by Tracey Ward
Yenko shifts on his feet, trying his best to hold his ground but it’s turning to sand underneath him and he knows it. “A lot,” he answers inadequately.
“‘A lot’,” Marlow parrots. “Yes, we would be willing to pay ‘a lot’ to keep that from happening, and the Colonies know it.” He clenches his right fist until his knuckles go white. “They know exactly what they’ve done.”
“So, what are we gonna do about it?” I challenge him.
“Chapman,” he calls out, ignoring my question. “What’s the lineup this week?”
Chapman steps from the edge of the room to stand in the center, replacing Yenko who gratefully vacates the hot seat.
Looks like we’re done talking about this, though I doubt it’s the last I’ll hear about it. If there’s dirty work to be done, you better believe I’ll be the asshole sent out to get my hands covered in blood.
“Westie. Hyperion. Pike,” Chapman recites dutifully.
My blood pounds violently in my ears before my brain has had a chance to process the names.
Hyperion.
I immediately think of Kevin and that godawful night. Freedom cried for hours. Hyperion’s brother was a mess. His friend had to carry his lifeless corpse bleeding through the streets, calling every Risen within a mile to dinner. I was amazed when I heard the Hyperions made it home alive. Well, two of them made it anyway.
After I finally got Freedom to sleep that night, I went and found Chapman. I knocked two of his teeth out and cracked a rib on his right side before I was done with him. Before I could see straight again. I can’t remember the last time I was that angry. The night Seven died? The day the Colonists took the stadium from us? Or was it the next morning when Marlow came and took the remains of his flock back from me? It’s hard to tell and none of it is worth remembering.
Marlow frowns at Chapman. “Hyperion?”
“I thought they were finished with us after the wolf shit,” Dennis comments, verbally digging a dagger in Chapman’s side.
No one was on board with his ‘surprise’. Not even Marlow who made a mint off Kevin’s death. He held a pow-wow with the head of the Hyperions and no one knows what agreement they came to, but since then Chapman’s been ordered to run all future ideas through Marlow or end up dead as Kevin.
“Obviously they aren’t,” Chapman answers Dennis bitingly, “because Ryan came to me asking to fight. I told him he could sign up this week.”
“Did you make him try out?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
He keeps his eyes on Marlow, refusing to look at me. “Because he’s Hyperion’s kid brother. He can fight.”
“How do you know if you didn’t try him out?”
“Because I saw him spar,” he snaps, his words whistling through his missing teeth.
“When Kevin was warming up?”
“Yeah.”
“Before you killed him?”
Now he looks at me. His eyes are flint, sparking livid. “Fuck you, man. I did what I had to do.”
“You killed a champion,” I remind him calmly.
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No! Jesus, it’s part of the gig! How many men died under you?”
“Sixteen.”
Chapman blinks, surprised that I answered him. “You made that number up.”
“It’s a real number. I promise.”
“Comes right after fifteen,” Asher says seriously. “Couple slots before eighteen.”
“Seriously, Chapman, how fuckin’ dumb are you?”
He seethes, bounces his glare between me and Asher. “You know what I mean. There’s no way you know how many people died in the ring when you were in charge.”
I hold up my hand, counting methodically one by one. “Westie. Hyde. Westie. Westie. Pike. Eleven. Hive. Pike. Hive. Hive. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven.”
“Bad run for the Elevens,” Asher mourns.
“Hive. Hyde,” I finish, my chest compressing painfully around pale, white skin and angry, dark eyes.
I shouldn’t count Seven. She died in the Stables, not the ring, but the way she fought from the moment she set foot inside the Hive to the moment I carried her lifeless body out, I considered her a champion. She had more fire than half the guys in this room. More loyalty than all of us combined. She was a real bitch for all the right reasons, and I respected the hell out of her for it. I still do.
“How many have you seen die, Chappy?” I toss back at him.
He shakes his head. “I don’t keep count.”
“Three.” I hold up my hand to count again. “Hive. Hive. Hyperion. You wanna know how I know that?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“I know because I’m smarter than you. Better looking too.”
“Shut up.”
“Two Hive in only three years. That’s not a good ratio.”
“They wanted in.”
“I bet you didn’t test drive them either. I bet they were buddies of yours. Guys you talked into fighting to help you make your mark on the Arena, climb out from under my shadow, but how’s the sunlight feelin’, Chapper?” I smile, slow and lingering. “You getting’ burned yet?”
He sputters angrily before pointing his finger at my face. “I’m gonna kill you, dude. Someday, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you. I swear it.”
“Better men have tried. And a few formidable women.” I spread my arms open to show I’m unarmed and unafraid. “I’m still standing.”
“Not for long.”
“Okay then, Chapstick.”
Marlow raises his palm to stop us. “That’s enough. If you think Ryan Hyperion is ready to fight, run him through the Arena. Nothing fancy yet. No Blind and no goddamn animals. Just Risen and the kid. Let the crowd get to know him. If he’s any good, they’ll fall in love with him the way they did with his brother and we might have a new champion on our hands to the replace the one you burned.” He lowers his hand, turning to Asher. “Where do we stand on security? Is the weakness in the ducts taken care of?”
