by Huss, JA
We use the center training ring for the fight. Unlike the other two on either side, this one is elevated, more of a typical ring you find in gyms and event centers, but without ropes or a cage around the raised floor of mats.
There are no chairs set up so I can only assume that these assholes—these other owners in the Ring of Fire—do not expect it to last long enough to sit.
No one needs to tell me the odds. I know they are against me.
I have won too many fights.
I have earned my freedom.
And I’m setting a bad example for the younger fighters coming up behind me.
These owners need to set this record straight.
There is no buyout, there is no freedom. The last fight only ever ends one way.
This isn’t some welfare scheme.
This isn’t some stepping stone to the outside world.
This is a death sentence.
That’s why the reporter is here. It’s her job to make sure everyone knows where we stand when this is over.
Maart is already on the mats when I exit my house. Alone.
They don’t even care that he’s there. No one actually cares about this fight. They expect Maart to win, they expect the record to be set straight. They expect to drink and party in my house tonight. They might string my dead body from a tree to make it a little more dramatic, but unlike the fight on the ship, this one is not a big deal.
The reporter is only here to record my death for the next issue of Ring of Fire.
This fight is nothing to these men but a restructuring.
What happens in this camp, and others like it around the world, it’s just… business.
Udulf and Lazar are both standing in front of the ring, smiling and laughing with drinks in hand, the ice in their crystal glasses rapidly melting. Patting each other on the back. Chatting up their peers and ignoring Anya, who stands among them, but is not one of them. All of them sweating in the sweltering heat as I walk towards the ring.
They don’t even acknowledge me. This is just another afternoon get-together. A little bit exotic because it’s my training village and none of them, save for Udulf and Lazar, have ever been here before. But this place is seriously not much to look at.
I glance over at the small hut, just behind the crowd of owners, and find Zoya, Rasha, and Irina standing on the porch. They will watch from there. Then I glance to the opposite side of the ring near the encroaching jungle, and see Rainer, and Evard, and all the other fighters. Only Sissy, Ling, and Cintia catch my eye and nod.
I don’t nod back.
This fight looks nothing like the last one on the ship. There are no drums, there is no dark sky under a new moon, no body paint, no spotlights, no slave boys, no one in my corner at all.
There are no expectations here aside from death and rebirth.
But that’s OK. I have lived with the threat of death for as long as I can remember. This is just one more day in the life of the Sick Heart.
I hop up in the ring and stand a few feet away from Maart and it takes several long seconds before the owners even notice the fight is about to start.
Insult, upon insult, upon insult.
Maart and I walk towards the center of the ring and bow. And while we are looking down at our thumbs, he says, in a low voice, “Finally. Something really worth fighting for.”
And when I look up to agree, he punches me in the face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - ANYA
Cort is his usual cool, collected self as he walks down the steps of his porch and makes his way towards the center training ring.
Everything about a fight day is significant. Every decision has purpose. And isn’t that how they like it? These sick men who prey on children in the shadows?
But they do it in the light of day.
Oh, none of them are giving interviews about their pedophilic tendencies. Not to the masses, not even the Ring of Fire reporter wants to hear that shit. But these men are far, far, far too smug and confident in their untouchable status to hide their depraved, immoral, deviant behavior. And why should they? They are proud of it.
But it’s always hidden in plain sight.
That’s why the fight on the ship had the drums, and the dark moon, and the symbols painted on my body. That’s why there were black lights to make us glow. That’s why we were naked. That’s why there were slave boys dressed in gold.
They thrive on that shit. It’s like a secret handshake to them. It comes with a wink and a nod. And they all laugh and wink and nod back.
Take Cort’s name, for example. Udulf’s peers all know Cort was his biological child, just like we all know that Evard and Ainsey are Cort’s children. And Udulf gave Cort a different surname because Cort is no one to Udulf. He is nothing but a slave.
He told me that himself just yesterday morning.
Cort’s mother was of no consequence to Udulf. He has no idea who she was. Just some slave girl, maybe no older than a child herself when she gave birth. I’m not sure about that. But it doesn’t matter. The only point is Cort’s actual name. Van Breda.
It doesn’t make much sense unless you have other clues, because ‘breda,’ as far as I know—and I’m pretty fucking good with languages—can’t be translated into anything meaningful. It’s a Dutch city, but that’s not meaningful. You have to look at Pavo’s last name to really see what they are doing here with the surnames. Pavo’s surname was dripping with symbolism. It means ‘bloodline’ in Hungarian.
Because we are bred. Every single one of us.
I know Cort might think—or maybe hope is the better word—he might hope that these are not his people. That he is not one of them, but he is.
We are.
It is a plan.
And you only have to casually look at the name van Breda to see the connection.
Breeder.
That’s what Udulf thinks of Cort. His sick heart is nothing but a breeder.
These people, they all love a good symbol.
But two can play that game. Or, as it happens, thirty-one. Because that’s how many people live in this base camp. That’s how many fighters, including Ainsey and myself, call this place base.
