Duke Dolce
“What’s the point of this again?” asks my brother, sounding both annoyed and resigned as he pulls his new Lotus up outside the Slaughterpen, a warehouse that once belonged to Dad but now belongs to Jacob Darling. “We have more important things to do.”
“It’s the last fight weekend before they fill in the pit,” I say. “We should go for Royal’s last fight tomorrow too.”
Baron makes a noncommittal sound, looking unconvinced.
“Plus, hot girls beating the fuck out of each other,” I say, shooting him a grin. “What’s not to like? Think of all the blood and pain we’re about to witness.”
That perks him up, which is why I said it.
Something settles inside me when he relaxes. He climbs out of the car, and we head for the chain link fence, where a line has formed. There’s a good turnout—that bastard Colt drummed up a big crowd for the final Femme Fight Friday. My gaze skates over the line, landing on the man at the gate, taking money and letting people in.
He talks to everyone, but he doesn’t smile. He’s fast, even with his fucked up hand.
We did that.
We fucked up his hand. We took away the easy smile that used to hang around as relentlessly as a stalker, until I unleashed my demon on him. A flicker of pride swells at the sight of his four-fingered hand, now tattooed to cover the extensive burn scars, so severe he can’t fully extend his fingers. Good. Colt Darling doesn’t deserve pretty things. That’s why we gave him the fugliest dog to be his bitch all through high school.
I join the end of the line and pull out a pack of cigarettes.
“What the fuck?” Baron asks, scowling at the queue in front of us.
“Trust, I’ve tried to skip the line before,” I say, cupping the tip of my cigarette while I light up. “Colt’s not some asshole bouncer in Manhattan on a power trip, turning nobodies away and letting people like us go first. Everyone waits, like we’re equal or something. It’s fucked up, but it’s his show, and that’s how he runs shit.”
“Since when do you smoke?” Baron asks, snatching the cigarette from my lips mid-drag. He tosses it to the pavement and crushes it under his Edward Green boot.
“Hey,” I protest.
“That shit kills you,” he says. “Thank me when you’re old and your lungs don’t look like the last pile of snow to melt in New York.”
“What do I care?” I demand. “You think we’re going to live long enough to see our kids get baptized, let alone be grandparents ? Come on, Baron, we’d be lucky to make it to Club 27. Our world is fucked. We might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”
He shakes his head. “Who the fuck have you been talking to?”
“Since you weren’t around?” I ask, pulling out another cigarette. “Anyone who’d talk to me. Besides, Royal smokes, and you never give him shit.”
“Weed,” he points out. “There’s a reason for that.”
“I have a reason,” I say before I can think better of it.
“Cigarettes are for poor people,” Baron says flatly. “Now put that shit away.”
I think about lighting it just to piss him off, but I know I won’t be able to smoke it long enough to enjoy it before he stomps it out again. And if I tried, if I closed my eyes and inhaled deep, if I let it linger between my lips like it had been between another pair of lips before mine, he might ask my reason. And when I couldn’t tell him, he might guess that they’re the same for me as the suckers are for him. Baron’s perceptive. He could figure it out if he tried.
So I put it back in the pack and shove them into my pocket, pushing down the craving. I can drink it away inside. He won’t think anything of that.
We’re almost to the front of the line anyway, almost to where Colt stands with his unsmiling face and his ugly hand and his stupid rules that make poor people feel like our equals.
He shakes a lock of blond hair out of his face, cool and guarded as he tips his chin at the couple in front of us, taking their money and motioning for them to go ahead. I hate him for that. For still being cool after all we did to him, all we took from him. There was always something untouchable inside him, unreachable. Something we couldn’t crush, not even when we stomped him into the ground like a cockroach. Like a cockroach, he always came back, unruffled and unbothered, like we didn’t matter.
He’s the one who doesn’t matter.
“Let us in,” I order, glaring at him resentfully.
“Don’t be a dickbag just because your brother’s home,” he drawls. “I know you’re good for a few bucks.”
“And I know you don’t need the money this is bringing in,” I point out.
