Chapter Text
Ava is 7 when the accident happens. She tries for the rest of her life to forget, but the scene remains a jagged gash across her memory like the ugly wound it is. The shattered windscreen; the feeling of her legs, pinned and almost crushed; the tang of iron in her mouth; and her mother, slumped and crumpled into the steering wheel. The imagery winds through her brain, with pockets of fog, dense and choking, and every night for the first year at least, Ava finds herself suffocating in the dark when the lights go out.
She hears the whispers of the adults around her, faces unknown but not unkind; Ava understands enough to know what happened but not enough to know what is coming; and it is only when she realises that a week has gone by without any sight of her mother, that the gravity of her situation causes the uncontrollable cascade of her life to begin.
“Your mother…”
Ava does not know what she hates more: the fact that nobody is able to finish the sentence, or the pitiful looks people keep giving her. Since regaining consciousness, Ava has not said a single word. When she leaves the hospital nearly a month later, covered in fading bruises and well-dressed bandages with the inevitable cast for her left arm, she still does not hear the words from the mouths of others. Not when the nurse calls her name for the last time. Not when she arrives at her new temporary home. Not when she’s fed, showered, tucked in for the first night of some very long nights.
Yet it rings in her ears that her mother is dead.
—
Ava is 10 the first time she runs away. Or at least attempts to. It was inevitable, she tells herself. There isn’t any space for me here. There is no space that exists anywhere for me.
She is free for about an hour before she is spotted by two police officers in the London Underground, on alert, en route to changing lines at Embankment station. It is not hard to miss the small child, dressed in clothes slightly too big for her, trying to wrestle her way onto the train during peak hour with adults far bigger than herself. “Did nobody bloody think it odd that a literal child tried to buy a tube ticket to Outer London?” she hears one police officer ask.
Next time, Ava thinks, I’ll just walk.
She just wants out of this miserable city, grey and soggy. None of the shelters, the foster homes, the schools, ever felt of permanence to Ava. She knows she is a ticking time bomb. It is only a matter of time before the next angry phone call to her foster parent, before yet another expulsion lines up for the harmless transgression of biting a classmate’s ear. “She’s mental!” is a common expression from her peers about her. To Ava, time is a weird soup. Seconds burn away furiously into night, and drip sluggishly into day.
Ava feels maybe she is, as they say, going mental.
—
Ava is 13 when she first discovers WWE. It wasn’t that she was snooping; those old VCR tapes were lying around for anyone to see, and she was curious. In foster home number 9 where emotional bonds are void despite the number of bodies living in it, one only had to look at the hoarded items to realise where her foster parents’ true sentiments lay. Litterings of magazines and faded newspaper cuttings, yellow towers of stale newspapers all the way from the 60’s, messy stacks of cassette and VCR tapes lined in no particular order - it is clear they collect nostalgia and history. Hogging glory day bygones, Ava notes to herself. The good thing about this place, though, is that she’s left mostly unattended to, and anything in the house is fair game to whoever lays claim to it first. Being one of the oldest foster kids here has its perks; the other kids know when to lay off.
This is how Ava learns to be enterprising.
She learns that it is possible to earn money by selling memorabilia to people who want it. She vaguely remembers the phrase, “One old man’s rubbish is another ugly man’s treasure” and all that. School did teach her the occasionally useful thing. She learns how to coax, to bargain. She learns how to use ebay. Figures out the local spots where people gather to rehouse their unwanted items. How to read people a little better, Ava learns to look for the things left unsaid, and to capitalise on them. People sure are sentimental.
Every day after school - for a little while at least - Ava does not linger on school grounds to pick fights or settle scores. Instead, she rushes home to her new pastime, to patiently dig through the house, combing meticulously for any items that could be sold without being missed. She snuck out an old album full of collectible stamps one time. Ava really thought that it would have been noticed, but two weeks had gone by without so much as a sniff, and that had only emboldened her.
She understands that there is a market for the older technology, such as the CRT television; people will pay for these items that are no longer being manufactured, but she can’t figure out a plan for it to go conveniently missing without being noticed. Plus, she and the other kids would not have a television to use anymore. So that would not do. Everyone would be pissed if they did not get to rewatch Wrestlemania XIII again, the night Stone Cold Steve Austin was “born”. Or if they no longer had access to Rocky I on the original VCR tape. Or 3 Ninjas - okay, maybe this last one is Ava’s own secret favourite. The other kids never seemed partial to it. Ava’s pretty sure they could just look everything up on Youtube if they needed to, but there was something more grounded about watching TV on an actual analogue TV, not a monitor screen. The fighting moves are clearer, at least to her.
