“Charming,” I noted, turning to Red after watching all kinds of stuff trade hands as the bets were called. “Doesn’t look like they have a common currency here.” Like the wood-chip tokens Harris had given us earlier that Red had used to pay for our beers. “So what are we going to bet?”
Richards snorted, although he averted his gaze as he replied. “Since I want to keep my balls I’m not going to suggest what you might be betting.”
“Har, har, very funny,” I griped.
“I mean a kiss,” he clarified.
“Actually, that’s worse.” In the press of the crowd, the last heat of the day was unbearable, and after a moment or two of hesitation I decided to ditch my jacket. Tying it around my waist so it wouldn’t impede my reach for my knife or gun was a bit of a bother, but I managed, much to the amusement of not just Richards but also a group of guys standing next to us. “What?” I asked them as I straightened, loving the feel of the slight breeze on my sweaty arms. “Don’t think I know how to use ‘em?”
One of the guys, a little younger than me from what I could tell, gave me a bright smile. “No, ma’am. Wouldn’t dare to presume that.”
I rolled my eyes, turning back to Richards, but noticed the other two elbow their friend, making fun of him. It took me a moment to figure out why—without the jacket covering my torso up to my hairline, the X-shaped marks across the back of my neck were visible with only a tank top and sports bra covering the rest. The same went for the scars on my arms—a few from surgery, but also the bullet graze that had been the very first battle injury of my life, but also some from sparring, fighting, falling, and the well-healed gash along my forearm where last year a wolf had almost gotten the better of me. With the gloves covering my hands, the picture fit together perfectly.
“Yeah, that’s not fake, either,” I said as I vaguely pointed at my neck. “Why, want me to prove it?”
The guy was quick to raise his hands and decline, much to the amusement of his friends. Not so another, much burlier guy on our other side. “I’ll fight you. Haven’t had an easy win in some time.”
A few onlookers noticed. One started to cheer, which the others quickly picked up. I sized up the guy—he had a good hundred pounds on me, most of it muscle but also a healthy layer of fat. That one wouldn’t go down easily.
“What are the rules?” I asked, although I didn’t really care.
The one who’d started cheering before was quick to respond. “Normal rules is hand-to-hand, so no weapons, until knock-out or clear win. No tapping out early, unless you want an exception?”
“Hardly,” I chuffed, then smiled sweetly at my would-be opponent. “Better pretend I’m not a girl. That will make it so much easier for you to lose.”
Just then, someone else staggered into me, forcing me to take a step to the side. I lost my balance for a second, needing a steadying hand on Red’s shoulder to catch myself. I burst out laughing, not quite sure why. Red smiled back, the anticipation in his eyes obviously for what he knew must be coming. My stumble sure seemed to add to the agitation in the crowd around us. “I’ve got an idea,” I told him. Much louder I called to the guy, “Let’s do this!” already reaching to undo my jacket, followed by my knife and gun holsters. I dumped everything into Red’s waiting hands before I ducked between the ropes and stepped into the ring. This time, I exaggerated the stagger, and for fun turned my hopping safe into a brief introductory jump, hands thrown up. The crowds cheered when they realized a new round was about to start, bets getting exchanged all around. I didn’t try to catch on to it, but still heard the odds heavily swayed against me. Turning back to Richards, I grinned at him. “Bet for me, will ya? Momma needs some funds for later!”
The three guys from before had already closed ranks with Red, chatting animatedly. I pushed them out of my mind, instead focusing on my opponent.
He’d followed me into the ring and right now made a show of cracking his knuckles, making his pecs jump, and made sure everyone saw his heavily tattooed torso. I didn’t miss the single X on his neck, which was the only passably good ink on his body. Sure, compared to Nate’s it was easy for any tattoos to look cheap, but even mine held up well to that guy’s. The referee called everyone to attention, then checked in with us that we understood the rules. Kicks and bites were allowed but no permanent damage, except accidental. I loved the phrasing, but didn’t comment on it. I hopped around a bit to limber up but my body was already singing with anticipation of violence, no further pumping-up required. The referee told us to step apart further so he could give the signal between us and quickly duck away—and then, it was on.