He shrugs one shoulder, like it’s not worth the effort to lift both. “The fighters do.”
“Let us in, or I rip the metal plate out of your head and skull fuck the hole left until your brain oozes out your ears,” Baron growls.
“Sexy,” Colt drawls, dropping a lazy wink. “But everyone pays except the fighters.”
“You don’t pay,” I point out.
“True, but I run the show,” he says, rewarding me with a rare smile, one that feels like victory even though he’s the one gloating. “This isn’t a new club in New York where your name gets you on the list.”
“Told you,” I mutter to my brother.
“Let’s get out of here,” Baron says. “We don’t need this shit.”
“I don’t mind donating to charity,” I say, pulling out my wallet and handing over the cash I brought just for the occasion. “Maybe you can fix your ugly-ass hand so chicks don’t run screaming when you try to touch them.”
Colt drags the bills from my hand, letting his fingertips scrape over my palm. “No complaints so far,” he says, smirking at me as I stomp past him.
The asshole is way too full of himself now that his name has been restored to glory in this town. Or maybe he always was, and that’s why we hit him hardest, and why we let him stay to learn his lesson so many times. Now that he’s not our victim, he and I still keep up the act, needling each other to see how far we can push. But we only play at it. We both know the truth—that it pisses me off beyond reason to know that he is unbreakable and I’m not.
“Girls don’t complain because they won’t let you get close enough to touch,” Baron grumbles, giving Colt a look of pure loathing.
“Don’t be scared, Gloria’s not here,” Colt says, cracking a grin at my brother as he takes money from the next group.
“I’m not scared of Glory Hole Walton,” Baron snaps.
“You should be,” Colt says, never missing a beat, stacking paper and letting in a steady stream, clearly comfortable and in his element here, on the gritty side of town. “She’s got a car and she knows how to use it. I’m guessing you’d be next on her list.”
“I fucked your girlfriend,” Baron says, pulling a sucker from his pocket and casually unwrapping it. “All that time you thought Dixie was so devoted she’d never be with anyone else? Yeah, I’d already busted in her.”
“I’d punch you, but she’s not worth bruising my knuckles over,” Colt says, giving change and ushering in the next group of guys. “Really I should thank you for taking her off my hands. Keep her. She’s all yours.”
Baron’s jaw ticks, his only tell that he’s irritated. I’m not sure he ever gets truly angry, but I’m relieved he’s seeing at least a sliver of what I’ve had to endure since he left. Being unable to put the Darlings in their place is maddening.
Before he can respond, Royal and Harper come through the line, and Harper congratulates Colt on the huge turnout.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” Royal rumbles as they join us.
“Letting me?” Harper asks. “Like you could stop me.”
“I could stop you,” he says with a haughty grin.
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Is that a challenge, Cherry Pie?”
“Dukey,” yells Olive, running over and launching herself at me with complete confidence that I’ll catch her.
I do. I lift her off her feet, this scrawny little bundle of knobby knees and gap teeth and ratty hair who filled in a tiny bit of the empty hole that was torn in our lives when Dad died and Baron skipped town. He just came back last week for graduation, and he doesn’t quite get it, why she’s here and what she means, how much everything changed. He was off grieving Dad in his own way, alone, while the rest of us huddled together like refugees and rebuilt what we could in the aftermath. The bonds we formed aren’t something that makes sense, even to us.
“You sure they let kids in here?” I ask.
“They let me in,” Olive says with a cheeky little grin, picking up a duffle she dropped when she ran to me. “I made us all shirts. Look!”
She unzips the bag and hands white t-shirts to me, Baron, and Royal, tucking the rest of the bundle back in before standing to hold up a shirt against her skinny frame. A red apple is printed on the front, with the word “Teeny” written across it.
“Gotta represent the home team,” I say, peeling off my shirt and tugging on the tee, which is at least a size too small. It hugs my torso, straining over my muscles. I see a MILF eye-fucking me on her way in and shoot her a wink. Harper rolls her eyes, and I hold out a fist to give her knuckles. “Dab me up, Appleteeny. Looks like you got yourself a cheering squad.”
