Joker by Andi Rhodes

Chapter One

^{Behind closed lids, I see blood-soaked roses.}

Riley

My pulse thumps in my fingertips which are tucked into my gloves. The roar of the crowd drowns out everything else around me, just like it does every other fight. But this isn’t like every other fight. This isn’t like every other day.

This is different.

“Don’t let it break your focus,” my trainer, Damian, says into my ear.

Too late.

‘Eye of the Tiger’ starts blaring and the crowd gets louder. I imagine them standing on their feet, but I stay still. It’s the other opponent's cue to enter the ring. I wait just behind the metal doors that will lead me down a narrow path overflowing with eager boxing fans and enter my home. Four walls of rope that have hugged me since I was a little girl and my daddy pulled me in with him after one of his own fights. It might seem strange to the outside world, but I’ve never felt safer than in the ring. Never more at peace.

That isn’t the case tonight.

I close my eyes and try not to inhale. Every time I do, I smell the blood and feel my stomach coil like I’m about to vomit. At this point, I know the smell is only in my head. The blood-soaked flowers my admirer left me are back in the locker room. Or maybe someone has carried them out to the dumpster by now and cleaned up the red droplets on the bench.

How did he get in there? Is the blood from an animal? Why is he doing this to me?

Before I can humor myself with any answers, the metal doors in front of me open, and the screaming fans get louder.

It’s my turn.

I roll my neck and pound my gloves together, bouncing on my toes to psych myself up. It doesn’t quite work, but I take the first step toward the ring anyway. I make it three before I break my stare from the ring and eye the crowd, searching for the man who’s turned my life upside down these past six months. I’m convinced if I see his eyes, I’ll know it’s him.

Six months of my life spent in fear of a man too big of a coward to show his face. Too big of a coward to ask me on a date or even send me a fan letter with his name attached.

I guess it isn’t fair to say it’s been six months since he’s made himself such an ominous presence. The first two months were just anonymous gifts, a card left behind signed “sincerely, me” so I’d know it was him. It could’ve been a fan, I didn’t even know it was a stalker.

But then the dead animals started showing up on my doorstep. Opossums and rats at first, but then once there was a kitten. It took the brick through my window for me to start having a male friend stay with me, but that only made my admirer angrier.

I received letters upon letters describing to me, in great detail, everything he would do to my friend while he made me watch. That was my punishment for seeking safety from the freak: death to everyone I love.

My friend, Kai, hasn’t taken the threats seriously and neither has anyone else in my life. Maybe I wouldn’t either if it wasn’t happening to me. If I didn’t come home to strange things like my fridge being left open, and my underwear missing. Did I leave it open? Did I misplace my favorite pair of lace panties?

I don’t fucking think so.

I force my eyes forward and weave around the ring to my corner, with Damian right behind me. My opponent is staring me down as I climb into the ring, and I meet her glare briefly before scanning the crowd for Kai.

It isn’t rational and I know I’m making too big a deal of it, but the blood on the roses had to come from somewhere. If it came from Kai, I’ll never forgive myself.

My heart speeds up the more seconds that tick by without me seeing Kai, but then I spot him in the third row behind my corner. He gives me a half-hearted wave, and I can see the concerned lines around his eyes from here.

“Riley!”

I whip my head to Damian, and he holds his hands up at his sides in frustration. “Focus!”

I clamp down on my mouthpiece and nod before giving my attention to my opponent who hasn’t seemed to break her concentration. We step into the center of the ring where the referee speaks to us without either of us listening. We’ve been through this hundreds of times. This particular opponent, Tori Li, has been boxing since she was sixteen, just like me. We know the rules.

We tap gloves when the ref stops talking and then shuffle a few feet back as the bell rings. She’s the first to charge, which is exactly the way I like it. She jabs at my face while I block each punch and wait for her to drop her shoulder.

She jabs a couple more times, and then tries to go for a kidney shot. I step to the side and quickly land a blow to her nose, causing her to recoil. Blood spurts onto the mat and the bell rings.

I jog to my corner where Damian is waiting and try to pay attention to what he’s saying, but my eyes find Kai’s again. He gives me a thumbs up and is now wearing a smile. My eyes lift to the person behind him. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman because they have a gray hood covering half of their face. But my gut tells me it’s the same man with my lace panties in his possession.

No. I’m paranoid.

An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach, and I squint my eyes at the person. They raise their head like they’re looking at me and a thin set of lips spread into a grin.

My heart bangs against my chest, and I lock eyes on Kai again.

Then the bell rings.

“Jesus, Riley, go!” Damian shoves me and jumps to the floor. I spin to face my opponent, but toss Kai glances over my shoulder.

Could that be the stalker? Surely not. Surely he wouldn’t try anything in the middle of a packed arena.

But what if he does?

