A lightning jab flew at her, faster than anything so far in the fight. Gwen leaned to her right, feeling the wind of the punch brush over her hair, tickling her ear. Even though she was on the wrong side for a liver shot, she started throwing her favorite punch, a short body uppercut. To do so, she pushed from her lead leg. Rising, she liked to imagine, like a salmon.

Next thing she knew, she was on the floor—blood drooling from her mouth. Everything hurt. The referee was shouting five. Everything hurt. It depleted her of energy. She felt sick. She shook her head, trying to bring the world back into focus. Everything hurt.

6

She put her arms on the mat, spat the blood pooling in her mouth, and started pushing up.

7

Instantly, the referee was far too close, staring at her, checking if she could fight. Despite his concerns, she got a knee beneath her.

8

Then a foot, pushing up on the mat, unsteady; even pride wouldn't stop her from saying that, and then she began her slow, daunting ascent.

9

Now standing upright, she felt rather than heard the crowd's roar, and the count ceased. They restarted the fight despite her inability to lift her arms above her waist because they performed no checks in Hub City. But everything was so fucking heavy, and she couldn't even remember how long the round had left. Suddenly the brute was back, Ken, she believed. Next was another jab, which managed to hit her flush, but rather than knock her out, the impact drew her attention to the right hook he was about to deliver, and she stepped left and under as the punch whipped past her. The pain, perhaps one last flare of her fledgling pride, brought the world back into focus, and with it, the roar of the crowd, the shiver of sweat, the iron taste in her mouth. Then she stepped in, throwing a right straight that landed flush, resulting in a burst of blood from his nose. Though as satisfying as it was, she cursed herself mentally; that wasn't the game plan. Ken was twice her weight and built like a brick shithouse.

His reputation as a tough bastard also preceded him. For instance, he had fought 'Vicious' Vic two weeks back, and the slugfest could have slept an elephant. She had nowhere near the power to knock him out clean; she would have to wear him down with painful body shots first. The punch, however, also caused Ken to lose his technique and swing his arms in vague attempts at punches, one left and one right. The only problem was that she could not punish the sloppy technique; she needed to step away from it. Still, avoiding it was simplicity itself.

Ken continued to rush toward her, throwing another sloppy punch that she avoided by swaying right; however, wishing to be on his left, she waited for a sharper right straight punch. By doing so, he crossed himself up, his feet and weight all wrong, as he leaned across himself. In response, she ducked and swayed to her left, dodging the punch. Leaving her with an open shot. Like an echo, her right cross followed a left-handed uppercut, slamming into the obliques. Dancing away from retaliation for having landed her shots. It was, however, unnecessary since the referee separated them as the bell rang. Between downing the water offered to her and sitting on her stool, she focused on Jim, her trainer. Finally, the world stopped ringing. Yet, she could not hear Jim.

Most of the time, he recommended you hit the bastard, so it was no big deal. Furthermore, he didn't have any money on her winning, and it would be surprising if he didn't wager on the other guy. It was like that in Hub City; no one cared if money wasn't involved.

The bell rang, and the fight restarted before her muscles stopped screaming. The crowd vanished, Jim vanished; hell, the pain went away. There were only two humans left, Ken and her. The world could end at any moment, but she wouldn't notice. Her mind focused completely on the battle. As a result of the consistent body shots, Ken was still grimacing. Accordingly, a feral smirk spread across her mouth. There's nothing spectacular about body shots, nor does blood fly from them, but they hurt like hell. Nothing more than a dull thud that steals your air, your motivation, the drive to carry on.

Shots to the liver, however, were a different beast; one shot ended it all. He was standing there, guarding his body. For once, foreseeing the danger. As a result, however, his face remained wide open. Now the aggressor, she would have to trust the work she had done so far.

