Arena

by Holly Jennings

  I shook my head. “You can’t fight fire with fire. When opposing warriors join in battle, he who has pity conquers.”

  “You’re saying I’m not supposed to be angry? I’m just supposed to what, feel sorry for them?”

  “Yes.”

  He deflated then. The tension in his shoulders and face released, and his muscles fell. He stared at me, blinking.

  “If you hate, you become exactly like them,” I said. “When you face your enemies with compassion, you realize there’s still a person behind that hate.”

  “Oh, so now I’m supposed to like these guys?”

  “No. I’m saying be mad at the idea, not at the person conveying it. Fighting people leads to war. Fighting ideas leads to progress.”

  I blinked and took a step back. What the hell did I just say? Only weeks ago, I’d been teetering on the edge. Every time I’d read one of those damn books, groping for some kind of understanding, I’d questioned if I’d ever really comprehend Taoist philosophy. Now, here I was, doling out Taoist wisdom and principles like they were business cards. Maybe I finally knew what it all meant. At least, I knew what it meant to me, and that’s all that mattered.

  Facing an opponent head-on wasn’t smart. In war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. If they had a weakness, I was going to find it. We still had a tournament to win. Not to prove that we were better than InvictUS. To prove that we were better than ourselves.

  I turned and marched for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Hannah called out.

  My other teammates. In the heat of the argument, I’d almost forgotten they were there. I glanced back at them on the couch as I left the room.

  “To study.”

  —

  I sat at a workstation in the pod room, flicking through the Virtual Gaming League’s stat pages, specifically the five players who made up InvictUS. Black belts. All of them. Third degree in this, fourth in that. All had MMA training to some extent, years’ worth for most of them. I had to chuckle as I recognized the form of martial art used in the UFC—what used to be the most extreme sport on the planet. Virtual reality had upended that like nobody’s business. Wrestlers pwned by gamers. Ouch.

  When I’d read through all of InvictUS’s stats supplied by the VGL, I delved deep into their histories elsewhere. You can find anything online. I went through what medical information wasn’t confidential, and secretly wished I could hack the stuff that was. I read everything I could find. Surgeries. Past illnesses. Old injuries. Anything that would make them weak on the battlefield. Anything that would give us an edge. We are our avatars. A broken leg in this world could mean a weak link in the virtual.

  Nothing. They’d all had their tonsils out, though I doubted it made the trunks that were their necks any weaker. One had dislocated some fingers on his off-hand. Not much use. Worse still, as I went deeper into the amateur stats and even lower, I discovered that in less than a year they’d climbed from your average gamer to amateur to pro. No one went that fast up the chain unless they had a supreme amount of raw talent. I knew, since I’d done the same.

  I sighed and sat back in the chair, feeling the weight of the championship pressing down on my shoulders. The longer I sat, the more it pressed down. That is, until a voice spoke over my head, and I realized the weights on my shoulders were actually hands.

  “Kali, it’s late.”

  Rooke’s voice. He sat down in the workstation next to me.

  “Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to get so pissed off.”

  I shrugged. “You feel passionately about protecting your teammates. It’s not something to be sorry about.”

  “I let my temper get the best of me, and that’s worth apologizing for.” He paused. “But I want you to know that just because I feel like protecting you doesn’t mean I think you can’t handle yourself.”

  I grinned. “Little ole me can kick ass? Nooo.”

  He grinned back as he swiveled the chair from the next workstation over to me and sat. “Try looking at it from my perspective. They’re threatening to torture you right in front of me. I think you’d feel the same way if it was someone you cared about.”

  I gasped and placed a hand over my heart. “Are you saying you care about me? Meaning, more than a friend? Oh, Dear Diary. He said he likes me today.”

  He frowned and ignored my sarcasm. “There aren’t enough rules in this game.”

  “Maybe if it gets that bad, people won’t watch.”

  He scoffed. “The crowd won’t care. They live for this stuff. Ever since they started putting videos on the Internet, people have been watching snuff films like it’s nothing. Like it’s not a human being who died.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. True.”

  It fell silent between us. Together, we stared at the screen, at the impossible force we’d have to face on the coming Saturday. The weights were back on my shoulders, but this time, it wasn’t from Rooke’s hands.

  “So,” he began, eyes still on InvictUS, “you haven’t found anything to use against them?”

  “Not really.” Again, I flicked through all five members of their team. “These guys are freaking mountains.”

  “Yeah, but you move like the wind. Nothing can stop the wind, even mountains.” I peered up at him. He continued. “These guys won’t win with technique against you. Not unless they’re equally as talented, and they’re not. They’re just prepared, and stronger than everyone else.”

  “You think they’re using something to boost their strength?”

  He considered it. “It’s not unheard of, but they’d draw too much suspicion with the way they fight. I think it’s their training. Brute force combined with knowing exactly how to take out every team and each person on it.”

  I looked back at the screen, which still showcased the Hercules-inspired brutes. I fell back against the chair. “With the strength of these guys, it’s like David and Goliath.”

