18

                                        

                                              
-🥋-
chapter eighteen



MADDIE




"Mom, please do not walk into that gym wearing that."
Just like how my mother dressed up in all blue for my brother when he was in the All Valley, she's done the same as me. It's like her and Mrs. LaRusso had planned matching outfits as they're both dressed as ridiculous as ever. What makes the entire thing worse, is my brother has also decided to dress up and make a sign with ugly photos of my stuck all over it. 
"We're supporting you, Madison," mum says, pulling out her phone to take a selfie of herself. "Now go join your team and you'll see us cheering for you."
"I'll probably hear it first," I mutter, turning away from the two and finding my team. I find the lot of them walking towards the gym with their bags hoisted on their shoulders. 
Despite all the words he said to me yesterday, I find myself looking for him in the crowd of people making their way towards the gym. At first his words hurt and cut me deeper than ever, before I noticed Silver and Wolf standing nearby. While half of the words may have been from Axel, I could tell half of them weren't. 
I wasn't stupid, and I knew him. That was the two simple things that resulted in me leaving the conversation with my heart burst open, but my internal rage for sensei Wolf boiling over. To hurt him, I was going to take down Zara Malik and I would go to length to get there. She wasn't going to win, and I'd laugh in Silver's face as he walked away from his rented dojo with a scowl. 
Wolf would pay for hurting him. And Silver would pay for hurting me. 
With my gi on, I stand on the sidelines with my team watching as Tory walks onto the mats alone. To think that her friends could have been standing beside her, but they weren't. She was alone up there, but she had the support of everybody surrounding her. 
The Iron Dragons pile into the gym, Zara and Axel up the front. My eyes never drift to Zara once. If I'm looking at their team, Axel is the one I'm looking at. The look in his eyes was the main giveaway to the fact I knew it was Wolf saying the words he yelled yesterday. The same look he had yesterday, he has now. He doesn't look like himself almost. He looks lost inside his own head as mine, as Wolf stands over him like a puppet master. 
But as I look into his eyes, I can still see a small fragment of the Axel that kissed me on the beach. The Axel that my entire heart beat for. And Wolf was fucking delusional if he didn't think for a moment I'd drop everything just to try and bring Axel back out of himself. I could see it in Barcelona how he was coming out of his shell, and now he's just been devoured by it. 
He doesn't look like he remembers who is, which terrifies me. 
I only turn away from him when the sound of my mother screaming my name from the stands causes me and the rest of my team to jump in fright. Almost immediately after, Amanda shrieks for Robby, the two hollering and causing the most noise of of everybody on the stands. 
The last time she did this was my first tournament, only she only dressed up for Xander because I didn't want her to dress up for me because I didn't think I'd go that far. She dressed up for Topanga Karate, and it makes me realise just how long ago that was.