by Natalie Reid
Jessie wiped off the sweat on her forehead. She had already taken down three opponents that night. This man looked hardly any different. Large body, big muscles, and an even bigger mouth. Their faces altered, and so did their fighting styles, but one thing that never seemed to change was the blackness they carried with them. It was as if they were chained in shadows, buckled down and embedded inside. She couldn’t understand how they couldn’t feel it, all that bloated weight. It made her nauseous every time she came near it. In fact, the whole rink, the stands, the contenders, the announcers, they were like an army of future Bandits gathering for a celebration of violence. And some seemed even worse than Bandits, human criminals that were smarter than the madness of the Black.
Jessie wished she could leave, but it was the only place she could go, the only gift she had left. Until she turned, she would use what strength she had left to fight the criminals of this city. But when that inevitable day came, she knew the men that infested the rink would be more than capable of taking her down before she broke out into the rest of the city. It was a strange thought, but their corruption was almost a comfort to her. The worst way this could end would be to find the dead bodies of a couple of criminals and a Bandit lying in the streets. It wasn’t the best way to go, but for now she could live with it.
Giving her head one last firm shake, she nodded to the moderator and turned to face her opponent.
“’Bout time, smoker!” he said, hopping on the balls of his feet as he drew closer. He jabbed his fist towards her in a few practice swings. “Maybe I’ll do you a favor and take out that eye for you.”
Jessie didn’t budge from her spot. Everyone knew that her eye was her biggest weakness. An opponent had once managed to hook a punch to her right eye, and she was rendered completely helpless, taken over by a world of swirling black. The man would have broken her back in half if the moderator hadn’t ended the match in time. She still had a deep bruise that ran down the bumps of her spine.
Yet, for as big of a weakness that her eye presented, it also had its advantages. Namely, it just plain scared people. They saw her as a Bandit already. Not only that, but she was like a messenger of the Black. A rumor even spread that if you got too close to her, you might be infected yourself.
Her opponent’s left leg lunged forward. He was about to make his first attack. Despite her exhaustion, Jessie was able to easily dodge it, moving just far enough out of the way so she expended up as little energy as possible. The man re-gripped his fists and growled in annoyance. He continued hopping up and down on his feet as he tried again, yet Jessie was too fast for him.
“Come on, hit me!” he challenged. He jabbed again and swiped at her feet, but both attacks were unsuccessful. “Come on, smoker! Fight back.”
Jessie still didn’t move. She knew if she tried to hit him now, the impact would not do much damage. She was too weak to hit very hard. Her only play was to continue dodging until he put himself off balance.
The man tried several more times, growing frustrated with each swipe of air. However, before his anger could escalate, he put his hands down and took several steps back. The crowd above booed them, but he waved his hands as if asking for permission to try something.
“Alright.” He lifted his palms in a sign of surrender. “You don’t want to dance.”
Jessie’s fingers twitched as she swayed in exhaustion. The shadow behind the man was coiling around his neck. She took in a gulp of air, feeling as if she too were being strangled just by the sight of it.
The man paced back and forth as he started to address her. “But these good people have come here for a show. And it would be a shame if we didn’t entertain them.” He reached down for his waist and began undoing the belt around his pants. As he did so, the audience roared in anticipation. Using a belt was against the rules, but they loved anything that was against the rules, and Jessie knew there was no way the moderator was going to stop him.
Her opponent gave the belt a good snap and took a step closer to her with it. “If we aren’t dancing, then how ‘bout Bandit training?” He snapped it twice more on either side of her. “Hmm? See how long the Bandit can last before it bends to the will of its master.”
Jessie blinked tiredly at him, and then turned her back and slowly started to walk away.
“Hey! Where you going?” he called out.
