by Huss, JA
And this pisses me off. Not that he cut my tongue back open. The fact that he slapped me.
Like I’m just a stupid girl. Not worthy of a real punch.
And I don’t know what happens to me. But something does happen to me. Because I see red and my vision narrows down into a tunnel focusing only on my opponent. My whole body goes hot. My feet dance the way they’ve been conditioned to, bouncing on the mat like I really am a fighter.
And then, before I can think about it—before Maart can read my mind and counter what I’m about to do—I fake a punch and he ducks left. But I’ve already lowered my head. I ram his chest like a bull. Pushing him backwards, making him stumble. And then, like a fucking miracle from God, he’s on the mat. On his back. Right in front of me. I drop to my knees as he laughs. And I punch him in the mouth.
I’m just about to smile and enjoy this one moment—this one time that I took Maart by surprise—when his fist crashes into my jaw and my whole world stutters.
And then it all goes black.
I struggle to swim up from the darkness.
People are saying my name over and over. “Anya! Anya!” Lots of people.
I recognize Rainer, Cort, and yes, even Maart. Then Irina. Even Evard. Hell, maybe all of them.
“Anya!” That’s Cort. “Open your eyes.” He pulls one lid open with a finger. “Look at me. Can you look at me?”
I nod, which makes my head swim. Then I look over at Maart and smile.
“What the fuck are you smiling about? I knocked you out, you dumbass.”
Then I laugh and throw him my middle finger. And this, I think, is a moment worthy of words. “Fuck you. You fucking prick. You want to slap me? Like a goddamned girl? You think I’m just a goddamned girl? Someone to be tucked away in a harem house? Fuck you! You have no idea who I am. Or what I’ve lived through. Or what I’m capable of.”
Every kid is laughing. So loud, Maart can’t hear the rest of my curses. But I keep going. It’s like… all those fantasy moments about what I would say when I finally started talking are playing out in real time.
“You’re just a fucking bully,” I continue as Cort pulls me to my feet. “And you’re jealous. That’s why you’re being such a dick. You’re—”
“That’s enough!” Now Cort is yelling at me. I turn to look at him. “What the fuck, Anya? He just knocked you out with one punch. You want him to do it again?”
I throw him the finger too. Right up in his face. “Fuck you too. I don’t need a big brother, OK? I can take care of myself.” Then I look at Maart. “If you want to fight me, you better fight me. Because if you slap my face like a fucking pussy one more time”—I spit blood on the mat—“I will cut your dick off in your sleep.”
All the kids erupt in giggles.
But the three tough men go utterly silent. Just look at me like I’m some wild demon.
Then Irina has my arm and she’s tugging me off the mat, leading me into the clinic to take care of my damage. The building’s door has been propped open so we can hear Cort and Maart arguing outside as she cleans up my face in silence. Rainer is trying to play referee.
Most of the kids file past the clinic and end up in the game room. I figure that must be what Rainer was talking about when he said everyone was ready to celebrate the end of phase two. And then I get lost in the idea of that and what the next month will bring.
Who will I fight next time?
I look at Irina. She has a cut above her eye from her fight with Paulo just a little while ago. But their fight was mostly grappling on the mat. She smiles at me, giggles a little, then signs, I fucking love you.
Why? I sign back, not even sure why I’m signing instead of talking.
“Because,” she whispers, looking over her shoulder nervously, “I have been wanting to say that to him for ten years.” Her accent is thick Russian. And her voice is so much sweeter than I ever thought possible. “He slaps me all the time. It’s insulting.”
“Right? Fucking dick.”
“Just punch me,” Irina says. “I am no one’s little sister. I don’t need no fucking baby slaps.”
“Yeah,” I say, sighing as I push my wild hair out of my face. “Me either.”
Irina points to herself. “I am big sister.” Then she nods her head, pronouncing me fixed as she puts up a hand, palm out. I look at it dumbly for a moment. Then she takes my hand, slaps her palm with it, and then does some little wiggly things with her fingers. “Secret handshake,” she whispers. “Phase three is good. You’ll see.”
Then she winks.
And walks out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - CORT
The night of test two out on the Rock is one of celebration. The first month is all about discipline. They can’t talk, they can’t laugh, they can’t communicate in any way. They are their own worst enemy and they must learn to deal with that. They must learn to contain the fear. They must ignore the beasts lurking in the background, and never take their eye off the savage in front of them.
Because here’s the hard lesson I want them to learn the easy way: No one is coming to save them.
I learned it early, but as Anya can attest, I never completely bought into it.
I need them to buy in to it.
It’s one thing to have hope and be me. A man on the edge of the end and the end is gonna be sweet, not dark.
And it’s quite another to be them.
Just getting started.
Udulf could walk into my camp at any moment and take any kid he wants for any reason whatsoever. He’s done it seven times in the past twelve years and one of them was sixteen. Sixteen and she just disappeared one day with Udulf and that was that.
So they can make it all the way to me, all the way to the rim of that ring of fire and still, they will never be safe.
I cannot save them.
They must learn to save themselves.
