Heart of Tartarus

by Lucy Smoke

  "Well, you already know that I fight–"

  "Aaron said you didn't really care for it."

  Levi grimaces. "He's right, but he's not completely right. In a lot of ways, I do hate fighting. It's rough—on the mind and the body—but, in the same way, it allows me a certain freedom. I have control in the ring. It makes me feel powerful. It can be a very dangerous drug, if I let it. It can become addictive."

  I frown but can't find the energy to tilt my head back to look up at him, so I sigh and let my gaze drift to the floor. "How did you get sent to Tartarus, then? If fighting was legal on Basra–"

  "Not all fighting," he corrects. "Only fighting for entertainment. I don't really care for that. Entertainment. I like being in the ring. I like the fight, the challenge. But fighting to entertain? It feels... I don't know." Levi's shoulders move as he lifts his other arm towards his head and rubs a hand through his short crop of light brown, copper hair. "It doesn't feel as real as it would if there was no one else around. That's what I don't like about it. But I do need it."

  "So, you were fighting illegally on Basra? That's how you came to Tartarus?" If most people who came to Tartarus from other cities were exiles, then that had to mean he broke the law.

  "Still... not quite," he answers. This time, I have to lean back and look at him. Levi sits up straighter as I pull away from his arm and shoulder.

  "I'm confused," I admit. "You were sent to Tartarus, weren't you? You didn't just come here because you could?" No one in their right mind would come to Tartarus unless they were forced to. Even Archie—he came here because he was scared for his life—an understandable fear, since now he's dead. Likely assassinated if Noaz is right, and from what I know of Noaz, he usually is.

  "I joined an enforcer program," Levi says.

  My eyes widen. I can't imagine it. Levi as an enforcer. Wearing the uniforms, parading around the city with his city issued gun and taser. Wait. I wonder if things are different for enforcers on the other cities. I figure the other cities, like Basra, probably don't have nearly as much crime as Tartarus does. I mean, Tartarus is known as the city of criminals, after all.

  “Yeah,” he chuckles at my expression. “Not exactly the wisest course of action I know—Haze reacted the same way when he found out.”

  “And Aaron?” I ask, curious.

  Levi laughs—full and hearty. He laughs so hard his shoulders shake and he has to put a hand over his abs. “That asshole didn’t even bat an eyelash,” he finally says, wiping tears from his eyes. I’m not surprised. Nothing seems to phase him. Or Noaz for that matter. “Thayer thought it was funny as hell.”

  I shake my head. Again, why am I not surprised?

  “Okay,” I say, pulling him back to the topic at hand. “So, how did you go from enforcer training to Tartarus? Seems like a pretty big leap to me.”

  “How did you go from being Kida’s doppelganger to being yourself?” I can tell he regrets the words as soon as they’re out. He hisses and reaches for me. “Sorry.” Levi pulls me close once more. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive.”

  A part of me wants to tell him that he’s been pretty insensitive anyway, lately, what’s one more? But that would be cruel. And I find that I don’t want to be cruel with him. Not after everything I’ve done—like outing him to Aaron when I was drunk. I pull back slightly and give him a wan smile. “It’s okay,” I say. “Consider it payback.”

  “Payback?” He frowns.

  “I—what happened the other night, I’m sorry. I know I made you feel uncomfortable and I, uh, I know I haven’t exactly been the easiest to be around lately. So… don’t worry about it.”

  The frown remains.

  "Cass..." In the background, a loud, echoing bang makes me jump. But it's just the air conditioner kicking on. Back in my old pod complex, the air conditioner was always on the fritz. I'm not used to hearing one turn on so suddenly—or at all really. Levi sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. He re-opens his eyes and looks back down at me, a look of determination sliding across his face, surprising me. He grips both of my arms and shakes his head. "Such a damn troublemaker."

  Before I can say anything more, he leans forward and presses his mouth to mine. I blink in pure shock for a few seconds, my eyes open and looking into his. Maybe it should be uncomfortable, kissing someone with your eyes wide open, but with Levi, I think I kind of like it. His lips are full and warm. It's almost as if they're just resting against mine, waiting for me to make the next move. So, I do.

