by Tarah Benner
Marta is on top of me now, but when she winds up for the punch, I buck her forward and throw my hips, rolling her around and miraculously reversing our roles.
As I raise my arm to bring down a hammer fist, she throws a knee up from behind. It connects with my spine, and the shooting pain rushes through my entire body.
She takes advantage of my momentary paralysis and rolls me over again.
Everything is upside down. I can’t hear anything except the blood pounding in my ears, but I see an upside-down pair of glasses and Sawyer’s look of horror.
Sawyer. Her voice floats back to me, and I’m simultaneously relieved and ashamed when I remember that Marta has a bad rib on her left side.
No. There has to be another way. I don’t want to stoop to her level.
I chance a wild punch to the face as a distraction, digging my elbows behind me to try to squirm out from under her.
Marta swings out with a hard right hook, but I’ve managed to get my head out of range. Undeterred, she traps my left wrist between her arm and body and twists. I hear a slight crack that preludes the blinding pain.
Before I can consider my decision, my body reacts.
I swing into her with a savage hook to the body and feel my knuckles connect with her ribs.
No one in the crowd even realizes what happened, but Marta felt it.
For a second, she looks as though she’s going to be sick. She grips her side, and she’s completely undefended.
Hating myself, I swing my right fist straight into her head. She tips sideways, and I take the opportunity to scramble out from under her.
My legs are shaky when I stand, but not as shaky as Marta’s. She’s dazed and unsteady from the pain, but damn that bitch is tough.
When she gets to her feet and tilts her head up to meet my gaze, I know I’ve unleashed a monster. She launches herself at me, and I lock my arms to defend myself.
The bell rings, and relief pours through me.
The furious roar of the crowd breaks through my foggy state, and the ref steps between me and Marta, looking disappointed that she didn’t manage to finish me.
The crowd is a mosaic of angry faces, but my gaze locks on Sawyer. She looks grim but relieved, which basically sums up how I feel.
The ref reads off the judges’ decision and hoists Marta’s hand into the air.
When the crowd cheers, I feel an unwelcome trickle of disappointment. I know I’m lucky to be alive, but losing still sucks. After all the pain and fear and blood, Marta demolished me.
As a wave of debilitating exhaustion hits, I feel Eli’s watchful eyes on me. I stagger out of the spotlight and climb down from the ring, where I’m accosted by a man waiting to transfer credits to my account.
Watching the numbers light up on my interface, I don’t feel the pain of my throbbing head or my bruised ribs. All I feel is relief. We finally have enough money to leave the compound.
The crowd is growing restless, and Blaze and the others are barely holding them back. I feel Eli’s hands on my arms, inspecting my injuries to make sure I’m okay to travel.
Miles appears in my periphery and mutters something to Eli, whose mouth hardens into a deeper scowl. They seem to come to some sort of an agreement, and they steer me through the restless mob.
I expect us to head back to my compartment, but they drag me up the frozen escalator to the megalift, and Celdon and Sawyer hop in after us. I didn’t even see them leave, but I’m still disoriented from the fight.
“That — was — awesome!” says Celdon, appearing in front of me with a wide grin. “You are such a badass!”
I try to smile, but my entire face hurts.
“I have to say, I thought she had you.”
“Yeah, me too,” says Miles, rubbing the back of his neck as though we just dodged a bullet.
“She did,” murmurs Eli.
“Hey, you lost, but at least you’re still walking.”
Eli’s expression hasn’t relaxed a bit. “You got lucky.”
Everyone falls silent, and I finally turn my full attention on him. His body is still angled protectively toward mine, but his eyes are focused on the corner of the megalift. His jaw is stiff, and his smoldering eyes tell me he’s just barely containing his anger.
Thankfully, the lift dings, and Sawyer throws me a guilty look before disembarking. We’re on a Health and Rehab level, but the lift hasn’t stopped at the medical ward. The brightly lit residential tunnel looks just as swanky as Systems, but the red paneled doors and vintage crown molding give it a pre–Death Storm aesthetic.
“Where are we going?” I ask. My face feels tender and swollen, and it must look even worse than it feels. I could really use some of that magical serum Sawyer injected Eli with.
“My compartment.” Sawyer nods at Eli and Miles. “They thought it would be best.”
“We don’t want to give Jayden any excuse to arrest you,” Miles explains. “If you’re admitted to the medical ward, it could get her attention.”
I open my mouth to tell them that Jayden already knew about the fight, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to bring up the fact that she tried to have me killed.
Sawyer punches in her code and leads us inside. Her compartment is just as large as Celdon’s but much more welcoming. Instead of the stark, minimalist style of Systems, the Health and Rehab decor is warm and traditional.
The light beige carpeting feels fluffy underfoot, and the windows are framed by floor-length crimson drapes that match a comfy-looking couch. The rest of the furniture is painted in a dark wood finish, designed to pop against the white-and-beige backdrop.
Miles whistles, and Sawyer blushes. I know she’s thinking about how her compartment compares to the shabby Recon living quarters, but I’m too busy drinking in the luxurious surroundings to feel awkward.