The meeting breaks up about ten minutes later after a few more updates from other arms of the gang come in. Food rations are good. A hunting party is going out tomorrow. I’m taking three of the girls to the Market next week. Doc and Hector check the supply list and give me the okay to exchange time in the tent for pills. Anything that says ‘may cause drowsiness’ on the bottle. That’s the good stuff, they tell me.
“Yeah, unless someone fills an empty script bottle with Tic Tacs,” I complain to Yenko on our way out.
He snorts. “Such a pessimist, bro. No faith in humanity.”
“I don’t have faith in anyone.”
“Not even God?”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “There is no God. He’s just a joke the Devil tells.”
“Damn,” he breathes.
“What? You’re not religious, are you?”
I look him up and down as we head down the hall toward the stairwell, like he’ll show on the outside all the secrets he has on the inside. He’s older than me by a few years. Full Hispanic. He’s got tats on every surface of his body except for his face that’s surprisingly smooth. He has perfect skin like he’s never seen the sun, but I know it’s not true. He immigrated from Mexico, legally. He owned a garage before the end came and took everything from everyone. He had a family. An abuela who raised him. A wife who loved him. They’re in the ground now but their names are scrawled on his back and shoulders, surrounded by bright red roses. Nothing religious though. Not a single praying Mary or flutter of angel wings.
He shrugs. “I didn’t used to be, but lately, yeah. I think I am.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why now? You lost your whole family and now you’re taking orders from this fat, arrogant son of a bitch like he owns you, like he owns all of us, and that is where you found Jesus?”
“Right,” I snort. “Sorry to break it to you, Yenk, but I’ve hit my lowest and wasn’t nobody there but me.”
“Maybe you haven’t actually hit bottom yet.”
“Vin!” a voice screams from one floor below.
Yenko and I sprint to the end of the hall. I almost knock Freedom down the stairs when we collide on the landing.
I grab her shoulders to steady her. “What’s wrong?”
“Breanne,” she gasps. Her eyes are huge. Panicked. “She’s freaking out about the baby. She’s going to hurt herself.”
“What? Why?”
“She doesn’t want to give it up.”
I sigh, feeling impossibly sick of this fight. “Of course she doesn’t.”
“What are you going to do about that?”
“I’m gonna send the doc to see her. He can give her something to calm her down.”
“Seriously?” she snaps at me. “So, nothing? You’ll do nothing.”
“There’s nothing for me to do. She can’t keep it and she can’t kill it. It’s too valuable. Marlow would be pissed.”
She gapes at me with disgust. “What is wrong with you?”
“Not a damn thing. I’m the only one making any sense in all this. What would you do with a baby here, huh? We don’t exactly have a daycare.”
“Maybe we should.”
“Get real.”
“I am being real. This is going to keep happening.”
“You think I don’t know that? I get how sex works, believe me, and I’ve scoured the city looking for every condom I can find. We all have. Everything is gone.”
“So what’s the solution?”
“This,” I hiss emphatically. “This is the solution.”
“Selling babies is not a solution!”
I pull her in closer, my eyes darting to the dark staircase behind her. “Keep your voice down.”
“Or what? Everyone knows this is the new program, and you know what I think?”
“I don’t think you’re thinking at all or you would have shut your mouth five minutes ago. If Marlow hears you—”
“I think you’re afraid to look us in the eye and talk about the truth, so you’ve been avoiding us. You’re avoiding the baby and the fact that this is going to happen to every last one of us at some point and it’s going to hurt like hell every time. You can’t handle that, can you?”
“I told you from the start, I never wanted any of this,” I growl quietly, my grip on her arm tightening. She flinches but she doesn’t complain. “I’m meant for fighting, not this shit. This is not my job.”
Freedom’s brow pools in a deep V over her eyes. Her voice is surprisingly sympathetic when she replies, “Except that it is.”
I let her shake loose of my hold. She turns on her heel, hurrying down the stairs away from me. She’s going to help Breanne. I should go after her. I should do something about this because she’s right, the women are my job, but I don’t follow her. Instead, I brush past Yenko to head back to the throne room. I’ll find the doc. I’ll send him down to see her, to drug her into oblivion, and in a month I’ll hand that baby over to Hector to add to his ledger. He’ll assign it a value, same as we do for the women, for all of us, and we’ll sell it to the Colony, because that’s the way it is. That’s life in the wild, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to change it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Trent
“You can’t think about Kevin tonight,” I remind Ryan sternly. “You have to be your own man and use your own skill. You can’t try to fight like your brother. You’ll die.”
Ryan chuckles weakly. “Is that your pep talk, ‘cause it sucks.”
“It’s not pep. It’s the truth.”
“Okay, well, I hear you, so you can stop telling me I’m going to die now.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“‘Be your own man with your own skill or you’re going to die’. No, dude, I hear you. Trust me.”