Thirty-one of us. Thirty-two of them. It’s not quite one-on-one, but they could probably outnumber us two-to-one and it would still be in our favor.
I hear, rather than see, the first punch. Maart lands it sloppily on purpose.
This day is absolutely about a fight—but it’s not the fight these men came to see.
My first clue was Maart’s smiling face and little talk with me on the ship.
“We’re sticking together.”
“Are we?”
“We are.”
“What’s that mean, exactly?”
“You’ll find out.”
The second clue was learning that he made this deal before he and the kids came out to the Rock. This was always Maart’s plan. This was why he caused all that tension in camp with Cort. This was why he got on his back about me and Ainsey.
He needed Cort to believe it was real when it mattered.
And it was real, so Cort did believe.
Until Maart dropped the third clue.
The third clue was the fact that he left the girls behind with Cort.
I mean, maybe Maart gives no fucks about Zoya or Rasha, but Irina?
Come on. Everyone saw through that.
He loves Irina. He wants her to be the first girl in the Ring of Fire.
Or he did, before he set this whole plan in motion.
Maart needed Udulf and Lazar to be the arrogant pricks they are.
He needed them smug.
He needed them proud and cocky.
He needed them to think exactly what they do right in this moment.
That this fight is nothing but a cancellation. Of no importance whatsoever.
He needed these men to think that the Sick Heart’s time was up and that Maart was someone they could relate to. Someone like them. Someone smug, and proud, and cocky
.
Someone who wanted to live and would do anything—make any deal with the Devil he could—to make that happen.
But that’s not Maart.
Not even close.
So while all the devils are watching Maart and Cort pretend to beat the shit out of each other, several small children are crawling under the skirt of the platform. And the older ones, the ones I don’t know—those women, the teenagers who are on their way up, these fighters who, by this time, have killed more opponents than they can count—don’t bother sneaking around the side of the ring because this is the oldest trick in the book.
And these men—these arrogant men who are so full of themselves—have left their bodyguards all the way over by the cars because they are acting as drivers. And that is much too far away to stop what is coming.
Finally, these kids are in a fight worth dying for.
That night Cort and I jumped off the platform and sat under the rig we had that small conversation about revenge.
And Cort’s words have stuck with me. Have haunted me.
Don’t you ever think about revenge? I asked him.
Don’t we all?
Then why not go get it? I’ve heard you’re the most dangerous man on this planet.
Maybe I’m holding out for the fairy tale ending, Anya.
What’s that look like?
I don’t really know. I guess I never thought it through, but just off the top of my head I’d say… a rescue would be nice.
Doesn’t everyone want a rescue?
Sure. I guess I can see the logic in that.
It’s just all so unlikely.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life it’s that no one is coming to save you and if you want the happily ever after you should just rescue yourself.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Maybe the fairy-tale ending isn’t about being rescued at all.
Maybe that whole lie is all twisted-up backwards?
This is what I’m thinking about when Irina, and Rasha, and Zoya creep up behind the unsuspecting slave owners watching Maart and Cort pretend to fight, and the little kids crawl out from under the mat platform, and the older ones walk straight around the ring and the slaughter begins—I just watch for a moment and appreciate it for what it is.
And when Udulf and Lazar break away and start running for their lives—the way Cort ran in that maze of shipping containers back when he was just a small boy—I pay no attention to Lazar.
I go for Udulf.
Because this is the Sick Heart’s rescue.
And what comes next might not be anyone’s version of happily ever after, but we don’t care.
For the first time in our lives we’re in a fight worth dying for.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - CORT
Maart has me pinned to the mat when the slaughter begins, his fist raised, ready to strike. But he pauses. And smiles. Then hops up, pulls me to my feet, and says, “The ship is waiting at the dock. Meet you at the cliff when this is over.” Then he turns, ready to go join in the fight.
But I call out, “Wait! Maart! How long were you planning this?”
He looks over his shoulder and grins. “Since day fucking one, haven’t you?”
I hold my breath and shake my head as chaos erupts around me.
Maart comes back to me and grabs my shoulder. There are people dying ten feet away and we’re having a moment. He looks me in the eyes and says, “It’s fine. This day was never your job, Cort.” He puts his hand over my heart. Presses it like he’s making a point. “It has always belonged to me. And besides.” He grins at me. “I’ve always been the brains of this operation. Go find your girl, Cort. She needs saving.”
Then he jumps down into the fray and tackles one of the slave owners who is pointing a gun at Oscar. A shot rings in the air, but I don’t have time to see how it ends, because Ainsey screams somewhere behind me, and when I turn, I spot Lazar running through the woods carrying my daughter like a football.
Something happens to me in this moment. Something changes inside me and I go from Cort the Sick Heart to Cort the father before I can even process it’s happening.
Fuck that dude. Just… fuck that dude.
