by Huss, JA
And sick.
I am sick.
My heart is sick.
I am heart sick.
The girl who was telling me to run is gone now. I don’t know what happened to her. All I know is that I woke up on the Rock.
There was nothing there back then.
He left me there for three months.
Three fucking months.
The Rock is where I learned to be silent.
The Rock is where I learned to live with myself.
The Rock is where I learned to accept my lot in life.
The Rock is where he broke me.
The Rock is where I put myself back together.
The Rock is where the nightmare begins.
The Lectra lets go and I find myself climbing the stairs to the event room.
There are mercs lining the stairwell, all dressed in black, carrying those giant guns. Knives strapped to their legs and ammo on their belts.
They would not have a chance against me in this tight stairwell. Not even with those weapons. Not even all of them at once. And they all know this. Because they don’t look at me.
They don’t dare fucking look at me.
I picture that fight in my head. Imagine myself jumping up, grabbing the platform of the stairs above my head, kicking five or six of them in the face and then swinging around to take out their buddies rushing up to help.
It would be a bloodbath. I would snap so many necks.
“Cort!”
I focus and find Maart standing at the top of the stairwell, just outside the open door to the observation room.
“Fuck, dude. Where the hell did you go?” He looks over my shoulder. “Where’s Anya?”
Anya. Where is Anya?
“She left with you. Where’d she go? Lazar wants to talk to her.”
Oh, does he? Too fucking bad for him.
“Cort? Where is she?”
Some time passes as I climb the remaining dozen steps up to Maart. And then he’s talking again.
“Jesus Christ. Look at your eyes. They are bright blue, brother. You are fucked up.”
I laugh, then sign, I am so fucked up.
“Where’s Anya?”
But I’m not sure. I don’t actually remember taking her with me when I left the room.
“Never mind,” Maart says. “We’ll find her later, I guess. Everyone’s waiting for you. Rainer has been covering. You ready?” He’s got me by the shoulders and gives me a little shake.
Oh, I’m fucking ready all right. Let’s do this shit.
We enter the room and pause, taking it all in. I spy my father, but he’s so far away it feels like a journey and a trek to talk to him. So I let people surround me. People I don’t know. People I don’t care about. Maart, of course, does all the talking for me. I’m not even paying attention. This is pretty much the best part about the silence. I can just tune them out.
But then that reporter is in my face trying to ask me questions.
“Cort.” She’s past middle age. Too much make-up and some of it is smeared. There are dark smudges under her eyes and her cheeks are pale now and not rouged. “What did it feel like to disobey your father tonight?”
“Come on,” Maart says, positioning himself between her and me, kinda pushing her back a little. “Leave him alone. He’s not going to answer you.”
“Why not, Cort?” Her eyes are locked on mine. “Why can’t you answer me? Is this some kind of vow? Did you take a vow? Did you know that Anya was silent too? Is that why—”
“That’s enough!” Maart is all out of patience. “Get the fuck back.” Maart grabs my arm and tugs me along through the crowd.
There are a lot of women here now. Whores. They are all whores. No respectable man brings his wife to a Ring of Fire fight.
A little head of blonde hair slips through the legs of the men like a sneaky little dog. Anya’s sister. She is definitely not supposed to be here. But no one has ever accused Lazar of being a respectable man. I want to grab her for some reason, tell her to get the fuck out of my party, but she’s too quick, too good at the game she’s playing, and I lose her in the crowd.
I look around for Evard. I kinda remember Rainer kicking him out of the room after the tattooing was done and the fucking was about to begin. After a few minutes of blindly following Maart through the crowd, I find him in the corner. The little girl is too. He’s smiling. Laughing out loud, actually. And they’ve both got a glass of electric-blue Lectra in their hands.
I’m just about to head that way when Maart grabs my arm again. “This way, big shot. Your father is waving us over.”
My father.
Isn’t it time for that charade to be over?
One more training camp on the Rock. Then I will never have to see these people again. I will never be beckoned with a wave from across a room. I will never go to one of these parties again.
Maart and I push our way through the crowd and I spy Lazar. He’s sitting on the same long, silver couch that Anya was lounging on earlier in the day, glass in one hand, but he’s not drinking Lectra. That shit is bring-your-own-bottle and he gave that bottle to me. But that can’t be the reason why he’s not drinking it. Surely he can afford hundreds of Lectra bottles. And even if losing this fight did set him back enough where he would second-guess a decision to gulp down a hundred thousand dollars of liquid sex, one of the other men in the room would accommodate him. Surely he has one friend in this room who wants to ease the sting of his loss.
So why, Lazar? Why aren’t you drinking Lectra tonight?
Are you sad? Did you love Pavo? Will you miss him? Are you mad that I kicked his lifeless body over the side of the platform?
Or are you thinking about how I didn’t kill your daughter?
Why did you let her live this long if you just want her dead now?
What has changed for you, Lazar?
He spits at me when we pass him. And that spittle lands on top of my right foot.
I scoff.
