10. AURORA
I skid on the gravel then come to a stop in front of the girl.
The yard goes dead silent. Even the wind seems to stop—and every eye is fixed on me. But I don’t care.
I’m so fucking furious right now.
Fucking Taliesin.
For a moment there, I’d started kidding myself that he was decent.
Up close, the new girl looks even younger, and worse off, than she’d seemed from the bleachers. Her skin is sickly pale, and her eyes are sunken so deep they look like hollow sockets. She doesn’t even flinch when I stop in front of her. She just stands there, swaying slightly in the wind.
“Listen to me,” I hiss, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You have to fight me. Do you understand? You have to win.” I use my body to shield our conversation from the leering crowd.
The girl’s eyes move in my direction, finally focusing, then she shakes her head.
“Yes! If you stay a No-man, it will be…awful. You have to get into the Digger block.”
She whispers something under her breath and a single tear tracks through the grime on her cheek. Gods, I see a world of agony behind her eyes.
“What happened to you?” I whisper.
She just shakes her head again.
“Come on, babe, you’ve got to talk to me. You have to fight me. Come on, dig deep for just a little more strength. Look, if you take me down, you can get in the Diggers. It’s the safest place in this hellhole.”
A few hardly audible words come out of her mouth. “Nowhere is safe. All men are animals, I just want to die.”
Shit.
“The Diggers are different.” I shake her, trying to force life back into her eyes.
“Their Boss has a ‘no raping’ rule. The girls in his block are safe. If you take my spot, you’ll be under his protection.
” I can’t resist looking up at the bleachers.
Taliesin stands watching us, arms rigid and knuckles clenched.
Around us, jeers and whistles are getting louder. A chant of “fight, fight,” has started up. I don’t know what will happen if the gangs get too restless.
“Hit me. It doesn’t have to be hard. Just make it look real.”
She looks through her curtain of hair at me. Her expression is one devoid of any hope, so I’m going to have to take control.
“Listen, this is going to work. Now, fucking hit me, bitch!”
She passively lets me raise her hand, and I try to fake like she punches me. It probably looks completely stupid, but I don’t know what else to do.
Then I throw my head back as if she’s landed a heavyweight hook, and collapse onto the grit, making sure to scrape my palms on the concrete to draw fresh blood. I roll once, twice, and then lie still, panting, staring up at the tiny sliver of blue sky visible through the clouds.
I shout at the top of my lungs. “I yield!”
The yard erupts. The Guilders are howling, falling over themselves with laughter. Clay walks over and looks down at me. “You’re fucking crazy.”
I think he might be right.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks. “You could re-challenge her?”
“No,” I reply, gritting my teeth. “Not going to happen. Make sure she’s OK, Clay. She’s been through enough already.”
Clay’s usually impassive gaze softens for a moment. “No one will touch her. I’ll make sure of it.” He stretches out a hand, pulls me to my feet then raises an eyebrow. “So what are you going to do now, Princess?”
Fuck.
“I guess I have to fight the new guy.” Taking in a breath, I yell out the words. “I CHALLENGE THE NEW DIGGER.”
“Idiot,” Layla growls as she walks up to me. “You’ve the survival instincts of a mosquito in a room full of bug-zappers.”
“You might be right,” I groan, as Hector, the brand new Digger, stands up again. “But if I issue a challenge, I can’t back out, right?”
“Right.” Layla moves closer to me and presses a shiv into my hand. “Good luck, Barbie.” Then she grabs the new girl’s arm, leading her toward the Digger bleachers without another word.
I stand up to my full height. Hector is a mountain of slabs of muscle and fat. Burly doesn’t cover it. He’s at least six inches taller and twice my weight.
“I don’t like hitting ninas pequenas, but I’m not losing my place,” he grunts, his eyes flicking toward Tally for a fraction of a second. “Nada personal.”
Yeah. Nothing personal here either, but I’m still going to do my best to win.
Clay pulls Hector aside, whispering furiously in his ear. Hector’s expression shifts from annoyance to a grim, calculating sort of resignation. He nods once, then turns back to me.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
The chant presses in from all sides. My opponent shakes his head, putting on a show of cracking his knuckles. He looks like he thinks this is an easy win, but his stance is oddly wide—unnecessarily open.
I don’t question it. I focus on Taliesin’s voice in my head. Get in close.
Launching forward, I use a low, sliding movement I’ve practiced a thousand times in center-floor allegro.
He swings a massive fist, but it’s a wide, loopy haymaker that practically invites me to duck.
It whistles over my head, catching nothing but air.
I’m behind him before he can reset and drive the heel of my palm into the small of his back.
It’s like hitting a stone wall, but he stumbles forward.
“Fast little thing, aren’t you?” Hector lunges, his arms spread wide for a bear hug, but he’s moving like he’s in slow motion. I drop, slipping under his reach. As I come up, I use my skull to head-butt him in the crotch.
It’s a little off target but still makes him stagger around groaning.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he wheezes. “Put some back into it, chiquitita!”