“I’m not wearing that,” Baron says, staring incredulously at Royal as he pulls on the shirt Olive gave him.
“I think you are,” Royal says. “Or you’re leaving.”
“Is she wearing your balls on a chain around her neck?” Baron demands.
“Only a man with no balls would be threatened by people seeing him supporting his girlfriend,” Harper says.
“You’re not my girlfriend,” Baron points out, then smirks. “Though I did fuck you.”
Royal tenses, his muscles flexing so big inside the shirt I’m surprised it doesn’t rip right off him like The Hulk. “Say another word, and the only blood you’ll be seeing tonight is your own,” he grits out.
“If I recall, your ass wasn’t good enough to wear a shirt like your little bitch,” Baron says, tossing the shirt at Harper’s feet. “So you must have his balls.”
Royal takes a step toward him, but Baron just holds up a hand, unfazed. “I’m out,” he says. “Come on, Duke.”
“I want to see the chicks fight,” I protest. “At least stay until Harper’s done.”
“I’m bored of this town,” Baron says. “We should have left last weekend.”
“I’m not ready to leave,” I say. “Just a few more days.”
“I’ll be at home,” he says, turning away.
Something pulls tight inside me when he walks away, back out the gate, alone again. The bigger part of me wants to follow, to be by his side like I always was, our whole lives. But he left. He didn’t take me with him, not even to tag along like a sidekick. He left me adrift, purposeless, the Joker without Batman. He doesn’t need me the way I need him. He made that much clear.
So when Olive slips her tiny hand into mine, her skinny fingers clutching my thick ones, and tugs at my arm to get my attention, I give it to her.
“You’re not leaving, right?” she asks, bouncing up and down on her toes. “You’ll stay and watch with me?”
“Sure, kid,” I say, sparing a glance at the parking lot. Baron’s already behind the wheel of his Lotus, pulling out of his spot. “You got it.”
“Yay!” Olive says. “I made twenty shirts. Let’s find more people for Harper’s cheering squad.”
At least someone wants me around, even if she doesn’t need me either.
*
The first time I came to one of Harper’s fights, I thought it would be lame. All the girls I know are obsessed with their looks, so I figured the girls at Femme Fight Friday would take it easy on each other. When Harper told me they didn’t fight in their underwear, I was even less interested.
Now I know it’s not like the fights you see on TV. The girls aren’t trying to be hot. And they’re not afraid to get dirty or bloody. I thought Royal would go apeshit the first time a girl landed a punch in Harper’s nose and blood went flying in an arc, something that should have been captured in slow-motion for instant replay. But there are no cameras here except phones, and it’s hard to get a good shot in the shadowy dirt pit where, what seems like a lifetime ago, Harper burned her brass knuckles into me and gave me a brand that made me look like a traitor to my family.
Royal gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, but he didn’t jump down there and haul her ass out. He let the other fighter hand it to her, and when she climbed out, bloody and grinning, he just said, “Tough loss.”
She’s doing better tonight.
“Yes!” Olive screams, dancing up and down on the precarious edge of a chunk of cement, one of many that surround the pit where the bloody fighters beat the shit out of each other with bare knuckles. She totters, and I grab her arm before she can pitch in.
“Come here,” I say, grabbing her scrawny waist. I lift her over my head, settling her onto my shoulders so she can see over the crowd.
“Hey, man,” the guy behind me protests. “Get that kid out of my way.”
“If you can’t see, move,” I growl at him.
He looks like the kind of little bitch boy who might argue, but after taking a second look at me, and Royal beside me, he turns and skulks off, muttering, “What kind of person brings his kid to a thing like this?”
I turn back around. Harper has her opponent on the ground. I watch her finish the girl off, but my mind is on the guy’s words.
His kid.
He called Olive my kid. It’s weird because I never figured I’d get to have kids. I’d screw them up too bad. But I always wanted them. Now I can’t get the guy’s words to go away. I like the sound of them.