  “Hey. David won, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I clicked my nails against the workstation. “I’m not so sure in this scenario. No matter how I look at these guys, they just don’t have a weakness.”

  “You’ve only studied them on the screen. Maybe you need to practice fighting someone like them. Hand-to-hand combat against a strong, unarmed opponent. No weapons.”

  There was some logic to that, wasn’t there? Maybe in person, I’d be able to spot a crack in the impenetrable armor of our opponents. And the closest I’d get to fighting one of them in person was sitting right beside me.

  I looked him up and down. “Well, you’re strong. You have hands. Let’s go.”

  —

  We changed into our training gear and met on the mats. This late at night, the hallways were empty of people and life. Only the hum of the building’s vital functions echoed around us.

  I stepped onto the mat, barefoot, savoring the way it felt, how I sunk in a little with each step. I smiled. This was home. But without the weight of the staff in my hands, I felt naked and a little unsure of myself. I’d spent years in hand-to-hand combat, both real and virtual. I could do this. I took a defensive stance, guarding my body with my open palms. Rooke took the role of InvictUS and moved first.

  He swung hard with a clenched fist, holding nothing back. I ducked and came back up to deliver a kick to his ribs. He caught my leg and swept the other out from under me. I hit the mat. Hard. Rooke leaned over me and swiped an imaginary blade across my neck.

  “Dead.”

  I grunted, slapped the mat, and pushed myself up.

  Round two went differently—meaning I ended up facedown on the mats instead of faceup. Rooke pressed his knee into my back, weighing me down, and stabbed the back of my skull.

  “Dead.”

  Another round. Thirty seconds, and my back hit the mats again. Rooke took a knee beside me.
>
  “Come on, Kali,” he said, sounding frustrated. “You can’t let yourself get pinned. It’s over.”

  My stubbornness brimmed at the boiling point. “I’m not pinned, and it’s not over.”

  He straddled me, pinned my legs, and leaned close to my face. “Fine. Now what are you going to do?”

  “Stare longingly into your eyes.”

  He frowned. “I’m serious. If I were on the other team and had you pinned, what would you do to survive?”

  I scoffed and let my head roll to the side.

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .”

  I lashed out, hooking my finger right for his eye. He caught my hand just in time.

  “Did you just try to gouge out my eye?”

  “You asked me what I’d do!”

  He grappled with me and locked both my arms against the mat. I struggled beneath his weight, unable to move at all.

  Rooke peered down at me. “Now what?”

  I stared up at his face, knowing I had only one move left.

  “Headbutt.”

  “So, do it.”

  I laughed. “I’m not going to headbutt you.”

  “You’ll gouge out my eye, but you draw the line at headbutts because that’s too rough?” He lowered his face to mine and cocked an eyebrow. “Think I can’t handle it?”

  “No. I’m confident you have a very hard head.”

  He chuckled. “If this were a real match, you’d be dead by now.”

  I wriggled beneath him again, trying to find an escape route. As I struggled, my hips brushed against his. He glanced between us. “Trying to find my chi again?”

  I grunted. “If I could get my knee free, I’d send your chi to high heaven.”

  “You won’t get your knee free. Not with all my weight on you.”

  He pressed down harder on my lower half, like this whole time he’d been merely holding his weight over me and was now using it to crush my legs. Okay, wow. I exhaled, as if he were pushing all the air out of my lungs through my knees. But I pressed on.

  Rooke shook his head and brought his face to mine. “Are you really so stubborn that you won’t admit you’ve lost?”

  “No. There’s always a way out.”

  I looked at his face. He studied me with amusement, lips twisted halfway into a grin. Not condescending, though. Like he thought I was cute. Warriors aren’t cute. But I found myself studying him in much the same way. His eyes, soft and brown. The stubble lining his jaw. And when my gaze lowered to his lips, I found my escape route.

  I kissed him.

  His mouth moved against mine, no hesitation. In reality, it was the first kiss we’d had since my bathroom. I found myself focusing without even trying. I felt everything. The softness of his lips. His breaths caressing my cheek. I’d have to remember to thank him later for telling me to focus on the real if my brain was even capable of making mental notes right then.

  “I don’t think this counts,” Rooke said, between kisses, “under VGL regulations.”

  “Why?” I asked, as his mouth lowered to my neck. “Isn’t this putting on a good show?”

  He sat up, pulling me into his lap. “Oh, I think we’ve already proven it is.”

  I weaved my fingers through his hair and wrapped my legs around his waist.

  “Maybe the audience didn’t get enough last time,” I said, and he chuckled somewhere near my ear, sending little shock waves through my veins.

  “But at what point would the cameras pull away?” he asked, murmuring against my neck as his nose grazed the line of my jaw. “When would they stop filming?”

  Heat swirled through me. I knew what he was asking, the subtle meaning hidden behind the façade. I pressed my lips against his ear. “They wouldn’t stop.”

