The chant strengthened as all of the guards raised their voices, staring at the crowd and encouraging more participation.
“Fight, fight!”
Slowly, the chant rolled from the tongues of the guards to more slaves, until most in the front rows screamed along, driven by the shouts of their neighbors.
Bray swallowed as the chant grew louder and louder, echoing off the walls of the courtyard and the small houses.
The tall man—Jonah—swallowed a lump in his throat. He cocked back his fist, regret in his eyes.
“Kill him, you weak son of a bitch!” Roberto shrieked above everyone else, taking a taunting step.
Hearing those words, Jonah’s face changed.
He turned.
He ran toward Roberto.
Roberto’s mouth dropped as his taunt backfired and became a fight for his life. Jonah crossed the courtyard, threw his weight into a tackle, and knocked the surprised guard to the ground before he could draw his knife. Cocking back a fist, he punched Roberto. Blood sprayed from Roberto’s face as Jonah broke his nose. More Head Guards ran to help, but Jonah had the advantage of pent-up rage, and surprise. He flung back his arms, cracking several of the other guards in the face, sending them flying before they could control him. Blood dripped from his swinging fists and he shrieked in rage.
The crowd’s response grew louder.
Some cheered. Some hissed.
More than one cheered for Jonah.
People stepped forward as they saw a crack in the system that had contained them.
But that crack wouldn’t last long.
“Pull him off!” Ollie shouted, anger taking over his face as he raced toward the spectacle, his blubbery stomach shaking.
More guards caught hold of Jonah’s arms, flinging him off and stomping him. Jonah’s hands flew up to protect his ribs and stomach, but a well-placed kick knocked one of his teeth from his mouth in a bloody spray. The guards gave him a few more stomps and kicks before Ollie intervened.
“Enough!” Ollie screamed. “Let him go!”
The Head Guards looked up in surprise. Roberto got to his feet, wiping stringy drool from his face.
“I want him dead,” Roberto hissed, through a mouthful of blood as he pointed.
“And he will be,” Ollie said confidently. “But I will gut his friend first.”
The shaggy-haired man—Gabe—stood fearfully across the courtyard. His face paled. A merciless grin crossed Ollie’s face as he took a menacing step.
“You will be tortured, because of what your friend has done,” Ollie announced, making sure all in the crowd could hear, as he raised his knife. “Those are the rules. Your friend has opted not to fight.”
“Please,” Gabe said quietly, his voice quivering as he backed up against the crowd.
Ollie took another lumbering step.
“Give me another chance,” Gabe pleaded.
“Jonah has made his choice for both of you. The fight is over,” Ollie said.
“No, it’s not.”
With a primal scream, Gabe darted past Ollie and toward Jonah. Catching on to what was happening, the guards stepped back.
Still on the ground, Jonah flung up his arms, but not in time to deflect Gabe’s vicious pounce. Gabe landed on top of Jonah, punching again and again, knocking through Jonah’s defensive arms and striking his face.
Gabe’s war cry grew louder.
He wasn’t doing what the guards asked.
He was fighting for his life.
The crowd’s chant resumed and more people stepped forward.
“Fight! Fight! “
The elderly man pumped his fist. The wrinkled crone clenched her hands. The bloodthirsty few cried louder than the rest, creating a wall of noise.
The guard’s smirks grew wider.
Madness took over Gabe’s face. It seemed as if the fight had cracked the last of his sanity. The wails of two hysterical, pleading women were lost underneath the chanting crowd as bones cracked and blood flew. With horror, Bray saw tears pouring down Gabe’s face as he punched and punched, and Jonah’s pleas turned to gurgles.
The gurgles ceased.
The crowd in the courtyard fell silent.
Gabe’s flying fists stopped.
Looking around at the crowd and the guards, he found enough sanity to scream, “Is this what you wanted? You wanted him to die?”
Ollie looked from Avery to Roberto.
