8 Eight

I wiped a drop of blood from my lip and looked to my opponent between raised fists. We made eye contact seconds before lunging at one another. My adversary gripped my body and slammed me into the dirt-covered wood floor, pinning me to the ground with his knee to my chest. I heard a rib crack under the pressure and I yelped. I started to pound at anything on him I could reach, but he flexed his muscles and took each of the sloppy blows. I became short of breath and my vision started to blacken. I managed to tap my hand weakly on the floor just before I passed out.

I was only out for a few moments. When my eyes opened, I gasped and watched as the mediator lifted the hand of my opponent. I groaned as I lifted myself painfully off the ground, dirt sticking to my bare sweaty back. I took the notice of no one, they were all cheering for the winner. Everyone except Nick. He rushed into the packed secret cellar, screaming incoherently at the top of his lungs in hysteria.

I reached my arms up and gripped his shoulders, wincing.

"Nick. Nick!" I attempted at getting his attention. "Nick!"

His dilated pupils suddenly locked on mine and he stopped yelling for a moment. I had never seen him like this, hysteric, panicked, even scared.

"They're here," he told me and pushed away from my grip to climb to the top of a pole that stood roughly in the center of the room. He continued to yell once he was perched on a small wooden platform high above the crowd. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle. The crowd was well aware of what this signal meant and started panicking. The police had found us.

The officers burst into the room moments later and began arresting people left and right. They must've sent the entire Lirault police force after us. I pushed through the crowd toward the bottom of the pole that Nick was now climbing down. More and more officers poured in, and the crowd streamed out the multiple exits like bees exiting a disturbed nest. The already crowded room became packed with more and more people, the temperature quickly rising and the odor unmistakable.

Sport boxing had been illegal in Lirault for years, but they hadn't started cracking down on joints until recently. Add to that the gambling - also illegal - and the crowds of guilty looking pigs and multitudes of bare-backed fighters who stood out like a sore thumb, and you had yourselves a riot. Nick and I stayed stationary for a while, as the center of the mass was safest at the moment. An officer spotted Nick and me standing under the main lighting source in the room and grabbed a buddy to nab us. The officers were going for those who were obviously part of the fighting, and I was clearly part of the fighting.

"Run!" Nick shouted at me, although he didn't need to. I was already two strides ahead of him by the time he turned to sprint away from our attackers. We squeezed between hysteric crowd members, which slowed the officers down considerably, but they were still on our tail. One of them managed to grab Nick's ankle and he sunk below the heads of people like a drowning man in the ocean, flailing his arms up in surprise. He soon popped back up soon enough, though, after kicking the officer's face with his free foot.

We sprinted up the stairs, skipping up to three steps at a time. All the entrances had been blocked, so the only way to escape was up. What we would do after we were two stories up was to be determined. The officers were now a little behind, the one in the back now sporting a broken nose. We reached the top of the two flights of stairs and burst into an empty room that looked something like a study or office. There was one window directly across from the door, which Nick had just slammed shut. We both leaned on the door to keep it closed as the officers on the other side pounded their fists against the wood.

The only way out of the room was the window, which, about a half story down was the roof to the next building. I left Nick at the door and pushed open the window, staring at the height. It would be hard to get us both out the window without letting the officers in, making the possibility of one of us getting caught very high. I described the situation to Nick, rejoining him in leaning against the door.

"Jon, go. I'll hold them off," Nick said as he nodded toward the window.

"They'll capture you," I replied.

"I know," He said solemnly.

"They'll lock you up,"

"I know, just hurry up and go, excuse guru," Nick paused and sighed. "There's no use in me escaping, I got nothin' to live for. You have a wife, Jon. And a child. They need you."

"They're dead, Nick." A tear trickled down my face.

"No their not,"

"What..."

"Go, goddammit!"

With that, he pushed me away from the door and yelled at me to go. He gave out a cry of struggle against the two officers pushing on the door.

I placed one foot on the outside window sill and heard a bang as the door flew open. Nick was knocked to the ground but quickly recovered to face our attackers emerging from the stairwell. Nick began throwing punches, but the two officers soon overcame him, holding him by the arms, yanking them behind his back at an unnatural angle. I heard a pop as one of his shoulders snapped out of place and Nick cried out.

I was frozen in place in the shadows of the night, observing the brawl. I heard Nick yell at me once more to go before receiving a harsh kick to the gut. He dropped to his knees, his left arm dangling to the floor, motionless. One officer left Nick to lunge at me, but I slipped out the window and dropped to the roof below. My knee gave out temporarily with a slight crack and a stabbing pain shot up my thigh as I hit the shingles. I bit my lip till it bled to stifle a cry as I slipped away into the night.