by Leah Wilde
“No shoes, no shirts,” said a reedy man next to me. His body looked like it was carved out of driftwood, all sinew and bone with hardly an ounce of fat. “No holds barred. Fight until you can’t fight any longer.”
I complied, stripping off my shirt and tossing my shoes to the side. My breath was low and even as I tried to steady myself and get ready for what was coming. But I still had one more question.
“How do I know when it’s over?” I asked the skinny man.
He grinned, revealing a bloody gap where his front teeth should have been. “When one of you is dead.”
Chapter 12
Isabel
It had all happened so fast. I’d run back to my room, tears stinging my eyes and a paralyzing sense of dread coursing through my veins. Frank was dead and I was at the mercy of the psychotic bitch who’d decided to haunt my life. Angela hated me and so I would suffer. That was how the world worked. My world, at least.
I had to get out. That was the one thought ripping through my head over and over again. I grabbed a bag, started throwing things in it. It was desperate and stupid. There was no way I’d be able to leave. But I had to try.
I didn’t own many things, and it took only a couple minutes to gather it all. I looped the bag over my shoulder and burst out of the room. If I could move fast enough, maybe I’d find a window to sneak out of. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I made it outside. Hail a cab, maybe, and beg for him to take me as far away as possible. But I had no money to offer, nowhere to go. I had to hope for the best.
The hallway was quiet as I snuck down. I kept my ears at attention, ready to scramble in the opposite direction as soon as I heard any hint of another person. Nothing moved. I stole into the living room. It was sparkling clean from my efforts the night before. I laughed miserably to myself. In comparison to now, my life yesterday had been so simple. It had almost been nice. Frank had cared enough to shield me from the worst of Angela’s hatred. But I saw now that was the cause of all this. She hated me because he cared. There was something wrong with her, something fundamentally broken and skewed. All it took was Frank’s affection towards me to trigger the slave master inside of her.
Suddenly, I heard voices behind me. I panicked, froze. The pulse in my eardrums ratcheted up until it was all I could hear. Thud, thud. I had to run. Where? Which way? I whirled around and dashed down a side hallway. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was following.
And ran headlong into the outstretched forearm of a bodyguard. I collapsed onto the carpeted floor, dizzy and in pain. Looking upwards, I saw Angela’s face jut into my vision. Her expression was twisted with cruelty and cold anger.
“Did you think you were going to run away after what you did?” she hissed. “Did you think I would let you go?” She slapped me, but I barely felt it. My face was numb from the guard’s forearm. “No,” she counseled, wagging a ringed finger at me, “you aren’t running anywhere.” She straightened up and looked to the man who’d knocked me to the ground. “Take her,” she ordered. Then she disappeared.
The man loomed over me, big and stoic. His face didn’t betray a single emotion as he lowered a rag towards my face. I tried to scream and fight him off, but I didn’t stand a chance. He pinned my arms to the side and pressed the fabric over my nose and mouth. I choked on the chemical fumes. It took only seconds before everything went black.
# # #
I came to in a dank concrete cell. An excruciating headache split my skull in two, courtesy of the chloroform that the bodyguard had used to knock me out. I struggled up onto my elbows as best I could and looked around through squinted eyes.
The room was only a few yards square. A gated doorway made of iron bars was set into one wall. Everything else was solid rock. In one corner, a plastic bucket emanated a vile smell of urine and shit. Otherwise, the room was empty.
It took everything I had to focus against the blinding pain in my head. I tried to reach a hand to rub my crusted eyes, when I realized with a start that they were bound together in front of me with a length of rough rope. My wrists were chafed and bleeding beneath the knots. Every muscle ached.
I had no memory of how I’d gotten here or even where I was. The last thing I could remember was the rag swooping down towards my face. I blinked hard to make the memory go away.
Managing to roll over onto my hands and knees, I crawled towards the door. I reached it and looked out beyond it.
A single fluorescent beam flickered intermittently overhead every few seconds, casting an ugly pallor over the hallway. I saw puddles collecting in the uneven surface of the concrete floor. Lining the corridor were more doors like mine. The one directly across from me was empty, but as I listened closely, I thought I could hear a whimpering sound coming from the cell on the other side of the hall and one over.
“Psst!” I whispered, trying to draw the attention of whoever was inside. It sounded female. “Psst!”
I heard a shuffling noise, and then a girl came into sight. I recoiled at the sight of her. Her face was a mess of purpled bruises and dried blood formed a river from her busted lip down her chin and neck. Her eyes were swimming with terror. She swept her eyes down the hallway, looking for the source of the noise.
“Over here!” I said, waving my fingers through the bars of the door. She saw me and her eyes widened. “Where are we?” I asked. “What’s happening?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could talk, there was a metallic clang from somewhere I couldn’t see off to the right. The clump of heavy footsteps walking downstairs grew louder. The girl’s eyes bulged and she shot backwards, disappearing from my view.