  I close my eyes, and part my lips.

  Levi groans, his fingers digging into my upper arms. I don't know if he, too, closes his eyes, but I do know that he sinks into my mouth with his tongue, twining it with my own. Our breaths intermingle. Our heartbeats thud against each other’s chests. I press closer, wanting to feel his warmth, wanting to feel needed, desired, loved.

  I gasp when Levi's hands move down my arms, circling my wrists, drawing them up and over his shoulders. My fingers link together behind his neck as I press myself closer, losing myself in him, in his touch as he slides his hands back down my sides over the curves of my hips until his fingers grip me tight and yank me up and over him. Our mouths separate as my legs swing over his thighs and I find myself straddling him. Both of us are breathing heavy as we pause, looking at each other—trying to determine if this is where we stop? Or do we keep going?

  We keep going.

  His mouth moves back to mine, lips parting as he sinks into me in the same way that I do him. It feels freeing to kiss him. I was a little scared to after all that's happened. This kiss is nothing like our first kiss. This is wild, untamed—a shock, I think, to the both of us. This is simpler also; like coming home after a long day or maybe like wrapping ourselves in the arms of safety. That's what I feel with Levi, safety. That's what I feel with all of them. But Levi is special. He was the first one to kiss me.

  "Cass..." he groans. I grip his shirt in my fists, nails digging beneath the fabric to the skin underneath. I hook into him, needing something to hold me down, to hold me to this world and keep me from drifting up and away.

  My hands climb the back of his neck, sinking into the roots of his hair. My fingers close against his scalp, and I can feel the strands of his hair pull tight in my grip. Our moans echo in the silence of the training center. My eyes open at the same time that his do, and for a moment, we’re still kissing with our eyes connecting further than I’ve ever felt. Entire galaxies explode behind the sunset tone of his eyes—golden hues and caramel tones mix.

  His hips jerk, pumping against me. His hard cock presses against the seam of my pants, between my legs. It brings me out of the little bubble of safety we've created between us. I pull away, sitting up. Those amber, sunlight eyes of his blink—unfocused, a little bit blurry.

  "Tell me the rest," I urge, my chest heaving. A rather large part of me is telling me—screaming, really—to run. To get up and leave. This is too much, it's too fast. But this is Levi. My fighter. My Golden Boy. He's my friend... he's more. Whether or not it's too soon after... Kida... that doesn't mean it's not real. That what I feel right now, in this moment, isn't real. Vincent told me to let them help me heal. It would be selfish to think that I'm the only one who needs someone to help them heal.

  Levi blows out a breath, lying back, his head thumping against the mats, jerking me forward as well. I roll to the side, but stay close, resting my head on the space between his chest and shoulder, right in the crook of his arm. It’s an intimate place, a place for lovers.

  "When you're in enforcer training,” he starts, shaking my attention back to him, “your life is placed under a microscope. Any misdemeanors? You're out. Any felons in your immediate family? You're out. It's a wonder I ever got accepted in the first place. I'm sure things are different here on Tartarus for enforcers, but those were the conditions to be accepted on Basra." He closes his eyes, and I slowly slip my hands from around the back of his neck. Levi grabs one, holding tig
ht as though he never wants to let go. I let him squeeze even when it hurts.

  "Fuck, it was hard," he says. "The pay was shit. The sergeants were asswipes. The fucking system, itself, was fucking corrupt. When we were called out to the lower neighborhoods to assist with a disturbance—we were just trainees, but the shit they wanted us to do. I wasn't down with that fucked up mess. I fought my sergeant."

  "You literally fought him?"

  He nods. "They wanted us to tase anyone who got close. Made an announcement that everyone was to keep their distance from us while we searched for a fugitive—apparently someone had been robbing tourists, turned out it was just a teenage kid. Poor guy was malnourished, and he had like three siblings to take care of, couldn't find a job... it was fucked up."

  My heart hurts as he goes on, the strain in his voice evident not only by the hiss he makes between his clenched teeth, but by the strength in which he clutches my hand. I lean down and rest my cheek on his chest, listening to the sound of his thundering heart. I close my eyes.

