38. Tyler-2

Franny's body shakes and her eye twitches, becoming moist, but she just grips her shirt tighter and sucks in a breath. Four thousand. Five thousand. "Six thousand." Carl smiles and slides his gun away. Six dead bodies. My eyes flicker away from Franny's and I look at the crumpled bodies on the floor, trying not to throw up. Carl's shoes come up towards me before his body shifts down, crouching in front of me. "You should never fuck with things you don't understand," he hisses quietly and then suddenly smiles. "Come on, get up." He roughly helps me get up from the floor, arm gripping the part of my arm where he hit me. I scrunch up my face to stop myself from crying out in pain. "That's better," Carl says. "Now, how about one last fight, for old time's sake?" I begin to shake my head, but Carl grips my arm tighter until I nod. "Perfect." He smiles. "Boys, come on up." He lets go of my arm and I stumble back, body searing with pain and exhaustion. The room is silent. And that just makes everything so much worse. I look at Franny but her eyes are elsewhere. I follow them to find her looking at the five men stepping into the boxing ring as Carl slips out the other side. The five of them are tall, imposing and most definitely intimidating. I stand against the ropes, breathing labored and body a mess of blood, sweat and grime. "Whenever you're ready," Carl says from the crowd. And before I know it, there's a fist in my face and another in my gut. The pain is excruciating—bright, bold and burning. This isn't a fight. There's no even level, no chance for me to even get a hit in. This is Carl's idea of justice being acted out perfectly on a stage, like a performance. Time disappears. Minutes are the number of hits I take. Seconds are the gasps of air I manage to suck in. At some point, through the pain, I hear footsteps and voices, loud and rowdy. There's a commotion and my attackers fall back. I turn to my side slowly and cough out a thick trail of blood. "He's just a kid!" I hear someone yell, and other voices shout in agreement before a sharper voice cuts them off. I open my eyes and look over to the side of the boxing ring to see Carl standing with his chest against another man, his loyalists hanging behind him. The other man, someone I recognize as a frequent fighter, is yelling at Carl. A group of men stand behind him, spurring the argument on. I look to the rest of the room, at the people arguing, and the bodies on the ground, lying there alone. I glance over and see Franny, still held captive in the corner, is staring at them too. "Stand the fuck down, Danson!" Carl yells, making me look back to them. Danson ignores him and says something while giving a sharp push to Carl's chest, making him step back. I blink at the wrong time and out of nowhere Carl has a gun in his hand and the trigger goes off, pointed straight towards Danson's head. The distance between the gun and the man is small and his body flings back, skidding to the floor and stopping near Franny's feet. She stares at the barrel of Carl's gun like she is seeing a ghost. "Are you all done now?" Carl roars. And then there is anarchy. Carl's gun is thrown out of his hand and a few gunshots later, the two men standing at the back doors slide to the ground with a trail of blood in their wake. The man behind Franny gets a bullet to the head and from there it is chaos. Bodies moving back and forth, gunshots banging through the room every few seconds, shouts and yells layered with hatred and cries of pain bounce from the walls. Blood spatters across the once perfectly white room. It stains the ropes of the boxing ring, seeps into the wallpaper, and runs along the floor. A breeze of cool air hits my side and I slowly stand up to see people running out the back doors and into the darkness of the night. I take a step forward but a hand to my arm stops me and I whirl around, my nose almost knocking Carl's. I then realize it's just Carl and me left in the room, along with numerous dead bodies and a few of his loyalists who have been beaten up or shot. Their groans of pain are the only sounds in the room. "What have you done?" Carl breathes raggedly. "Everything I've done, everything, was for you! And how do you repay me, huh? I got you off the streets, I gave you money, I taught you how to fight, I was there when your parents weren't." Carl grabs the collar of my shirt and yanks it hysterically, forcing me to my knees. "I toughened you up, got you in with the bigger fighters. I killed all those fucking people for you! Jason Robson, Alex Tillman, Donny Ernest, Peter Suthers —you can see their bodies right now over there. They're dead so I could teach you a lesson, so you can be the best you can ever be! I let you in, Tyler, so you could be like a son to me! But instead you nearly destroy my entire fighting ring. You've cost me thousands, you little shit!" Carl narrows his eyes. "I've killed all those men, I can kill you too." I reach into my pocket and then bring my hand up, showing Carl a little device that's flashing red. I press stop on the recording button and flick the alert switch on the back, huffing out a breath. "Gotcha." Carl's angry face falls in confusion before the doors and the two boarded-up windows are kicked in. Wood and glass fall onto the floor in a puddle and quick-moving bodies pour through the open entrances, guns in hand, wearing thick vests and pure black helmets. I sigh in relief at the SWAT that finally made it to my location. All guns point to Carl, standing above me, and as he reaches for his weapon in a split-second decision, a thin, crisp-sounding shot goes off. Carl's hand whips back, bleeding. He falls to the ground with a cry, grasping his injured hand to his chest. Two people come up quickly and grab Carl, pressing his arms to his back and slapping cuffs on his wrists. The satisfaction reels through me. The cops come through, arresting those who are still conscious and checking who has passed. I stay in the boxing ring until a hand comes to my shoulder from behind. I turn and see one of the SWAT team standing over me. They hold their hand out and I know immediately that it's Detective Franks. I press the little device into his palm and he gives me a nod before squeezing my shoulder. "How did you find me?" I ask, voice weak. "Your friend, Ethan. He followed you both when you were taken and called me." "But he was knocked out," I say. Detective Franks smiles slightly. "Not hard enough. He was just dazed for a bit, apparently." "We need an ambulance!" I hear a muffled yell come from across the room and I look over to see someone hovering over a slumped form against the wall. I try to get up off my knees but the pain and exhaustion hit me and I stumble back down. Franny sits against the wall, breathing heavily and gripping the side of her stomach through her dress, which is wet with blood. I watch helplessly as her eyes find mine, until a paramedic finally comes rushing in, getting her onto a stretcher and out of the room. The wind is knocked out of me and my eyes lose focus. I slump forward and nearly hit my head on the ground as I fall into silence, everything slowing down as I lie within a circle of bodies.