Monsters - Matt Rogers (icecream ebook reader TXT) 📗

available for sale, and they doubtless reeked of stale sweat, but they’d do the job. King and Slater were here for a good time, not a long time. They didn’t need fancy equipment.

On the way past Booth he took the phone away from his ear and whipped around to face the guy manning the front desk. ‘They members?’ he snapped.

‘Nah. They just wanna hit the bag. I charged them a casual fee.’

‘We don’t do casual fees. We do memberships.’

‘Look, Frankie…’

Booth wheeled to King and Slater. His mouth was open, maybe a second from launching into a tirade, but when he got a good look at them he reconsidered, held his tongue. He sized them up. Noticed the raw power bristling in their frames. Shifted from foot to foot, then sighed and swept his hand toward the punching bags. ‘Go ahead, boys.’

Slater nodded to him but left it at that.

As they walked away they heard Booth say to the guy on the desk, ‘Jace tells me he got his tyres slashed. Both front ones.’

The desk guy laughed. ‘Bullshit. Any money he’s coming off a bender. He’ll be lying in bed with his head on fire.’

‘Fuck him. He knew he had a ten-thirty. He’s done.’

King muttered, ‘There it is.’

They had to cross the edge of the wrestling mats to get to the striking area, and they had a crowd of nearly twenty people watching them. They were an athletic bunch, maybe eighty percent male and twenty percent female, all kitted out in wrestling rash-guards and a mixture of compression leggings and shorts. This wasn’t a “boxercise” class for salary workers looking to stay somewhat in shape. These were fighters, dreamers, men and women who truly wanted to make it, and would put themselves through almost any amount of pain to do so. They were the fight team, and it was 10:28 and their coach wasn’t here, so they were free to judge the newcomers as they pleased. Slater sensed eyes on him all the way across the gym.

‘We’ve got two minutes before one of them steps up to coach,’ he said under his breath.

King said, ‘All the time in the world.’

Slater didn’t even bother wrapping his hands. There wasn’t time. He slipped on fingerless four-ounce gloves that, sure enough, carried the putrid stench of weeks of dried sweat. He shook out his hips and turned to the nearest bag, a heavy Fairtex HB7. At seven foot tall and a filled weight of nearly three hundred pounds, it dwarfed all the other bags in every gym that carried one. It was designed purely for absorbing maximum-effort power shots.

Slater knew everyone in the gym would be watching as they waited for Jace, the wrestling coach, to get his shit together.

He threw a few warm-up combinations, then fired a real combination into the bag, pushing air out of his lungs with each strike. Tssh-tssh-tssh-tssh. Jab-cross-jab-roundhouse kick. The three punches fired like pistons, smashing off the leather loud enough to echo off the roof, and loosened the bag on its nylon straps, got it swinging slightly away from Slater before he unleashed the kick. When his hardened shin slammed home, it made a noise no different to an unsuppressed gunshot. All three hundred pounds of fill shook relentlessly and the bag swung away with a heaving groan, reaching a near forty-five degree angle from the force of the blow.

To budding fighters who knew exactly what it felt like to hit a HB7, it would’ve looked unbelievable.

King then stepped up to a smaller bag and started hitting it like it owed him money. He threw crosses and hooks and uppercuts with everything he had, reaching a level of intensity Slater hadn’t seen in training in a long time, and then finished with a series of roundhouse kicks that nearly made the smaller bag hit the roof. He caught it on its way down and stabilised it, killing its momentum. Sweat was already flushing from his pores.

He and Slater busied themselves with some lighter combinations, but they’d already made their point.

Maybe a minute passed before they sensed someone behind them. They both turned.

Frankie Booth said, ‘Who are you two?’

25

You don’t need a licence to order brass knuckles, but if you know how to use them they can incapacitate as quickly as a gun, especially way up close.

And they more than make up for a weight disadvantage.

Alexis threw the scything hook before he even saw the knuckles. She clenched the palm brace as hard as she could to protect the delicate bones in her hand. The impact against his cheek rattled her whole arm, shook her shoulder in its socket, but despite the resistance she followed through. Dragged a bloody line across his face and mouth and then whipped her arm back, out of reach.

Crimson sprayed in the gloom.

He froze up for a split second because you can anticipate getting punched but you can’t prepare for getting your face split open. It resets your brain, puts you in survival mode while you assess damage, figure out whether you’ll need to sip food through a straw for the rest of your life. He was okay, and he registered that, but by then she’d pivoted into an uppercut, twisting her hips into it and bringing the force up from her toes. His head was practically framed there, hovering in place. Accuracy not required.

But she was accurate all the same.

Each metal knuckle took a divot of skin out from underneath his chin and when both rows of teeth smashed together his jaw broke. He collapsed, not an ounce of fight left in him, but Alexis had already darted back in case she hadn’t delivered the damage she hoped.

Now for the hardest part.

It’s easy to catch someone by surprise, but in a fair exchange, weight and bone density matter. The male frame, powered by ample testosterone, is a serious threat. The second guy leapt over his prone buddy and charged, hoping to bundle her against the tree trunk. It was the right