See, the other new pastime that Ava discovers through her love of cheesy fighting movies and wrestling highlights is that of fighting. Throwing punches comes easy to Ava. It never matters to her the igniting spark; she has never been one for using her words to settle disputes. And as she learnt fairly early on, there are no rules to sandbox scraps. Only the one taking the hits, and the one giving them.
Being underestimated also has its advantages. Just because she is scrawny does not mean she cannot scrap as mean as the bigger boys. Watching fictional fights on TV just gives her… inspiration on what to do the next time someone tries to throw a textbook at her when they pass by in the hallway. So she watches TV, learns her favourite moves, and practices both in her mind on faceless bullies, and through her body on real ones. By the time Ava is yet again expunged from both the foster home and the school, her peers had learnt to steer clear of her the second they saw her.
Being left alone was good. Being alone was an entirely different matter.
Ava does not know it, and won’t know it for a little while, but in the years to come when Beatrice asks about her childhood, foster home number 9 will be the one place that Ava recollects with reluctant fondness.
But she has not met Beatrice yet.
—
Ava is 17 when she loses her first fight in a while. At present, she is living alone at some council house the local council assigned her. A small, one-bedroom studio with cracked brick walls and the perpetual smell of damp. She is still stuck in London, for lack of a better option. But her local council had deemed her at risk of homelessness. As part of “Part 3 of the Children Act 1989 and Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996” - plus, considering she had pretty much exhausted most foster options - her handler had suggested it might be more “productive” (his words) for her to try living independently without being “smothered by the decisions of adults around her.”
In Ava’s mind, it was one of the more useful suggestions ever presented to her. She had jumped on the opportunity.
So, Ava is 17 and living alone in some piss-small flat in Hackney. She frequents the pubs nearby, gets herself free drinks from the regulars, and pisses off anyone she deems uncouth, especially on nights when a football match is on. Most times, verbal roughhousing is enough for her to get amicably evicted for the night from the pub; some times, drinks get spilt and fists get thrown.
Somehow, Ava has not been blacklisted yet.
For the most part, she always successfully staggers home, sweaty and drunk, to faceplant onto her bed. Hans, the usual bartender at her favourite pub “The Enthusiastic Sister” always makes sure she gets home safe. Too kind for his own good. Little does he know, it just means the next day she’ll be standing firm enough to go on another bender. Poor Hans.
For the first time, in a long time, Ava bites off more than she can chew. It is nearly midnight, and somehow the pub is rowdy and packed to the brim with bodies. Clumsy elbows and sticky wooden floors, Ava feels right at home. On Thursday nights, they play cheesy 80s Disco music. The glaring juxtaposition between this choice of music and the clientele always amuses Ava.
Already buzzing, she weaves her way through the sweaty crowd to her favourite spot in the pub, the area she personally deemed the dance floor. Ava loses herself and drowns to the beat. She usually grabs any body closest and willing, just so she can feel some warmth on her skin. It never amounts to anything; Ava never allows it to, beyond intoxicated grinding. Tonight, as she closes her eyes, Ava smiles when she feels strong hands grip her waist, the smell of ale, hot and bitter, over her right shoulder. She leans in, feels the body - male, she thinks - behind her move closer to hers. Ava does not care that it is likely a ridiculous scene to any observer: two horny drunks wiggling to 80s Disco on a Thursday night.
Ava starts to care, however, when she feels herself unceremoniously crashing into someone’s back, before falling sideways onto the ground. Disoriented, she looks around for the cause. Towering above her stands a curly, blonde-haired girl wearing a leopard-striped dress and killer heels, her hand outstretched as if in mid-push. The girl wears an almost gloating look of mock surprise.
“Oops. Didn’t see you there.”
Before Ava can open her mouth to respond, a second hand is outstretched, but towards her. She turns, and sees a handsome, youthful face looking at her with concern. Without much thought except of pure embarrassment, she takes his hand, tottering a little as she stands up. He smiles apologetically before turning to the woman who addressed her.