“Wait!” I cried desperately. “Don’t go! Tell me what’s going on!” But she didn’t come back.
I sighed bitterly and rocked back onto my heels. The footsteps drew closer, and all of the sudden a man stepped in front of my door. He was dressed nicely, in a dark suit and a white shirt ironed free of any wrinkles. The shine on his wingtip shoes reflected my face perfectly.
“Are you fucking talking?” he snarled down at me.
I stared up into his face. He had bristly five o’clock shadow and dark, beady eyes. His mouth was a thin, pale line drawn tight beneath a piggish nose. He looked far from friendly.
I shook my head feverishly left to right.
He sucked in a breath. “You better not say another word, whore,” he said. His voice drooled with menace. “Or I’ll come in there and teach you how to shut the fuck up. Understand?”
I didn’t move.
“Nod your head if you understand, you dumb slut.”
I nodded until it felt like my head was going to fall off my neck. My heart was racing and the headache continued to pound unabated at the soft parts of my brain. I was in pain and afraid and alone.
Satisfied, the man turned away from me and gestured towards someone else down the hall. “Bring her in,” he called to whoever stood there.
I heard the thumping of more heavy feet, accompanied this time by a slushing noise like something like being dragged along the rocky floor. As I watched, another man dressed similarly walked backwards down the hallway. In his arms, he held an unconscious girl. Her brunette hair hung over her face in sweaty clumps and a quiet groan dripped from between her lips. Just like the other girl who’d refused to talk to me, she, too, was busted up badly.
I retreated to the far corner of my cell and rested my head against my arms. I didn’t want to cry; tears wouldn’t help anything. But I couldn’t stop them from pouring unheeded down my face. It was all I could just to muffle the sobbing so that the guards didn’t come back again. I didn’t want to end up like those poor girls I’d seen, beaten to a pulp and shot through with fear.
But I didn’t know if I would be able to escape it.
Chapter 13
Dominic
Flesh slapping. The stomping of the men’s feet on the ground. A low, chanting howl, circling round and round and then rising upwards like a bird of prey. The heat se
emed to grow hotter in response, pressing down on me with a dense weight. I kept my breathing slow. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Clear the head. Focus.
The monster across from me was even bigger up close. His muscles ballooned outward in huge sweeping contours. The look on his face was unmistakable. He wanted to maim and kill. Nothing else mattered to him.
The cacophonous howling turned into a steady, rhythmic grunt, a primal pattern. Grunt, stomp, grunt, stomp, grunt, stomp, over and over again. I inhaled again and let it recede to the background. Focus, Dom, I cautioned myself. I couldn’t let myself trip over the first hurdle. There had to be a way to win.
Before a clear strategy presented itself, the man charged. He took two heavy steps to cross the ten-yard diameter of the circle and unloaded a powerful right hook. I ducked out of the way and slid to my left out of danger as it whistled overhead.
The giant turned, gathered himself, and lurched forward again. This time, a left-handed uppercut flew towards my jaw. I leaped backwards and it too missed. He growled in anger as I skittered away once more.
The crowd booed and hissed as I moved back to the edge of the circle. “Fight back, you pussy!” someone yelled. A man reached out and shoved me forward. The push took me by surprise. I fell in the direction of the charging fighter as he unleashed a right jab. I tried to spin out of the way, but I couldn’t avoid getting clipped in the temple by one massive knuckle.
Pain and stars erupted across my vision. I staggered away, desperately trying to clear my head. I had just enough time to see the man rear back and throw a fist into my gut. The air whooshed from my lungs instantly as I crumpled to the floor.
I choked and gasped as I tried to breathe, but my bruised lungs simply wouldn’t cooperate. The man immediately squatted over me, one knee on either side of my torso, pinning down my arms at the elbow. He cocked a fist above his head and swatted me across the jaw.
His fist collided with my face like a runaway train. I blacked out for the briefest of seconds before coming back to consciousness when the second punch landed on the opposite cheek. Blood pooled in my mouth, thick and acrid. The pain wrapped around me, searing every nerve ending.
I thought back to laying in the alley at eight years old as the drug dealer pummeled me with his feet and fists. The pain back then had been severe. His steel-toed boots had driven into my ribs over and over again, leaving a dark crescent everywhere his blows had landed.
And when he’d gone, I remembered thinking I was going to die. I had jumped from a window and run away from a safe home just for this? I almost wanted to laugh when I recalled the one thought I’d had. Fuck. That was the only word for this sensation, the awful realization that I’d made a horrible fucking mistake and it was going to cost me my life. Back then, I’d felt the same way. I was going to die.
I should have died. And I would have, if it weren’t for Slim. That twitchy motherfucker. What a crazy guy. Who picked up a street urchin from his deathbed in the gutters of Chicago and brought him back to life? Who in their right mind did that? I couldn’t say that I would have done the same. But I was grateful for everything Slim had done for me. I’d be damned if I was going to let all that go to waste.