“I have done what you asked!” Gabe continued, weeping.
Ollie grunted. “So be it. You have earned your life.”
Avery said, “Roberto, give him a beating to compensate for the bread he stole. Then send him to the cell.”
Chapter 2: Bray
The crowd dispersed in a tangled, disorganized rush. Women herded children back through the alleyways. Sturdy men and women helped some of the elderly, who walked with their heads down, mumbling. Bray could see their remorse in their sagged shoulders, or in their eyes, as they scurried back to breakfasts they wouldn’t eat. Most had stayed only long enough to watch Gabe dragged to the cell, but only because the guards ordered them. A few people—the men and women with bloodlust in their eyes—scurried away quicker than the others, ashamed of what they’d done. Long after the chants had faded, the majority of the slaves realized what the guards had known all along—the slaves were in no better position than Jonah, or Gabe. They lived their lives in slightly bigger cells than the one to which Gabe was dragged, waiting for the day they were pulled to the Glass Houses, like Jonah’s body would be.
Bray had no interest in any of it.
He needed to find Kirby.
Moving against the flow of the crowd, he scanned the clustered, dirty faces. Seeing the battle made him desperate to verify that she was all right. For all he knew, she was in some hidden danger he couldn’t see.
A few guards lingered at the mouth of the alleys, herding the slaves back to their homes. Some of them held the long, sharp knives they usually carried at their sides. Bray wanted to pull those knives from their hands and ram them into their bellies.
Hopefully someday soon.
Skirting around several groups of people who talked quietly as they walked, he found a scraggly, thin woman with long, dark hair. Bray opened his mouth and came toward her, before realizing it wasn’t Kirby. The woman muttered something and went past. His nerves were almost unbearable when he spotted a person with a familiar gait, heading up of one of the pathways.
“Kirby!” he hissed, as loud as he dared.
“Bray!”
Kirby’s face was skinnier than he remembered. Several weeks of enslavement had burned through what little fat they’d had. Bray couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten a good look at her, when they didn’t fear the guards. He had hoped things might get better.
Of course, they hadn’t.
They suffered through rations that were never enough, sweated in fields that never got cooler, and worked for guards that had no sympathy. Their endless toil continued, as the summer approached its hottest days.
Kirby approached him with the same, sallow look that marked most of the slaves’ faces. A wave of emotion he rarely allowed himself to feel rushed through him as they risked an embrace.
“Savages,” Kirby whispered, wiping angry tears from her eyes. “Cruel, vicious savages.”
Bray nodded, feeling a surge of hate that had never left since they’d been captured, cornered, and thrown into this life.
“We should walk and talk,” Bray said quietly.
They turned and headed up the pathway, mixing with some other slaves. A few people spoke quietly, their faces downcast as they processed another loss of life. Others walked quickly with their heads down. From a distant alley, Bray heard the long, mournful wails of the dead man’s relatives. They passed a few guards before speaking more.
“Those men were killed for the sin of being hungry,” Kirby spat. Anger and sadness blazed in her moist eyes. “I have watched too many die at the han
ds of one another, for the sake of another’s pleasure.”
Bray nodded. Kirby didn’t need to speak of the atrocities she’d endured in her homeland for him to remember her stories. Kirby’s days fighting in the arena still haunted her nights. More than once, she had awoken from some vivid nightmare, speaking names he didn’t recognize.
“I do not know how much more I can take,” Kirby said with a crack in her voice.
Bray looked over at her, recalling the talk they’d shared through the walls of the cell, when they’d first been dragged to New City. He’d promised her they would find a way out.
All they’d found was suffering and pain.