“What the fuck, Zori?”
Zori, as Ava now knows, rolls her eyes and shrugs. The crowd swims around them.
“I said I was sorry. Seriously, JC, we’re not here to fucking dance, remember? One drink, we said.”
Zori flashes Ava a look of what could only be described as disdain, and Ava feels her anger surge. Despite herself, she snarks back.
“ No, you didn’t. Say sorry, I mean. I’m not partial to a proper apology, though.” JC and Zori both look at her, one with a smile creeping up his face, the other with her lips downturned in a snarl.
Zori closes the gap, too close , and it takes all of Ava’s self control to not headbutt her on the spot. Ava can smell spearmint on her breath.
“And who, the fuck, are you?” Zori retorts, punctuating each word with a painful prod to Ava’s shoulder. JC, slow to intervene, makes a weak attempt to separate them with his hand, flagging between them.
“Touch me one more time and I’ll break your wrist.” Ava can’t help it. The first time she ever ate grass, she made a promise to herself that she would never be pushed around ever again, consequences be damned. And she intends to follow through on that.
“Whoa, whoa. I don’t think that’s necessary,” JC exclaims, clearly embarrassed by Zori’s lack of courtesy. Turning to her, he jerks his head in Ava’s direction, clearly alarmed. “Fucking apologise, Zori.”
“Fuck, no. She’s distracting you, and we need to go, we’re going to be late.” Zori’s voice rises above the booming music, and Ava feels the heat in her body rise with her. She turns to JC.
“Wait, you’re the guy I was dancing with?” JC looks like he’s about to say something, but Zori beats him to the literal punch.
“Nobody fucking asked you!”
Ava honestly did not think her night could have amounted to this. But here she is, being shoved by some bitch who thinks Ava is stealing her man (she doesn’t even know him!). The whole situation is preposterous and makes Ava’s blood thunder.
So she does the only thing she’s ever done in situations like this. She loses it, and shoves right back.
And right on cue, as if God wanted to sprinkle more humour onto Ava’s misfortune of the night, Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” begins to blast over the speakers.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Ava swears Zori’s eyes flash with actual murder as she rebounds off the body she was pushed into. Standing upright, Ava can only move on instinct as Zori lunges for her, teeth gritted and wide-eyed.
She is still drunk, so her movements are sloppy, but Ava easily spins out of the way, and Zori flies past her into the corner of a seating booth. Out of the corner of her eye, Ava can see the look of surprise on JC’s face, and she smirks. She whips her head around to him, wanting to say something smart.
The next thing she feels is strong fingers threading through her hair, curling, and pulling. The pain sears through Ava’s scalp, and she cries out. She’s pretty sure she’s 100% sober now.
“You fucking bitch!”
Ava tries to turn, but Zori’s grip is surprisingly strong. Her nails are long and clawed, and Ava is sure she’s drawing blood. Hunched over, eyes squinting from the pain, Ava is aware that JC is in the middle of it all now, trying to pull Zori off of her. It’s comical that he thinks it will help.
“Get off me!” Ava kicks clumsily with all her might, feels her foot connect with something, hears a yelp, and feels the pressure on her scalp loosen. She steps back, immediately tripping over JC’s foot. Ava is pretty sure that Zori got some free strands of hair from all of this.
She feels herself stumbling, hands grasping helplessly trying to find purchase to slow or break her fall, but nothing presents itself.
Instant pain slams into the back of her head, then nothing.
Fade to black, as it were.
***
Okay, so technically she did not lose. More like she took herself out of the fight. There, more apt.
When she comes to, Ava finds herself propped up on the piss-stained exterior of the pub. Bleary-eyed, she’s aware of someone holding something heavy and very, very cold to her head. Ava groans.
“Are you alright?” Ava opens her eyes a little wider, and she sees JC crouched beside her, sweat beading his forehead. Zori is nowhere in immediate sight.
“Yeah… Yeah.” Ava pushes weakly at JC, and the cold pressure on her head subsides. Looking a little more closely, Ava sees that JC is clutching a bag of frozen peas.
“Jesus Christ. I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance,” JC says, smiling with relief at her. Ava pushes at the ground, forcing herself to sit more upright against the wall. She can still hear the music coming from inside the pub. She swears her head is pulsing to the beat.
