State of Decay Read Online Free Page B

over. I headed down the sidewalk to the subway station, hoping victim number five would tell me something the other four hadn’t.

Calliope Flax—Arena Porco Rojo
    “Calliope . . . Flax . . . is . . . down !”
    A judge was screaming through the amp, but fuck if I could hear anything else with my ear in the canvas and the rest of my face full of sweat, muscle, and tit. No one ever called me pretty, but if that bitch wasn’t XY, she was a freak. She was too thick and too hard, and to make weight she must have flushed out both ends for a week, because no way was she in my class. She was slow, though, and leaned too much on her size. I was seeing black, and all I knew was when I got loose, her size wouldn’t save her.
    I couldn’t see her, but my palm was in her chin and I pushed until she had to move. When she went back and turned, I jammed my thumb deep under her jawbone so she couldn’t back come down and pin me like she wanted. I grabbed her jaw and twisted, and she had to get off and deal with me or I’d break it. When she did, I let go and kicked back, but I cracked into the chain-link pole at the edge of the ring. She came right back, but I got a foot in before she bashed me in the face with her big man hand, pushing me into the chain so hard I felt the skin split above my eye and blood run down my face.
    She leaned down on my foot, mouth hanging open and face red, as she tried to crush me. Sweat stung the corner of my eye as a string of spit blew around on the end of her fat bottom lip. Even with my leg there it was hard to keep her back, so when she went to change position, I locked my legs around her waist and tucked her in close. She saw where she was going but was too late to stop it, and I didn’t give her a chance to tense up. I put the vise to her ribs full force and she screamed, face red and veins popping. For one split second, her brain was stuck on that and just that. I could see it.
    A nose breaks easily, and hers broke flat when I fired my palm down on the bridge. Blood sprayed down her chin, and a lot of strength went out of her all at once. I let go of the scissor lock and brought one leg up on the back of her neck and locked that ankle under the opposite knee while I clamped down on her head and left arm.
    By the time she saw what was up, it was too late and she knew it. That lock was death, and as I closed the triangle, cutting off her air, she knew it was done, but she kept at it. Even when I squeezed blood out of her nose and her face went dark, she tried to get up.
    Tap, you bitch. . . .
    The crowd went ape shit with cheers, boos, and feet stomping on the stands. A hand reached through the cage and grabbed my wrist. Where the hell was security? She bucked like a pig between my legs, and the hand that came through the cage didn’t want to let go, so I twisted it around. The middle finger snapped as I wrenched it back, and someone screamed, then jerked it away.
    As she pushed me back down to the canvas like a blind bull, I saw blood was running thick, some from my head and some from her nose, and there was a ton of it. The bitch should have just tapped; they’d have called it anyway. They should have called it.
    She pushed, and her free hand grabbed a fistful of skin on my bare thigh. She twisted it and dug her thumb into my crotch.
    I don’t think she meant to. Later I thought that, at least. I didn’t mean to do what I did either, but that’s how it went down. The slow grind I had on the leg lock turned mean, and I pumped it closed all at once, just for a second, but that’s all it took. Her whole body jerked, and the hand that had me let go.
    “Match!” a judge screamed. I kicked her off of me and rolled away, the sight in my right eye going red as blood ran in it. From both sides I could hear feet pound the canvas as the refs charged out.
    “Match!” someone in the ring yelled. The crowd sounded as if they would rip the place apart, cheering and cursing and shaking the chain link