Maart tightens his grip on my arm, tugging me along, leaning in to my ear to whisper, “We’ll get him another time. We have a couple hours of this, then we’re out of here. The helicopter is—”
But I tune him out. I’m really not interested in the details of how and when we leave the ship.
It takes a few more minutes to push our way through the thick crowd of men and their whores before my father finally comes into view again. He throws his head back and laughs at something.
He won big tonight. Big. So he’s very happy.
And even though it’s been over a decade since he laid a hand on me, I still feel that old, familiar anger when he smiles.
I get tunnel vision and all I see are his teeth.
Like he’s a predator.
And he is.
“Play nice,” Maart reminds me. “Two hours. Tops. Just stand there, OK? Can you do that?”
He’s having doubts that I can do that. Obviously.
Maart has good instincts.
“There he is!” Udulf beams. His eyes are glassy, his irises ringed blue from the drink.
And of course, at the most inappropriate time, the Lectra claws at my mind and brings up a memory.
Not just any memory. The bathhouse. That’s the Lectra’s favorite.
I am small. Very small. And there are a lot of little boys around me.
We are all terrified.
None of them have faces. Not even the little girl who wants me to run has a face.
She just has hands.
Every time I drink the Lectra, this is what it shows me.
And the men.
Two men. No faces.
And blood.
Blood on the bathhouse floor.
The rest is… fuzzy.
“Cort! My son!” Udulf grabs me. Hooks his arm around my shoulder. We are the same height, but he feels small and weak next to my muscular body. At twenty-seven, I might be on the other side of my prime fighting days, but I am still the most dangerous man in th
e room. At least for tonight.
I like it that way. That’s why I tore out Pavo’s heart on the platform.
I want them to fear me, yes. But more than that, I want them to hate me. I want them to hate me the way I hate them.
So that’s how I do it.
I will fight. I don’t have a choice. But I will give them nightmares too.
They will relive the last moments of Pavo’s life over and over again when they sleep. They will wake up in a cold sweat, dripping with adrenaline under their expensive silk sheets. And they will be terrified.
They will be Pavo.
Because when their long, privileged lives are over, the Devil will stand before them, ready to claim their souls, and they will tremble.
Because they are the losers in the end. Not me.
And then… just as I think those words, something weird happens.
The Lectra takes hold again. I am back in the bathhouse. The little girl has already told me to run. I am running. Feet slapping on the wet tiles. Slipping around corners. Breathing heavy. Screaming when they catch me.
They are all screaming.
We are all screaming.
And then I see a face…
But it’s not a face.
“Hey, you still with us, buddy?”
I blink and I’m back. Me. Strong, tall, muscular, deadly me.
I’m not that little boy. I haven’t been him for a very long time.
I am the Ring of Fire World Champion.
I am the winner.
I am free.
I blink again and then Lazar is suddenly in front of me. And all I see is his stupid blond hair.
The Lectra takes over my fists and they are pounding him as the room erupts into chaos.
The next thing I know I’m running down the hallways of the ship. Maart, Rainer, and Evard are all following me, yelling for me to stop.
But I don’t stop.
Time skips and then keeps skipping and a helicopter is landing outside. It makes the air thump.
I pass by a glass wall and glance at my reflection. I am covered in blood. Not just Lazar’s blood, but the blood from Pavo. And probably Anya’s blood too, because the next thing I know, I’m in a room. A closet, actually. And Anya is on the floor at my feet. Bloody. Not fresh blood, all dried up and crackling on her skin.
She is asleep.
No, she is not asleep.
She is unconscious.
I remember now. I took her out of the room with me after we had sex. Maart and Rainer were in the shower. I think I passed out. Anya did, for sure. But then I woke up and she and I were alone.
So I picked her up then and I pick her up now. I walked her out of my room then, and I walk her out of this closet now. I hid her then, but now… I reveal my plan.
“What are you doing, Cort?” That’s Rainer. And he’s asking that question in a reasonable way. But when I don’t answer and just keep walking, his tone changes. “What the fuck are you doing, Cort?”
“Is she… dead?” That’s Evard. He’s panicked. He doesn’t understand what I’m doing.
And neither do I.
Not really.
But I’m gonna do it anyway.
“Cort.” That’s Maart. “Cort, you have one more camp on the Rock and then we’re done, brother. Do not fuck it up now. Do you hear me? Cort!”
I ignore him. I carry Anya’s unconscious body in my arms, trying to find my way back up to the deck.
And I do find my way.
I always find my way.
Then the helicopter is there and I’m carrying my new limp, unconscious prize towards it. My father is standing in front of the door, shaking his head. I don’t have any idea how much time has passed since I beat the living fuck out of Lazar, but it’s been a while, because the sun is rising.
“What are you doing?”
I don’t hear Udulf’s words. The spinning rotors are far too loud. But I can read lips like a fucking champ.
Still, I don’t answer him.
