Defiance

by Hannah Hanson

CHAPTER SIX

  “She should have woken up by now.”

  “She will. She is stronger than she seems…” Elysia paused, smiling and looking over her shoulder as though greeting someone. “Besides, have I ever let you down?”

  Amelia struggled to open her heavy eyelids. The hoarse, strained voice of a man pierced her ears.

  “I need her to recover quickly,” he snapped, his voice echoing in the room.

  Amelia, in her agitated state, was beginning to shiver. She forced herself up from the small, lumpy bed she had been thrown onto. She looked around the room; it was a prison cell with bars. There was nothing but the worn-out bed and a bucket in the cell. In front of her, on the other side of the bars, stood none other than Elysia, her small frame juxtaposed against the tall man who stood beside her. The feeling of boundless loathing Amelia had tried to suppress rose within her. All the questions she had suppressed flared up at once in her consciousness. She stood sharply and walked to the metal bars, pain radiating through her right arm. Turning cold and barely aware of herself, she clutched the metal bars and spat at Elysia.

  Elysia’s small, consumptive face showed little remorse. She opened her pursed lips; the words hung in the air like thick fog, “She’s just perfect, Diablo.”

  “Perfect for what?” Amelia asked.

  Elysia, uninterested in her question, walked out of the room, leaving behind nothing but bitterness and raging anger in Amelia’s throat. She wanted to break that thin neck—no, yearned for it. She should have known better than to trust a stranger.

  Diablo, who had stood silently during the whole ordeal moved closer towards the bars. He was tall, with sharp features. His dark emerald eyes looked out of place against his pale skin and dark blonde hair. He smiled at her, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. He had a seductive smile, punctuated by a small dimple on his right cheek.

  “She tells me you can fight,” Diablo said.

  “She’s a liar,” Amelia said through gritted teeth, not so much out of hatred but from the shooting pain that threatened to paralyse her.

  “That’s too bad. Because if you can’t fight, then I have no choice but to kill you…” His voice trailed off as he studied her, seemingly assessing her strength. “I’m sure you can appreciate that in my line of work, discretion is essential.”

  The information was too much to take in all at once. Amelia, though confused, understood the implications of his words. Bored with his torment, she nodded with a heavy head. “Supposing I can fight, how do I get out of this place you have built for yourself?”

  “Empire,” he corrected, his eyes narrowing to slits. “You get a percentage of the winnings—if you win, of course. And you can buy yourself out before someone else does. Very simple, really.”

  Tiny droplets of cold sweat dribbled down her forehead and a peculiar feeling of exhaustion consumed her thoughts until they pounded in her head, endlessly thrashing against her temples. Her eyes glazed over and her thoughts were incomprehensible even to herself.

  “When can I start?”

  “Oh, you’re so keen. I love it!” He laughed and walked away.

  “Wait!” cried Amelia, the tears swelling before she had a chance to fight them back. But he had vanished. She collapsed to the hard floor, her hands still gripping the metal bars. All at once, a flood of emotions shook her already overwrought nerves and her anger was replaced by hysterical laughter.

  “Can you be quiet, please?” came a voice.

  It hadn’t occurred to Amelia that there could be others like her, trapped and kept as fighting animals. She heaved herself up and leaned against the metal bars; she looked to the right and left. It looked like someone’s basement, not much bigger than that. The room extended beyond her periphery to the right and left. The basement was so large that Amelia could not see all of it.

  “Who are you?” she whispered into the empty air, searching for the voice, hope rising within her.

  “They call me Ace.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The devil and his deranged daughter.” Small laughter twittered in the darkness, dispersing the emptiness and fear that hung over Amelia’s shoulder.

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Eleven, including you,” Ace said.

  Amelia smiled to herself. “They recruit frequently?” Amelia asked, though she knew the answer before he replied.

  “Only when one of us dies or gets sold on.”

  “I’ll break Elysia with her doll-like eyes!” Amelia said.

  Another voice rose in the darkness, replacing Ace’s—this time, that of a girl. “We’ve all tried that. She’s not the enemy.”

  As far as Amelia knew, there was truth to the statement. Her heart sank. She slithered back to her bed, lay on her back, and stared at the ceiling. Sometime after that, she drifted off.

  She was jolted back to consciousness into the darkness of the dimly lit room by terrible shouting. She found herself becoming flustered, almost frightened. She turned on her right side and gazed into the emptiness. Fear was taking hold of her more and more. Then she heard footsteps coming from the depths of the room.

  Diablo had returned, this time with a plate of food in his right hand and a cup in his left. She could have sworn she saw a twinkle in his eyes as he came closer. His blue shirt showed off his lean body whilst the black trousers were too long for his height.

