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CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Holly woke up to a pummeling headache. She winced, groaning as she swung one lackluster leg over the edge of the bed and allowed the rest of her body to follow after, sliding along the covers. Her foot kicked out, clinking against a brown bottle, and she watched through bleary vision as the bottle toppled. The empty container went rolling with a glassy sound across the ground in a kind of semicircle.

Holly reached up, pressing tenderly against her throbbing cheek, thus solving the case of the source of the splitting headache.

Then the events of the previous night came back.

“Shit,” she muttered.

She blinked more sleep from her eyes, but this only gave her headache more interesting and creative ways to torment her, so she kept her eyelids still—blinking felt like dragging sandpaper across her eyeballs. She cast a sidelong look at the red digital clock next to her bed and then let out a long, huffing exhale.

“Olivia?” she called, her voice loud.

Unlike last night, this time her call received a response in the form of small pattering feet, a pause, and then the door opened. A little nose poked through, like a mouse in search of cheese.

“You dressed?” Holly said, straining to keep her own voice chipper, friendly. The last thing she needed now was for Olivia to think she’d done anything wrong.

And as much as she wished this was as simple as crayon doodles of spiders on the back of the sofa again, this particular mess was all up to mama to clean.

“Yeah!” Olivia said. Her head poked in completely now.

Olivia had a cherubic face, with lips built for smiling and eyes that twinkled as if she’d just thought of a hilarious joke, but wasn’t sure if others would find it so funny. She had the same green eyes as Holly, and a small pink butterfly clip in her hair.

“Want me to make you breakfast?”

“Okay,” Olivia said. She seemed antsy, and was glancing down on the floor now, her eyes skittering around the laundry and the single brown bottle.

Holly kicked off the bed in a flush of embarrassment and snagged the bottle, dumping it in a smooth motion behind her nightstand in a black plastic trash can.

“What’s that?” Olivia asked.

“Self-pity,” said Holly. It was only one bottle, but still, she wished she’d cleaned up before her daughter had come in.

“Oh…” Olivia was still glancing around the floor.

Holly sighed. “Livie?”

“Mhmm?”

“You didn’t lose Mr. Wiggles, did you?”

Olivia froze, her eyes moving from the ground up to her mother. “Ah…”

“Livie, if there is a ferret in my underwear drawer again, I think I’m going to scream.”

Olivia winced and shrugged. “I dunno where he went. I just took him out to play and he ran under the door.”

Holly sighed, but then leaned over and gave her daughter a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll pour you some cereal, and then I need to take you to school. Want Fruit Puffs?”

“We’re out of those.”

“Oh—what about Lucky Charms?”

“Out.”

“Hang on—I just got a box last week.”

“Remember when Mr. Wiggles got out… before the underwear drawer?”

“He ate the whole box?”

“No. He ate

some

, and pooped in the rest. I’m not going to eat ferret poop Lucky Charms.”

Holly resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she led Olivia up the hall.

Lucky…

she thought…

That’s us.

But as she guided her young child along, she decided perhaps this wasn’t so far from the truth.

Above, two thick metal ceiling joists crossed out of sight through the walls. To her side, an

enormous

window the size of most storefronts covered the wall giving a glimpse out into the rest of Sparrow’s Point—a coastal suburb just outside the city that had once been a big old industrial complex.

Their home, in fact, used to be a factory—thus the ceiling beams and giant windows—but had been converted into a series of spacious apartments.

A quick bowl of cereal, which tasted like cardboard, was followed by a series of tactical hunting patterns as mother and daughter searched through the house for Mr. Wiggles. When their search came up empty, Holly looked at the ticking round clock over the TV. “Holly!” she called. “School!” The despair of the failed ferret hunt saw the Aldrens out the door, into the old jalopy with the duct-taped back window and purple splotched paint over a rusted hubcap.

“You’re sure you checked the underwear drawer?” Holly said, as she maneuvered the car down the suburban streets toward Little Leaf public school. The name would have implied delicate and small children full of life. But given firsthand experience, Holly had seen some elementary school students, who shared the building with a middle school, who looked like Chips the Hips’ older sisters.

