by Paul Tassi
“Ah,” Mark said quietly.
“The sources are split about what happened next. Some say that he sold his unit. Told them to make camp and keep a lighter guard than normal so the Chinese could take them unaware. Others say he offered himself to save his family and his unit, but China found his camp anyway and took them all the same.
“Both stories end with his family being returned at a local Chinese base. And then as he embraced them, the soldiers opened fire.
“Hirota was thought dead for years, but bits of scavenged security footage showed a man killing at least a dozen Chinese in the base. But he couldn’t kill them all, and fled to the mountains, reportedly to a monastery, and eventually to America where we granted him asylum and citizenship.”
Mark flipped through the intel report of the incident, scarcely believing what he was reading.
“Jesus,” he said, unsure of whether or not it had been a good idea to hear that story. Tagami was as much of a victim as Mark, losing his family to the Chinese, though whether he’d sold out his unit was unclear.
And what would you have done? Mark asked himself. What did you do to see your family again?
Was Tagami here punishing himself? Like Aria? Like you, said the voice in his head. Was Mark supposed to balance the scales for the grieving Nepali mothers? Or was Tagami supposed to do the same for Mark?
This tournament is not a tool of the gods, Mark thought. Only of the devil. The blond, white, scheming, laughing devil.
Don’t lose focus.
Mark set down his drink.
IT FELT LIKE MARK was being constantly thrown into the future, each day scrambling out of his grasp as he was dragged toward the inevitable quarterfinal matches. His dreams were cruel and violent. In one, he stood outside a Chinese outpost as Riko and Asami were led out. He ran to meet them just as a dozen soldiers opened fire. Tagami’s story had been warped into his own. Commanding the soldiers was a familiar white man with blond hair and blue eyes. He screamed in perfect Chinese and the soldiers closed in on the corpses of Mark’s family. He was bleeding everywhere, and found himself staring into the barrel of a revolver. Behind it was a thin face flecked with scars. Zhou pulled the trigger.
Mark woke up, soaked with sweat. Aria didn’t stir, tangled in the sheets of her bed. It was three in the morning, and they’d only been asleep for two hours, which is as much as Mark ever hoped to get lately. Aria usually didn’t sleep much either. She frequently woke up, heart racing, saying the face of the maid Easton had killed was plaguing her dreams. Just because the man was dead, the scene wouldn’t erase itself from her mind. The guilt wouldn’t leave either. Mark knew that better than anyone. He quietly dressed and stole out of the room, heading for the expansive gym across the courtyard outside.
The facility was mostly dark. Way in the distance, Mark could hear the nearly silent whine of a treadmill, and saw a blonde ponytail bobbing in the distance that could only belong to Soren Vanderhaven. She wore shorts, a neon sports bra and headphones, and didn’t even glance over when he entered. He likewise ignored her and he started up a lifting routine on the opposite end of the gym. It reminded him of the eerie, late-night workout sessions where he used to spar with Carlo. But his friend was holed up in a Vegas hotel somewhere with Shyla, and Mark was here, now training to avoid near-certain death in the Crucible.
Mark did a full body routine until he could barely lift his arms or walk. It was enough to convince him he might finally be able to catch another few hours of sleep, if he was lucky. He left Soren, who was apparently running a half-marathon at least on the treadmill, and headed to the men’s locker room to shower and change.
The cavernous room was silent. Mark remembered a few weeks ago, when fighters and trainers were in there after a long day of work, the place was alive with piped-in music and chatter. Now it was stone silent, only the drip of a leaky showerhead echoing down the tile.
Mark took off his shirt and picked at his forearm bandage. He felt a tiny twinge of pain for the first time in a good long while. They must be scaling back his drexophine doses, he realized. It was probably for the best. Even if it wasn’t a narcotic, a little pain reminded him he was alive during a time when he more or less always felt like the walking dead.
Footsteps on the marble floor. Gym shoes. Light gait. Mark’s head snapped instinctively to the left, right before the owner of the sneakers rounded the corner.
Soren?
She was soaked with sweat from the run, and still wearing her headphones. She didn’t even look at Mark and simply walked to a nearby locker across the room from his own. She stepped out of her shoes and put them inside. Finally, she pressed a finger to her right ear, and placed the deactivated set of headphones in the locker as well. Mark stared at her.
“Uh, I think you read a sign wrong,” he said, now that she could hear him. She answered without looking at him.
“I’m exactly where I should be.”
And then she peeled off her sports bra.
Mark’s eyes widened, then jerked away out of chivalrous instinct, but not before he caught a glimpse of the most perfect man-made breasts money could buy.
“Uhm,” was all he could say, his tongue and stomach both twisted in confused knots. But Soren didn’t slow down. Next were her skin-tight shorts and underwear, and after she stuffed all her clothes in the locker, she walked straight ahead toward the showers on the other side of the mirrored sink wall wearing nothing at all.
“Coming?” she asked, still not bothering to turn his way. Soren disappeared behind the wall, and the sound of her bare feet on the floor was the only sound in the locker room.
