Someone tried to pull me off him, several someones, but it was useless.

And then I heard her.  Calling my name.  Snapping me out of it.

I shook my head, stilling.  I lifted my bloody fists up, staring at them.  They were trembling badly.  As I saw this, I realized my whole body had begun to shake.

I looked down at the mess of a man underneath me.

By the state of him, I'd been at it for some time.

I cringed, and retching, I scrambled off him.

It was his face that really got to me.  It was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable, pounded into just so much misshapen meat.

And he was so still.

I was barely clear of him when I emptied out the contents of my stomach on the ground.

Soft hands were stroking my shoulders from behind, Bianca saying something that I couldn't hear over the crowd.

I couldn't hear them, but I felt the words, knew them by heart, and tried to believe them now.

The room had gone wild with noise, cheers, and applause.  They loved the raw, brutal violence of what I'd done.  It's why they came, why I made money at this.

I wanted to curl into a ball and disappear.  This was the worst one yet.

Had I killed him? I wondered, praying that I hadn't, though it seemed that I was grasping at straws.  No one was trying to move him, as though they didn't think it was worthwhile to even try.

I felt slender arms hug me from behind, soft kisses on my temple, and then her voice in my ear, "You're okay.  He's okay.  I'm okay.  We're okay," she chanted soothingly, over and over.

It helped.  Even if it wasn't entirely true.  It helped.  She always knew how to take care of me.

She always had.

Always understanding, always accepting, always loving, from the very start.

Things got out of hand in the ring sometimes.  I'd done my fair share of damage, but so far, I'd never killed anyone in one of these fights.  I found I was having a very hard time coming to terms with it.

I had killed before.  When I'd stopped that old man from raping Bianca I'd beaten his head so hard against the pavement that I'd felt when his skull caved in.

No.  This wouldn't be the first time I'd killed, but that didn't make it any easier to stomach.

Who had he been?  Who would miss him?  Why was my life worth more than his?

It wasn't.  I knew it wasn't.  But hers was worth more, and she needed me.  The thought galvanized me, as it always did.  I would do what I needed to for her.  I'd do anything for her.  Because it was a fact that she was worth it, and that certainty had gotten me through many o' rough thing.

Who I assumed was a doctor was finally kneeling by the other fighter, tending to him.  He didn't pronounce him dead right away, and I took that as some small sign of hope.

Bianca pulled me gently away from the mess I'd made on the floor, and I blindly followed her.

Old Sam, the bastard that organized these things, came to stand in front of me, a sick grin on his face.

He waved a wad of cash in front of me.

I grabbed it, glaring at him.

He was the source of my livelihood at the moment, but I still hated him.  He was the worst kind of opportunist and had no qualms about preying on the weak and desperate.

"Good job, son," he told me with a good-natured chuckle.

"Don't call me son," I told him, my voice gravelly from all of the retching.

He shrugged.  "You always get touchy after these things, but you're a natural, my boy.  We're going to do great things together."

I opened my mouth to say something scathing, but Bianca beat me to it.

"Just go away.  Leave him alone," she told the man in her coldest voice.  "Give him space."

The man lifted his hands, as though to show he meant no harm, and still smiling, walked away.

"He's a parasite," she said vehemently when he'd left.  "If we never set eyes on him again, it'll be too soon."

I couldn't have agreed more.

We stayed in the room long enough to ascertain that the other fighter was definitely still alive, and there was a chance he'd stay that way.

When the doctor pronounced this to the crowd, there were more boos than cheers.

I thought I might be ill again.

I went on autopilot as Bianca led me away to a dimly lit bathroom in the back of the building.

She lifted off my shirt, washed me, and tended to me like I was a child, fussing over the cut in my side, and I let her.

She left, snagged some supplies from the doctor's bag, and came back quickly.  She cleaned the cut, worrying over it.

I soaked in her loving ministrations.

"The doctor said he'd come back here to check you out after he finishes with the other guy."

I just nodded, feeling disconnected.

She'd taken the money from me and counted it to make sure it was all there.

"Four hundred dollars.  Let's get a room tonight, okay?  You need to take a nice hot shower and sleep in a soft bed."

I didn't argue.  This was the usual pattern after a fight, one of the few things that made it worthwhile to hurt people for money.

Four hundred dollars, I thought.  I was willing to do that to a man for four hundred dollars, to beat him beyond recognition.

I swallowed hard, taking deep breaths to keep from gagging.

I had no notion of how much time might have passed before the doctor came to check on me.