I jump off the platform, land, and then I am running into the jungle understory after him. Everything goes dark when I enter. The canopy above is so thick, almost no light gets past the tree tops, and this means that not much grows on the jungle floor. Ferns, mostly. Plants that suck nutrients from the ground instead of processing it from the sun.
So I can see Lazar ahead of me, weaving his way around the thick, massive tree trunks. Monkeys and birds scream as he passes, pissed off about the intrusion.
But even if the wildlife wasn’t announcing his presence in my jungle, I wouldn’t need to worry about losing him. Because there is literally no way Lazar escapes in that direction.
He’s heading for the cliffs.
So I go slow, my mind whirling at the sudden change in fate. I can hear the fight I just left. Guns are going off. People are screaming. But as I go deeper and deeper into the jungle, the shadows around me begin to shift into something else. Another time, another place.
Same man.
I stop in my tracks as the memory suddenly comes back.
The shadow people suddenly have faces.
Udulf and Lazar.
And I’m not running through a bathhouse—though that did happen at some point in my unfortunate childhood, I was just too young to separate all the horrific experiences I lived through after my sister and I were put into that shipping container and sent across the ocean.
She was the silent girl. She knew the silent language and she taught me.
That’s where I learned to sign. From the silent girls of the breeding camp I was born into.
There were dozens of children in the container with us. We were not the only ones. We were just the last ones out.
Stay still, stay back. She signed these words into the palm of my hand as we listened to the locks jangling on the other side of the metal door. We will go last. After everyone is out. And then we will run.
And that’s what we did.
We ran. And they chased us.
And, of course, they caught us.
Lazar had my sister that night. Carrying her like a football, even though she was much bigger than Ainsey is now. Her legs were kicking and her arms were flopping. But he kept running, laughing, the entire time as he weaved his way around the maze of shipping containers.
I ran after him, yelling and screaming, but only with my hands. Because I didn’t know how to use my voice.
Udulf was coming up behind me when Lazar suddenly stopped and turned around.
Lazar put my sister down and Udulf…
I suck in a deep breath and skip ahead.
Lazar pulled a knife from a holster on his belt…
I skip ahead again. Coming back to the present. To the jungle. And just stare down at my bare feet.
Then I start walking again.
That day ended a long time ago and there is no reason to unlock the rest of that memory.
Because it is nothing but blood.
The monkeys near the cliffs are screaming their alarm long before I exit the jungle and find Lazar standing at the edge, looking down, Ainsey in his arms, looking with him.
My foot snaps a branch on the dirt floor and Lazar turns, panic on his face.
And how ironic is this? Twenty-something years later we are back in that maze. Him running with a little girl in his arms. Me chasing him down. But this time, the end belongs to me.
“Don’t take one more step, Sick Heart.” Lazar has a knife pressed against Ainsey’s neck. maybe even that same fucking knife he used to skin my sister in front of me.
For what? What possible reason could there be to skin a little girl alive?
Cruelty. Evil. That’s the only explanation for these people.
Lazar is panting hard from his run, his chest rising and falling in an
alarming fashion, like he’s on the edge of a panic attack. “I will cut her fucking throat and throw her over. I swear to God I will.”
I nod at him. Give him a tight-lipped smile. “Yep. I’m sure you would. But if you do that, Lazar, I will pull your eyes out with my fingertips the same way I pulled Pavo’s heart from his chest.”
He scoffs, so fucking arrogant, and then he presses the knife just a little harder against Ainsey’s throat. His heightened threat trickles out as a tiny stream of blood. “I’ll do it,” he says again. His voice cracking.
And once again, I nod. “You’ve miscalculated here, Lazar.”
He sneers at me. “How the hell do you figure? I’ve got the knife and a scared little girl who I happen to know is important to you. You would give up everything for her, apparently. You agreed to this day.”
“Well,” I say calmly. “Yeah. I suppose that part is true. But here’s where you went wrong. She’s not a little girl, Lazar. She is nak su.”
Lazar’s head tips back to laugh just as Ainsey’s tiny fingers dig into his eyes.
He screams, stumbles backwards, and this is the moment when I really do panic. My feet are moving, my body crossing the distance between us, because they are falling…
Ainsey reaches for me as Lazar screams, and I snag her, pulling her with all my strength from his tight grip.
She comes free, but I hear the snap of her shoulder as I save her from the fall onto the rocks below.
Ainsey screams, her shoulder limp. But she’s safe. In my arms. And even my dumb ass knows how to put a shoulder back in place. Her relief is immediate when the bone slides back in and we both let out a long breath of relief.
“Fuck,” I say. Looking her over to see if she’s hurt. “Are you all right?”
She holds her palm up and says, “High-five.”
I just stare at her for a moment. Sad that she can adjust so easily.
Then vow to change that as soon as I can.
But I still high-five her.
Gunshots ring out on the other side of the jungle. “Shit. We gotta go.” I pick her up, go back into the trees, and start making my way north along the cliffs, towards my ship.
A branch snaps behind me, and when I whirl around, I find the reporter and her cameraman, both with their hands up, like I’m about to rob them.