Tori comes at me, and I raise my fists to defend myself while forcing my legs to bend. By the time she reaches me, I’m in a mediocre stance at best, and she takes advantage.

Her gloves connect with my kidney, and I side step to prevent a second blow. Adrenaline pumps through me, but it isn’t enough to block the pain in my side. She goes for my face next, and I block it, but it costs me three more shots to my left kidney.

I turn to shield it, but I’m met with a glove to my face next. Once. Twice. Three times, and I’m falling into the ropes. Now it’s my blood on the floor, and Tori is out for vengeance.

The ref steps between us and urges her away from the ropes, while I roll my neck and bounce to attempt some momentum, some rage.

That’s the secret for many boxers, myself included. Focused rage. When you can control it, it’s powerful. More powerful than heart and dedication. Rage is good. It’s what you want.

I have none of it right now.

I glance over my shoulder in Kai’s direction and look past him. The hooded figure isn’t there, and when I scan the crowd, I can’t find either of them.

They’re gone.

Footsteps stomp on the mat, and I turn in time to see Tori coming toward me. I lift my glove, but I’m too late.

My head whips to the side and blood sprays from my mouth. I fall into the ropes and then to the mat.

I can hear the ref counting above me.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

I want to get up, but the room is spinning. My vision is blurry, and my limbs won’t balance enough to pull me up with the world wobbling like it is.

He counts to ten, and I let my head slam into the mat. I stare at the lights above me. The crowd roars and the ref holds up Tori’s hand while they announce the winner.

I wish I could care. I wish I could feel anything but fear right now. Boxing used to be my escape, and now it isn’t even able to be that. I close my eyes and give myself permission to pass out, make this a true knockout victory.

But I don’t pass out.

Behind closed lids, I see blood-soaked roses.

* * *

“Are we done here? I need to see Kai.”

“Shut up!” Damian snaps, holding the Q-tip up to my eyebrow. My eye twitches when he digs the cotton a little too deep into the wound, but I’m relieved to hear him speak. He hasn’t said a word since a half hour ago when the match ended and my team escorted me to my dressing room. Someone got rid of the flowers, but I wonder if they disinfected the table they were sitting on well enough that you can’t smell the blood. I wouldn’t know. My own blood fills my nostrils, and I welcome it.

“I’m sure Kai is fine,” Leah, a trainee fighter at my gym says with a forced smile.

I’ve probably let her down. She seems to think I’m some superstar and her idol, and most of the time it’s flattering. Right now, though, I’m annoyed by the disappointment masked behind that fake smile. She shouldn’t even be in here.

“But if you want, I can see if I can find him?” she offers.

I nod and let out a long exhale. “Thanks, Leah. That’d be great.”

Pinched lips lift and the smile doesn’t even come close to showing in her eyes. I try not to take it personally or think about how many other people I just let down. Or maybe it’s disgust they’re all feeling.

Right now, it doesn’t really matter.

Leah scurries from the locker room, leaving Damian and me alone.

“What the hell was that, Riles?” he finally gives in and asks, throwing the Q-tip down and grabbing the roll of tape. He looks me dead in the eye with disappointment and frustration. “You’re a better fighter than Tori Li. That was supposed to be a sure win.”

I shake my head, then hold still when he rips off a piece of tape and presses it over my wound to close it. “My head wasn’t in it.”

“Yeah, well your head hasn’t been in most fights lately.” His glare softens and he lets out a breath. He runs a rag over my face to wipe up the remaining blood, then lets his body deflate. “Look, I know you’ve got this thing going on right now, but letting it get into your head isn’t helping anything. He’s a weird fan, nothing more.”

“You don’t know that.” I stand and tear the tape from my knuckles. “He’s been in my home. He’s threatened my friends.”

“So what?” Damian asks, irritation lacing his words. “You gonna lose every fight until this guy goes away? You gonna let him have that power over you?”

“Maybe I don’t give a shit about the fights right now,” I sneer, chucking the tape onto the table and rolling the tension out of my shoulders.

I can’t believe I just said that. But at the same time, there’s no doubt in my mind I mean it. Not just because of the stalker. I’ve been feeling this way for a long time, this feeling of… something missing.

I love the fight. I love the rage, the blood, the pain, the power, I love it all. But I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl. My mother left when I was six-months-old so I didn’t exactly have a female role model to teach me all the girly things most moms teach their daughters. It was just my dad and me, so I learned to box.

He started training me at thirteen, I started official matches at sixteen, and before all that I spent my life watching my father dedicate himself to his own career in boxing. He died a few years ago with boxing as the only thing he knew. If I die tomorrow, I’ll die the same way, and I don’t know how I feel about that. I want more, and if I can’t have it, I want to at least see what all there is.

I don’t want to die having lived no other kind of life. Having known no other kind of life. The stalker didn’t create that feeling, he just made it so I remembered it was a possibility.