She could feel the pound of his feet as he ran towards her, sense the path of the belt as it raised in the air, ready to strike down. When he was close enough, she tilted her face to the side to catch a glimpse of the belt just as it was about to slam into her head. In her first display of real speed, she caught the belt with one hand before it could make contact, and jerked it towards her. This threw her opponent off balance, unprepared as he came stumbling towards her. She stared down his Blackness as she tightened her fist and slammed it right between his eyes.
The man fell to the floor, the belt flopped on top, and the Bandit hurried to cling to him like a swarm of flies to a chunk of meat. Half the crowd cheered, half booed. Never satisfied. Jessie turned away and made for the rink’s exit. Four fights were enough for one night.
She bowled past the door and headed for the bathroom in the small building across the alleyway. There were no designations for men and woman, and the bathroom, which boasted of two stalls, was always in disarray. It offered no sanctuary from the outside world. Yet one thing it did offer that kept Jessie coming back for more was a constant source of water.
Turning the facet on, she let the water pool in her hands before lifting it up to her mouth and letting it flow in. The second the water touched her lips, she was reminded of how desperate she was for it. The fight-rink kept the hunger at bay, but once she was in here, so close to what she longed for, the want hurt even more.
As she gulped down the water, feeling no closer to satisfaction even after the twentieth sip, she was reminded of everything else she craved for. She had tried to come to terms with the fact that she would die in this place, that she would spend the remainder of her days without a dear thing in the world, fighting criminals to ensure they would one day kill her. But the faces of those dear to her haunted her even more than the Black. She would see Ben and her mother as clear as water when she closed her eyes, but the worst vision was the face of the man still alive.
Jessie struggled to keep Tom from her thoughts, yet every moment of weakness had her throat clamming up. Just the sound of his name could bring her to tears, and crying in a place like this was dangerous. Though death was her ultimate goal, she was still frightened of the horrors the men here could inflict. It didn’t help that so much reminded her of the young scientist. The clouds, a mop of unruly hair, the color blue… As much as she wanted to see him, she hated the reminders. Tom was gone from her life. All she would ever have was the memory of a stolen kiss in a crumbling apartment.
Taking her last gulping sip of water, she noticed a movement in the mirror above the sink. She never liked looking in the mirror. She was too afraid that she would see the dark creature that was personally waiting for her, its claws embedded in her back. Glancing behind her, she watched as the door to the bathroom opened and three men stepped inside. One of the men appeared to be in a great deal of pain. He was doubled over, and the other two men were trying to hold him up. Jessie recognized them as fighters from the rink. Mediocre and hot tempered. She had beaten them all at one time or another. If it wasn’t for the writhing man in the middle, she would have thought that they were here for some payback.
“Make way, smoker!” one of the men growled.
Jessie stepped to the side, and that’s when she noticed the face of the man in the middle. His name was Switch, and he was the only other fighter at the rink like her…a smoker. He too had the scar on his eye and the curse of the Black vision. Yet, taking a closer look, she saw that his infected eye was darker than normal. Maybe he was making that final transition to the Bandit.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
The m
en ignored her as they hoisted Switch up on one of the sinks. One of them took a wad of paper towels and soaked it with water before pressing it to his dark eye. At once Switch gave off a moaning howl, gripping tightly to the sink’s edge.
Jessie hurried over to him and took the paper from his eye. She knew firsthand how much it hurt to have any pressure placed on that eye. However, when she peeled it back, Switch’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist.
“I can’t see them!” he rasped out in a strange mixture of anguish and glee. “I can’t see them!”
“It’s gone?” Jessie half breathed out, not daring to believe.
Switch began babbling and sobbing, repeating over and over again that he couldn’t see. Jessie looked to the other two men, hoping they would elaborate.
“What did he do?” she asked.
One of them men prodded Switch as he remarked, “This racker went and got his eye burned out. Racking burned out! Told him he was nuts!”
She could scarcely breathe as she took this in. Was there really a cure?
“Switch!” she said firmly, grabbing his jacket by the collar. “Where did you go?”