“No, it’s okay. I think. If I die tomorrow, I’ll let you know.” Smooth, Ava. Clearly a concussion won’t stop your awful sense of humour.
“Ha-ha,” JC replies sarcastically, although concern is clear on his face. “Can you stand?”
“I think I wanna sit here for a couple more minutes, if that’s okay?” Ugh, this is going to be worse than a hangover, Ava thinks.
“Sure. Do you… mind if I sit with you? Until at least, I’m sure that you won’t pass out again?”
Ava can’t think, not with the pain pounding in her brain. She nods, and JC plants himself next to her. Ava is vaguely aware of people leaving the pub, some casting glances at her, others without, as they mill out of the building.
A minute of quiet passes between them, JC staring out ahead of him, and Ava tries to break the ice.
“So… what was all that about?” Ava begins, body tense.
“Oh. Well, I guess Zori didn’t like that I was… y’know,” JC replies sheepishly. Ava tries to roll her eyes, is shot with blinding pain, and thinks better of it.
“No. I mean, when she said you were being held up? What did she mean?” Ava presses.
“Oh! Oh. Right. Well, um...” JC stammers, and Ava has to fight the urge to roll her eyes again.
“You seem like someone I can trust. So I’m going to tell you, okay?” JC says, eyes shining with sincerity, and as much as Ava has always told herself not to trust anyone, she finds herself curious.
“Well, we were on our way to a… club,” JC hesitates, and when Ava does not say anything, he takes it as a sign to continue.
“It's a… special bar. Okay, no, that came out wrong,” he amends, when Ava raises an eyebrow.
“Oh my god. Spit it out. Is it a bar with hookers or something?” Ava asks, and a shit-eating grin begins to form before she can help herself.
“No! Not that kind of club. It’s the kind that… isn’t exactly legal.”
“And bars with prostitution and stripping are?”
“Okay, fair,” JC concedes, raising one palm in mock surrender, the other still holding the bag of peas.
“Long story short, it’s the kind of club that… prefers to stay underground. Discreet. It involves lots of money, if you get what I’m saying. But no, no hookers,” JC explains, watching Ava watch him with curiousity.
“We have a bet going on, on something… someone. Some nun. Well, that’s her nickname, anyway. And we were going to catch the show, and hopefully collect our winnings by the end.”
Another minute of silence, JC still staring unblinkingly at Ava, the cogs creaking as they turn sluggishly in her brain. Then suddenly, she gets it.
“So you’re saying, you guys were on your way to an underground cage fight? ” Ava reiterates, words spilling slowly out of her mouth like dripping water.
“...Yeah. That pretty much sums it up,” JC concurs, nodding.
“I still have questions. So many questions.”
A beat.
“... But that is fucking awesome. ” Honestly, apart from all the media she consumed as a kid, Ava had no idea these types of places could actually exist in real life. JC looks taken aback at her exclamation, as if that was not the response he was expecting. The tension in his body eases immediately.
“Wait. So where is she? Zori.” Ava asks, realising that Zori is still nowhere to be seen.
“Oh. After your little… scene, she decided to go ahead. I said I would stay to make sure you were okay,” JC replies, smiling a little. Ava finds herself staring some more. I’m not used to this.
“I’m sorry. I don’t exactly have any money to make it up to you.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. Zori said she’d pick up my cut if we won. Minus some for the, uh, drama that I caused tonight.”
“Seriously? She’s a bitch. It’s not really your fault, you were just dancing.”
“Well, yeah, but we were going to be late, so that’s on me.”
More silence passes between them, the lights from the pub blinking out one by one. Ava realises Hans is closing shop. She clears her throat.
“Thank you. For staying,” Ava says quietly. JC, twiddling his thumbs, looks reassuringly at her.
“No worries. Thanks for - well. Nothing really,” JC replies, smirking. Ava feigns a punch at his shoulder, and JC laughs. “Well, nothing except, maybe your name?”
“I’m Ava.”
—
Ava just turns 18 when she watches her first underground cage match.
She is still 2 years out from meeting Beatrice for the first time.
