Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,86
stadium floor.
Nora shadowed them, listening as C.J. listed attributes—the Brazilian champion’s flair, the Japanese champion’s intensity, as well as fan picks and pans over the course of the week. Her synopses were quick and calculated, riding underneath the noise of the crowd, but Nora still heard the echo of their previous conversation. Five billion turned away. Could the next face of Strike be more important than that? She followed them all the way to the stage, where the emcee was awarding giant checks to the champions and the screen flashed the third place, second place, and winner’s names. Five figures. Six figures. That cardboard was going to bounce.
A heartbeat shy of the spotlights, Gregg stopped, realizing she was behind him.
“Have you found it?” She saw more than heard the words. The money. He wanted to know if she’d traced it.
She shook her head. No.
He cursed, barely a movement of lips, and shifted bloodshot eyes toward the sea of champions, all of them toweled off and bandaged, some limping but without braces or wraps. They flaunted their injuries, held them as proudly as the fake checks in their hands. Their eyes glistened in the spotlights, anticipating the announcement they expected to follow the money. The ultimate prize.
What would Gregg have wanted from Logan in this moment? A wife who would support him. Silently, Nora moved to his side. Their hands brushed and turned toward each other at the same time, clasping in the darkness at the edge of the light, a world apart from the spectacle onstage. His palm was moist. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The emcee looked up at the screens and C.J.’s amplified voice filled the stadium.
Twenty years ago, there was a fighter who won every title, defeated every challenger. She redefined her sport for a generation of athletes to follow.
A montage of clips showed Logan in the ring, pummeling opponents, sending them to the mat like jump-cut dominoes. Next to her, Gregg wasn’t watching the screen. He still scanned the champions, looking through the faces for one he couldn’t seem to find. C.J. muttered in his other ear while her prerecorded, magnified voice carried through the driving music of the montage.
The world wanted her strength. They craved her vision. And so Strike was born.
Flash to a ribbon cutting, Logan and Gregg side by side yet somehow Logan was the only one in focus. Then fighters lined up in a room full of body bags, the Minneapolis club, the first place Nora had ever seen Logan in the flesh. Roundhouses, bags flying, Logan’s head thrown back, white teeth against her dark mouth, silent laughter in close-up.
It was oddly exhilarating to watch Logan’s image fill this entire stadium, and be the only one who knew why she was gone. The grip on Nora’s hand tightened. She looked at Gregg’s profile, the desperation suffocating his features as he shook his head at whatever C.J. was suggesting. She’d done that, too.
She’s trained tens of thousands of fighters, and challenged millions across the world to step into the ring.
“Logan is missing.” He still faced forward, but Nora knew he was talking to her now and his grip became almost viselike. “The police think I did something to her. They found her car.”
“Have they searched the park?” It was out before she knew she’d said it aloud.
“Yes, but it’s too dark now to—” He broke off.
Like every legend, she created a legacy greater than herself, to inspire and fuel generations to come.
Staring blindly ahead, Nora retracted her hand. She stepped back, and bumped into someone behind her. Apologizing, she sidestepped them and refused to make eye contact with Gregg, who was reaching out to stop her. He was blocked, though, by C.J. pulling on his arm, trying to get him to move to the podium where the emcee waved them over. Nora’s heart pounded, her breath sped up. Then Logan’s voice boomed into the stadium, and the roar from every section and every aisle made Nora’s hair stand on end.
“Strike doesn’t live inside a building or a package. It can’t die in the street or a locker room.” Gregg froze, and Nora startled at the choice of words. Even C.J. seemed momentarily surprised. “It will live beyond me. It will live beyond you. We may die here today, but the fight inside of us lives on. It lives in every child learning to defend themselves, every woman knocking some shitcan on his ass, every time someone discovers the fire in their fists.”
We may