It’s a shitty lesson. And it’s even shittier that they have to learn it so young.
But what is the alternative?
They break down crying?
They stop fighting?
They give in?
That is death. Even if they’re still alive, if they break, they die. It might take a few months, but they are already dead when they break.
They must defy this life. Every possible chance they can, they must fight. And they must be smart about it. Like Anya. She is a fucking genius. And I’m not talking about all those languages, either. That silence. Yeah. It’s brilliant. Because she gets one chance with every single person who knows she doesn’t talk to stun them into their own silence.
Even if it’s just for a moment, she has that one moment.
It’s guaranteed to work.
She did it to me last night and she did it to Maart today.
“You want to slap me? Like a goddamned girl? You think I’m just a goddamned girl?”
No, Anya Bokori. I do not think you are just a goddamned girl.
I think you are some kind of mental ninja, that’s what I think you are.
Month two is all about learning who has your back.
The kids never realize this until they are well into month three because all they are thinking about is death. And how to avoid it. If they failed their first test, they are stressing about the next one. If they passed their first test, they have just raised Maart’s expectations. And that means he will do his best to make sure they fail the next one.
That’s why Irina was paired up with Paulo this time. He kicked her ass. She looks a lot like Anya did last month at the end of her test. One eye swollen shut, her lip split, and she admitted to Rainer that her left ear is still ringing.
Anyway. The night of the second test is a party. A real party. They get free run of the game room, and candy, and then, just before bed, we show them their new sleeping quarters on the lowest level.
The entire perimeter of the platform is surrounded by shipping containers and up until now, they’ve only been allowed to open the one that holds thei
r clothes. But tonight, we open all of them. And inside each one is a bed. A real bed. It’s not big, just big enough for a small child, and the waterproof mattress isn’t even as thick as the mats they train on. But it’s a bed. They get a solar lantern, they get a set of sheets, and they get a pillow.
If you’ve never slept on a thin rice mat outside on a helipad of concrete for two months straight, you might not be able to imagine just how magical a pillow can feel. But these kids get it. And even though they’re still not allowed to talk, they don’t care. They’re so used to it, they don’t even miss it by now. It’s just… life.
Maybe that’s sad.
I’ve had rebellious kids tell me that in the past. Three of them, to be specific. About four years apart, so they didn’t sit down and have some existential discussion about the pros and cons of deprivation. That was just who they were on the inside.
All three of them died early. They didn’t make it to ten.
Ten-year-olds in my world are some of the wisest of creatures.
And here’s the thing—those kids were right. It is pretty fucking sad when you wear deprivation like a badge. But what’s the other option?
I watch the kids getting settled in their container rooms, waiting to see which of them will like the idea of solitude and which of them will go looking for roommates. Most of them have been out here before, so they know they’re allowed to share a room if they move their own furniture.
And more than half of them do that. They get busy segregating themselves into groups, forming up teams. And the funny thing is, it never ends up the way you think.
The girls don’t gravitate towards each other. Irina isn’t sharing shit with anyone. She’s always been comfortable being a loner. And Zoya, the little six-year-old in my group, is a lot like her. Her first act of independence was to color a sign that says ‘KEEP OUT’ in big, bold letters. And right now, she’s dropping a pile of books and stuffed animals she stole from the game room onto her bed. Rainer’s gonna be pissed about that. They’re only allowed to take one book at a time and no toys or games ever leave that room.
Zoya is giving out no fucks. She’s not hiding her booty, even though she knows the rules. She’s displaying those books proudly. Like they are her trophies.
I predict she will go far.
Nine-year-old Rasha, on the other hand, is waiting on the edge of Paulo’s container, her eyes begging for him to let her in. They are real-life brother and sister. I can tell he’s pissed about it, but after about twenty minutes he starts flashing angry hands and fingers at her, and she bounces up and down in delight, clapping, then proceeds to drag her bed out of her container all the way across the platform and into his.
Rasha is not going to make it. She’s not a terrible fighter, obviously. She’s nine and still alive. But she’s not ruthless. She is never going to be ruthless. She kills her opponents with tears in her eyes every single time and then she is depressed for weeks afterward.
It sucks. It really does. It sucks that her compassion will get her killed. It shouldn’t be this way. But it is. And that’s all there is to it.
Maeko and Peng room together. They’ve always roomed together. They are a lot like Maart and me. Or, well, how we used to be when we were that age. We would stay up late and choose our names for the Ring of Fire. I wasn’t called Sick Heart back then. That was Udulf’s name for me and it came much later, when I got in to the Ring of Fire. I called myself the Stray. Just thinking back on those days makes me smile. And Maart called himself the Badger, because even though he was super skinny, he just kept going in for the kill. He never quit. He would’ve gone all the way on his own. He never needed me. I needed him.
We made so many plans. We used to make up diagrams of our training camps. How many huts we would have. How many training rings. How many kids we’d train. And then we’d fantasize about what we’d do afterward once we won our freedom.
Buy a private island. Private jet. Private everything. Condos all over the world. Women everywhere hanging all over us.