The years leading up to their first encounter zip by in a blur, and Ava would be remiss to say she did not enjoy those years: JC and Ava become friends; he introduces her formally to Zori, sans catfighting, and they form a somewhat prickly friendship; she meets Randall and Chanel, the latter of whom she actually likes as a person; and they become a little menagerie of outcasts finding their place in the city.
She learns little about their backstories, the exception being JC, who opens up willingly; Ava finds she is grateful for both these instances. For the former, it means the courtesy of discretion is extended to her, and for the latter, focusing on JC’s past means she can forget about her own. And he never asks once. Without being vulnerable to each other, Ava is surprised to find that they grow comfortable together and for quite some time, Ava could argue that they thrived in their own unique way as a group.
Randall teaches Ava the subtle art of relieving people of their purchases, and Ava finds she’s a natural, despite nothing being subtle about her. Chanel spends countless patient hours talking to Ava about boys, girls, dating, and how to look flawless doing so; Ava appreciates the wisdom in her advice, even if she finds herself not particularly interested in acting on any of it for the most part.
Zori, on the other hand, spends the bulk of her time making snide remarks and brooding every time Ava shares a space with her. Ava can sense she is merely being tolerated, although Zori does share her effective strategies when it comes to spotting potential loopholes in fine print, applied to things like mobile phone contracts and train ticket purchases, and how to capitalise on them. JC, for his part, guides Ava in dodging dodgy situations and evading the law. Ava argues that to her, the more effective strategy is fighting her way out of a situation, although she can’t deny that punching a police officer in the face would bring far more heat than she would like.
And she was just getting comfortable with her little ragtag team of… friends? That’s a new word to Ava. She thinks she might like it a little.
JC and Ava do try dating for a little while, two months after the night at the Enthusiastic Sister; it becomes apparent two weeks in, though, once the hormones calmed down, that they’re far better off being just friends. Ava will always be grateful that the end of their whatever situation did not mean her exclusion from the group. Or maybe that was because, to their surprise - and most of all, her own - she was actually able to pull far above her weight.
***
A week into meeting JC, he had brought Ava to one of the underground clubs mentioned the first night they met. “The Great Inquisitor v. The Atomic Bull”, JC told her, with The Great Inquisitor tipped to win. Ava had expected it to be either incredibly glitz and glamour once inside, or gritty and naff; she had not expected it to be clean. Sterile, even. She was not sure how accurate real life would be to Fight Club, having watched it a billion times. It was underground, that much was the same; location and key phrase for entry were anonymously sent to JC’s mobile via coded text. They had arrived in the basement of what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, off the highway facing the River Lea. As Ava had stepped inside, she was taken aback by the sheer space of it. Past the bar, which was the first thing visitors encountered upon entry, Ava was amazed by the number of neatly lined seats staggered downwards, all facing towards the hexagonal cage at the centre. JC was right: there was a market to this.
Everything else that came after was a supernova of an experience.
The lights, the crowd, the cheering, the energy. Ava was hooked. From the look JC had given her, he could tell just as much too. Ava hadn’t sat the entire show, not when the Great Inquisitor stepped into the cage, not when the announcer had signalled the fight to begin, and most certainly not when the Great Inquisitor had won the fight by fair KO, the Atomic Bull collapsed on the ground, no longer able to stand. Ava had screamed and cheered until her voice gave out, and felt herself almost tremble with the thrill of something so illicit.
The biggest draw of all to Ava was two professional fighters duking it out to the best of their abilities. Plus, a paycheck for their troubles. To Ava, it was a marvel.
***
Later, JC had introduced Ava to his bookie, a skittish man with an oversized jacket. The man barely glanced at Ava, and she thought him practically cartoonish, especially upon seeing the size of the packet that he surreptitiously handed JC, who in turn cloaked it under his own bomber jacket. Yeah, definite villain material.
It was to be the first and only time Ava had taken a small cut out of JC’s gambling career, helping her pay the rent for the next 3 months. From that night on, however, Ava goes to as many matches as possible, stake or not. She couldn’t get enough, and there was much to learn from watching live fighting. Ava absorbed like a sponge, replaying combos repeatedly in her mind for hours after a fight was long over.
Ava would forever be grateful to JC the night he opened his dumb but glorious mouth. They had been trading banter during dinner one rainy evening at the kebab shop after a bout, with Zori griping yet again about Ava’s new obsession and blaming JC for it, Randall and Chanel watching amusedly without interference. A singular question, and it had set her path for good. Stoked the blaze that had started as a spark, and Ava found herself wanting to burn in it, to be utterly consumed by it.