Mark had no idea what the fuck was happening. He sat there, stunned, wishing that there was someone, anyone, around to see what was going on. Hell, he even wished the Heroes and Legends spy cameras were back. This was … what was this?
Mark heard the hiss of a distant shower and stood up. He was in a towel, and the only other thing he wore now were bandages. He knew something was off about Soren Vanderhaven, but he currently had no idea which way was up. This felt like some kind of surreal, sick drug trip.
He crept slowly toward the showers. Most men would have been gleefully sprinting toward the sight he’d just seen, but he inched forward like someone was about to spring out from the shadows with a knife. The dim lights of the locker room and the splashing of the water on the tile made everything feel foreboding.
Just walk away, he told himself. She’s fucking with you.
Of course she was, he knew that. But morbid curiosity was getting the better of him with each step. Was she really doing this?
Mark turned the corner.
The showers were each individual stalls. Walls of stone with glass doors for privacy, to give off less of a “prison shower” communal vibe. But the stall with steam pouring out of it had the door wide open.
An invitation.
She’s really doing this.
He still expected to wake up at any moment. The situation was dreamlike, something he would have fantasized about as a teenager. But the environment, the shadows, sounds, and sickening heat of the air was nightmarish. It was one of those alarming moments when Mark thought he might be losing his mind.
Mark reached the stall, and there she was.
Water from dual showerheads was pouring off her sculpted, tanned body in a thousand little waterfalls. She was clothed only in steam, and ran her hands through wet tendrils of hair, the blonde now a much darker shade when drenched. She didn’t make any effort to cover herself after Mark’s arrival, but instead for the first time locked eyes with him. She was impossibly beautiful, yet a wave of something cold and sharp and horrible spread through him when he looked at her. Mark half expected her gaze to turn him to stone.
“Took you long enough,” she said, and sent two suds-covered hands racing through her hair. Shampoo dripped down her ample curves and disappeared into the drain.
“Soren,” Mark said flatly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“O
h come on, Mark,” she said, her voice all sweet and light. “You know what the fuck I’m doing. And I will do it a hundred times better than Aria, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Mark laughed. He caught a faint flicker of anger in her ice-blue eyes.
“Is this what you do? Cassidy, Hagelund, Mendez I know about. I’m guessing Blackwood too.”
“I’m here for you, Mark,” she said, her tone sharpening a bit. Her makeup was starting to run. Who wore makeup to the gym at three in the morning?
“Gross, don’t tell me Easton or Rusakov?” Mark continued, wrinkling his nose.
“Don’t forget Ethan,” Soren said coldly, her sexy voice gone, replaced by something darker.
“Well now I know you’re full of shit,” Mark said. More mindgames. “And Moses too, right?” He laughed again.
Soren’s expression twisted into disdain.
“I know you hate me,” Mark said, leaning in closer. “I know you hate me in public, for all the cameras to see, and I know you hate me for real, because I see it in your eyes every time you look at me.”
Soren leaned in closer as well, her lips nearly at his ear.
“Want to know my secret?” she whispered.
Mark’s silence was a yes.
“I hate you all.”
Honesty. Mark was taken aback. Soren pulled back and continued to shower in a more practical fashion. Though that didn’t change the fact that she was totally naked a few feet away from him.
“Even Cassidy?” Mark asked, trying to maintain eye contact.
“Especially Chase Cassidy, Christ,” Soren said, exasperated. “That sun-shiny asshole was going to steal my spotlight. My spotlight. So I fucked him until he loved me. And it made America love me even more.”
“Who … are you?” Mark said, scratching the back of his head.
“No one understands this tournament,” Soren growled. “Not really. Whoever wins will be a god among men. Or goddess, as the case will be. This tournament is historic. There’s never been anything like it.”
“You’re doing this for fame?” Mark said.
“Fame is everything,” Soren hissed. “Fame is power. Fame is control. Fame is immortality. I will be Cleopatra. I will be Helen of Troy.”
“You will be dead,” Mark said. “And no one will remember you in a few years, much less hundreds.”
Soren’s face was stone.
“I’ll tell you what. You can take that towel off and get in this shower, and I might give your friend Moses a quick death a day from now.”
He knew she was trying to get in his head, permanently. Trying to stay there if they met in the tournament, which they could in the next round. She had more weapons in her arsenal than just the spear.
“And if I don’t?”
“He will die weeping. And so will you. And Ethan. And Aria. And whoever else crosses me before I become champion.”
Mark stared at her. All of her.
Just do it.
No one will know.
You’re as good as fucking dead anyway you stupid fucking—
Mark shook his head and laughed.
“You’re insane, and Moses will crush you. Good-bye, Soren.”
He left her standing there, goosebumps rippling across her flesh.
“You might want some shower shoes,” he called out as he walked away. “You wouldn’t believe what’s growing on Rusakov’s feet.”
33
THE MORNING OF MOSES’S fight, Mark found him in the dining hall, eating an entire table full of breakfast. There was a literal vat of egg whites in front of him, and Mark couldn’t even count how many pieces of turkey bacon Crayton’s chef had whipped up for the big man.
“Mark,” Moses said when he saw him. “Have a bite.”