“Cort. What the hell? Lazar is already pissed off enough about how things ended last night. You can’t have her. I need her.” He reaches for me—for Anya, actually—one arm extended to bar my entrance to the helicopter. “Cort! I’m talking to you! Put her down!” I check him with my shoulder, climb in, drop Anya onto the seat, point at the pilot and shoot him a look that says, You had better take off now, motherfucker. Or I will kill you and make a scene you will remember well into your next ten lives.
We lift off the ground. Udulf is still reaching for me when I kick him back with one flat foot to the chest and he slams into the concrete.
The same concrete where I killed Pavo to the song of pounding tribal drums just a few hours ago.
And I salute that fucker.
Good game, that salute says.
Good game, asshole.
But it’s over now.
And I have declared myself the winner.
CHAPTER SEVEN - ANYA
My dreams are blue.
They are always blue on the Lectra. But the blue is nothing more than a day on repeat.
That’s how I dream on the drink. Everything repeats.
I am profoundly thirsty when I’m startled awake by a deep keening noise, followed by a series of sounds that could be whistles or some kind of alarm.
What fresh fucking hell is this?
I push my ratty hair out of my face and open one eye to find a water-stained concrete ceiling. Then I close it again and just lie there, not even wondering where the hell I’m at, or what the fuck that noise is, because the whole thing is blue Lectra and that’s just the way of dreams when I’m in the blue…
Mmm. No. Wait.
I open both eyes and squint at the ceiling again.
Then I’m awake. Fully awake and sitting upright staring at… what the hell am I looking at here?
It’s a bird. For sure. It has wings. Large, long wings that—holy fucking shit. I scramble backwards when it attacks, a massive curved beak snapping at me. It calls out. That low keening is the call of this… thing.
And this thing sounds eerily human in my hazy, post-blue Lectra state.
I get to my feet and start kicking at it, wanting to yell, forcing myself not to. I pick up a wrinkled and weathered magazine and throw it at the giant albatross. It flaps and flutters. This room is far too small for it to stretch out its wings, which must span at least a dozen feet.
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!
Huh. I study it for a moment, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s verse lingering in my head as it cranes its neck upwards, opens its beak, and calls out.
Something answers back.
Oh, shit. I whirl around. There are more.
I pick up another discarded magazine, roll it up, and this time I thrust it, like a fencing sword. The massive sea bird wants to put up a fight. And then there’s another noise and I see why.
There’s a chick resting on a pile of old clothes in the corner. I use the term ‘chick’ loosely, because when I think chick, I see a tiny newly-hatched chicken in my mind’s eyes. And that baby chicken and this baby albatross have absolutely no shared characteristics aside from the wings and the beak.
This baby is as big as Bexxie’s blond cocker spaniel back home. It is fluffy, and white, and takes up a good portion of the available space in… OK. I push the hair out of my eyes one more time and take stock. Where the hell am I?
A small dirty room made entirely out of concrete blocks. I look around, one hand still thrusting forward to ward off the angry albatross’s parental instincts, and get a glimpse of a door that says ‘generator room’ in Portuguese on one side, and another door mostly blocked by the bird. But there is a view of the ocean behind it. And… I’m swaying.
Am I still on the ship?
No. I don’t feel like I’m on a ship at all, but the view outside is confu
sing me.
I stab at the bird with my magazine. The massive wings open, spanning the entire width of the room. The tips actually push up against the walls on either side, because there’s not enough space.
It doesn’t give up its position in front of my escape route, so I do that another dozen times until finally it sidesteps its way over to the chick and I can slip past.
Outside I stop short. Because I was right. I am not on a ship. Not even close to being on a ship. There is nothing around me but ocean for as far as the eye can see. And I am on the top floor of a platform.
A platform I vaguely recognize as an oil rig topside. Minus all the things typically on a topside that makes them habitable. There is a large, faded H painted in the center of the platform’s open space. A helipad.
There are more birds out here as well. Several albatrosses as well as large formidable gulls are flying overhead, their wings gliding in and through the wind without flapping.
There are a few more nests along the edge of the tiny building I woke up in, and each nest hosts another sizable chick.
One of my flying enemies dives at me as I run towards the center of the expansive, empty platform to put some space between me and the chicks. When I get there I stop, turn in a circle, and see nothing in any direction but water.
My heart skips. Literally skips inside my chest. And then it begins to beat fast. Fast. Faster.
Calm down, Anya. Remain rational and do not overreact. He did not drop you off on an abandoned oil rig. That simply doesn’t happen. Your life is not a movie, or a book, or some other fiction worthy of such drama.
I tell myself this kind of shit because there is still a slim chance that I’m not on an abandoned topside. It’s still possible that this situation works. It is still possible that my life isn’t one long string of fiction-worthy drama.
Right.
I snort.
And it’s a real snort. Not an implied one. Because a flock of albatrosses—who, by the way, don’t even live in the part of the Atlantic where I was located yesterday—always make their nests on the top floor of a fully working, commissioned topside oil rig.
I take a deep breath and let it out. Force the fear and confusion to go with it. And I think rationally. Because that’s all there is left to do.