  His breath hitched, and he stilled. We stayed like that, woven around each other, not moving. My heart beat everywhere, down to my toes, from the strange mix of tension and desire. Seconds passed. His breaths whispered across my neck, and I fought the urge to shudder, worried if I broke the moment, he’d pull away.

  He met my eyes, and I saw the longing within his own. Though there was a sort of pain there, too, like he was unsure of himself and everything happening in that moment. I forced my expression calm, despite the fluttering in my heart and stomach. My fingers itched to feel him. To pull off every stitch of clothing. To graze over every muscle, every inch of skin. But I remained still until I trembled, waiting for him to make the next move.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes. Are you?”

  His answer came in the form of his hands, sliding up my back as they lifted my shirt. I grabbed his wrists.

  “Not here.”

  He surveyed my face a few times, and must have noted how the trembling had spread to my bottom lip, because he captured it with his own. He pressed his lips against mine, again and again, soft and soothing until I moaned against his mouth. That little sound pushed him over the edge.

  He took my hand and led me back to my bunk.

  CHAPTER 22

  I pressed my back against the mattress and sighed as little aftershocks coursed through me. Rooke leaned over me, nursing the spot between my shoulder and neck. His ragged breaths shuddered through his body and everywhere our skin touched. I placed a hand against his chest, where his heart beat soundly, still racing. He glanced down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Feeling your heartbeat.” I listened to the steady thumping through my hand. “It’s fast.”

  His lips twitched into a grin. “It should be. You finally found my chi.”

  I laughed.

  He brushed a few strands of hair out of my eyes and trailed his thumb along the outline of my face. Though his eyes were hard as he studied me, like there was pain dwelling behind them. My breath caught in my throat, and I rested a hand against his cheek.

  “Are you okay?”

  He slid his fingers slowly up my arm, barely touching, and weaved through mine until our hands were one. His eyes watched mine the entire time, and somehow, it was just as intimate as anything. He smiled slightly.

  “I’m fine.”

  He buried his face in the crook of my neck, leaving kisses along my collarbone. I closed my eyes, no longer hiding, and dove into the sensations. His breaths brushed against my shoulder. Sweet shocks of pleasure radiated through me whenever our bodies met. All I felt and knew and understood was him. All of him.

  The rest of the world faded into the background. No facility. No virtual world. No media and tabloids and all the bullshit always within a reaching grasp. There was us, and only us. In that moment, only one thing mattered.

  This . . . this was real.

  —

  The next morning, the bed beside me was cold. Only the imprint his body left behind in the sheets told me Rooke had been there through some point in the night. I swallowed, trying to ignore the thickness in my throat. Friends with benefits. That’s all it had been with Nathan. He was a good guy, sure. But what we’d had wasn’t much more than satisfaction between two people. A moment of realness. Wasn’t that something in itself? Why wasn’t it enough with Rooke?

  “Hello? Kali?”

  I shook my head and looked up at Hannah sitting across from me at the breakfast table. “What?”

  “You okay?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “I’ve been talking for ten minutes, and you haven’t said a word.”

  I straightened up in my chair and shook my head again. “Sorry. I must have been thinking about something else.”

  “You mean someone else? Like Rooke?” She grinned. I shot her a look, and her smile faded. “Oh. Is there a problem between you two?”

  “We slept together.”

  Hannah’s eyes went wide, then fluttered a few times, as if trying to contain her expression. “You mean, that wa
s the first time?”

  I frowned at her.

  “Don’t look at me like that. You two were the ones always sneaking out of the clubs.”

  “To practice,” I stressed.

  “Yeah, I get that now.” She thought for a moment. “So, what’s the problem?”

  “He didn’t stay the night.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she thought to herself. She glanced down the table at Rooke’s empty seat. “So, where is he now?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  She turned to Derek, who sat alone in his usual spot. “Hey.”

  “Hannah!”

  Derek looked up from his cereal. “Yeah?”

  “Where’s your breakfast buddy?”

  He shrugged. “In his bunk. Said he wasn’t feeling well today.”

  Hannah turned back to me. “Now you know where he is. Go confront him.”

  “I’m not going,” I told her, and she sighed at me. “If it didn’t mean much to him, then that’s fine. I just thought I’d read him better than that.”

  Hannah’s gaze trailed across the table, and a distant look filled her eyes. “Speaking of reading, did you ever check out that article?”

  “Which?”

  “The one in Pro Gamer Weekly.”

  “What? That industry-owned bullshit?”

  Hannah nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly. It’s bullshit.” She pushed her tablet into my hands. “Read it.”

  I brought up the article on the screen and scanned through until I spotted Rooke’s name. “Defiance recently welcomed new addition James Rooke to the team.”

  I skimmed. Blah, blah, blah.

  “Rooke was best known in the Canadian RAGE tournaments and for dating fellow teammate Katherine Boone.” I paused and lowered the tablet to look Hannah in the eyes. “That’s it? He dated someone else? So, he’s got history. Who doesn’t?”

  She shook her head. “Keep going.”