2 Emma pov

The evening shift at Rusty's was always the same. The regulars filtered in first—Old Joe, who nursed the same beer for three hours while he watched whatever game was on the TV above the bar; Maria and her girlfriend, who sat in the corner booth and spoke in low, urgent Spanish; the construction workers who came in still covered in drywall dust and ordered shots of whiskey with beer chasers.

Then, as the night deepened, the clientele changed. The dangerous ones came out after dark. The dealers who conducted business in the bathroom. The gangbangers who eyed each other across the room, hands never far from their waistbands. The women with hard eyes and harder lives who drank to forget.

Emmaline watched them all. She'd learned to read people in the five years since she'd run—learned to spot trouble before it started, learned when to call Rusty (who was never actually at Rusty's but who would show up with a baseball bat if things got really bad), learned how to defuse a situation with a sharp word or a free drink.

She'd also learned how to handle herself if words and free drinks didn't work. The self-defense classes had started as a way to feel safer, to reclaim some sense of control. But then she'd discovered muay thai, and then jujitsu, and she'd found that she was good at it. Really good. The violence that had terrified her when her father raised his hand became something she could control, channel, use.

Around 10:30 PM, a group of bikers rolled in, leather-clad and loud. Emmaline served them without comment, ignoring the way one of them leered at her, the way another made a crude comment about what he'd like to do to her. She'd heard worse. She'd survived worse.

At 11:00 PM, her shift ended. She counted out her tips—$87, not bad for a Tuesday—and pocketed the cash. Jenna was still trying to make conversation, asking about her plans for the rest of the night, but Emmaline just gave her a vague answer and slipped out the back door into the alley.

The November air was cold and sharp, carrying the smell of garbage and exhaust. Emmaline pulled her jacket tighter and headed east, toward the warehouse district.

Toward the fights.

The underground fight club operated out of a converted warehouse on the edge of the industrial district, in a part of the city where the streetlights were broken more often than they worked and the police didn't patrol unless they absolutely had to. There was no sign, no indication of what went on inside. If you knew, you knew. If you didn't, you weren't supposed to.

Emmaline had found it eight months ago, through a guy who came into Rusty's and had a flyer tucked into his jacket. She'd followed him one night, curious and reckless, and had watched from the shadows as men and women beat each other bloody for money and glory and the pure, primal thrill of it.

She'd fought her first match a week later.

The entrance was around the back, down a set of concrete steps that led to a rusted metal door. Emmaline knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more. The door opened, and a mountain of a man named Dmitri looked down at her, his scarred face breaking into a grin.

"Il Assassino," he said, his Russian accent thick. "You fight tonight?"

"I fight tonight," she confirmed.

He stepped aside, and she descended into the warehouse.

The space was cavernous, the ceiling lost in shadows, the concrete floor stained with old blood and sweat. In the center was the cage—chain-link fencing formed into a rough octagon, the floor covered with canvas that had seen better days. Around it, the crowd pressed close, a seething mass of humanity that smelled like violence and desperation and money.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the coppery tang of blood. Somewhere, a generator hummed, powering the harsh fluorescent lights that hung above the cage. The crowd roared as two fighters circled each other, and then one lunged, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the warehouse.

Emmaline made her way through the crowd to the back, where the fighters waited. There were no locker rooms, just a corner sectioned off with hanging tarps. She stripped off her jacket and t-shirt, revealing the black sports bra underneath, and wrapped her hands with practiced efficiency.

"You're up next," said Marco, the man who ran the fights. He was short, wiry, with slicked-back hair and a gold tooth that glinted when he smiled. "Against Razor. He's been asking for a shot at you."

Emmaline had seen Razor fight before. He was big, brutal, all power and no finesse. He'd hospitalize you if he got the chance, and he'd enjoy doing it.

"Fine," she said.

"You know the rules. No biting, no eye-gouging, no groin shots. Everything else is fair game. Fight ends when someone taps out, gets knocked out, or I call it. Winner takes seventy percent of the pot."

Emmaline nodded. She'd heard it all before.

The current fight ended with one fighter unconscious on the canvas, blood streaming from his nose. The crowd roared its approval as he was dragged out of the cage. Marco stepped into the center, his voice booming through a megaphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Our next fight features the undefeated Il Assassino!"

The crowd's roar intensified. Emmaline had built a reputation here. Eight fights, eight wins, most of them brutal and efficient. She didn't showboat. She didn't play to the crowd. She just fought, and she won.

She stepped into the cage, and the chain-link door clanged shut behind her.

Across from her, Razor entered, and the crowd went wild. He was six-two, maybe two-twenty, all muscle and tattoos. He grinned at her, showing missing teeth, and cracked his knuckles.

"Gonna break you, little girl," he said.