As soon as I got the “go,” I exploded toward my opponent, going for the obvious—a kick to the torso, trying to aim as high as possible to maybe get lucky and hit him in the face, thus ending the fight in under five seconds. He went with it—a sign that he knew a thing or two about fighting—and blocked well, not quite swatting me away. That was okay—my move had been mostly to test him; I hadn’t expected the kick to go through. It hopefully made me seem like a trigger-happy asshole rather than someone who played the long game. Deception, half the fun of any sparring match.
I figured it was stupid posing rather than chivalry that made him give me time to come down, recover, and go for him again. Nate sometimes did that but it always ended up being a trap. This guy clearly underestimated me because no feint on his part followed. I pretended to go for another kick, but at the last second moved to the side to instead go for a punch with my left, aiming for his jaw. I’d never not be right-handed, but Nate had spent a lot of time and effort teaching me how to get the most out of what was left of my hands—and, surprisingly, I had much less reservations using my left than right in situations like these.
The hit landed, surprising my opponent, and this time I didn’t give him a chance to recover or compensate. A well-placed knee to the groin, followed by a mean kick to the knee, and I got the first scream from him. It felt oddly invigorating.
The uppercut he aimed at my jaw—that I missed because of my triumphant grin—was a lot less so.
Both bloodied, we separated, all playfulness and boasting gone. I could tell that now he took me seriously—but probably not serious enough.
He made the mistake of trying to bullrush me, which gave me some good opportunities to use my elbows and joined fists. I still went down, but was up before he managed to pin me on my back. A quick twist and I ended up above him, a knee to the nose ending with some impressive blood gushing. I paid for that when he reared up and slammed me, back first, into the ground, his sheer size and weight something I couldn’t compensate for. His elbow in my gut hurt, enough to make parts of my last meal come up. Ever the lady, I puked right in his face, much to the crowd’s cheers. That distracted him enough to give me an opening to disengage, which I promptly did.
This was a lot more fun than I’d expected to have any time soon!
All bets were off now—and it wasn’t like I could win playing coy—so I went right for him again, kicking and punching, earning myself almost as good a beating as I gave. My body definitely went with it, my state of alertness increasing and my stamina not something I needed to watch yet, but something was wrong—that laser-sharp focus I’d become so accustomed to was lacking, and while I sure packed a punch, I couldn’t hit as hard as I wanted to. Hysterical laughter as in answer to getting jabbed in the nose wasn’t helping, either. Whatever that fucking drug did to my system, it kept me from performing as well as I should have. The crowd loved it, though, so that was a bonus.
Time to end this farce.
I feigned the next kick—which he read correctly, getting ready to block or evade something else—but I followed through with it nevertheless, planting the heel of my boot squarely in his sternum. He expelled all the air in his lungs with an emphatic “uff” as he staggered back, but at the same time managed to grab my ankle and twist, wrenching my knee as he pulled me down with him. I did my best to cushion my fall, ending up sprawled on
top of him. In a lucky break for him, he managed to grab my hair and slam my face into the dirt, my left cheekbone taking most of the brunt. Pain exploded through my head and my view got somewhat distorted as I rolled over and to the side, my world swimming as I came up. He was still on his back, gasping, so I did the only thing that made sense—pounding on him and pummeling his face with my fists. Blood and sweat went spraying, my opponent too sluggish to block my punches well—until his arm shot up and his fist slammed into my jaw from underneath.
I saw stars and vertigo hit me hard, enough to disorient me properly—and then something inside of me snapped. It was as if my mind took the passenger seat and some other entity took over. It seemed to have an easy time ignoring the pain, and punched twice as hard as before, while grunting like a rutting hog. It was quite bewildering to watch myself beat a man to death—because that’s exactly what was happening.
