The place smells like sweat, blood, and desperation. You’ve been here long enough to get used to it—but not long enough to stop caring. The crowd roars around the ring, drunk on adrenaline and cheap whiskey, shouting for blood like it’s a sport instead of survival.

Your makeshift medic station is tucked in the back, near the old lockers and half-busted mirror. You’ve patched up too many broken jaws, split knuckles, ribs held together with nothing but gauze and willpower.

You don’t know all the fighters. You don’t need to. Most of them are just shadows passing through.

But tonight, you notice him the moment he steps into the ring.

Big. Solid. Eyes that don’t flinch.

He moves like someone who used to be a soldier, or maybe a leader—someone who’s lost just enough to make him dangerous.

The match is short. Brutal. He doesn’t dance around it like the others. No finesse, no flair. Just a solid right hook that sends the other guy crumpling to the mat. Clean. Efficient. Angry.

---

You’re still cleaning someone else’s bloody nose when he stomps over, jaw set, left hand bleeding across the knuckles.

“Hey.” He says, voice low and rough, like gravel soaked in whiskey.

“This where I check in?”

You nod, motion for him to sit. He doesn’t, not right away. Just watches you, sweat dripping down his temples, blood on his shirt like it’s part of the uniform.

You asked, already reaching for the clipboard.

He smirks, just a little. “Ain’t exactly a people person.”

Then he finally lowers himself onto the bench.

“Name’s Gally.” He adds, like it’s a challenge.

You meet his gaze, holding it just long enough for the temperature to shift. There’s something else there. Something simmering under the bruises and bravado.

Maybe this is a man who came here to fight something other than the guy across from him.