“I don’t know. To my knowledge, no one’s ever refused.”
“Okay. Well, the other scenario I’ve been worried about is that they’ll engineer it so that only one of us competes in the finale. To hold the other one back for next season, like they did with Cohen Roth last season.”
“Yeah, I’ve worried about that too,” he admits. “And I think you’re the one they’re most likely to hold back, because you’ll bring in viewers and sponsorships even without me here, but the reverse isn’t true.”
“I might not bring in money next season either, Graham. The novelty of a female gladiator could easily wear off.”
He looks unconvinced. “If they hold you back, at least you’ll have Sebastian here to watch your back.”
“Yeah, but…” I can’t even stomach the thought of spending another season in here. Plus the six weeks of hiatus. All without Graham.
I can’t spend that long looking over my shoulder every second of the day. Fending off rapists, knowing the attempts are being broadcast all over the galaxy. I can’t keep killing people.
I can’t. And what if…
“Oh, god, Graham. If it’s good drama to pit you and me against each other, what’s to stop them from putting me up against my own brother? I can’t kill him. I mean, even if I were physically capable of killing him, I couldn’t. And he wouldn’t fight back, if I tried. He’d just stand there and…”
There’s something strange in the way Graham is looking at me. Fuck.
I sit up on the edge of the bed and glare down at him. “That’s your plan, isn’t it? Not that it matters. I’m not going to fight you anyway.”
But there’s something else. Something in the way he’s not looking at me. Not answering. He has a plan, but he doesn’t want to tell me.
“What? Graham, what’s your plan?”
“Nothing. I don’t have one.” He sits up and tries to kiss me, but for the first time since we met, the move feels…calculated.
“No!” I scoot back until my ass hangs over the edge of the narrow bed. “You can’t just kiss me and think I’ll forget about the whole discussion! You’re not that damn sexy.”
“I have several weeks’ worth of anecdotal evidence that says I am.” He fixes me with a smoldering grin, and I punch him in the shoulder. His grin dies. “Sylvie…I don’t have a plan, really. All I know is that if they put us in the ring together, I am not going to hurt you.”
21
SYLVIE
“Rise and shine, lovebirds.” Sebastian’s voice precedes the clang of our cell door sliding open by half a second. “Who’s ready for the made-to-order omelet station?”
“Why on earth would there be omelets?” I grumble, one arm tossed over my eyes to shield them from the glare of the light that came on five minutes ago. Though it’s still dark outside. “We’ve never gotten breakfast food before.”
“I put in a special request last week. Kaya likes me.” My brother steps into the cell, and the second he realizes Graham is naked, he recoils, turning his head in disgust. “Pants, man.” He squats and grabs a pile of prison-gray material from the grimy floor, where Graham dropped them last night, and tosses the wad at us. “If you expect me to continue to pretend that I don’t know or care what you’re doing to my sister after lockdown, maybe you should stop throwing that shit in my face.”
“You’re in our cell,” Graham points out in his rational voice. Without putting his pants on.
“That’s my point. If you know I’m going to be here first thing in the morning, why would you sleep in the nude?”
“I keep hoping you’ll get the hint that you’re not wanted here first thing in the fucking morning,” Graham grumbles.
“Sebastian’s not big on subtlety.” I sit up and pull my own pants on, over my underwear. “You may have to be more obvious.”
My brother grunts. “I shudder to think what more obvious might look like.” He picks up my pack and hands it to me. “Come on. Omelets await!”
I set the bag on the edge of the sink and start rummaging through it. “Do you mind if I brush my teeth first?”
“We don’t even know that we’re all fighting today,” Graham points out as he finally steps into his pants.
“We’re fighting. Sylvie is, anyway,” my brother insists. “They won’t rest her two weeks in a row.” And last week I had a bye round, after winning my third, fourth, and fifth consecutive bouts. One more, and I move up to the fourth tier. The championship level.
I’ve never been so terrified of anything in my life.
“Which is why I wanted to sleep in for a few minutes,” I grumble around my toothbrush.
Ten minutes later, we head into the yard with baking soda-scented breath, dressed in semi-clean clothes. Everyone turns to look as we walk by, but I’m so used to having all eyes on me that I hardly even notice anymore. After eight weeks in the bullpen, I’ve learned to be wary when someone isn’t looking, because when one of the men is actively avoiding my gaze, it’s because he doesn’t want to tip me off about whatever move he’s about to make.
Since Sebastian’s first day, we’ve had to take down a couple of suicidal loners who thought it might be more pleasant to die trying to cop a feel of me than being beaten to death on the sand, but there haven’t been any more alliances. Nor any serious challenges to our place in the pecking order. Not even when Graham spent a full week in the infirmary, after he nearly lost on the sand to an opponent who cracked his jaw and fractured his wrist.
After that, our sponsors started giving him weapons. So far, he’s beaten one poor bastard to death with a baseball bat and given one lucky bastard a quick end with a single powerful blow to the head with a cinderblock.
Neither of those were easy to watch. And they both gave Graham nightmares.