“Hey Ava, have you ever thought of, you know… Being one of them?”
Throwing punches comes easy to Ava.
—
Ava is 20 and in her prime when she encounters Beatrice for the first time. She is, by her own measure, incredibly pissed off all the time, and doesn't yet know why.
Ava is 20 when she encounters Beatrice. Or more accurately, Beatrice happens upon Ava in an embarrassing situation.
Ava had just won her bout, which, according to JC via voice message, was incredibly messy. Never mind that she had been slated to lose this match, according to the underground polls - she had definitely won, but Ava had also felt herself slip during. Time had been spent studying Knightingale’s moves obsessively, to the point Ava felt she knew all her weak spots, and so Ava had been confident she would be the victor of the fight. What she had not banked on, however, was the manner in which she won.
Ava had earned her reputation over the years for being a striker - or to be more precise, a brawler. She catches heavy, but throws heavier. Her feet are agile enough, and she can parry as well as her competitors, but street brawling for most of her adolescence had ingrained a certain weight to her punches. Opponents quickly learnt that despite her slight build, catching a clean uppercut to the chin or a body shot to the kidney most likely meant KO. Every opponent would try all kinds of tactics against Ava, but in an infuriating fashion, she was hard to keep down.
So the fight against Knightingale had started out as Ava predicted; lots of dancing feet, weaving into Knightingale's blind spots, wearing her opponent down with her quick but brutal strikes to any area of exposed skin that she could reach. Round 3, and Ava’s face still had not touched the ground.
Until the surprise leg sweep caught her completely off guard. That was unprecedented.
She had wrangled like her life depended on it, miserably trying to lock off her neck against the chokehold submission that Knightingale was trying to put her under. It absolutely was a mess. Her mouthguard threatened to fall out, and she felt spittle fly as she violently fought for air. Ava felt her blood vessels practically throbbing in her head. She was never good with being on the floor, and usually tapped out this way. By some miracle, however, her opponent did not position her wrist lock securely enough, and that was all Ava really needed to reverse out of the dangerous position she was in. She had caught Nightingale's neck under her arm, cut the angle, quickly rolled onto her shoulder, locked her ankles over her opponent’s waist, and squeezed like her life depended on it.
A classic guillotine choke from full guard. She knew it would be a highlight on Youtube for days.
She had squeezed, and squeezed, until she lost track of how long she was squeezing for. JC had mentioned that the expression on her face was, in his words, kinda fucked. “You won, but what the fuck was going through your mind, Ava? You looked possessed.”
She knew exactly what he meant.
Ava had felt herself zone out, unbridled anger rising out from nowhere in her gut that roiled in her so fiercely, that she had barely registered her opponent frantically tapping out. It took the referee practically dragging on her barred arm for her to snap out of whatever fucked up state of mind she was in. It did not matter that the crowd’s cheers were deafening. Ava was shaken, and she did not know why.
So she had not stayed for the post-match interviews, nor signed any posters for her fans (damn right, she had fans). Instead, she had haphazardly thrown her stuff into her rucksack, barely wasted any time cleaning up the dried blood stained under her nose, unceremoniously grabbed her winnings for the night, and stepped out into the cool night breeze.
Didn’t she enjoy this anymore? She was on a winning streak, her first in awhile; so why does she feel so dissatisfied?
Was it that she hadn’t seen JC in 6 months in person? Was it that she didn’t know where Chanel, Randall, and Zori were since they had to go into hiding for pissing off the wrong people in one of their elaborate scams last Summer? Was it that she didn’t actually enjoy fighting as much as she thought she would? Was she not grateful that she was no longer broke, homeless, friendless?
Insignificant?
These questions that plagued her of late were usually stamped out in the cage. Except, every time she leaves the cage now, the rush of pure dread winds her so suddenly, she finds it hard to breathe.
So Ava steps out into the night air by the back exit as incognito as she can. At brisk speed, she makes her way on her usual path home, so lost in thundering thoughts that she fails to register the group of three men falling into step a short distance behind her.
By the time Ava realises she is being followed, she finds her options narrow: does she take the shortcut left back to her flat, or does she make the rational, safer choice of an extra fifteen minute trip via a more public walkway?
