A Fighting Chance Read Free

say. Henry is walking toward us, looking distraught, and a compassionate expression settles on Lydia’s face. We aren’t going back to Zoya’s.
    “Let’s just hear what he has to say, okay? Maybe someone from home died ,” she offers, and I shake my head, though, in resignation. A fiery tickle erupts in my throat, threatening of a panic attack, which I haven’t had in years. I feel like a cornered animal. With every step Henry takes, my skin crawls, my displeasure grows, and I fight my overwhelming need to leave, without Lydia.
    Throwing my hands up, I yell, “What, Henry? What is it? Why the fuck are you here?”
    “Jess!” Lydia says in a harsh tone to admonish me.
    “I need your help…” When Henry reaches out to me, I see the space on his right hand, where two of his fingers used to be—the ring and the pinkie are gone. They were clearly sliced off, in a clean line, and then cauterized at the knuckles. What. In. The. Entire. Fuck? “I’m in trouble. A lot of trouble. I think you have to come home.”

The GLORIOUS ONES
     
     
    Five years ago…
    Steven Ramboldt’s face scrunched in pain right before his entire body landed with a heavy thud at my feet. “And that’s a knockout!” the ref shouted as he yanked my arm up, and the crowd exploded into cheers.
    On nights like these, I felt like God here. Anyone from Glory, Texas, chanting my name like it was a hymn, would have gotten on their knees right now to worship at my feet. At least for a little while.
    I was the reason Perry Webber could charge double the normal amount for admission to his sweltering barn on a fight night : thirty dollars a head to watch me paint the floor with someone’s insides. I would also get twenty percent of whatever Perry took in when I won tonight’s main match. Knowing that was the only thing that made being the good-for-nothing son of good-for-nothing Henry Chance mean something. I had inherited two things from the man who was no more than a glorified sperm donor: a weakness for long-legged women and a talent for the fights.
    I stepped out of the ring, not sweating or winded at all. Steven was my warm-up, light entertainment for the impatient spectators, and my real competition, Kerr Edwards, climbed in as Steven’s limp body was dragged out. Inside the mass of people, I watched Edwards bounce around, goading the folks on my side, until a glass bottle shattered at his feet. The thrower also tossed a few fuck you’s at Kerr, and next to him, a girl from school, Cynthia Mitchell, flashed her tits at me. My smile was polite, maybe vaguely inviting, but it was all for show. Their open loyalty came from my victories alone; fight nights in Glory were the only times I could count on people here supporting me. The other days, they said the same shitty things the ones from Renshaw, Kerr’s town, did: I was just the bastard kid the longtime married Henry Chance’d had with Carla Jones, the black secretary he used to work with at a car dealership a few cities over.
    He wanted no part of me, either. I could only give him credit for not denying I was his kid, even though he would’ve had a hard time doing that when the main difference between us was my darker skin. I looked just like him. People always noticed it first in our close-set, dark brown eyes, but I also shared his strong, narrow jawline, and slightly pointed chin. I had his black hair, his slim build that never changed no matter how much I ate, and when I was younger, I had grown much faster than kids my age, just like my younger half brother Henry Junior.
    “ Seriously?” my girlfriend, Drew Hallisay, asked with a snap of her head in my direction, her dark brown eyes glowing with jealousy. Call me crazy, but Drew jealous was kinda sexy, especially when she bit her lip and scowled. She aimed a spiteful glare at Cynthia. “Put them away, bitch!” she shouted, her tone husky and possessive.
    B efore Drew, I had plowed through the girls in my grade in a lot of secret