He’s mocking me. I need this guy down.
Pulling out Layla’s shiv, I’m momentarily distracted. A giant fist swings around, and I leap, but the wrong fucking way, so I’m punched in the belly. It’s like a wrecking ball. I double over, retching, all my vision blurs, and my stupid fucking heart skips a beat.
I could be fucked.
A rush of air gives me a millisecond warning before his arm hooks around my neck.
He isn’t squeezing—not really—but the weight is immense.
“You’re not giving up already are you, little luchadora?
” It’s almost like he’s holding me up rather than dragging me down.
“Come now, chiquitita. Put your back into it.”
Fuck him. We end up tangled on the ground, and I’m on my back—a death sentence.
This is a terrible, terrible place to be in a fight.
He stands, looming over me, grinning a toothy, fake-looking smile at the bleachers. “Now what? Any ideas?”
I ignore the burning agony in my gut and bring my knees toward my chest, then flip backward, somersaulting to my feet while keeping low. As I straighten, I send all my energy upward. My already bruised skull meets the underside of his chin with a sickening crack.
Hector’s head snaps back. His eyes roll into his head, and he flies backward with a massive thud.
Get up, Aurora. Fight.
I pull myself onto my knees, fumbling for the shiv, ready for him to lunge again. But Hector isn’t moving. He’s out cold, snoring softly on the concrete.
I can’t believe it. I actually did it.
After a beat, Clay pulls me to my feet, his grip like iron.
“WINNER,” he shouts, and as the roars on the bleachers crescendo, I sway, then fade to black.
???
I wake to the taste of my own blood and the distant, familiar clanking of boiler pipes.
The ceiling comes into focus, and a shadow moves beside me. When I flinch, my stomach muscles scream.
“Easy,” Taliesin says. “A blow like that to the guts is going to hurt like a mother for days.”
No fucking kidding. “Is the girl alright?" I croak.
“See for yourself.”
She’s hunched up in the corner; gray Digger coveralls swamp her tiny frame. The girl has the body of a child, and the face of an old, old woman.
“Hey,” I croak. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a handful of glass.
Her eyes flick in my direction, then away again. Taliesin throws a wet rag at her. “Get your shit together, kid. Aurora saved your ass, so it’s your job to nurse her.”
As he stomps out of the room, the girl shuffles nervously toward me with the cloth.
“Are you OK?” I ask, struggling to sit. The world tilts on its axis and I lie down gingerly. The back of my head hurts.
She leans over and gently dabs at my face with the grimy cloth. “I…yes. What about you?” she whispers, eyes still hollow, but the wild, suicidal glaze isn’t as present.
It’s pretty fucking obvious I’m not alright, so I don’t reply. She continues trying to clean me up, and after a while, clears her throat. “Umm…I’m sorry…”
“Forget it.” The words come out a groan.
“I can’t,” she mumbles. “I’ll never forget it, no one has ever helped…” She trails off.
Yeah. I know the feeling. Not a soul having your back sucks.
OK. I guess I have to move. Forcing myself onto my elbows, I study the kid. She has tears running down her face. “I’m Aurora, Rory to my friends. What’s your name?”
She pauses, the rag hovering over my temple. “C-candy,” she stutters.
Her voice is so low I can hardly hear it. Shit, it’s obvious this kid has been through something awful.
Also awful is the ache in my belly. Another wave of pain hits me and I can’t stifle a moan.
“What’s going on? Is she OK?”
Oh, now Taliesin is concerned. Maybe he should have felt like that before I fought that el guerrero.
“Well?” he snarls.
Candy flinches like she’s going to be beaten, then scuttles into the corner of the cell, crouching down.
“I’m fine,” I snap. Fucking growly asshole. “Keep it down. My head feels like it’s going to crack open.”
I must have drifted, because the next time the world comes into focus, the cell is crowded. The amber corridor light is dimmer now.
“The warden would probably let her go to the infirmary, considering her name,” Taliesin’s voice is low. “But you know what the guards are like in there.”
“Sure fucking do,” another voice says. I recognize the dry, snarky tone. It’s Layla. “But don’t fret over Barbie. Doesn’t look like internal bleeding. She’s not coughing up blood, and the abdomen isn’t rigid. Just a hell of a lot of bruising.”
My vision swims in and out, but I finally focus on Layla.
She looks down at me and shakes her head. “Double vision?”
“Are you a doctor all of a sudden?” I reply, aiming for sarcastic but it just comes out weak and pathetic.
She shrugs. “Mama works at the clinic with Tally’s mom. I picked shit up.” She glances toward the cell door, where Clay is standing with Imran. The boy is leaning heavily against the bars, and he’s holding a rag up against a nostril. A nose bleed?
Layla’s expression shifts into something hauntingly sad. “But I didn’t learn enough though.”
I close my eyes again, feeling like absolute garbage. “Think I’m going to sleep some more.”
And that’s what I do.