Maybe it was her self-destruction talking, maybe it was the adrenaline; maybe, even, it was just her being paranoid. Who the fuck cares. So despite herself, rather stupidly, Ava takes her chances, and cuts left through the back alley.
Ava has spent a long time being alone for the most part to know her flaws inside out. One of those flaws being, she tends to underestimate what people are capable of.
In truth, she knew she probably wasn’t being paranoid.
The empty bottle flies out of nowhere, preceded only by a gruff “Oi!”
The man’s aim is shit, and the bottle smashes into the wall three steps away from Ava. She quickly looks around, sizing up her space, counting the distance to the three men. She could just outrun them. But she was really, really tired. Fighting - most incorrectly - seemed to be the quicker option.
“You lost me a shitload of money. Reckon your winnings to make up for my loss, eh, lads?” The man closest slurs, his friends chuckling behind him.
4 steps to reach striking distance. Confined space - alley not wide enough for all three to stand in a row. Boxes of milk crates, broken chairs. I can maybe work with this.
The men are burly, buzzcut shaven. A glorious display of meat-headed testosterone. From where she’s stood, she can literally smell the stink of alcohol off of them. To Ava, they look like the sort of people that she’d gleefully punch in the face.
“Bugger off, you tosser.” Ava snarks in a poor imitation of a British accent, flipping the man off with two fingers.
Lewd gesture. Most definitely going to piss them off.
It does.
Ava is acutely aware she’s starting to feel sore from her bout with Knightingale, and throwing fists against three very unhappy, but also very burly men, isn’t going to do as much damage as she’d like. But she likes to think she’s good at improvising.
The first man rushes at her, rather clumsily, and Ava neatly parries his fist with her elbow, followed immediately by a knee to the gut. The man doubles over in pain, clutching his stomach. She looks up, locks eyes with the second man, and picks up the nearest overturned crate, throwing it at him. As she predicted, the man steps out of the way, which gives her the split second she needs to close the gap with a running kick, throwing her body’s entire weight into the man.
Target on point, second man down.
Ava and the man both land on the ground; he rolls forwards onto his knees in a feeble attempt to get up, drool pooling pathetically in front of him as he grits his teeth in pain. Ava gets up first, kicks him in the head for good measure, and whips her head around to look for the third guy, arms outstretched as if in mid-grab. She throws a wild haymaker with her right fist, feels her knuckles connect with bone, hears the shout of pain.
She does not account for him throwing all his weight into a body shot, aimed at her side. Fuck, of course he knows where I’m hurt, he watched the fucking match. A second too late to block, and Ava feels herself leaving, then landing onto the ground. Bile rushes up her throat, and she has to fight the urge to throw up.
Across, a cat dashes out from under a broken chair; in the distance, Ava is aware of the distant blaring of a car horn. Glancing to her right, she sees one man unmoving on the ground. The other, staggering to stand up. Directly above her, the man who threw the body shot, hatred etched on his face, the fresh swelling of a bruise forming around his eye. Somehow, Ava struggles to summon the willpower to get up. She really did feel very tired.
Ava mentally prepares herself to scrap and bite her way out of this predicament she put herself in. Self-loathing and regret can present themselves later. Maybe an arm lock. Or a leg sweep. You're overthinking it, Ava! God I'm tired. The man reaches for her. She bites; he draws his hand back, Ava staring up at him, eyes defiant. She almost dares him to try it again. He draws his hand back, and Ava grits her teeth.
Jaw dislocations are the fucking worst. Second only to broken toes or fingers.
“Excuse me! What is going on here?” A clear voice rings out behind the towering ape, and Ava sees him stiffen, a look of surprise on his face. She’s pretty sure the expression on hers is not dissimilar.
“What is going on here?” Why does she speak like a middle school teacher?
The man turns. He spits at the ground, venom in his voice. “Piss off, you cunt.”
Ava lifts her head to peek at her would-be saviour -
Would-be saviours?
Standing just at the edge of the alleyway are two women. Both tall, wearing comfortable dark clothes. The light from the streetlamp behind them on the street shadows their faces. Ava can’t discern their features from where she’s lying on the ground. One of them seems to be holding a device in her hand - mobile phone, perhaps. Ava grabs her side, and makes a lethargic attempt to get up, still woozy from the blow.
