Chapter 13 · Iron Arena - Chapter 13: Burned-Out Champ

The burned-out champ showed up twenty minutes before fight time, stumbling through the basement door like he'd already lost.

I watched from the prep corner. Cole was checking my gloves, not looking up, but I saw his jaw tighten. He knew who it was. Everyone did.

"That's Marcus Reid," someone muttered behind me. "Used to run the east circuit before his sync fried his brain."

Marcus looked like hell. Forty, maybe older. Skinny in a way that said he'd stopped eating right, stopped caring. His jacket hung off his shoulders. But his hands—his hands still moved like a pilot's. Loose. Ready. Muscle memory doesn't forget even when everything else does.

I turned to Cole. "That's who Thorne set me up against?"

"Yeah." Cole's voice was flat. He yanked the last strap tight on my left glove. "And you're not getting in that ring."

"We already signed—"

"I don't care what we signed." He stood up, got right in my space. Close enough I could smell the coffee on his breath, see the dark circles under his eyes. He hadn't slept. Neither had I. "You go in there, you're fighting a man who's got nothing left to lose.