We made a pact, too, to never let those girls come between us. I’d forgotten about that. Maybe because Rainer came along soon after and he brought Cintia, Sissy, and Ling with him. And we messed around with them when we got older, but girls, man. We didn’t have time for girls. And the girls didn’t have time for us.
The only thing we thought about was living.
I sigh. Because this is why Maart is mad at me tonight.
After he knocked Anya out, we had a pretty good argument in front of everyone. He was screaming at me, telling me I was blind.
But it wasn’t just about Anya. It was Rainer, I think, who set him off. Maybe Maart felt like Rainer chose Cintia, Sissy, and Ling instead of us.
But Rainer... well, if he really does stay behind, we’d accept it. He’s one of my dearest friends, but he’s not Maart. It’s always been me and Maart. And then along came this girl.
It’s not even Anya he’s pissed about. She’s part of it, but that’s not why Maart is so angry. It’s Ainsey.
Ainsey. I shake my head as I watch her. She’s dragging her bed across the platform. The steel frame the thin mattress sits on doesn’t weigh a lot, but it’s bulky. And every time she pulls, she scrapes the bed across the concrete about two inches. I don’t know where she’s planning on taking that bed, but she’s gonna be here until morning at this rate.
I look around and find Rainer watching too. He’s got one hand cupped against his mouth. Like he really wants to say something to her, but he’s holding it back.
Then my eyes track over to Maart, who is also watching Ainsey from another end of the platform. He looks like he wants to say something too, but it’s vastly different than what Rainer is thinking.
He blames Ainsey. For Rainer leaving, for me being distracted, for Anya being here.
And none of that really makes sense. I think he knows that, but we’re so close and we have so much to lose. I sigh. It sucks when you have so much to lose. It’s a terrible feeling. And it makes me want to go back to a simpler time. When we owned nothing, so we had nothing to lose.
Maart pushes off the wall he’s been leaning on and walks over to Ainsey. I catch Rainer’s look from across the platform, but I shake my head at him. Leave it alone. Let’s see what he does.
Maart bends down, kneeling so he can look Ainsey in the eyes. I can see his lips moving, but he’s talking too low for me to hear anything. Then he looks over at me, stands up, shakes his head, and starts walking my way. “Do you know where she’s taking that bed?”
“No,” I say.
“Upstairs.” He points to the ceiling. “So she can sleep next to you out on the helipad.”
I picture Ainsey trying to get that bed up the stairs and let out a soft chuckle.
“It’s not funny,” Maart snaps. “None of this is funny. It’s bad enough you’ve got yourself all distracted by Anya, but this kid, Cort?” He points to Ainsey as the sound of another two-inch scrape fills the air. “She’s gonna get you killed.”
“You’re being fucking dramatic.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’re not gonna leave, are you?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Of course I’m leaving. We’ve spent the last two decades working for this. I’m not giving it up.”
“I don’t believe you. Nothing about this last camp is right. It’s all wrong.”
I stare at him for a moment, acknowledge his fear—because that’s what it is—and then say, “You know you always come first.”
“Is that right?” He scoffs. Then he looks me dead in the eyes and says, “You should reconsider that.”
“Reconsider what?”
“Putting me first.”
“And why’s that, Maart?”
He hesitates. Like he’s not sure he should say anything more. But then he shrugs, giving in. “Because, Cort, I stopped putting you first the moment you took Anya off the ship with you.”
Our eyes are locked for a few mo
ments.
Maybe he takes off once we’re officially out. Maybe running a supply ship isn’t his idea of freedom either. Or maybe… maybe we’re just over.
And when that thought enters my mind, I realize something. I’m not ready to let him go. “So you’re out?”
He pokes me in the chest. Hard. “From the way I see it, I’m the only one still in. So maybe you should be asking yourself that question.”
“You just said you stopped putting me first when I put Anya on that helicopter.”
“Yeah. Because how fucking stupid do you think I am? You and her spend an entire month out here alone and you expect me to believe things didn’t change?”
“If you want to know if I fucked her, just ask me if I fucked her.”
He smiles and some of the tension releases from his shoulders. They drop a little. “Since when,” he says in a low voice, “have I ever cared about who you fucked, Cort?”
I shrug. “That’s why I’m confused. Why are you acting this way? She’s not a threat to us—”
“Us?” He laughs. “Fuck you.”
He starts to turn but I grab his upper arm. “Wait.”
His dark eyes flash at me. “What?”
“What do I have to do to make this better?”
“Which part isn’t good?”
“You know which part.”
“Say it out loud, Cort. For once in your fucking life, say it out loud.”
“You and me, that’s the part that’s not good. And I don’t want it to be this way. If we don’t stick together now then what was the point of all those years?” He doesn’t say anything, so I keep going. “If we go our separate ways, Maart, then all those years turn into a business transaction. And that’s not what it was.”
“Wasn’t it?” He cocks an eyebrow. “When we decided that I would stop competing and be your medic and trainer, wasn’t that a business transaction?”
“Not to me, it wasn’t.”
“Hmm. Well, you never were the clearest thinker.”
“So this is how it ends?”