The giant on top of me was lining up for another punch. He was too fucking strong. Another blow would end me. But I wasn’t going to give him that chance. I used the only thing I had at my disposal: my hard fuckin’ head.
Shooting my neck forward with as much strength as I could find in my battered body, I drove my forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose. It took him by surprise and he shifted his weight back for a moment. I took full advantage, slithering my arms out from beneath his knees and slamming a jab right between his eyes. He fell back onto his ass.
I immediately rolled forward and speared into him. Now I was on top. My head was one massive, throbbing ache, but I couldn’t stop. I had to end this now. I raised a fist overhead like he had done and brought it thundering down into his nose. The bone and cartilage gave way immediately. I did it again, knocking aside the hands he raised to try to ward me off and smashing deep into the same spot. I almost had him. One more hit would do it.
But he was too strong and too fast. He threw me off of him before I could land another strike. I flew backwards as he started to struggle to his feet. If he got up, I’d never get him on the ground again. I wouldn’t win this war of attrition, trading punches back and forth until one of us fell. I needed a different strategy.
Before he could rise all the way, I coiled up and sprang forward one more time. Instead of arrowing straight towards him, though, I aimed just to the side. My right arm slid around his neck as my legs shot through behind the man’s torso. I grabbed my right wrist with my left hand and squeezed as tight as I possibly could. My forearm began to cut off his supply of oxygen.
He choked, spluttering, and threw a few desperate fists behind him, aiming for my face. I ducked one and another caught me flush in the chin, but I didn’t let go. I was like a bulldog with his jaw locked. He was going to have to kill me if he wanted me off of him.
The man flailed, heaving his bulk from side to side. Still, I kept the chokehold locked on strong. Around us, the men roared in approval. Pools of blood and sweat oozed around us as I held tight. I could feel the monster’s breath growing shallower. His heaving slowed until he could barely move. He collapsed forward, flipping me beneath him. Despite the massive weight crushing me, I held tight until I was sure he wasn’t moving any more. Only then did I let go and crawl out from beneath him.
I staggered to my feet and surveyed the crowd. They were like one creature with many heads, all bellowing in a testosterone-fueled rage. It was an almost religious fervor, but these people worshipped blood and violence. I had paid my penance. I had passed the test.
A pathway through the crowd opened like elevator doors to allow me through. I walked slowly. Pain radiated through my body. Stefano had not moved from where he stood when we first entered the room. I approached and stopped in front of him.
“Take me to the boss,” I said. My ribs throbbed. One might be broken, maybe two, but I ignored the pain. Bigger things were at stake.
He eyed me warily. He had probably thought I would die in there. Maybe that had been his plan all along. It didn’t matter, though. I’d won, and I’d skin the motherfucker right here if he didn’t do what he’d promised. “Now,” I added, “or you’ll regret it.” I didn’t need to say anything more.
“This way,” he said finally, beckoning for me to follow him. I picked up my shirt and shoes and limped slowly in the direction he’d gone.
# # #
The man on the other side of the table was immensely fat. He could barely squeeze his gut into the chair behind the desk. Gold rings glimmered on his sausage fingers. I entered the room and shut the door behind me. Stefano stood off to the side, not coming in much further. I looked at him, then turned to face the boss.
“You’re Emilio,” I said.
The man crossed his arms and looked at me. “Yeah, and who the fuck are you?” he spat.
“I’m Dominic.”
“Why are you here, Dominic?”
I shrugged. “I’m looking for work.”
Emilio raised an eyebrow. “Do you know what we do around here?” he asked me. He looked vaguely interested, like a shark who’s already eaten but senses blood in the water and can’t help but investigate.
“I have some idea.”
He rapped his rings on the top of the desk. “Sit down, Dominic,” he said.
“I’ll stand,” I replied.
His eyes flashed. “Fine, then. Suit yourself.”
We stared at each other for a moment. I knew he was testing me, sizing me up to see if he could spot any weaknesses. I didn’t move an inch.
“Let me ask you again,” Emilio said, “do you know what we do here?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Whatever what takes?”
“Whatever it takes to make money.”
Emilio leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “This is a money-making operation. If you do what you’re told and you do it well, there’s a limitless supply of cash for you. So tell me, Dominic, what do you do well?”
I looked him dead in the eye and said with a straight face, “Everything.” I meant it.
He stared at me for another long, tense pause. Then he relaxed backwards, flicked out a small switchblade knife, and started cleaning underneath his fingernails.
“Very well,” Emilio said. “Let’s see how true that is. Stefano, come here.” He waved Stefano towards the desk. “Give Dominic here your gun.”
Stefano balked. “What? Emilio, I mean, why…?” He barely had the words out of his mouth before Emilio had risen up, pinned him against the wall by his throat, and held the knife at the corner of his right eye.