Since she had to lead this merry dance, she started with a testing jab, no weight behind it. Awaiting Ken's response, how would he defend? He did as she hoped, raising his left glove to take the blow; however, he chose the wrong hand, as it left his body open down his left, leaving her right hand free; he should have blocked with his right, stopping her right with his left, but he made a mistake worrying about taking another shot at his liver - his pain leading to an error, as it always did in the ring. Following two more testing jabs and getting the same response, Gwen started her attack. The next jab was with a step; she put her weight behind it, willing to take the risk of a counterpunch. He blocked with his left once again; however, as he did, she let her right arm go, pounding a hook into his obliques, pushing off her right foot across him, ducking her head under his counter right, in doing so opening his hurt right side, and she was in once more. As a confident smirk crossed her face, sinking onto her left leg before springing up, using the momentum of her whole body to lash an uppercut aimed just above the last one, only by centimeters. Immediately, the thud reverberated around the 'arena' as the blow landed. When he hit her cheek with his left hand, all the power was gone. Like a great oak, Ken collapsed over, having lost control of the right side of his body. He hit the mat, and the referee started counting. It was a pointless endeavor. It was a perfect example of a liver shot. Consequently, Ken couldn't do anything, the fight concluded.

Following the fight, it was all a blur. Instantly suffering from an adrenaline dump and her face lit up in agony from taking so many hits in that fight. Before she knew it, she stood hunched over the sink in her changing room, cleaning the blood off her face. Alberto stormed in just as she finished washing her face of blood. There was no escaping his anger; it covered his face like an ugly shadow. A large man with larger tastes. The thick, bushy mustache stretched across his top lip and seemed to swell with his rage.

"Bitch, what the fuck was that? We pay you for a good fight, not whatever the fuck that was!"

Gwen let out a sigh of resignation; she hated Alberto. Heck, she hated everyone involved in this boxing 'business.'

"I'm sorry, Al; what do you want from me?"

"I want you to take a punch. Hell, I want you to throw a punch; people pay good money to see blood, not fancy dodging and body shots."

"You put me up against a fucking two-hundred-and-seventy-pound monster; if I took punches, I would have lost."

"You were supposed to lose." He sounded exasperated at this. "I had money on it; we all had money on it." A hand gesture accompanied the exclamation.

"Those can't be good odds."

He grunted in distaste, as if smelling something vile. "Look, Gwen, if you can't entertain in the ring. There are other places you could entertain; you're nearly 17 now."

She interrupted him immediately, desperately; she didn't want him thinking about it.

"No! I Love boxing; I'll do better."

Hmphing in some odd form of satisfaction, he always enjoyed feeling in control. Gwen felt his eyes roam her body and fought the instinct to shiver in disgust.

"250." Finally, he turned around and walked away, leaving the wad of money behind.

"And come to the office tomorrow. We need to discuss your future."

As soon as Gwen got home, her eyes filled with tears. Slumping on her bed and pulled a picture of her family from the hidden crevice on her wall. The tired fighter was the only one who knew about her keepsakes from her father. She knew, however, that no one close to her would approve of her idolization of a police officer. Though close to achieving her goal, any support she could get from the picture would be helpful. She greatly appreciated whatever strength it could give her.

"What do I do, dad?"

Clenching her face, forcing the tears away. Her dad could not give her any advice anymore. Despite all these years, she hadn't figured out who killed him or why. She was such a failure.

From her desk, she pulled out all her notes, everything she had learned in the last nine years. Nine years of searching ended in a dark corner out the back of the police station, where only one camera had vision. Three shots, twice from the front and once to the back of the head, the last while he was bleeding on the ground. A 9mm gun, likely a pistol.

That was it; all she knew that was relevant. The most pressing questions, however, were still unanswered: who and why. It seemed like a premeditated hit; everything seemed to point to it. Yet that only raised more questions. Why her father? What was so special about one police officer? And that raised another point, why kill a police officer? Her experience with gangs made her aware that it wasn't a smart move. A police officer's death caused the rest to become ravenous for blood, searching for the killer with uncharacteristic zeal. This, however, did not seem to have happened with her father. Their investigation concluded that it was a crime of opportunity, impossible to solve. And left it at that. It hadn't even taken them twenty minutes.

Despite Gwen's theories, she could not find evidence to support or refute them.

She sighed at the lack of progress she had made, apologized to her father, and returned him to his hiding place. Next, she hid her earnings, separating some away from her stash. In the end, she succumbed to exhaustion after taking several painkillers.