Prologue

A Chapter by Maya

Those eyes only hold emptiness. Her skin is worn and wrinkled. It barely covers the bone, but how could it when all I see is my mom passed out with a needle in her hand. I never know if I will find her dead or alive. A once beautiful woman now done under by the drugs that seem to entangle their vines around her. Their vice grasp gripping tighter and tighter as the days go by. I fall to my knees slowly as I lift her onto the couch and wrap the blanket around her. My kiss brands her forehead and let one single tear to fall down my face. Before I walk out the door I pick up the needle that does so much destruction and break it into a million pieces and throw it into the trash.

This seedy apartment is filled with nothing but lies and my will to live and survive. My mom makes her money on how she does and spends it on the crack or meth or LSD or whatever she can get her hands on. I do not work at a fast food restuarant or even a retail store. I am not pregnant or have a child. I do not fail in school. Because I will not be another black statistic, besides my upbringing. I make my money from underground fighting.

Before my father died over in Iraq. Before my mother began using. When life used to be nice. My dad taught me how to fight before I could write. He made me an expert at knife handling and blocking. I can block any hit for two hours straight. Just try me and see. When UFC was not a big hit, Dad trained me regularly how to do chokeholds. My move is a high kick to the head, piroutting around and delivering an uppercut with my foot; most likely knocking my opponet back five to nine feet.

Then one day a black vehicle stopped in front of our neighborhood and two men with blacksuits handed mom an envelope and dog tags. I watched this ordeal as I peeked through the wooden staircase. Mom was never the same because two weeks after that mom lost her job. They foreclosed the house. We were living on the streets until a man around his late forties asked me if I could fight. I shook my head and he told me to meet him at a certain address at 5pm the next day. Back then I had been thirteen and did not know what else to do. Mom found her release and I needed to find mine, so we could make some money and not be living in a shelter. I had to grow up real quick more than a kid should have to at that age.

So I showed up at the desginated place with ten minutes to spare. Mr. Krause or formly I call him Coach Krause. He told me to show what I got and he was way surprised for a girl my size could do. When I was thirteen I was about 5"3" and only ninety something pounds back then. At the end of the whole ordeal he handed me what looked like an invitation that said: "Underground Rally" and in other details said if you won in your age range then you won seven hundred bucks and fifty for every round you won. Then Krause said I can either show or not, and reminded me that he did not care what I did. I left without even saying thank you or goodbye and went back to the shelter. Though when I made it there that secretary lady said that we had been kicked out because they had found drugs in my mother's belonging.

That night I slept in homemade cardboard tent while it sodded to pieces as it rained. My body never shivered that bad until that night and knew from then on that I had to fight to survive. I vowed to let myself leave behind that life. A life filled with death nearing every corner. A life filled with grief and tears. A life filled with no hope.

My old story is that and that is all you need to know. My name is Violet Marquee and I will survive!