“So, when exactly did you ask Kaya for omelets?” I ask my brother as we head for our table. Despite my best effort not to get my hopes up, now that he’s mentioned it, I really want breakfast food. Though I’d take a cinnamon roll or a stack of pancakes over an omelet any day.
Screw the protein. I want sugar.
“While you two were being interviewed. Kaya’s very…eager to please.”
I elbow my brother. “You should keep your hands off her before you get her fired.”
Sebastian grins as he sinks onto the bench seat to my left. “I haven’t laid a single hand on her.”
Graham laughs. “See what he did there? That could mean he used both hands, or that whatever he laid on her wasn’t a hand at all. Clearly I’m going to have to step up my sexual innuendo game.”
“No. You’re really not.” Sebastian leans around me to give Graham an exasperated look. “Kaya’s not your sister, so I can share any details I want. Because of how she’s not your sister. Can’t emphasize that part enough.”
“What are the details with you and Kaya?” I ask.
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
I roll my eyes. “And bears shit in the woods, but neither of those statements is relevant here, because of an utter lack of both gentlemen and bears.”
“I feel like I should take offense to that,” Graham murmurs as he leans in to nibble my ear. “But ‘gentlemanly’ feels like too tame a description for what I did to you last night.”
In the shower. Where there are no cameras.
“Oh my god, I can still hear you!” Sebastian snaps, and I laugh at him. “And for the record, I’m not sleeping with Kaya. I’m just…utilizing my natural gifts to let her know how much I’d appreciate a modest breakfast buffet, on the morning of the day I stand to make her employer a shit-ton of money.”
I arch one brow at him. “So, you’re using her?”
He shrugs. “What else am I supposed to do with her? She’s part of the system keeping us locked up in here, killing each other like animals.”
“You signed on to do that for Grand Champion long before you ever got to Rhodon,” I point out, with unerring logic that my brother, as usual, ignores.
“And Kaya’s the biggest prude I’ve ever met,” he continues. “It’s like she knows what she wants, but she’s too afraid to…take it.” Another shrug. “Or maybe she has no idea what she wants.”
“Or maybe sleeping with a death row inmate who’s under constant surveillance seems like a career-ending move to her,” Graham says. “I hear some women aren’t attracted to men they’ve seen beat people to death.”
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Attraction is not the problem.”
“Maybe she has an older brother spying on her every move,” I grumble. “I hear that’s a total turnoff.”
Sebastian laughs. Then the screen on the exterior wall of the atrium lights up, and the yard goes quiet.
As my brother predicted, we’re all three on the brackets today. Sebastian and I are both on the third tier—his fourth fight, my sixth—but not facing each other, thank god. And as usual, Graham is the headliner. Today he’ll be up against the least experienced opponent he’s had since I got here.
Not that that means much. Sebastian’s only had three fights so far, but one-on-one, he’d be the death of just about any man in the bullpen. Which is why I’m relieved that he can’t face Graham in the arena. Not this season, anyway.
I have no idea who would win a fight between my brother and my…Graham. And I don’t want to find out.
Next week is the last fight of the season, and Sebastian still needs three more wins to make it into the top tier. But I only need one. Which means that if I win tonight, I’ll technically be eligible to fight in the championship bout. As far as I know, no one as inexperienced as I am has ever been given that chance.
If they don’t fight me, I’ll be stuck in here for another season, almost certainly without Graham, and even if I thought I could survive the hiatus, then another full season of combat, they might pit me against my own brother.
If I fight and win, I’ll be on my own in some other zone, and while I’m a pretty damn good fighter, I can’t take on more than one man at once. Not without backup or a better weapon than my three-inch blade.
If I fight and lose, I’ll be dead, and my problems will be all over.
Graham and I haven’t talked about the possibilities since that night, more than a month ago. The knowledge that they could pit us against each other has just been hanging there between us, unspoken, because talking about it won’t change anything. Or fix anything.
Sebastian, Graham, and I—along with Graham’s fellow headliner—are called to the arena almost immediately after the brackets are announced. Graham and I stand with our supply packs, ready to head for the gate, but Sebastian just sits on the bench, staring at the ground.
“What’s wrong?”
He looks up at me. “They’ve put me up against John Pickering.”
“And?” I sink onto the bench again, and Graham sits with me.
“And, John’s never laid a hand on you. I’ve never even seen him look at you like he’s…interested. I’m pretty sure he’s gay.”
I glance at Graham to find him staring at my brother in the same confusion surely clear on my own face. “Seb, are you saying you’re only willing to kill men who’ve tried to hurt me?”
“No. I’m saying that so far, that’s how I’ve justified killing the men they’ve put on the sand with me. I’ve personally seen every one of those fuckers try to grab you, or at least look like they want to. But John hasn’t done that. And he’s in here for killing a fucking child molester. They showed that on the feed before his last fight. He’s like us, Sylvie. He’s a good man in a bad situation.”
Fuck. I knew Sebastian was dealing awfully well with having killed several men in his five weeks on Rhodon.
We all rationalize. At least, those of us with a still-functioning conscience do. That’s the only way we can live with what we’re forced to do, in order to survive. Sebastian has been a fighter for most of my life, but he wasn’t a killer until Tony Yost.