This wasn’t good. So not good.
I didn’t so much try to wrestle for control as I suddenly snapped back into myself, pain providing a momentary clarity that had been missing since the day before. It happened just as two guys grabbed me from behind, pulling me up and off my unresponsive victim. I felt my body gear up to fight them but a conscious thought was enough to make my muscles go slack. “I’m good, I’m done!” I called out, surprised for a second why I was breathing so heavily. Right.
As quick as it had happened, that sense of clarity dissipated once more, but left me somewhat more in control of myself and my actions than before. The helpers let go of me, carefully stepping out of my reach. I looked down at my former opponent, feeling slightly relieved to see his chest still rising, the blood on his nose and mouth bubbling slightly as he continued to breathe. The crowd was cheering—particularly those assholes who’d bet on me, or a bloody ending—but I caught a few less-savory terms among the calls. “Glimmer whore” was amusing, though—and made me swear to never ever take a hit of that fucking shit again.
The crowd parted for me as I ducked back out of the ring where Red and his new friends were applauding enthusiastically. The referee was already calling for the next fight, people all over getting busy collecting their winnings and starting the next round of betting. I accepted a—passably clean—wet rag from someone and went to work wiping at my face, hoping I was clearing up the blood more than just smearing it around. “Here, let me,” Richards offered, trading my weapons and jacket for the rag. His motions were gentle as he did, without a doubt, a much better job than I had, but I couldn’t have cared less. With adrenaline leaking out of my bloodstream, I would have expected remorse and guilt to wash over me, but there was only a wicked sense of exhilaration. Sure, I intellectually knew that I’d pulled a dick move that had been completely unnecessary, but I didn’t feel it. That disturbed me on so many levels—but nothing I could do about that, even more so as I still felt the drug’s hold tight on me.
“That was fun,” I heard myself say with way more enthusiasm than I should have felt. The three compadres agreed, grinning brightly. “Told him I’m the real deal. He didn’t listen.”
“Yeah, some guys just have it coming,” one of them agreed. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t accept a second bout with anyone. Most fight fair, but some are just out for blood.” He snickered, looking at the guy to his left, who did a good job playing innocent. “That’s really what the arena is for. Not sure why some people are that fucked-up to want to be a part of that.”
Richards gave no reaction to that so it was for me to jump on it. “What’s up with that, anyway? Arena, sounds pretty tame.”
The other guy let out a snort. “It’s really not. Unless you think a fight to the death is tame. You sure pack a mean punch, but those monsters would eat you alive.”
“Maybe literally,” the third chimed in. “I hear they don’t feed them all that often, to keep them desperate for a win.”
That didn’t exactly sound like fun, but thankfully, my fucked-up brain still produced a grin. “How do they get people to sign up for that?”
“It’s spectators only,” the first guy offered. “Nobody really knows who the contenders are, but if you look around, you can probably pick out a few possible prospects.”
“Yeah, I heard it’s their way of law enforcement,” guy number two enthused. “If you’re just being a drunk asshole, they kick you out, no problem. But you can’t run a tight ship in a place like this without consequences.”
An idea started to form in the back of my mind, and it wasn’t one I cared for—not at all. As I’d just demonstrated myself, there was a certain kind of people in this country who were really good at beating odds and surviving shit normal people wouldn’t, or couldn’t. So why not send out your hit-slash-collection squad to get your hands on new contenders?
Guy number one cut through my musing, slowed-down as it was. “If you’re interested, tonight’s the next round. Starts in about an hour. Time enough to grab another couple of beers and head over to secure a good spot. Maybe don’t eat anything, it can get pretty gnarly sometimes.” He then turned to his friends. “Do you know if they got fresh blood? It’s always more fun with the rookies.”
“Not sure,” Guy number three responded. “I think I heard they got three new ones?”
