Prologue

)

The audience's screams are thrilling me, sending shivers down my spine. I'm still standing in the shadows of the corridor, eyes shut, muscles tensed by anguish and I can already hear the clamour for their champion. I know that as soon as I enter the light, the repressed aggressiveness of a thousand rednecks is gonna pour into the Red Road Bar in billions of decibels, deafen me and excite me till my blood boils in my veins.

I raise my arms under the white spotlight and the clamour rumbles like thunder, wild and strong. I'm haranguing them, claiming their recognition. I know I deserve this, this moment, this spot where I'm standing, I know I've won it, at the price of my sweat and my blood. They know I deserve more than anyone else to be their champion and to fight every night. And considering the number of boxes Johnny MC's holding tight in his big hand, they know I'm gonna win, once again.

The future loser's already there, standing inside the cage. I stare, he's built just like the others; only muscle, hard and heavy. But when I catch his gaze, between the wild and the animal, there's a measured cold confidence the others didn't have.

-"Skin him alive, luv", breathes Johnny.

I smile, my eyes already icy, and have my jacket slip off my shoulders. When I get into the cage, the audience's rage only reaches me as a faraway echo. Eyes riveted in my opponent's, I'm aware of nothing but this gaze that pierces me. I clench my fists ; it's as if I could feel the rush of blood in my veins and air in my lungs, my whole body tense; as if my senses were suddenly overdeveloped.

They ring the bell.

#

They ring the bell.

None of us moves, we keep sizing each other up. There must be some trick. Otherwise she just can't be the unbeaten Red Road's champion, this skinny lil girl with her twelve-year-old's boobs.

All of a sudden I shoot my fist in her face; she dodges and kicks me back in the belly, quick as a flash. Fast. Gotta play this hand-to-hand. I fake to strike and take advantage of it to step leftwards; her right hook hits my jaw fucking right. As if she'd planned my move.

And the fight keeps going like this, my striking, her dodging and striking back. No way I can catch her off guard, hit faster. The audience's getting bored; we gonna try something else. I can feel the thirst for violence boiling inside, animal, frustrated by this anticipation fight.

I bend double when she kicks my belly and she deals my back a blow that crashes me to the ground; the audience wakes up. She throws herself at me and right then I strike her hard in her pretty face. The others scream in rage and I unchain the beast inside. Dazed, she can't foresee my first punch that explodes her lips, the second that splits her arch of the eyebrows; I nudge her hard on the back and she falls onto her knees; I crush her under my body. The savagery of my blows won't let her breathe and her eyes must be too much clouded by sweat and blood to find out the weakness in my guard.

I immobilize her and pin her face to earth, crush her under my weight, her faces only inches from the concrete ground. The spectators have stood up, they're screaming and shouting, I dunno whether for or against me but they turn on that savagery, that thirst for blood inside. I smash her face onto the asphalt. The audience's fury's tearing up my eardrums; I can see a silent trickle of bloody drool sipping from her parted lips.

The MC bloke enters the cage and begins shouting himself hoarse:

-"Ten ! Nine ! Eight ! Seven !..."

I can feel the girl wriggling weakly and infuriating in helplessness underneath my body as the countdown keeps going and I must hold myself back not to crush her pretty face again.

-"... Three ! Two ! One ! aaaaaaaand it's OVER !! The Snake, the Red Road unbeaten champion, has just come crashing doooooooooooown!!!"

The clamour rumbles like thunder, I can't even get what « Johnny MC »'s telling me. I rise up just a lil bit so that she can turn around. Her arch's split up, her lips exploded, her nose streaming with blood and yet she still got that godforsaken defying way to stare at me. Impulsively, I crash my lips against hers, snatch her a searing kiss and the taste of blood in her mouth has the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and turns on the animal inside.

-"Winner's tribute", I breathe.

I stand up while the clown's staring as if he were gonna skin me alive and I snatch him the boxes.

-"Thanks, jumbo".

) I got blood all over my face and boiling fury in my veins. I've hit him ten times, fifteen times, and nothing. Not even a scratch. Johnny lays my jacket on my shoulders.

-"We can take care of him tonight", he whispers.

I spit up drool and blood and catch the towel he's handing me to wipe the cold sweat away from my face.

-"Drop it, Johnny. I can handle my own stuff".

The cold winter air is spinning my head round. I rest my whisky glass against my temple, shut my eyes and take a long drag on my cigarette. I let the cold slightly anesthetize my pain, taking deep breathes of my soft drug but I still can feel the fury of helplessness inside. I wanna understand why my blows don't have no effect on him. I wanna know.

He's leaning against the Red Road's wall, smoking a cigar.

-"Bet I owe you a drink."

He turns around and stares. The shadows of the night playing on his face make him look even more dangerous than earlier, in the cage. It turns me fucking on. He raises his hand to receive the scotch glass I'm handing him. Quick as a light, I crush my cigarette in the palm of his hand.

-"Son of a…" he gasps.

He's clenched his fist but I've seen it. I've seen the flesh beginning to heal up, slowly but already way too fast. We keep sizing each other up for several instants.

-"I know who you are, Wolverine. "

He inches his face so close to mine I can see his nostrils tremble at the smell of my blood.

-"Scares ya?" he murmurs in hoarse voice.

-"It should?"

I get closer, my tongue flies above his lips. If he fucks just like he fights, and the kiss he snatched me was full of promises, then I wanna taste it right now.

He has stepped forward; his gaze is dark and stormy, unreadable.

-"One last round?"

I'm pinned between his body and the side of a truck and I'm loudly moaning his name to the dark night. It's the animal that's ravaging my lips and growling in ecstasy when he's fucking me like he fights, wild and strong. I can taste my own blood in our kiss, and he groans deep in his throat when he tastes it too. I dig my nails in the hard muscles of his back, he catches my hands and pin them above my head, holds them firmly. His burning breath mixes with mine, his wide darkened eyes pierce me. I can feel his hard bare torso banging against my breasts, his mouth eagerly sucking on the tender flesh of my neck and setting my skin on fire everywhere he touches me, the violence of his long moves inside me taking my breath away. The orgasm pierces and strikes me, snatches me from my body.

-"Which way are you headin'?"

-"Ain't headin' nowhere, I'm wanderin'."

I can't help but feel the same, and feel relieved to know I'm facing another outsider of this big crazy world.

-"Well then this is goodbye, you Canadian fighter, till we meet again."

-"Ye can bet we'll meet again baby, ye still owe me a drink. Furthermore," he breathes lower, "there's some of your… snake skills I haven't tasted yet."

-"Fine," I hiss, "then you owe me a kiss and a fight I don't lose."

-"Fair enough."

His black, black eyes stare for a while. He's so fucking close I can smell his very own animal scent of sweat and blood, of smoke and of something else approaching musky skin that's spinning my head round. He inches his mouth closer to mine. He doesn't even kiss me, just steals me a breath from me.

-"For the road," he whispers.

And with this he's gone.