  “I bear gifts,” he said, smiling.

  “I don’t need them,” Amelia snapped as she looked at him intently and spitefully.

  He stared back at her. A minute of silence passed and she saw something like mock indignation in his eyes as he bit his lower lip. Diablo bent over and placed the plate and cup carefully on the ground, his eyes still fixed on hers. She stared at him as he disappeared once more. Tormented by burning thirst and hunger, she discarded her stubbornness and walked towards the food and water. She peered at the plate, at the dried and overcooked potato with green vegetables and cream sauce drizzled on top. It looked enticing. Suddenly, the memory of her mother’s cooking came flooding back.

  “Eat it,” Ace said in a hoarse, strained voice. She reached a quivering hand between the metal bars but quickly flinched back as though burned. She stared at the food longingly. A gush of saliva flooded her mouth and she had to swallow more frequently.

  “What if it’s poisoned?” Amelia asked.

  “You’re now as valuable as gold to him. He would not poison you.” The certainty in Ace’s voice made her heart pound until she felt she might die from the increased pressure in her chest.

  Without thinking, she grabbed a piece of potato and quickly gobbled it down, each bite sending squirts of tangy saliva into her mouth. In hunger, anything tasted delicious, she thought to herself. Though it was certainly nothing like her mother’s food, it was better than she’d had in a few days. She finished the potato and vegetables and washed them down with the water. Her hunger and thirst satisfied, she lay back down and quickly fell asleep.

  In the dark of the night, Amelia was jolted back to consciousness by what sounded like the terrible screaming of a child being tortured. But it was only the screeching of metal on metal as a cell door opened. She peered through the darkness, her eyes incapable of quickly adjusting. For days, she had remained in the cage, and aside from relieving herself in the bucket and being fed, she lay on the bed, plotting the inconceivable.

  “Today is the beginning of the Fighting Season,” Diablo said. Although she couldn’t see his face, she was certain there was a small smile plastered there.

  Another man, short, with a grey moustache and sensible eyes, opened the metal doors of her cell and looked attentively at Amelia before moving to the next cage. Almost instantly, Elysia appeared behind him with her innocent doll eyes and pink cheeks. Amelia hurled herself at the girl without much thought. However, she was too slow: Elysia darted to the right with one casual step and Amelia fumbled to the ground. Elysia twisted her lips in pity, and as her pale face s
hone in the darkness, Amelia caught her expression. This time, it was nothing like that of the child she had accompanied for days. This time, it was like that of an adult trapped in the body of a child. She was almost frightened by the girl’s expression.

  As though nothing had happened, Amelia dusted herself off and regained her posture. She wouldn’t make the same mistake. Next time, she wouldn’t miss.

  One by one, the prisoners were all escorted up an unstable wooden staircase out of the basement. Amelia glanced over her shoulder and noted only two small windows on both sides of the room. Too small, she thought.

  Someone pushed her from behind in an attempt to get her to walk faster. Obediently, she quickened her pace and followed the group. The darkness started to melt and the light that came from the door blinded her. As she drew nearer and the light become more unbearable, she raised her hand to block the glow that seemed to be omnipresent.

  Once they reached the landing, they were escorted into what appeared to be a sports court, fenced on all four sides. The place was crowded with people and the smell of alcohol drenched the brightly lit hall. With every step Amelia took, the crowd whispered and murmured amongst themselves, their voices causing her to tremble. Her nervous trembling turned into some sort of fever, and even in the warmth of the place, she began to shiver. She wore a grey jumper on top of her short-sleeved shirt, with black trousers. How she yearned for her coat. The crowd shuffled amongst themselves in anticipation of the new addition to the team. Their eyes gleamed with unrestrained excitement.

  “Quiet!” shouted a man. Amelia tried to figure out where the voice was coming from but found no one.

  “Tonight is going to be incredible, that much I can guarantee you all—and I’m sure we’ll see things we haven’t seen before.”

  He spoke for several minutes, but Amelia drifted off sometime after he started speaking. Fear and confusion clouding her thoughts, she tried to see if she could find Ace amongst the other ten members. All she had was a male voice to go by, which meant four of the team members were eliminated based on sex. A young girl with scruffy ginger curls stood by her right, her small, beady dark eyes fixed on the crowd as she mumbled words under her breath. Amelia nudged her and asked who Ace was. The girl looked back through vacant eyes, then returned to staring at the crowd. Amelia found the girl irritable and inattentive; her eyes flitted from one side to the other, and then she scratched the back of her neck.

  Amelia learned later that the girl’s name was Vacant, befitting in every sense.