Damian massages his temples and shakes his head. “Fuck, Riley.” He peers up at me, and I can see lines in his face that weren’t there months ago. “You’re gonna make me get a new boxer, aren’t you?”

“You can do whatever you want, Damian.” I pull my phone from my duffel bag and check for messages from Kai. He was my ride here and is supposed to be meeting me by the car, but someone was supposed to tell him to come to the locker room instead. I don’t want him in the parking lot by himself, but if he was coming, he’d be here by now. “I have to go.”

“I’ll see you at the gym tomorrow.”

He says it like he wants a response and I nod to confirm, although I’m not sure I’ll be there. The fantasy of packing a bag and driving up the coast fills my mind like it does sometimes, and I’m not sure if it’s truly a fantasy this time. I wonder if Kai would come with me.

I leave the locker room and make my way toward the back door, throwing glances over my shoulder every few feet. Mine was the last fight of the night, so the dark hallway is abandoned, as is most of the arena. Only a handful of staff members should be left.

I push through the back doors and find Kai’s car immediately. It’s one of the last in the lot, but I don’t see him there. I squint to try and see him through the windshield as I walk toward the car but stop dead in my tracks when a groan reaches my ears.

I whip toward the sound, expecting to see the worst, but I don’t see anything but the dumpsters that are positioned against the building.

The groan, that I’m now positive belongs to Kai, sounds again, and I take off in a sprint toward the dumpsters. I find him on the other side of one, lying on the ground with blood oozing from his face.

“Kai!” I scream, falling to my knees beside him. He groans in response, and I frantically search his body for injuries, my hands shaking as I do. Most of the blood is coming from his face, and I’m filled with hope with every patch of skin I don’t feel a bullet hole or a stab wound or something else as awful.

“Help!” My wobbly shriek fills the parking lot, and air seesaws in and out of my lungs. “Somebody help us!”

And that’s when I see him. Standing twenty feet or so away, with his hands tucked into a gray hoodie, the figure from earlier steps out from the shadows cast by the brick wall of the complex. His head is tilted to the side like he’s studying me.

I rise to my feet and ball my hands into fists, but I don’t approach the man. Not yet. Kai groans again, and I shift my gaze to him only for a moment before staring down the hooded figure.

“You’re a fucking coward!” I yell, taking the first step toward him. “I’m not afraid of you, you fucking psycho!” There’s no shake to my voice, so even I can’t hear the lie in that statement. I get a piece of the thing I’ve been missing tonight. I get a piece of rage.

“Fuck you!” I scream and then take off toward him. My right shoulder is back and I’m ready to swing harder than I ever would’ve in the ring.

The figure moves one hand from their pocket and points a gun directly at me. I don’t stop for a few more steps, but when I’m looking down the barrel, I don’t propel my fist forward like I planned. I stand there, hands at my sides and teeth clenched, wishing this piece of shit would lift their hood so I could see the source of my terror. See my real-life monster.

He doesn’t lift his hood, though. He stands there, gun pointed at my forehead, and he waits. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but the moment he lunges for me, I’ll kill him. I’m a boxer. I know how to anticipate a move. I know what it looks like when someone is about to strike, and he isn’t showing any signs just yet.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” I sneer when he still doesn’t move.

I can’t see his eyes, but I do see those thin lips pull into the same grin he gave me earlier. He takes a step backward, and then another, and I don’t follow. Kai groans behind me, and I hate myself for wasting so much time. He could be dying right now. He could be bleeding internally, his organs could be shutting down. He needs me.

When the figure is a safe distance from me, they lower the gun then wave toward Kai as if to signal for me to go. I grind my teeth and use all my willpower to turn and go to my friend.

“See you soon, Black Bird,” the figure calls, purposefully distorting his voice. Black Bird. My boxer name. I don’t turn to watch him leave. I can’t. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to let him go.

I fall to Kai’s side and dig out my phone. There’s a message from Leah that I ignore, and I quickly dial 911. I tell the operator our location and that my friend has been hurt, and she assures me they’ve dispatched units our way.

“Help is coming,” I say to Kai, running my hand over his forehead. I hang onto my rage and keep my muscles tense, my teeth gritted. Because I know any minute the fear will take over again and overwhelm everything else.

“I’m so sorry,” I say to Kai, although I’m not sure at this point he can hear me. His face is completely inflamed and bloody, both eyes swollen shut, so I’m not certain he even knows it’s me who’s here.

“I’m not going to let this happen again.” A lump in my throat forms, and I bite down on my cheek. I mean my words, I won’t let this happen again.

I don’t know why he’s doing this. I don’t know who he is. But I do know the only way he’ll hurt the people I love is if I’m around to see it.

For months, I’ve been playing his game, on his terms, by his rules, and I’m fucking sick of it. It’s time we do things on my terms.

If he truly wants me, he’ll have to catch me first.