He gestured toward the seat opposite him, and Mark obliged.
“You sure you have any to spare?” Mark asked.
Moses let out an abrupt laugh that caused egg flecks to lodge themselves in his mustache, which he quickly wiped away with a napkin.
“Everyone always says they get so nervous before a fight, they can’t eat. But I’m the opposite. The day of, I can’t help but stuff myself. Hoping protein and carbs carry me to victory, I guess.”
“This is an inhuman amount of food,” Mark said, surveying the vast offerings on the table. Mark hadn’t slept and had practically no appetite most days. The smell of the bacon was making him nauseous.
Moses glanced up at him, and bags under his eyes indicated he probably hadn’t been sleeping much either.
“Just please tell me you’re not here to try and talk me into quitting again,” Moses said. “I can’t get into this with you. I’m finally feeling good again.”
“No, no,” Mark said, leaning in. “The opposite, actually.”
Moses arched an eyebrow.
“Look,” Mark continued. “I know how Soren seems. She’s all hugs and kisses for the cameras, America’s Sweetheart and all that. But trust me, she’s a sociopath.”
“I—” Moses began, but Mark cut him off.
“I know you’re dreading having to kill this girl. Don’t tell me you aren’t.”
Moses was silent.
“But don’t be. Do not hold back. Do not think you should go easy on her, or look for the most humane way to end it. She won’t do that for you. She wants to tear you apart and smile for the crowd while bathed in your blood.”
Moses’s wide eyes showed that Mark was making an impact at least.
“Did something happen?” Moses asked. “Why are you—”
“Because I know you, and you’re a good person. And I know her. Everything she says is a lie, and she’s one of the most cutthroat competitors here. You can’t underestimate her, or give her any special consideration because you want to play the gentleman.”
Moses sighed.
“Alright. Treat her like a rival knight, not a princess. Got it.”
“Whatever analogy floats your boat,” Mark said. “Just give it everything you have.”
“What’s going to happen,” Moses said, dropping his voice to just above a whisper. “If I win, and you win? What advice will you have when I’m standing opposite you?”
It can’t come to that. It won’t.
“I’d give you the same advice,” Mark said. “Don’t hold back. And I know you wouldn’t want me to either. It’ll be a glorious death for one of us.”
Moses smiled and nodded. Mark knew that was exactly what he wanted to hear.
“A true honor.”
WITH EACH NEW FIGHT, the crowd in the Colosseum seemed to grow a little louder, and a little more raucous. By this point, even the cheap seats were hundreds of dollars, with the competitors looking little more than ants from on high. Lower down, seat prices jumped into the thousands, and for the box where Mark was sitting with Aria, someone probably would have paid a hundred grand easily. Mark heard Crayton was increasing subscription rates as well for all Crucible televised content, but viewership was steadily growing anyway. There was little else anyone was talking about. The top two boxers in the world had just fought a bloody pay-per-view in Philadelphia, a rescheduled NBA title series had come and gone, and no one seemed to care. All eyes were on the Crucible.
The large box was oddly empty. Nolan, Carlo, and Ethan had all opted to watch the fight with their respective families, and that left Mark and Aria with a suite to themselves. An unopened bottle of champagne stood nearby, along with trays of appetizers that were quickly growing cold. Mark wasn’t hungry. Didn’t even want a drink. He was too nervous.
Aria had burst out laughing when Mark told her about what happened with Soren in locker room. He didn’t see the need to keep it from her, as it had nothing to do with the mission, nor did he feel particularly guilty about it, considering he hadn’t done anything. Something told him Aria probably would have laughed it off even if he had.
It sounded goofy from the outside, but it told Mark that Soren was cold, calculating, and dangerous, both mentally a
nd physically. Moses was literally triple her size, but Soren was so desperate for the spotlight, she’d do anything possible to keep her star from fading.
“He will die weeping.”
He remembered those icy blue eyes. That half-smile, half snarl. Men like Easton and Rusakov were the obvious sort of evil. But Soren? She was Lucifer, the beautiful angel of light. She reminded him a bit of Crayton, in that way.
Once again, the spotlight was on her, and Crayton gave her the usual chance to address the crowd before the countdown to the match. She said exactly what she was supposed to, thanking her family, friends, fans, and God, in that order. She smiled and waved and blew kisses to the love-drunk fans in the first few rows. The crowd adored her, and there wasn’t an entertainment outlet on earth that didn’t have her as their lead story half the time these days. That sort of power was unsettling.
Then it was Moses’s turn. His armor was polished expertly, as Mark knew it would be. Most fighters had someone on staff do it for them, but Moses did it all himself, buffing the metal, treating the leather. Mark even saw him combing the faux-bearskin he wore over his upper half. He was the most finely groomed barbarian Mark had ever seen. He wasn’t standing quite as tall as usual though. Mark caught him placing his hand on the same side that was giving him trouble days ago. It had been a week since his last fight, and he still didn’t look recovered. It made Mark sweat even more.
Instead of giving the usual thanks to family and fans, Moses cleared his throat, and his armor mic picked up his big, booming baritone.
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,