“How long do contenders usually make it?” I asked, trying to sound less revolted than I felt. “This doesn’t sound like a long-term gig.”
“Oh, most die in their first or second round,” Guy number one said. “Sometimes they also have wild animals in there, making it even more like the Roman gladiator fights. And you never know if some won’t band together. They have some contenders who’ve been doing this a damn long time. People have even started petitioning a pardon for that one guy… how long has he been in it?”
“Over a year,” his friends both provided.
“Exactly. That guy’s absolutely insane! But I don’t think he’ll be fighting tonight. They do sometimes get to pass up a round because of more severe injuries,” Guy One explained. He seemed to be waiting for something from us, but before I could offer anything, his face suddenly lit up. “You should come with us! It’s always more fun as a group. Makes you feel more in the moment.”
That sounded like the last thing on my mind but Richards already agreed. “Great idea! I still have some bets running but after the next two fights we’re game.”
Just then, the next fight started and everyone’s attention turned to that. I used Red’s momentary distraction to divest him of the bloody rag—and his duty to keep poking at my face—and set to arming myself once more. He leaned in once I was ready—and made a grab for my hip again. Since that kept me out of the press of the crowd, I didn’t protest. Knowing whose fingers to break should they slip was better than anonymous groping.
“Sounds like a good place to check out next,” he whispered into my ear. “Good deal with the fight, by the way. Nothing beats acting as expected when trying to throw suspicion for a loop.”
I wasn’t quite sure if that was meant honestly or as a jibe, but then realized that for this round, both opponents were female—and this so wasn’t a spitting, hair-grabbing girl fight. I definitely fit in with that crowd. No harm done, except to my opponent’s ego—and my peace of mind, but I had a certain feeling low in my gut that my own actions would be the least thing I found myself appalled at as the night progressed.
Chapter 20
Our three new friends—whose names I still hadn’t had the brainpower to recall, if they even gave them to me—clearly weren’t the only ones very excited about the upcoming arena event. About half an hour before it was set to start, the fighting ring crowd dispersed, and like a swarm of locusts moved on to the arena—which turned out to be an actual arena, amphitheater-style, only built into the ground rather than up from it, the likely reason why I hadn’t seen it on my attempts of casing the camp from the outside back when we’d been captured. At first guess, the bleachers-like ranks held a good three thousand people and were over sixty percent filled, with more com
ing in every minute. The air was full of laughter and fun, reminding me of a fair or open-air concert more than anything else. Torches lit the entire event space well enough for me to see more than I wanted to, really.
Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe the assholes had exaggerated, and we’d just been dumb enough to believe them. Maybe this had nothing whatsoever to do with where Nate had ended up.
Maybe I could just go up to whoever was in charge, claim to be the Queen of the Apocalypse, and ask for my husband back.
The overall positive energy of the crowd changed when at the very bottom of the arena a gate opened and a pickup truck rolled out into the dusty ground. It stopped at the very center and two men in the back started unloading stuff from the truck’s bed—weapons and gear, from what I could make out. It wasn’t much, maybe what two people would need out there beyond the walls of the camp. It was a peculiar thing to do, and they left as soon as the last baseball bat hit the ground, to return behind the gate once more.
A series of shots fired scared the living crap out of me until it was followed by loud, booming music, making me realize it was a recording only. Hidden speakers and amplifiers—fancy, and not something I expected anymore even in a place like this that likely still had some limited electricity. The crowd went wild with cheers, the pitch rising further when a single figure walked out into the arena below, clad in a long, black leather coat and top hat—quite the ensemble, really. Tanned and lean, the man was hard to place age-wise but I would have put him around Nate’s age, maybe a little older. He managed to both appear somber as he strode into the arena but also had a kind of flamboyancy about him that screamed showmanship from a mile away. He raised his arms and the crowd roared, then got as quiet as so many people would as he lowered them once more.
Green Fields (Book 10): Uprising: Page 30