. “Stupid fucking retard!” I hear Doug yell, just as he lands a blow on my head, one that knocks my helmet completely off.

I turn to see what’s happened, and now the refs and my cousin are on top of Doug, wrestling him to the ground as he continues to shout obscenities. I make a wobbling attempt to get back on my feet, but suddenly the world goes fuzzy and the ground feels like it’s buckling.

There’s stickiness across my forehead and moisture running into my eyes, stinging them. I’m overheated, but it’s too much to just be sweat.

And before I have another thought, everything goes black.





Chapter 33

Jenna

The whole crowd gasped as we watched William go down. Instead of shaking hands and walking away like a gentleman, Doug had charged William the minute his back was turned…to look for me.

My heart stopped as William fell over, lifeless, like a bag of sand. Blood streamed down his forehead and into his eyes. So much blood…

And he wasn’t moving. He was as still as that bag of sand.

With a curse, Mia jumped up from her spot beside me and hopped the short fence to run to him.

But I couldn’t move. I was frozen where I sat, aware only of the racing heartbeat in my throat, the ice invading my limbs, the shallowness of my breathing.

Absurd. That word once again invaded my thoughts, and I almost laughed—laughed—to stave off the cold panic.

I tried to get up and follow after Mia, because somewhere in the midst of this strange, outside-of-myself sensation, I knew that’s what I should do. But my legs wouldn’t obey and my arms were like dead wood. The sounds of everyone around me echoed as if from a vast distance.

I was in the middle of a dream—no, a nightmare—willing myself to wake up. Every cell in my body weighed more by a factor of at least a hundred, or maybe even a thousand.

Mia and Adam crouched over William’s unconscious form. People in the crowd were on their feet, watching it all, discussing amongst themselves what had just happened. Mia cupped a hand around William’s neck and gently rolled him onto his back while checking his vital signs. Adam pulled out his cell phone, presumably to call 911.

And all I could do was sit here and stare, as if I was watching a news report on TV.

“Holy crap, what the hell just happened?” Alex said at my shoulder as the two refs dragged Doug out of the ring. Several people from the clan council quickly crowded around him just outside the arena.

Someone ran up to Mia with what looked like a first aid kit, which she quickly sifted through before pulling out a package of gauze. As I watched her tend to William, saw the blood begin to soak through the white bandage, my numb fists knotted so tightly that my fingers cramped.

I closed my eyes as a massive shudder wracked my body. My throat constricted at the recollection of that horrible night when Helena woke me up, sobbing, telling me there’d been an accident. That Brock had been killed.

I wanted to cry, but no tears came. Everything within me was lifeless and cold as the Moon.

Was it happening again? Could Fate really be this cruel?

When I was six, Aunt Beti sat my sister and I down next to each other on the couch of the tiny apartment we lived in when we first came to the US. Mama and Papa were due to arrive next month, so I couldn’t imagine why Beti had tears in her eyes. I recalled her gripping her hands so tightly that the skin turned white, and I’d focused on them as she told us she had news.

Papa would not be coming. He’d been hit by a sniper’s bullet on his way back from getting the water for the week. Beti said he’d been pulling the big tanks in a wagon behind him, like he did every week since the beginning days of the siege. There hadn’t been running water or electricity in Sarajevo for months—years.

But I was six and I didn’t understand any of that. What I did understand was that I was never going to see my papa again. I’d never again hug him around his neck and feel his whiskers tickle me when he kissed me. I’d never listen to him tell me another one of those wild and outlandish bedtime stories. I’d never sneak another piece of halvi from him when Mama wasn’t looking. I’d never again get to look in his eyes.