Adelaide Beck dared Tristan Presley to become her best friend in the fifth grade... and he said okay.
After a summer of doing nearly everything together, Tristan suddenly becomes distant with her. Adelaide had always guessed that natural causes had...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Braedon had stepped away from Tristan who was still lying there on the ground. As people started clearing out of the room, I climbed through the ropes myself and went straight for him.
"Are you okay?" I asked him quietly as I threw myself down beside him.
"Probably just going to stay down here for a while." He let out in a difficult groan.
Just then I heard a familiar voice drawing closer as the room went emptier and emptier. "Just what the hell do you boys think you're doing?" Lachlan said. He approached the ring quickly and Nolan followed close behind him with two other men that I hadn't seen before tonight. One of them had a gun of his own, out and ready. Tate and Carson shuffled closer to us.
"Tristan is done, you made your money for the night. You even have a fighter who would willingly make you money every weekend." Tate said motioning to Braedon who was still unwinding from the fight.
"That's not how this works. I asked him to fight for me and he agreed."
"You didn't exactly give him a fair choice in the matter." I defended bitterly.
"It was fair enough sweetheart, he could have easily said no and walked away." He replied in a taunting tone and then his eyes raked over me, "although I suppose it wouldn't be so easy saying no to you."
"Lachlan, he's not wrong." Braedon stepped in, "I could easily make you as much money, if not more, than he could. I just beat your boy to the ground, that should be enough of an assurance for you."
I took a moment to look at Tristan again and I noticed his eyes were drooping now, like he was going to sleep any moment. I bent down real close to his ear and whispered, "stay awake, please, just for a little while longer."
I didn't know what his injuries were, but I did know for a fact that he need some medical help. I didn't want him to doze off until we could get him just that.
In response he reached him arm to the side and took my hand into his own. I gave his a gentle squeeze, being mindful of the bruises forming on his knuckles.
"Nonsense Braedon, this was just the start. We're becoming the biggest underground organization in the area. We need more fighters like you, like Tristan, even like you Tate. But you boys aren't the ones stupid enough to think you can just pack up and leave. No one's leaving."
Lachlan climbed into the ring then and a sudden thought occurred to me that hadn't come up before, "Why didn't you have Braedon training all day?" I asked Lachlan.
He just looked back at me, a ghost of a smirk on his lips.
"You had Tristan working all day, I didn't see him once." I continued in a firmer tone, "why didn't you work Braedon like you did Tristan?"
"You wanted him to lose." Tate said. "Didn't you?"
"So what if I did?" he asked nonchalantly, "most people were convinced Tristan would win, people with big money and small brains."