I grip her little ankles tighter as she throws her arms over her head and screams along with everyone else when Harper stands back after the girl on the ground taps out, signaling the fight is over.
I could be Olive’s dad. She doesn’t have one. And she really likes me for some reason, though I’m not sure why.
I finish off my beer, toss the plastic cup on the floor with all the others, and jump up and down, yelling for Harper to kick more ass. Olive shrieks and grabs onto my head. I bend down and spin in a circle, spinning Olive out above me. She screams like a banshee, her legs clamping onto my neck, hanging onto my ears for dear life.
“Stop it,” a voice says, a sharp finger poking into my side. “You’re scaring her.”
I straighten and grin down at Harper, the world tilting around me. “Nice going down there, Jailbird.”
Without waiting for her to answer me, Royal spins her around, picks her up and slams her against him. She wraps her legs and arms around him, and they proceed to eat each other’s faces.
“Am I scaring you, Olive?” I ask, tilting my head up to look at the kid on my shoulders.
“Yes!” she cries, her voice shrill through her panting breaths. “Do it again!”
I laugh and bend down, holding her feet with both hands to keep her on my shoulders. Then I spin, my body buzzing with a hot current, the careening thrill of being alive electrifying my veins. I spin and spin, a merry-go-round, an airplane, weightless. Her giggling, wild shriek feeds the hunger for whatever is missing in me, urges me on. Olive is the first thing that’s felt new since we lost Mabel and I found Colt, and it’s every bit as addictive, if in an entirely different way. I didn’t know how much I needed it until I found it in her.
Dolces need novelty. We’re not craftsmen or builders.
We’re hunters. Seekers. Innovators.
It’s in our makeup, our design. We need to pursue, to move, to track and snare and kill, to outsmart and conquer, to win, to improve, to climb higher and run faster and be better. When there’s nothing new, when we’ve already gotten what everyone else is still fighting for, we find new thrills to chase, new dangers to court, forever searching for that elusive challenge.
Suddenly Olive’s legs are wrenched from my hands, and I feel her body connect at the same moment somehow, the realization of what happened only hitting after I’ve lost her, her scream reaching me too late. The pain in it registers a half second after it hits my ears, as I blink stupidly up at the lights and the crowd, my vision still spinning, my world tilting. I try to stand, but I sway off to one side, too dizzy to regain my feet. Her shrieks echo through the raucous crowd, high-pitched and keening as a dying animal.
The crowd around us huddles, drawn back from the circle I made when I swung her around. They all stepped back so I wouldn’t hit them. So what did I hit?
“You dumbass,” Harper barks, smacking the back of my head with her palm as she rushes past. “I told you to stop!”
Royal’s huge body is hunched over something on the ground, someone so small I can’t even see her past his bulk. A few people push in to help, and I stumble onto my hands and knees and crawl over, swaying drunkenly, though it’s as much from dizziness as beer. My head won’t stop spinning, and then I see her little body quaking on the ground, so tiny, nothing but bony knees and skinny elbows. Her hands are clutching her head, her body curled up in the fetal position, her screams like nails hammering into the coffin of my soul.
There’s blood spreading on the floor around her head, and I finally see. The jagged edge of one of the pieces of concrete we were sitting and standing on, now marked with a chunk of her hair, blood dripping off it.
“Call 911,” Harper yells, patting frantically at herself, since she just left the pit and is only wearing a pair of tiny shorts and one of the tees Olive made. Blood is splattered on the front, though I don’t know if it’s hers or her opponent’s or Olive’s.
“You can’t,” Royal growls. “They’ll bust the fighting ring.”
“Who fucking cares?” Harper screams.
“Give her to me,” I say, stumbling to my feet and reaching for her. “I’ll take her to the hospital.”
Harper steps into my path, her voice going cold. “You’ve done enough.”
“I got her,” Royal says, standing with the body in his arms, so fragile, like a crushed baby bird. “Let’s go.”
He starts for the door, and everyone moves aside, the Red Sea parting for my brother, the chosen one. I stand there, my arms hanging at my sides, watching them go.