Rock, Paper, Scissors

20: Won't give up

At night, after I had calmed down, I took the notebook and started flipping its pages. Beautiful writing filled them with numbers and mathematical terms and graphs and schemes. I stopped at a random page and started reading it. The notes explained everything in such clear detail that even I understood what I was looking at. No wonder he was in advanced classes. He was smart and organized. He had everything to succeed in life. Everything except he had been clearly fighting.

I called Noah and told him what had happened. "Haven't you learned your lesson Veronica Mars?" he had asked, but he eventually agreed to help me find the truth and make sure our friend was safe. We waited for the next Friday to put our plan in action: Midnight run 2.0.

Nick acted as if nothing had happened, but he spoke even less than before, going back to his stoic posture. As part of our plan, Noah asked if we wanted to have pizza night at his house Friday. As expected, Nick, Tyler, and this time Micah too, said they couldn't and Noah shrugged it off, "Next time then."

We shared a knowing look, and our plan went into motion. Friday came by and we sat in Noah's car outside Micah's house, because yes, after all the time we spent with Tyler and Nick we still didn't know where they lived. Some would call this stalking we called it detective work. We waited until a car we didn't know parked in front of the house and honked.

A minute later Micah came out of his house and got in the backseat. We followed the car, being careful to keep a safe distance from it. We drove through the suburbs to a familiar scenario. We were getting close to the clinic where I had my therapy sessions. We passed the clinic and turned at the next right. A couple of blocks after a big parking grey parking lot, with maybe a dozen cars, surrounded what looked like a warehouse. We parked our car and slouched in our seats to not be seen. We heard doors open and close and slowly raised up after a few moments to see who it was and where they went.

"Bingo!" I said. There they were: Micah, Tyler, and Nick. Nick carried a black sports bag over his shoulder, his expression serious, even after Tyler pat his back laughing. They walked through the back door of the warehouse.

"Maybe it's their gym. Micah told us they went to a gym together, remember?" Noah suggested.

"If that's it then why lies about it? Why hide it? No, there's something fishy about this. Maybe it's not drugs, but it's something." And yet it could be drugs anyway. That bag might have been full of them or empty so it could be filled.

We got out and followed the same path our friends did. The metal door squeaked a bit as we opened it, but the sound of cheers and screaming drowned the noise. Inside, clearly improvised bleachers had been set up. People were jumping, screaming "Go", "Come on!", "Faster on your feet!", "Don't give up!", "He's right! His right!", "Blow him up!", "Come on!". We carefully got closer and saw what caught everyone's attention. In the center of the room were two guys in a ring throwing punches and kicks at each other.

They weren't wearing any protective gear whatsoever, no gloves, nothing. Just their shorts, one of them stained with blood. I flinched at the animalistic grunt that came from the guy wearing navy blue shorts. He was lean but looked frail next to his opponent. Another punch and he fell on the mat.

An old bald guy, with a cigarette on his mouth, took the role of a referee and started the countdown. Funny how they had a referee even though it seemed like there were no rules when it came to the actual fight. The bell rang, the blue-shorts-guy knocked out.

I looked at Noah, not knowing what to think about all of this. This certainly wasn't legal, still, I rather have my friends watching this than have them deal drugs. I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I turned around to meet Nick's furious stare. His nostrils flared up; he pinched the bridge of his nose before letting out a deep sigh. "What. The hell. Are you doing here?"