District One Tournament Day Two: Graves vs Wright

I don't know what the fuck happened.

When I beat Rafael, my hands started shaking. I could feel the gooseflesh as it made it's way across my body in waves, could feel every single nerve in my body like each and every single one of them was on fire, couldn't bring myself to move. I was, almost certainly, in fucking shock.

Can you blame me?

This is not how I wanted to spend my time.

I understood what I was entering in theory, understood that I would be fighting other kids who had spent their entire lives training for shit like this, had always been one of the ones in the crowd begging to be on the mat. But I never had been. Not once. I was busy letting my teeth rot. Busy eating dirt every time I went flying over my handlebars. Busy making music with whatever I could get my hands on. A pair of sticks on a rock. Pots and pans. Sometime I'll show you the guitar that I made out of cardboard when I was a kid.

Standing here, in front of Jupiter Graves taking this so seriously, the only motivation I have to win is the fact that I know no one here thinks that I can.

No one here believe in me. Not for this.

"Do the two need to be mutually exclusive?" I ask before his knife cuts across the mat. I try to dive away from him as quickly as I can, but it buries itself in my calf and I have the clench my jaw so tightly I'm afraid I might break a tooth. I inhale a breath before rolling back up onto my feet. I'm closer to him now, much closer, and I'll use the proximity to make my own attack. "Because I'm definitely a shithead."

I fucking hate throwing knives.

Just get in my face.

"Doesn't mean I'm not trying to win."

It’s the being surprised when he gets a knife in his arm and it’s gushes blood that really just... make me boil, or something.

Look, I don’t get mad very often. And you would think that in a fight, I’d be more prepared for someone to lay hands on me, but it’s just not the same. Fuck, I spent so many years on alley ways with boys bigger than me beating my face into the ground, went to school and always ended up with my head in the toilet or my face in the dirt or with finger jabbing into me while I walked down the hallway. Well, I did until I started fighting back, shoving my stupid skinny fingers into people’s eyes and curling them into a fist and jabbing someone in the throat hard enough I had time to run the fuck away, but. It was always the hands. My moms boyfriends, their palms on the back of my neck, On my shoulder. Just. Hands, on me, over and over and over and I hated it every fucking time.

I don’t know how to tell you I like it better when he buries one of those stupid throwing knives in my bicep then I did when he had his hands on me for those brief seconds.

But then there’s pain.

And I know he ain’t here to fuck around either.

“Really?” I ask through gritted teeth, feeling blood soaking into my shirt and down my arm. “Couldn’t hit me somewhere original? Gotta be a copycat?”

I don’t want him to answer.

And, naturally, things got worse.

That tends to happen to me.

I mean, shit, 'til six month's ago I ain't had anything go right in this stupid life of mine. Not one single fucking thing. Dad? Apparently mom's pimp. Mom? In jail. Siblings? fucking scattered. I mean, I'm working on that last one, doing bullshit like this tournament just so that I have more clout in this stupid district that has spent my entire life trying to make sure I never get out of the gutter that I was born in.

...

Anyway. Now that that's done.

"Piece of what," I say around the copper I can taste in my mouth. I spit onto the ground, and sure enough my blood splatters. "You'll what, pretty boy."

I want to hit him back. I want to hit him back. I want to hit him back. I really, really, really, really want to hit him back. My fingers tighten around the hilt of my knife until I can feel my nails pressing into my palm, sharp as blades, and then I twist and turn until I'm behind him, and I cut him there.

"You'll make sure you miss me?"