I head for the couch, but she grabs my wrist and pulls me into the kitchen area, where the lighting is better. She’s already laid out bandages, gauze, ointment, and several syringes on a towel, which makes my chest ache with affection.
“How bad is my face?” I ask, hopping onto the counter and wincing when I put weight on my injured wrist.
“Trust me, you don’t want to see,” she murmurs, swabbing my brow with some strong-smelling antiseptic. I wince as the stuff finds its way into my lacerations and resist the temptation to touch my battered nose.
“You don’t even look like you,” jokes Celdon.
“Better or worse?” I groan as Sawyer rubs the ointment deep into the cuts.
“Definitely worse.”
I snort and instantly regret laughing when the movement tugs painfully at my skin.
“At least we have another two grand now,” I say. “It’s enough to get all three of us to 119.”
“Three grand,” says Sawyer.
“What?”
She grins sheepishly. “I made a bet.”
“You bet against me?”
Now I know how Eli feels. Even when it’s profitable, it sucks to have your best friend wager against you.
“Hell no. Your odds to lose were crazy. I bet that Marta would win by decision and not TKO. I knew you wouldn’t go down without a fight.”
“Oh . . . thanks.” I hadn’t expected that.
“Don’t move,” Sawyer murmurs, grabbing a syringe and injecting the fluid into my bicep.
“That should bring down the swelling in your face.”
Sawyer opens the mini fridge and pulls out an icepack. I apply it to my nose while she goes to work disinfecting my other cuts.
Now that it’s quiet, the awkwardness in the room is palpable. Even though Eli has angled his body away from me, he’s watching me out of the corner of his eye. Miles and Celdon keep exchanging pointed glances, and guilt is written all over Sawyer’s face.
I’m sure she feels terrible about breaking doctor-patient confidentiality and telling me about Marta’s rib, but I was the one who acted on that information.
I keep telling myself
that I didn’t have a choice. She was ordered to kill me, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did something horrible.
“Man, I really thought she had you,” says Miles, finally breaking the silence. “That girl is hell on wheels, and she wasn’t holding back.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
I take a deep breath, steeling myself to tell them the truth. “Blaze found me before the fight. He said Jayden paid a visit to Shane.”
“What?” Eli rounds on me, and I immediately regret my decision.
“She told Shane to have Marta take me out tonight.”
“Jayden wanted her to finish you in the fight?”
“I guess this was a clean way to do it,” I mumble. “It’s not like anybody expected me to win.”
“And you waited until now to say something?”
Uh-oh. Eli is pissed.
“He told me right before I got in the ring!”
“And you still fought her?”
Eli is right in front of me now, rage pouring off him in waves.
“I didn’t have a choice!” I splutter. “You said yourself that Shane wouldn’t just let me walk out of there if I bailed on the fight.”
Eli opens his mouth to retort, but Miles cuts him off. “It’s true. Walking away just would have made it worse.”
“Worse than getting in the ring with someone who’s been ordered to kill her?” Eli yells. “Shane probably had the ref in on this, too. They wouldn’t have stopped the fight.”
Miles looks at me. I avert my eyes quickly, but not fast enough to keep Eli from noticing my guilty expression.
“The ref was in on it?”
“That’s why he was so slow to pull Marta off her when the round ended,” mutters Miles.
“Do you have a death wish?” Eli yells.
“No!” I snap, hopping off the counter so I can square off against him. “But what was I supposed to do?”
“All you had to do was tell me or Miles, and we would have pulled you out of the fight like that! You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”
“Of course I am. I always am. This isn’t the first close call I’ve had,” I say pointedly. I just got beat up, and now all my pent-up anger is shifting toward him. “This is no different than Jayden sending us out into the Fringe, except this time I didn’t have people shooting at me.”
“It’s completely different!” he yells.
“How? Either way, it’s just Jayden trying to kill me.”
He takes two big breaths, but it isn’t doing anything to calm the fury blazing in his eyes.
“Out there, I can protect you!” he shouts.
“No, you can’t.”
Now he looks offended. “I can try. Tonight, I couldn’t do anything! I just had to stand there and watch that girl beat the shit out of you! Do you know what that’s like?”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I expected him to say that I wasn’t skilled enough to defend myself. I didn’t expect him to admit that watching it was hard on him.
Everyone is staring at us. Celdon looks alarmed. Miles is rubbing his forehead as though he wants to intervene, and Sawyer is staring at Eli with a slight smirk playing on her lips.
Suddenly I don’t care about winning the argument anymore. Eli is still staring at me with those fiery blue eyes, unaware of the fact that he just bared his soul in front of everyone.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” I stammer. “It was stupid. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
Eli’s expression softens, and the enormous compartment starts to feel much too small.
“Uh, thanks for everything, Sawyer,” I say, flashing her a meaningful look. She knows I’m not thanking her for the first-aid job. “I need to go.”
“But I haven’t even checked your —”
“It’s fine.”
I don’t hear what she says next. I practically run out of her compartment and tear down the tunnel toward the megalift.
