Venture Unleashed (The Venture Books) by R.H. Russell Page B

now.”
    “Earnest?” Justice said wearily.
    “He fought his heart out, but he’s still got more. He has more heart than almost any fighter I’ve ever met.”
    “Everybody has his limits. He’s a seventeen-year-old boy, not a man with supernatural powers.”
    “You’re right. He’s just seventeen. He doesn’t know when to stop yet.”
    Venture opened his mouth to protest Earnest’s words, but Earnest shot him a sidelong glance and pushed on.
    “But I promise you, I know this boy as a fighter better than anyone. I know his limits better than he knows them himself. When he’s reached his limit, I’ll pull him out. You have my word.”
    “No matter what?”
    “Even if he’s fighting to be in the top three, with a fortune on the line. When he’s done, he’s done. I’ll take him out.”
    Justice nodded. “All right,” he said. But then he regarded each of them in turn. “That first match—if that ever happens to Vent . . .” He shook his head and walked away.
      Venture looked down at his hands. He’d wiped up the best he could after each match, but there was dried blood in the creases of his fingers, dried blood under his nails. His shirt and shorts, once gray, were stained various shades of red and brown, and pink where his sweat had diluted the blood, all in spots flowing into one another.  
    “Get that ice back on your face,” Earnest said.  
    Venture lifted up the ice. It was tied in a white cloth. But the cloth wasn’t white anymore. It, too, was stained a pinkish brown.
    Earnest said, “It’s not yours. It was in your hair, from the first match.”
    Blood had dried in his hair. Every time he’d wiped sweat from his brow, every time it had dripped down his face, it had been mixed with blood. Earnest handed him a clean towel just as he was thinking of asking for one.
    “Don’t worry about it, Champ. I pound on guys like that all the time. He’s a trained fighter. He’ll handle it. It’s all part of the package. Everybody knows that.”
    “We’ve got about half an hour until your next match. Let’s go to the changing room and get you cleaned up.” Earnest helped him up, and they went to the partitioned area set aside for the competitors to wash and change.
    Wash basins and pitchers sat ready in a line along a table, with stacks of washcloths and towels and blocks of new soap. Tired men sat on benches or stood nearby, donning clean clothes. Some slumped, deflated, and others recounted matches and compared injuries. Venture stripped his soiled clothes off, put on clean shorts, then went to one of the basins.
    Earnest stood beside him as he scrubbed at his head. “So which is it, Vent? Does it bother you that it bothers your brother or does it actually bother you ?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Here.” Earnest took the cloth and wiped the spots for him that he’d missed on the back of his neck.
    Venture toweled off his head with his good arm. “I’ll be fine as soon as I get back on the mat. I’m always fine on the mat.”
    Venture had washed up the rest of his body and was drying off before he had anything else to say to Earnest. The changing room was virtually empty by then—just two men swapping dirty jokes on the benches opposite them.
    “Justice thinks I was brutal. And it’s just not what I want to be known for, and it was my first match at the Championship—the first match of mine that most of those people in the crowd have ever seen.”
    Venture paused. Earnest might understand the rest, mostly, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He’d been on the way to becoming a wild, hotheaded brawler when he was younger, before Grant had taken him to Beamer’s. He’d learned pretty quick that he needed to get himself under control if he wanted to get anywhere, and it had taken him years to develop some self-discipline. He’d also learned that as a bondsman, he was already just a brute in the minds of some.
    “I don’t want to be known as a brutal fighter. I always