“I believe what you’re doing is illegal. I’m two seconds away from calling the police,” says the first woman. The middle school teacher-person.
“What she means, is… ” says the second woman, her voice deeper, cockier, American accent - Ava glances over to see her silhouette with her arms folded over her chest, looking as if this whole scenario is a mere joke to her - “... she’s two seconds away from kicking your ass. I wouldn’t test her.”
In response, the man picks up the broken chair and flings it at the woman. The third man is still unconscious on the floor. Good.
If Ava could still remember the concept of time in the moment, she’d conclude that the fight - if it could even be called that - lasted less than 30 seconds.
The speed at which the woman-teacher-person closes the gap to the man is so quick, that Ava gasps.
She never gasps.
In one fluid motion, the woman runs, leaps - soars , if Ava is feeling poetic when she recounts the scene - catches the man’s head between her thighs, and with her rolling momentum, gracefully spins her body down and across, using the man’s weight against him. The man goes tumbling to the ground, crashing unceremoniously into the crates behind Ava. The woman rolls, lands upright, seemingly undeterred, hair still neatly tied in a bun, eyes wide and alert. Ava does not fail to notice that the woman is pretty.
Ava swears she falls in love, right there and then.
Oh my fucking god, a hurricanrana? Who the fuck is she??
Ava is so busy swooning, she barely has time to register that shaven-headed idiot number one has finally regained full control of his limbs, and is attempting to charge at the woman. Ava still feels paralysed, as if her adrenaline has finally given out, and so she whips her head around and shouts.
“Watch out!”
Ava also does not fail to register that in the midst of this chaos, the second woman is still standing in the alleyway, nonchalantly checking her fingernails. Seriously??
Crack. Ava turns, and sees fighting moves she has only ever seen in kung-fu movies. Wing Chun, to be precise (Ip Man 1 was one of her all-time favourites). Clean parry with the slightest flick of the wrist. Simultaneous blow with the elbow to his windpipe. With what little movement, the impact is clear. He was foolish for getting in so close.
Another crack. The man crumples to the ground. The woman barely breaks a sweat.
Ava finds she’s on her knees now, finally, almost losing balance as she tries to stand. The woman is before her now, hand outstretched. Large brown eyes, wide and alarmed, face etched with concern. Freckles dot her cheeks prettily. A few strands of hair have come loose from her bun, tickling her face. She seems to pay no mind.
“Are you alright?” Her voice is warm, clear. It soothes Ava in an inexplicable way.
Aware that she’s still gawking, Ava takes the woman’s hand. The softness of her skin surprises Ava.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you, for… I had it under control.”
A pause, and Ava instantly regrets the sass spilling out of her mouth. A coolness enters the woman's eyes, mouth stiffening into a stoic line across her face. Real smooth, Ava.
“Of course you did.” says the second woman, voice drawling and borderline taunting, closer now. Her saviour tilts her head to acknowledge her companion, face expressionless. Then, she turns to Ava again.
“Well. Put some ice on that,” she suggests, pointing to where Ava is still clutching herself.
Ava tries again. “You’re…you were really cool. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
The woman opens her mouth, but Ava hears no answer as the second woman speaks instead.
“Come on Beatrice, we’re late. Mother is going to wonder why we’re taking so long.”
Beatrice looks apologetically at Ava. Ava, too, suddenly feels regret that this is how their meeting ends. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah, no, okay. Thank you, again.” Ava is rewarded with a muted smile, though Beatrice’s eyes are kind. Later, she wonders to herself why she had felt a nervousness - almost a panic - somewhere deep and undefinable in her.
“You’re welcome. Try not to walk down any more dark alleyways alone, okay?”
They’re both standing now, Ava still slightly hunched over. Before Ava can reply, she realises they’re still touching, hands held. Beatrice seems to gain her presence of mind too, and withdraws her hand quickly. Stiffly, she turns and walks towards her companion, who, as Ava can see much clearer now, wears braids and a bored expression on her face.
“Ice, yeah?” One last look at Ava, then the two women turn the corner and are gone, leaving Ava alone with three unconscious men in the alleyway and lots more questions swirling in her head.
One in particular stands out.
Beatrice. Who is she?