  "I punched my fucking sergeant out when he tased the kid's grandmother. She had no clue what was going on, that was fucking evident. But did that asshole give a damn? No. They were all criminals in his eyes. She was just shocked—she didn't...Cass... she didn't fucking understand. She was trying to reason with him. He fucking–" A single tear slips out of the corner of his eye and slides beneath his temple. "Her fucking heart couldn't take it. He tased her and... she didn't make it. I don't know how many guys it took to pull me off him. I almost killed him. I wish I had."

  I don’t say anything. What can I say? I agree with him. I wish he had too. I wish a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t. I wish that I could kiss him again.

  Strength & Loss

  Levi goes back to the penthouse, but I stay behind in the training center. I stare at the walls, wondering when the fuck I started changing. It took months of Kida’s coaxing to get me to trust her. Two years later, and I didn’t just trust her—I adored her, I treasured her. She could have held my life in her hands—hell, she did hold my life in her hands at one point—and I would have trusted her to keep me safe. Was her influence what changed me?

  I almost feel like I shouldn’t trust the guys so easily, but I do. I trust them the same way I trusted her. It scares me. Because if I’m honest with myself, I already trust them so much because I care about them. But it’s too soon, isn’t it? Who the hell knows anymore? If there was some universal manual for grief and trust and love, someone would have found it by now. No, I have to figure all this shit out on my own.

  I glance over at the obstacle course of death. I know I'm going to have to tackle it at some point. Why not today?

  I climb off the stacks of mats and make my way towards it. I don't know how far I can make it in synthetic cotton sleep pants and a t-shirt with no shoes, but if I head back to the penthouse now, I may lose my nerve. I step up to the first obstacle and look up at the behemoth that awaits me.

  A set of stairs lead up to a single strip of flooring—a beam so tiny that, if I hadn’t seen it myself, I would have questioned Noaz’s ability to sprint across it the way he had before. I slowly make my way up, then start across. On either side there’s a dip. I place one foot in front of the other, moving at a snail’s pace. Slow and steady wins the race, right? Except the only thing I’m racing against is myself.

  I slip and nearly topple over the side to the mats below. Cursing, I right myself and take another unsteady step forward. This time, I do slip. My foot slides off the side of the beam and I yell as I try to make a mad grab for the beam to haul myself up. I miss by a mile and fall four feet down to the mats below. My back hits with a thud and I stare up at the beam in irritation.

  Standing, I make my way back around to the beginning. This time, I go a little faster. I wonder if Noaz had crossed it so easily because he didn’t give himself time to slip. I make it halfway across before my foot slides off again. Back to the start. The faster, I go, the easier it is to cross. Once I’m across to the other side, there’s a tiny platform with a rope dangling from the ceiling leading to a platform several yards up. I grab the rope and climb. My arms burn as I hoist myself up. My hands sting as they slide up the rope. I should have done this with gloves, but I’m not fucking turning back now.

  I get to the top platform and look down and across. Three fucking body length trampolines span the width of the next obstacle. Across from them is an equally high platform. There’s no room to make a running start, which would have helped my height. So, I leap—aiming for the last trampoline, hoping my momentum will propel me up. I almost make it, but instead land on the middle one. I shoot up—the exact height I need to be and barely catch a glimpse of the next obstacle.

  “Shit,” I hiss when I hit the trampoline again and my ankle crumples beneath me. I go down on my side, still bouncing, but much lower. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  Scrambling, even as I’m hovering mid-air, I manage to get my feet under me again. Sweat slicks the middle of my back under my t-shirt as I bend my knees, trying to pump my legs harder when they land. I can’t only get this far. I have to make it to the end.

  My hands reach for the edge of the next platform just as I hear a door open. My fingers close around it and my entire body pulls down, stopping its descent. I ignore the sounds of the guys entering as I leverage myself up to the new platform and start across. Looking down over the edge, I notice the other side is a wall filled with small fist sized holes. Wasting no time, I get on my stomach, edge over the side, and scale down.

  “Damn!” Thayer calls, causing me to nearly lose my grip.

  I curse and barely manage to grapple with a new handhold. “Shhh.” Haze hisses in the background.

  “No way! Come on, Firecracker! You got this!” Thayer shouts. Asshole. I grin.