Switch continued sobbing. Nothing that escaped his mouth made sense.
“You looking to do the same, smoker?” one of the men asked.
“Think she could handle it?” the other remarked snidely. “It’s pretty racked up.”
Jessie turned to face the two men. Grabbing the shorter of the two, she shoved his back against the wall and spoke closely into his face. “You listen to me. Either you tell me where he went, or I will meld your face to this sink and use your teeth to fill in the cracks.” The other man moved from his spot, trying to get behind her, but she pointed her finger at him, saying, “You, I’ll just plain kill if you try to move again.”
The man stopped, and at the same time the one she had pinned to the wall started talking. “There’s a man several blocks away. On Bessel. Calls himself Aim. But he won’t do it free.”
Jessie let him go and stormed out of the bathroom. She walked to the end of the alley and stopped once she turned the corner. Leaning her back against the wall, she pressed a hand to her forehead and tried to breathe. The hope was almost too much to take. If there was really a way out…really a way that she could burn the Bandit from her…
The money it required didn’t worry her. She had more than enough from her winnings in the rink. It was the doctor that scared her. If he discovered who she really was, he would have her in a vulnerable position. And of course there was the pain. If she wanted to survive, she would have to accept the fact that her eye would be burned out and blinded.
She took in a gulp of air and looked up to the night sky. She couldn’t see those guardian, rocky mountain peaks in the distance, but for the first time in a while, she could feel them. She tried to draw courage from them, to take comfort in the fact that, if they were a person with thoughts and opinions, cares and worries, they would be rooting for her to fight for her humanity. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself the small luxury of picturing Tom’s face, his brown hair and ocean blue eyes. She had never told him, but it was one of the most captivating sights she had ever seen.
* * *
Tom wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the man named Jason had left him in the cage. He had fallen asleep at one point, and he was acutely aware of a raging hunger in his stomach. When he saw a purple light growing in the tunnel that led to his cage, he immediately scrambled to his feet, desperate to hear news of Jessie. He gripped the cold, cage bars as the frosty purple light dipped into the vaulted cavern. As the figure grew closer, he did not recognize the features of the man named Jason. Perhaps this was one of the men he sent out to find Jessie.
“Have you found her?” Tom called out, trying hard to catch any tell from the newcomer’s features.
“Searching for a girl like Chance takes time,” the man replied, going up to the bars. His eyes looked Tom up and down, as if measuring his worth.
“Why have you come?” Tom asked, taking a cautious step back.
“Well, I had a few questions.” He knocked his light-stick back and forth between the bars. “Jason seemed happy not to ask them, but…let’s just say I have my reservations.”
“You want to know why I want to see Jessie even if she might be a Bandit?” he guessed.
The man bobbed his head. “That’s part of it. More specifically, I want to know everything. If you’re such a good friend, then why did she leave? I knew her while she was down here. We even shared the same house. So I just don’t buy your story when you say she left because of the Bandit. It seems to me that something else is going on. Now, I won’t go up top and search for her until you tell me the full story.”
Tom buried his hand in his hair and winced as he decided on a course of action. Sighing, he relented to tell him the truth. He told the man about Ritter’s quest to get his daughter back, and how he employed Jessie in exchange for giving up her mother’s location. Then he recounted how Jessie had left after hearing that Ritter had lied, that her mother was really dead all this time. He was careful to leave out any mention of the military compound, and held that Ritter and Nel had left when Jessie had.
When he had finished with his story, the man on the other side of the cage creased his forehead in thought.
“He told her Sarah was dead?”
“Yes. It’s part of the reason she’s gone. I think it was too much for her. She’s given up.”
The man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Ritter certainly is a heartless racker.”
Tom came up to the bars, staring at the man’s face in the purple light. “What do you mean?”
