One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,51

to get a good view and their noise sounded more like a hundred. After the low blow and the late punch everyone was firmly back on Marc’s side.

Luc’s nose was bleeding heavily and for the first time since he’d been knocked down in the opening barrage Marc felt like he had a real chance of winning. The caution that marked the third round was out of the window as Marc and Luc charged forwards like rutting stags.

Luc locked an arm around Marc’s back, held him close and pounded his body with right jabs. Marc’s arms and legs were getting heavy. The constant jabs made breathing impossible and he broke loose with a fierce head butt to the bridge of Luc’s already bloody nose.

‘Beautiful!’ Sam’s big brother Joel shouted. ‘Now kill the bugger!’

But Kindhe had seen and immediately threw himself between the two fighters. He’d already given Marc a warning for backing out of the ring in round one, now he got a second for the head butt.

‘Whoever gets the next warning is disqualified,’ Kindhe shouted. ‘You’ve got to behave.’

Both lads had sweat pelting the rubber around their feet as Kindhe gave them the signal to start fighting again. Marc could barely raise his fists, but Luc was livid about the head butt to his already injured nose and staggered forwards, swinging clumsily.

Marc dodged, making Luc stumble comically across the rubber mats, to the amusement of the crowd. Luc didn’t give a damn about people hating him, but laughing was different and he glowered at Paul as he stood up.

‘What are you laughing at, stick-boy? You want your head beaten in?’

With little more than a minute remaining, Kindhe gave the signal to resume fighting. But Luc had his eye on Paul and knew nothing about Marc’s first decent punch of the round until it connected with the side of his head.

The crowd whooped as Luc stumbled, but he found a reserve of strength from somewhere and came at Marc with half a dozen strong punches. More through tiredness than anything else, the last of them was another low blow, but Kindhe missed it.

Marc went down on one knee as the crowd screamed about the low blow, but Kindhe had begun a ten-count.

‘How could you not see that, you blind dick?’ Paul shouted. ‘Christ!’

As Kindhe reached eight, Marc was getting back to his feet, but his legs were swaying and Kindhe raised his hands to signal the end of the fight. The crowd hissed as Luc jumped in the air and started cheering.

‘I don’t give a monkey’s what any of you think,’ Luc shouted.

Marc found his way back to his corner, but instead of sitting on his stool he picked it up and raised it high over his head. PT tried pulling Marc back, but his sweaty torso slipped through PT’s fingers and there was a collective gasp as the stool smashed over Luc’s back.

Luc stumbled towards Henderson and McAfferty’s chairs in a daze. They both dodged, but Joyce didn’t have time to take the brake off her wheelchair and Luc wound up with his bloody face buried in her lap.

Joyce screamed in horror at the blood smeared all over her uniform.

‘That was another low blow,’ Marc shouted as he charged in for a second shot with the stool, but Kindhe got one of his gigantic arms around Marc’s neck as PT lifted his feet off the ground. ‘Let me go. I’m gonna kill him.’

Luc rolled to the floor as Joyce shoved his head out of her lap, while little Terence was scared by all the shouting and began sobbing, holding his arms out for someone to pick him up.

‘This isn’t over, Marc,’ Luc shouted, as Takada helped him up. ‘I’m gonna cut your throat.’

Paul and Sam had backed away from the mats while bigger people dealt with the furious and exhausted fighters.

‘Put ’em in the ring,’ Paul said, half smiling. ‘Watch them trade a few punches and step away with their arms around each other’s backs.’

‘Pledging to stay best friends for ever,’ Sam added, as Kindhe and PT pinned Marc against the wall and ordered him to calm down. ‘The plan doesn’t quite seem to have worked out, does it?’

A few metres away, Henderson was trying to comfort his hysterical two-year-old son while simultaneously having an argument with McAfferty.

‘Why you two stand idle?’ Takada asked, as the squat Japanese instructor approached Paul and Sam with his hands on his hips.

‘We thought it best to stay out of the way,’ Paul replied.

Takada