“Okay. Listen to me.” I lower my voice, because we can’t afford for anyone to overhear his ethical struggle. “John Pickering is just like us—in that he wants to live, so he will kill whoever steps onto the sand with him. Unless that person kills him. You don’t have to justify killing him, Seb. The justification is built in. It’s self-defense, because if you don’t kill him, he will kill you.”
And suddenly I remember Graham giving me very similar advice.
“Yeah.” Sebastian nods. This time when Graham and I stand, he stands with us. But he’s silent all the way down the pathway toward the gate into the arena.
He’s thinking. I can see that. I just hope he’s not overthinking.
My brother’s grin resurfaces when we step into the greenroom and the scent of bacon and eggs wafts over us. Kaya has come through. Yet she doesn’t even seem to notice how pleased Sebastian is, because she’s busy scowling at the army of guards trying to follow us into the room.
“Okay, this is getting ridiculous. There’s hardly room for us to breathe in here. Don’t you think eighteen guards is a bit much?”
One of the uniformed men steps forward. “Ma’am regulation requires six guards per fighter any time they leave the bullpen. If this arrangement isn’t working for you, perhaps you should reassign one of the fighters to another room. And another sponsorship liaison. Surely that would lighten your work load.”
“No,” Kaya snaps, and I recognize the territorial flash of anger in her eyes. “I’ve worked my ass off for all three of these fighters, and I’m not going to give up a bonus I’ve damn well earned just because you Neanderthals can’t be even a little bit flexible with your regulations.”
“Ma’am we’re here for your protection,” the guard informs her in short, tense syllables.
“I don’t need—” She bites the rest of her assertion off, seeming to realize all at once that it’s a little ridiculous of her to decide that the three death row convicts she’s working with won’t hurt her. Even if we all know it’s true.
We’re not the average zone one inmates.
“Fine. Whatever. Just…stand over there, out of the way.” Kaya motions the guards toward the far wall, then she waves us toward the buffet, but rather than heading for his precious omelet station, while Graham and I pile food on our plates, Sebastian tugs Kaya into a corner of the room, prompting all six of his guards to converge on them with guns drawn. “I’m fine,” Kaya snaps at them. “He’s not going to do anything with an entire room full of guns trained on him.
And I’ll be damned if she doesn’t sound disappointed about that.
Graham and I are dressed in black today, with silver accents. A couple of weeks ago, they started interviewing us together. Which, I assume, is why they’ve started dressing us alike.
He still doesn’t get a shirt.
It’s still hard for me to mind that, even though I think he’d be better defended with more coverage. And maybe some armor.
Today, Charles has us seated on a couch together—one of those small ones, with only two cushions, so that I’m practically in Graham’s lap. The three walls of the interview booth around us are a patchwork of viewing screens, each playing a different clip from our background reel. I really should have known something was different about today, based on the couch alone. But because I’m slow, I don’t clue in until Charles stops the camera and urges us to sit closer. He tells Graham to put an arm around me. He even suggests that if the urge to kiss while we’re talking strikes, we should let it happen.
I think he’d let us strip down and go at it right there on his couch, if we wanted.
We do not want.
After the interview couch and Charles’s obvious attempts to film us being…intimate, my opponent no longer seems like a lucky draw. Though he’s been in the bullpen longer than I have, Leon Evans has only won three fights, which makes him among the least experienced of the tier three gladiators. He’s fast and lithe, but he has a small build compared to most of the men in zone one.
And what I don’t realize un
til I take the sand with him is that Leon Evans was among the men waiting for their turn with me on the morning of my first fight.
In the slowed-down footage lining the round walls of the arena, there’s Leon, watching from the sidelines in the yard while a larger man slams me face-down on the picnic table. He has his hand in the elastic waistband of his pants, stroking himself while he watches the other men strip me.
This match has been carefully orchestrated by whoever’s in charge of creating drama for the Universal Authority feed. They’re trying to make it look like I’m going up against a nemesis, while they’ve actually paired me with someone who should be easy for me to best.
And suddenly I realize why I’ve felt so uneasy all day: today feels like a set up. As if the entire purpose of the day’s fights and interviews is simply to build anticipation for next week’s fight—and to make sure I make it into tier four.
Graham’s tier.
Fuck.
“That was brilliant Sylvie!” Kaya sounds thrilled when I come back to the greenroom with a dramatic splatter of blood across the front of my uniform. But there’s something off in her eyes. Something forced in her enthusiasm. “We got several great angles of the kill shot, and Charles is already building a brand new kill reel for next week’s—”
“Next week? Kaya, can you give me a hand with this thing?” I pluck the tight, sticky material away from my collarbone with my bloodstained fingers, then I head for the bathroom without waiting for her reply.
In the doorway, I turn to see anxiety written in the knit-together line of her eyebrows. She doesn’t look scared, exactly. But she clearly knows she’s messed up.
“Kaya?” I repeat, and when she starts toward me, the guards try to follow her.
“No need, gentlemen. I’ll be fine. This is lady business.”
I roll my eyes and decide not to tell her that she probably just gave them all an X-rated mental image of the two of us sinking into a scented bubble bath together.
Champion Page 23