His promise to her felt as empty as the one he’d made William. Looking over his shoulder, he glanced at the shimmering building that rose high above New City. He hadn’t seen William since that day Cullen had died, when William had screamed from the balcony. A part of Bray wondered if William had been a hallucination—a product of haze and pain. But William’s desperate cries were unmistakable. William might not be toiling in a hot field, or working until his fingers ached, but he was living his own nightmare. He had escaped the battle of Brighton and the war at The Arches, only to be captured and enslaved regardless. William had witnessed Cullen’s dying in even greater detail from his horrific perch.
For all he knew, William had seen this bloody fight, too.
Bray scanned up and down the building, but the balcony was empty, and the tinted glass prevented a better view.
Kirby forced composure through her anger. Somewhere in the distance, another long, slow wail echoed through the crowded streets.
“We will make it out of this life,” Bray promised. “I swear by the gods.”
Chapter 3: William
William awoke with a start.
Long, resounding moans reached his ears.
Sweat trickled down the bumpy warts on his forehead as he sat up. For a moment, he thought he was still hearing his dream, but the noise came from outside his window. Wiping the perspiration away, he crossed the room—his fifteenth-floor prison—and pressed his face against the glass. It was hard to hear more than noises from up so high, and he certainly couldn’t hear words.
But the commotion was real.
He scoured the small square buildings that filled New City. People moved in every direction, dispersing from something.
Whatever had happened was over.
Tangles of men, women, and children moved up the paths and into the dwellings. He couldn’t tell guards from slaves.
A stabbing, nervous fear hit his stomach—the same feeling he had every time he thought of Bray and Kirby, rotting away in their cramped, dirty houses. Each time he looked at the dwellings below, he imagined cruel horrors behind every doorway—demons gnashing their filthy teeth, guards pummeling the slaves with merciless fists.
He wished he could verify that Bray and Kirby were all right.
He doubted he would ever have that security again.
Ever since Cullen’s death, William had lived with a lump in his throat, eating, learning, studying, and sleeping. He adhered to The Gifted’s role, certain that another misstep would harm his friends. He cried when he was alone, underneath the covers, and in the dark. Even then, it felt like The Gifted watched him, monsters that ate, breathed, and studied without emotion. Their intelligence was a curse dragging them into madness.
Every time Amelia asked how he was feeling, William assured her he was fine, hoping she didn’t see the truth behind his answer. He smiled when it was appropriate, laughed when he was supposed to, and nodded too often. Emotions were private, dangerous things.
He still wasn’t sure what had given him away on that awful day, when Cullen had died.
Glancing over his shoulder, he stared at the dresser, underneath which was the hairpin. At one time, he was positive that Cullen had paid the price for his sneaky outing. But as more days passed, with no one coming to search his room, or reclaim the small piece of stolen metal, he had changed his theory. The Gifted must have seen through his placating conversations. They must have determined he was playing a role.
Perhaps they had no reason at all.
The Gifted were cruel, perverse beings, worse than the demon army they controlled, worse than any violent leader in Brighton. They might have intellect beyond any human, but they lived without conscience or remorse. William was nothing like them, and never wanted to be. They were the ancient evil that haunted his nightmares, lurked in every dark corner, and stalked him when he wasn’t reading or studying among them. He’d never forget their emotionless, stern faces as they’d watched the demons chew Cullen’s flesh. None had turned a sympathetic eye toward William, as he screamed for them to stop, and certainly not Cullen.
Even Amelia watched with a smug satisfaction.
One thing was certain; William wouldn’t give them another excuse for their barbarity. He hadn’t used the pin since his first outing, and he didn’t plan on using it again.
Looking out the window, he envisioned his friends far below, living out the rest of their days. Perhaps the best hope he had for them was a protected life in New City, where they would always have food, if not enough. Perhaps the walls that barricaded the city sheltered them from the savage tribes that roamed the forests.
Perhaps in order to save them, he had to let them go.
Smearing a tear away from his eye, he looked out the window, watching the moving masses of people prepare for another day of unrelenting toil.