“Double-checked.”

“All right, well… we’ll find Mr. Wiggles when you get home. Say, don’t forget,” Holly said, trying to keep her tone the same. “We have an appointment with Dr. Sandre at three. You’ll have to get out fifteen minutes early. I already told the office.”

Olivia frowned, wrinkling her nose. “Do I have to? Jeremy’s birthday is after school.”

Holly closed her eyes for a flash of a moment, but then opened them to study the road passing by. “I’m sorry, Livie, it was the only slot he had this week. I’ll pick you up.”

A few minutes later, she pulled to a stop outside Little Leaf, which could just as appropriately have been called Alcatraz, judging by the architect’s insistence to keep most of the walls gray and half the windows barred—

for the children’s own safety

, Holly had been assured on parents’ night the previous year.

We’ve had a couple of prowlers try to break into the lower windows.

Why this would have made her anything but assured, Holly couldn’t possibly have guessed.

She sat in the parking lot, watching a couple of buses full of rowdy kids pull to the front of the school. Olivia pushed open her door—after doing the wiggly thing with the lock on the old hunk of junk—and then spilled out onto the sidewalk, her backpack flung over one shoulder.

“Throw me a kiss!” Holly called.

Olivia turned, laughed, and kissed her hand, cupped it, and then tossed it toward her mother. Holly mimed a catching motion. She watched as her small bundle of joy scurried off, joining the stream of students spilling into the school. Even from here, they all looked so big. Mama Holly was slowly replaced by fighter Holly as she glared at the children. What were they being fed? A steady diet of lean meats and steroids? They towered over Olivia.

A moment later, though, she was distracted by a buzzing sound. Holly hesitated, then frowned, reaching into her pocket and pushing off the seat, angling her body so she could snag her phone.

“Yeah?” she said.

“Hello, Ms. Aldren?”

Her mouth went suddenly dry. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“This is Commissioner Derryberry. I’m with the Alphas Boxing League.”

“Yeah?” she said. It seemed a useful enough word, why not try it twice?

“I’m calling to notify you that there’s been a formal review of your fight from last night. I’m sorry to say we’ve determined foul play. We actually need you to come in to sign some papers sometime this week, but the decision has been made.”

The dryness had now spread to her throat. She just sat frozen, her back against the seat. For a moment, her eyes cast toward the students once more, desperately seeking out her daughter like a drowning victim in search of a life vest. But Olivia was gone. And she was stuck in her rusted jalopy, with no one else to share in the complete collapse of her career.

“Yeah?” she said, as she’d once heard third time was the charm.

“So you admit it?”

She deviated off script. “I didn’t say that.”

“Well, regardless, we took a vote after the review. Unanimous. You’re suspended from the league for two years.”

Holly swallowed now, feeling like she’d been rabbit-punched in the gut. “Two?” she said. “Years?”

“That’s right, Ms. Aldren, we take this sort of thing very seriously. We’ve notified your trainer and gym as well. Please understand, the following six bouts this year are now canceled. I’ll read you the dates: first, the one on August seventh against—”

Holly hung up.

She sat for a moment in the car, her hands bunched into fists. Her emotions felt like still water seeping away. Her hands were motionless now, her eyes like flint. She puffed a breath and then put the car back in gear.

No pay for taking the fall. No more championship shot. No more career at all now.

She glanced up into the rearview mirror, in her mind picturing the image of her father with his fist held in solidarity, then the way he’d stalked out of the stadium after. They’d counted on her, invested so much in her. They deserved to be the first to know, as much as it sucked.

Eventually, she’d have to face the music anyway—might as well get it over with. It wasn’t like the day could get any worse. But also… her brothers

knew

people. Dockworkers often did, ears to the ground, eyes to the horizon. If anyone might be able to track down the bookie who’d cheated her, maybe her brothers would have an idea or two.

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