“Then put your brother’s brass knuckles down.”
He hesitates, staring down at the weapon in question. “I didn’t even realize I was holding them.”
“Don’t take them with you tonight.”
“Why not? I’m allowed a weapon in a tier three fight.”
“Take a different one.”
“You think I’m going to lose, don’t you?” he asks suddenly, his voice edged with anger.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. No one does.”
“I’ll win. I can feel it.”
“Do you think Kevin felt like he was going to win the night he died?”
Most people would be shocked by my question. It’s painfully to the point. But Ryan has known me a long time. He knows I don’t ask it to be cruel. I’m asking because I’m honest, and I want him to be the same. Especially with himself.
He sets the spiked knuckles down gently. “Yeah. I’m sure he did.”
“If there’s one thing you can be certain of in the ring, it’s that nothing is certain. Not until they unlock that door.”
He nods, dropping his eyes. He turns his back on the knuckles to reach into the chest at the foot of his bed. He pulls out his favorite knife, the handle well-worn from hundreds of kills. It’s what he’s trained with in the Marena downstairs. It’s his best bet for survival in the ring, second only to never stepping foot inside. But I gave up that fight on the roof the night he told me he signed up. Since then, I’ve done everything I can to make sure he’s as ready as he possibly can be.
Now I feel sick inside, confident of only one thing - we didn’t have enough time.
The Hive is humming. The second Ryan, Bray, and I walk through the door, we’re hit with the smell of humanity. Sweat and stink. Soap and alcohol. The thin, bitter smell of Honey is coming from somewhere in the corner by the wall of shoes; a monument to everyone who has died in the Arena. Kevin’s shoes are somewhere at the top of the pile. I make sure not to look for them, and when we pass the narrow glass coffin they’re housed in, I put myself between it and Ryan. He can’t think about Kevin tonight, not if he can help it. He has to focus. Stay sharp. He has to be his own man with his own skill or he’s going to die. It’s as simple as that.
“The place is packed,” Bray chuckles nervously.
“I haven’t seen it like this in years,” Ryan agrees. He’s keeping his composure but I can see the cracks in his features. The wrinkle of tension around his eyes.
“You need to check in with Chapman,” I remind him calmly.
“I know.”
“Okay.”
He hesitates for a second before stepping. I watch him walk to the far side of the Arena, knocking on a door leading to the back of the Hive. It takes a moment, but eventually it cracks open, exposing a dimly lit hallway and a thin guy with a bushy beard. He listens to Ryan, nods, and lets him step inside. He closes the door solidly behind him.
“What do they do back there?” Bray asks curiously. He’s never been to a fight before. Dylan has always been strict about our interactions with the Hive. He doesn’t like that we come here at all, but it’s a necessary evil in the wild. No one gets very far in this world without the Hive’s involvement.
“Ryan will meet with Chapman and Hector. They take bets. Sign in fighters. They’ll give him the rundown on the rules.”
“He already knows ‘em.”
“We all do, but you should never pass up an opportunity to be educated. Especially when your life hangs in the balance.”
“And when assholes like Chapman like to change the rules without warning,” he grouses bitterly.
“Dylan says Marlow is making him run all of his future ‘surprises’ through him before implementing them again.”
“Do you trust Marlow more than Chapman?”
“No. Of course not.” I nod toward the door where we lost Ryan. “Ryan’s competing in a tier thre
e fight. One zombie. One weapon. He needs to nail that down with Chapman now or he doesn’t fight for him. And Chapman needs him to fight tonight. He’ll have an angry mob on his hands if he doesn’t lock Ryan down. That’s our leverage. Hopefully it will keep him honest.”
Bray looks around the room, his jaw dangling. “You really think they all came to see Ry?”
“Live or die, yes. I do.”
I think people are here to see a show. They either want to see if Ryan can fight as well as his brother or they came to watch him die as horribly as Kevin. Either way, yes, they’re here for Ryan.
“Hey! Dumbass!” Freedom shouts in her familiar, scornful drawl.
I turn to face her, readying myself for the storm that I knew was coming. I could feel it begin the second Ryan told me he was going to fight. It took four days for the hurricane to make landfall, but there she is; fierce and ready to fight.
“Freedom,” I answer her calmly.
I can feel the room quiet, immediately taking interest. They watch as she strides deep into my space. She comes in closer than most people would dare, but she doesn’t look the least bit worried about it. About me. She just looks mad.
“Are you insane?” she hisses. “Tell me it’s a rumor. Tell me you’re not really letting him fight? For the Hive?!”
“He’s practically eighteen.”
“I don’t give a shit, Trent. This is not what Kevin wanted for him.”
“Kevin is dead.”
Her eyes go wide. Her mouth drops open. Her hands clench at her sides, and I really wonder for a moment if she’s going to hit me.
I don’t make a move to block her.
Freedom exhales sharply, her breath hot against my face. “Do you want to watch both of them die in this ring?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “That’s why I’ve been training with him.”
“Training didn’t save Kevin. How is it going to save Ryan?”