He turned the light over in his hands and stared at it as he explained, “Before the Resistance, I used to work for Task Force. I was there the day Jessie went missing and her mother was taken in. Can’t say where they took her, I wasn’t high enough on the chain. But I knew of Sarah. Ward had given us her name. Said if anyone ever came across her, we were to take her in immediately. There was a direct No-Kill order on her, and Ward threatened us with dismemberment if any officer harmed her in any way. Now, I may have been gone from Task Force for some years now, but one thing I can tell you, Jessie’s mother is most certainly alive.”
Tom ran a slow hand through his hair, his eyes glazed with the information that swam in his head. He wished he could break out of his cage and find some way to tell Jessie. If only she knew, she might find the strength to fight. He was suddenly drawn out of his thoughts as he heard the click of a lock. The cage door squeaked open, and the man looked to him expectantly.
“What are you doing?” Tom asked
“I think you’re lying about one thing. You know where Ritter is, but you’re refusing to tell me for one reason or another. But, if I get you to Jessie, and you tell her about her mother being alive, I’ll bet my life the first person she leads me to is Ritter.” He opened the cage door a little wider. “So do you want to protect that heartless racker, or do you want to see Jessie?”
“I thought you didn’t know where she was,” he pointed out, apprehensive and hopeful at the same time.
“At this very moment, no, technically I don’t. But I know where she’s spent every night for the past two weeks. So get out of that cage and let’s go find her.”
Chapter 4
Burn
Tom made sure to stay tight to the man named Kurt as they arrived at the fight rink. He stared about him in horror as he took in the place Jessie had called home for the past two weeks. It was a place no one should be forced to enter, filled with violent criminals that wanted only two things, carnage and money. The floors were dirty and caked in old blood. Tom stared at the red splatters, hoping that none of it was Jessie’s.
“What was she doing in a place like this?” he asked Kurt, somehow hoping he had gotten it wrong.
“Preparing to die, most likely. If she thought she was gonna turn, best place to do it would be here.”
To
m pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his emotions together. He forced himself not to think of what she had been through, but hold onto the good news that she was still alive. She might even be close by, just a room away. To see her face again would make everything worth it.
A man at the far end of the rink caught sight of them and began to make his way over. Tom’s throat tightened, and he wished more than ever that he had his old glasses back so that he could escape once more behind them.
“Wait here,” Kurt ordered him. “Don’t speak to anyone.”
Kurt drew away and met the man that was walking towards them. Tom couldn’t hear their conversation, but at one point he saw the exchange of money subtlety pass between hands. However, after the man received Kurt’s money, he said something that did not make Kurt very happy. His voice rose, and he took a threatening step towards the man. Several of the fighters noticed this, and came to the man’s aid. Kurt did not seem bothered by them, but finally turned and walked away.
“What happened?” Tom asked quickly. “Is she here?”
He gave a gruff shake of his head.
“Well, do they know where she could be?” he pressed further.
“About to do something stupid.” Kurt grabbed Tom’s arm and led him outside before explaining. “Apparently there’s a rumor out that there’s a cure for the smoker in Jessie’s eye.”
Tom’s face lit up, but before he could truly feel elated, Kurt continued.
“They burn it out of the eye. Literally burn it out. If Jessie’s gone to get this cure, she could be in real danger. The doctor could chose to kill her if he wanted, or worse, turn her over to Task Force. My guess is, Task Force is even planning on her trying it. Even if Jessie refuses to take something for the pain, she’ll be too weak to defend herself.”
Tom felt sick as he processed this. He wanted to run and find someplace where he could throw up, but Kurt grabbed him and reminded him that they needed to keep their heads and find her before it was too late. Kurt pulled several of the fighters aside and asked if they knew where they could find a doctor that would perform the surgery. Most of them were hostile, but they finally found a man that seemed to know something. He wanted Kurt to pay him for the information, but Kurt would not have it. He shoved him up to a wall and threatened him with death if he didn’t give up what he knew. Finally the man gave up an address of a doctor that had already performed a burning surgery on a fellow fighter.