Chapter 4: Kirby
Kirby watched the men and women returning to their homes out the window of her small room. Only a handful spoke with one another. They hurried back to breakfasts most wouldn’t be able to stomach, but they would eat, because they needed strength for the fields.
“Too many cruelties,” Esmeralda said, spoon-feeding Fiona some cornmeal.
Kirby nodded, unable to put her emotion into words.
“With so many things happening each day, it is easy to forget some of them,” Esmeralda said. “But this game was worse than many others. The guards are getting crueler as time goes on.”
Kirby nodded as she forced down a bite. Too many things had become routine: sleeping, working, eating, and suffering. Seeing the fight this afternoon had brought some of the grisly details of her homeland back to her memory—things she tried to forget.
She couldn’t dismiss the smell of blood, the rabid cries of the crowd, and the fueling screams of the guards. She recalled Gabe’s face as he spun to face the guards, his cheeks smeared with his friend’s blood and his tears. All of those things were horrible reminders of the arena, back in her homeland. Too many times, Kirby had been that winner, facing a crowd who would just as soon cheer for her blood as her opponent’s.
“Some of the people regret their part in what happened,” Esmeralda said, as she watched some quiet people pass. “But it will not bring back the man who died.”
“And it will not stop it from happening again,” Kirby said, bitterly.
“You talk as if that is a certainty,” Esmeralda said.
“I have been here long enough to know that it is,” Kirby said. “Some people will mourn, while others will justify their part in the horrid spectacle. Soon, they will move on, when some fresh, new atrocity occurs.”
Esmeralda nodded sympathetically. “It sounds as if it wasn’t any better where you are from.”
Keeping to the same story she had told The Gifted, pretending she was from Brighton, Kirby said, “They weren’t any better.”
Esmeralda sighed as she scraped the last of the cornmeal from the bowl. “We hear whispers of cities and townships in the forests.” She looked past Kirby and to the doorway, keeping her voice low. “They are pleasant to dream about, but it sounds as if they are fool’s legends.”
“I sometimes forget you have never been outside New City,” Kirby remembered.
“The guards tell us the trees are a place of danger.” Esmeralda shrugged. “They say we wouldn’t last a day
there.”
Kirby furrowed her brow. “Have you ever been among the trees?”
“No,” Esmeralda said, a wistful look crossing her face. “The closest I have been is the crop fields.”
Kirby’s reflection became an angry sadness as she realized she might never set foot in the trees again. “The forests can be dangerous,” she said, “but they can be beautiful, too.”
“A lot of our people were born here, as you know,” Esmeralda said. “Some come from the forests, like you, but they do not speak of them. Speaking of such things is dangerous.”
Kirby nodded. She had learned. She avoided conversation and did her work. She avoided death, barely.
“I used to dream about the forests, and the creatures I have not seen,” Esmeralda said. “I dreamt of places where you could fill your stomach without rationing every bite. I dreamt of better places for Fiona.”
Watching a guard walk by, Kirby carefully said, “Even in the forest, you have to work for your food.”
Spooning Fiona another bite of cornmeal, Esmeralda said, “At least what happened this morning is done, and we are alive.”
Kirby nodded. That was true, but the day was just beginning.
**
Kirby walked with the line of slaves out of the courtyard, through the gates leading to the crop fields, and past Rudyard. After a few weeks in New City, he’d given up his gloating. Now, he treated her as another slave, chastising her when it suited him, or ignoring her when he wanted. She was no different than any of the other humans: a child’s plaything, here to do his bidding and his work. Avery had lost interest, as well.
Not so with Ollie.
Every so often, something would spark in Ollie’s eyes as he watched Kirby work. He often lingered at the end of her row, staring at her as she pulled the corn from the stalks, mostly when the sun was hot enough to dampen her shirt. Hoping to sway his attention, she focused on her work until he went away.
Passing Ollie today, she felt his salacious gaze. Kirby would like to poke his eyes out with the sharp end of a corn cob. But that was as likely to happen as escape.
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