The Fight In Us: A Brother's Best Friend College Romance (The Four Book 4) Becca Steele (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

impossible to scale. From inside, there was the sound of shouts, talking, jeering, and the distinctive sound of snarling and whimpering. Winter sucked in a sharp breath, visibly steeling herself against the noise, before she squared her shoulders.

“These bastards are going down.” Her tone was pure venom, and I shivered.

“Oh, yes, they are. Everyone here has blood on their hands. And we’re going to make them pay.” I held up my hand, and she slapped my palm, then gave me a savage grin.

“Let’s bring them down.”

We circled around the area and discovered that the fencing had another opening on one side. To the side of the opening was a small shipping container, and we darted into its shadows, crouching down, while we worked out a plan of action.

“Feel that?” I grabbed Winter’s hand, pushing it against the cool metal. It vibrated under our palms.

“Is that…” She trailed off, pressing her ear to the container. “I can hear them.” From inside the container came the noise of rattling cages and the sound of dogs in distress. “Fuck, this is horrible,” she murmured. “Can we just sneak inside and set them free?”

“No.” I sighed. “These dogs…they’re not like normal dogs. They’ve been bred for one purpose only—to fight. That’s all they know; all they’ve been taught.”

“What does that mean for these dogs?” she whispered, her face falling.

“It means that sometimes the kindest thing to do is to have them put down.”

“That’s so sad.” Tears filled her eyes. “They can’t be rehabilitated or retrained or something?”

“Sometimes they can. Some are lucky. But not always.”

“We need to stop these people from doing this.” Her voice was resolute.

“We will. Let me think for a minute.” My eyes swept the area. A bell sounded, and the shouts increased in volume. “Okay, now. While the fight is just beginning.” We crept towards the fence opening, staying in the shadows. There was a huge, beefy guy standing next to the entrance, bulging arms folded across his chest.

“How are we gonna get past him?”

“First option, we wait until he’s distracted, then sneak inside. Second option, one of us distracts him while the other sneaks inside.”

“I don’t like the second option.” Winter shook her head at me. “We stick together.”

“Okay. Come on.” Reaching out, I grabbed her hand. “When I say, we go. I’ll watch the guy; you keep an eye out for anyone else.”

She gave me a brief nod, already focused on our surroundings. I kept my eyes on the guard, watching as he pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and fished one out. With agonising slowness, he lifted it to his lips. The strong breeze whipped the flame of his lighter, and he turned towards the fence, cupping his hand over it to shield it from the wind.

“Now!” We darted inside the enclosure, keeping low to the ground and hugging the fence.

Inside was chaos.

We’d entered from the same point that the dogs came from. There was a large circular pit, hollowed out of the ground, surrounded by low chain-link fencing with an opening on one side. The whole thing was lit by some kind of portable floodlights, throwing us into shadow.

A crowd ringed the pit, maybe around sixty or so. Not a huge number by any means, but any number of people was bad in my opinion. The fact that anyone would want to be entertained by something like this. It sickened me.

At the far end of the pit, a guy in black combats and a black shirt held up a small camera, focused on the ring, and I carefully tugged Winter close so that I could speak right in her ear. “Camera.”

She squeezed my hand, letting me know she’d seen it, before melting further into the shadows.

Everyone was intently focused on the two dogs in the pit, snapping and snarling at one another. Taking out my phone, I began to record.

Within a couple of minutes, the fight was over. I had to turn away as the twitching, bloody body was dragged out of the pit, while the victor was held in place by a metal collar attached to a pole held by one of the men, that seemed to tighten and choke the dog every time it tried to lunge forwards.

“What do you say, gentlemen?” A loud voice suddenly boomed around us, rebounding off the fencing. “Shall we make this final fight a little more interesting?” Heads turned towards a guy with a microphone, standing on something that made him tower above everything else. A huge hood obscured most of his face.

“Because of course he had to wear the biggest hood known to man. Couldn’t make it easy for us,” I muttered under my breath.

“Place your bets! This time, the fight will be a three-way death match!” The pure pleasure in his voice chilled me to my core.

The screen that was rigged up behind him on some kind of crane-type thing lit up with images and stats for each of the three dogs. Money began to exchange hands, the volume of the crowd increasing again. Most of the time, the fights ended without death (or at least, in the ring), but the death matches seemed to be a particular favourite of these spectators. The organisers would use dogs that had outlived their usefulness for one reason or another and put them in a fight, literally to the death.

Three separate cages were dragged into the enclosure, and the men worked with practised precision, positioning them ready to enter the ring. They held what looked like cattle prods, and when one of the men jabbed it into the side of the cage, it took everything I had in me to not rush over to him and jab that prod into his belly.

“I want to shove that prod right into his balls,” Winter all but growled, staring daggers at him.

“I was thinking his stomach.”

“Either works.” She shrugged. “He needs a taste of how it feels. Those poor dogs.”

The crowd quietened when microphone man called for silence, waiting