I did a victory walk around the ring basking in the sound of the crowd. They were going wild and the spotlights shown down on me. But before long I reached the gate and Bella waved her hand at me. I ducked down and left the ring. As the crowd continued to cheer I was escorted to the medical room on Rodgers side of the stadium. I sat on the cold examination table as Bella carefully pulled open my other fingerless glove and slid it from my hand. She sighed and grabbed a bottle from the side and squirted the liquid over my knuckles.
I sucked in hard at the cold antiseptic as it stung at the wounds before rolling down my fingers. Bella took a swab and wiped. She moved my hands and nodded then pulled out a splint.
"You'll need to wear this for a day or two Sugar. Otherwise that wrist of yours will swell up like a balloon. " She strapped it to my left wrist that Rodger had relocated. I gave a little frown but didn't protest. Bella was a trained nurse and had been patching me up after matches for years. She was the oldest child out of Rodgers many children, to one of his many failed relationships throughout his years. Although she was only two years older than me she had this strange motherly effect on me, well, when she was not in her ring persona.
At sixteen my life was knocked sideways and I hit rock bottom. Feeling like I had nothing left to live for I wandered the streets looking for a way to end my miserable existence. Somehow, after failing to die from tossing myself off the high harbor bridge, I found myself in this back ally fight club. It was an open match. I looked at the fighters and saw it was a kill match. Without hesitating I entered. As I walked to the newly made ring for the very first time some guy handed me a mask and told me to wear it. I did and stepped into the ring.
As the match went on I managed to hold my own tossing a few blows that made the crowd cheer. I vented my frustration but it wasn't long before a few heavy hitters began to toss their weight around and the first person died. Then everything went black. To my horror though I woke up a few hours later in an office. Some guy calling himself Soul Sucker had knocked me out then tossed me from the ring sparing my life. I don't know why he saved me and I never got the opportunity to ask as he became a kill match champion and rarely is seen in public.
The strange man that gave me the mask was also in the office and turned out to be Rodger. He offered me an opportunity to be one of his fighters and four times a week he and his fellow fighters kicked my backside around the training ring as I trained in secret keeping my troubled dark side away from the light. It was at this time Bella started to treat my wounds using me as a test subject for her nursing studies and became strangely protective of me.
After a year I participated in my first money match and lost miserably. But I was forced to enter the ring again as Rodger didn't believe in self-pity. This time I won and he handed me my first side bet winnings, his cut taken out of course, as he had funded the bet in the first place.
The spark of greed and blood lust began to fill part of the void in me and I began to train around the clock. Running to and from school, joining Jenny and her family on training weekends and continuing my normal classes during my final year at school and in the reputable gyms I had been going to since I was ten.
Keeping my two different lives separate was surprisingly easy. While I smiled and played the part of normal schoolgirl at high school then at Uni I would hang around with Jenny and we constantly gossiped about anything and everything. Then when night fell, I would sneak to Rodger's gym and practice using my dark secrets and pent-up hatred as a weapon.
Given my strange determination when I turned eighteen Rodger signed me on as a full-time fighter for him and scheduled money fights for me once or twice a week. This sudden increase in money left me numb. I didn't know what to do with it. I was smart enough to know I couldn't splash the cash as people would wonder where a kid like me was getting it, so most of the time I just stored it away under my bed in a safe my adopted mother had installed until I could put it into the bank in small increments.
Bella's sigh brought me from my thoughts and she shook her head. She had been looking at the bruises on my arms where I had blocked the Crushers punches.
"These will be gone by morning with the way you heal... and the chest... The bruise will go too but you'll be sore for a day or two." I nodded as I was well aware of what healing after a match was like. "Oh, and be careful." I frowned as she pointed to my neck. "That scent blocker you have on is beginning to die. If you stand to close to someone of the non-human races they might be able to identify you." I nodded slowly.
"I was meaning to get a new one... But it slipped my mind and I hadn't been in the ring." She nodded.
"So are you coming back to fight?" I shrugged.
"Maybe I should give my title to the new Banshee..." I smirked as Bella shot me a murderous look.
"Like fuck! I'd sooner fight in your place than give it to her." She snarled and her wolf raged in her eyes. "That bitch can't hold a candle to you and she's a stuck-up princess from some Alpha's bloodline." She washed her hands and brushed back her hair. "She thinks she can come in here and take whatever the fuck she wants. I'd like to see you kick her arse in the ring." I grinned.
"Do you know anything about her?" Bella shook her head.
"No, she's one of Vox's fighters they keep to themselves and don't mingle with others... But he's been collecting fighters and has brought in some heavy hitters." Her phone went off and she answered. She nodded a few times then hung up and slipped it back into the little pocket on her hip. "Ok, I don't know much else about the Fake-Shee." She grinned. "I need to go collect your winnings and sort out a few things before heading home. There's a death match tonight so this side is empty now." She gave me a light hug and strutted out the office her boots clicking as the spurs hit the ground.
I sat alone for a while and looked at the already healed cuts on my thigh. it really was quiet back here and I could hear my own heartbeat like a drum.
'Why would anyone want to steal another fighters identity? Is Vox wanting to collect me too?' It was true that in the beginning when the fighting started to become popular that some fighters handed over their identity's and 'left', but this was just so they could start a new one a year or two later and keep their anonymity. It didn't make sense unless they thought I had retired fully and since there was only a few people who knew my identity as the Banshee, none of them would spill, it was a stupid move. I looked to my watch and left the room. But a strange thought kept crawling back into my mind.
'Unless they thought the Banshee had died.'