  I make it to the bottom and start right back up. The muscles in my arms and legs feel like liquefied jelly. My neck aches, and my head is pounding. I crawl up a giant net, my feet catching in the webbing more times than I care to admit, but I reach the top and vault over it. When I land, my knees buckle, and I go down.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Thayer calls out.

  “She’s fine,” Noaz replies, not waiting for me to reply. “Let her catch her breath.”

  Catch my breath. Yeah, I think. That’s what I need to do. Just breathe. My chest pumps up and down. My entire body feels drenched in sweat. My throat aches from how hard I’m breathing. Slowly, on shaky legs, I stand.

  In front of me, a wall of pegs leading up to yet another platform is accompanied by two metal rings. They’re cold to the touch, but I grab them off their pegs and realize that I’m supposed to use them—and the muscles in my arms— to lift myself up all the way to the top. There’s no fucking way that’s possible. It’s one thing to dangle myself from a zipcar using the remains of my t-shirt, it’s another to scale the side of a mini-fucking-building—or so it seems—with nothing but my arm muscles for support. All without gloves. I barely rode that zipcar for a couple of minutes. And despite the exercises that Noaz has been having me do to strengthen both my abs and arm muscles—they are nowhere near as strong as Noaz’s or any of the guys. I squint up, debating.

  I just need to think, I tell myself. Then I see it. My way up. Man, I’m brilliant.

  Grinning, I start up with the metal rings—hooking them around a peg, pulling myself up and then hooking the next ring around an even higher peg. I just need to get half way up. Just half… I pant with the effort it takes… way. I jerk my arm up and hook the ring around another peg and haul my leg up at the same time, using a nearby peg to push myself up.

  “Hey! That’s cheating!” Thayer calls.

  “No, it’s not!” I call back. “I can use any part of my body as long as I make it, right?”

  There’s a quiet moment in which I’m sure the guys look at Noaz for the answer. I don’t have the luxury. I make my way further upward. When I reach the top, I grab hold of the edge and roll onto it, hearing
one of the metal rings fall back below while the other one remains dangling from a higher peg.

  “Yes,” I hear Noaz say finally. “That’s correct.”

  My smile hurts my cheeks.

  I end up crapping out on the obstacle course of death—it didn't get that name for shits and giggles. Every muscle in my body feels like it's been bruised and beaten to within an inch of my life. I groan, laid flat out on one of the mats as Haze and Thayer approach. Thayer grins down at me. Haze lifts an eyebrow.

  "Okay, assholes, go ahead and say it." I close my eyes, waiting for the shit talk.

  Thayer chuckles. "Not bad, Firecracker." I peek one eye open. He grins down at me. I glance to Haze. He nods approvingly.

  "Never thought I'd see the day..." I say, my chest heaving.

  "Nah, we knew you had it in you," Thayer replies.

  "Yes, it wasn't bad for a first try. The more muscle building exercises you do, the longer and farther you'll be able to go," Noaz says, stepping up between Thayer and Haze, clipboard in hand. I glare at that evil clipboard. What does he even write on it?

  "I wasn't a slouch to begin with." I groan as I manage to push myself up until I'm sitting up halfway.

  "No, but there is a lot that adrenaline can do for you. From what I understand, a lot of your strength comes from your legs—I've been trying to build your arm muscles. You can't rely purely on your leg muscles, though I applaud your quick thinking today."

  "Great," I say. "Thanks for the applause." I roll to my feet and try not to appear like I'm about to fall over even though I wish I was lying down. My head tilts and the world swims. Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Don't throw up. I chant the motto in my head. What would I even throw up? I barely had anything for breakfast.

  "Why don't you take a break for the rest of the day?" Noaz suggests. "Go upstairs, take a shower?"

  I narrow my eyes on him. "I can take the rest of the day off?"

  He nods. "You've proved your progress today." He marks something on that clipboard of his, and I slide steadily closer, trying to peek over the edge. Noaz drops the damn thing to his side, hiding it all the while looking me up and down. I straighten. "Besides," he continues, "even if I wanted you to do more exercises, I don't know if your muscles could take it with the beating you just put them through." Noaz. A smartass. Who would have thought?