Running away is stupid, but Eli and I were about to get into things that I’d rather not discuss in front of my friends. In typical Eli fashion, he would have pulled away as soon as it got too personal, and my pride has been wounded enough for one night.
Out there, I can protect you.
Eli’s made it clear that nothing more can happen between us, but it’s incredibly hard to keep my feelings in check when he goes around saying things like that.
When I reach the lower levels, the sight of the dingy Recon tunnel gives me a little pang of comfort. Who knew cinderblock walls and bad florescent lighting could be so welcoming?
I can still hear the roar of the crowd. The main fight must have started, but I don’t have any desire to watch it. After climbing into that ring, nothing sounds less appealing than watching another person get beaten to death for sport.
The tunnel is completely deserted, and I quicken my pace a little. I want nothing more than to take a hot shower and crawl into my own bed.
But as I round the corner into the cadet wing, an arm shoots out of nowhere and slaps a cloth over my mouth.
I freeze and inhale automatically, which is a mistake.
A strange, sweet odor hits my nostrils, and I feel myself going limp in the stranger’s arms.
The last thought that shoots through me is one of pure terror. Whether this is Shane’s doing or Jayden’s, they aren’t taking any chances this time.
twenty-three
Harper
I wake up in a fog. It’s completely dark, and I don’t remember where I am or how I got there.
I’m lying on my side, but it’s not a normal sleeping position. My shoulder is in agony, and my arm is all pins and needles from being wedged under my body.
When I try to free it, I realize my wrists are bound together with some plasticky material.
Slowly, a memory surfaces, and I realize what happened. Somebody grabbed me in the tunnel and kidnapped me. Someone — perhaps more than one someone — wants me dead.
Where am I?
There’s no one around, as far as I can tell. Squinting through the darkness gives away nothing about my surroundings, but my other senses are overwhelmed.
The ground is cold and damp, and a familiar stench is stuck in my nostrils. I smelled it once before, but it takes me several seconds to recognize it.
It’s the scent of earth and decay, but there’s only one place in the entire compound that smells like that: the dead level.
Panic spills into my body like a toxin, and my breathing automatically goes haywire. Sure enough, I can just make out the shape of a mound nearby. My heart feels as though it might give out on me completely.
I’m lying next to a dead body. I’m lying with the dead.
It’s impossible to tell if that person died of natural causes or if he was murdered here in cold blood. After a while, the body will break down and become just another source of organic material for growing food.
Whoever kidnapped me is gone now, but there can only be one reason they brought me here: They want to kill me, bury me, and destroy the evidence.
They literally want to make me disappear.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
Using all my remaining core strength, I roll myself into an upright position. I nudge my interface with my shoulder, and its welcoming blue light floods the creepy open level.
I try not to look at the hundreds of mounds dispersed in the graveyard, but it sends a fresh jolt of fear through me.
I’m going to die here. No one will ever find me.
No. I need to focus. When my dashboard loads, I waste no time.
“Video message Eli Parker,” I say into the speaker. The app goes into idle mode as it tries to reach Eli.
My heart is beating too fast, and my ears are piqued for the sound of my captors returning.
The app makes a low ding, and a robotic voice tells me that Eli isn’t available.
I swear and repeat, “Video message Eli Parker.”
Once again, the app tries to reach his
interface, but either he left it in his compartment or he isn’t answering because he’s angry with me.
I glance at the time. It’s past midnight, but I don’t remember what time I left Sawyer’s, so I have no idea how long I’ve been down here. It could be twenty minutes; it could be two hours.
After the app stops trying to reach Eli, I groan and dictate a quick message to send to him.
Before I can finish, a door bangs open. Light floods into the level, illuminating a slice of ground a few hundred yards away. Then the door slams, and I’m thrust into complete darkness again.
I hear the low rumble of male voices approaching. I can’t see them, but they’re close by.
I hurriedly whisper two more words and speak to send the message.
The men draw closer, and as their voices pull apart, I hear one of them say “Shane.”
Shane is trying to kill me.
He couldn’t finish the job for Jayden in the fight, so he had to find another way.
Right now, his men are between me and the exit. I can’t escape without being seen, but I can buy myself some more time.
I drag in some air and stagger to my feet, struggling with my hands bound behind me.
The soft earth muffles my footsteps, but now I can hear the voices clearly. They’re getting closer, but they still don’t know I’m conscious.
Careful not to disturb the decaying body in front of me, I step over the mound of earth and begin to run.
twenty-four
Eli
My interface buzzes against my ear, but the sensation is strangely muted by the pounding bass.
I haven’t visited Neverland for any reason other than arranging fights in years, but tonight seems like the night to get lost.
My interface flickers on to display two missed messages from Harper, but I ignore them. I don’t know why she’s trying to reach me, and I try not to care.
For weeks I’ve been tethered to her as though my life depended on it, and she still didn’t see fit to trust me when it counted.
I told her to stay out of the fight — a fight that should have killed her — and she ignored me as if I were nobody. Ignoring her for once is liberating.