Chapter 25 #3
Robin’s shout of pain spurs me on. I hear a crack, something connecting with his skin.
One of the men raises a bat. I catch him in the ribs with a hard punch before he can get any speed behind it.
I feel his rib break beneath my fist, relish the air that pours out of him.
Then I raise my fist for the next blow, bring it down hard, and meet scales.
The creature’s mouth clamps down so hard on the man it sends his interior bursting out his sides, drenching me and Robin in hot blood. But Robin’s still fighting, flung back against the flanks of the animal when he blocks a wooden plank with his bare arm.
I lunge forward, strike the man in the stomach, and he folds. Robin’s two arms come down and connect with the back of his head, dropping him to the ground. So I pick up the plank to finish the job.
His back cracks beneath the violence of my blow, leaving him writhing on the ground, begging for mercy, lizard food.
“Fuck,” Robin whispers, staring down at what I’ve done.
It’s cruel. It’s cold.
It’s Deathball.
No emotion, no fear, no regret until we’re safe.
I grasp his hand, and pull him away from the gore, the two of us running out into the center of the clearing, and I’m only aware of what I’ve done, spotlighting my physical affection, when the speaker announces, “Robin Shore, ladies and gentlemen.” So I stop dead, then hold his hand up high.
The noise of the adoring crowd intensifies.
“Smile, birdie,” I hiss at him.
“The fuck?” But he does, flexing his beautiful arms exactly like he needs to.
“And Captain Verus,” the announcer shouts, “demonstrating a keen eye for the man under his firm stewardship. Only seconds later, and Robin would have been toast.”
She’s right. There were seconds in it. Had I picked another man…
“I can’t believe you wore that fucking collar,” I mutter at him, the enormity of what that one choice just did washing over me.
But as if he has no idea that my obsession with him just saved his life, he says only, “Do you like it?”
For the first time since we came out, I meet his eyes. And for the first time ever, that look in them doesn’t scare me. I don’t want to turn away. Even here, in front of thousands of people who want to see us gutted, in front of the Emperor, I only want him in my arms.
He feels like the one safe thing in this world. And his clearly spoken words from last night sing in the back of my mind: ‘It doesn’t matter what you do or say, Marco. I’m yours.’
“I’m glad I found you, birdie.”
“Finally he admits it.”
This fucking guy.
I thoroughly resent the smile he’s pulled out of me. “Shut up and don’t die, alright?”
The moment I drop his arm, as if it were the cue they were waiting on, the ever-present music turns sharp again.
“Where the fuck is that coming from?” Robin’s keen eyes scan the landscape, just as the sick tone sounds.
With it comes a creaking, a rumble beneath our feet, and escalating screams from the crowd.
The trees, the entire forest tilts and sways, sinking, retracting, as the very ground we stand upon breaks apart.
Me, Robin, the crosses, we’re all flung back toward the great lizard.
The animal snaps another man from a post, its shoulder banging into the arena wall as we slide toward it in a mad scramble.
Robin’s got a hand on the fallen cleaver.
“Don’t kill the lizard,” I warn him.
“I know,” he shouts back. “It’s our best weapon.”
I was going to say it needs to die by Deathball, but his idea is better. Not that I’d tell him as much.
We stumble to our feet, even as the stadium sways beneath us, sand pouring through great holes in the floor.
As the forest disappears, so the lay of the land is revealed before us.
And so are our attackers. There are more prisoners than we could have imagined, hidden until the obstacles were removed.
Some crouching, too scared to fight, some already leveling hate-filled eyes on us, readying their weapons.
But on the far side of them, rising higher as the rest of the props descend, the musician. He’s dressed as a faun, playing his fiddle. And dangling from his little wooden stage—the Deathball.
“We’ve got to kill the fiddler,” Robin says, reading my thoughts.
“Deathball fans,” comes the announcement. “Thanks to Elysium Gardening Supplies, today’s first weapon drop!”
The prisoners are already running for us as we stand back to back, praying whatever it is comes fast. It’s a blur of motion overhead, then a thunk on the ground. I grasp for it desperately, my hopes fading as quickly as I get a hold.
One shiny steel pitchfork, one black shovel.
“That’s it?” Robin rasps. “I’m keeping my cleaver.”
“No, you’re not.” I snatch both weapons up, shoving the pitchfork at him. “You’re going to play the game, and you’re going to make captain when I’m gone. Do it.”
“We’re going to die,” he snarls at me.
“Not if you keep them happy.”
His groan is pure frustration, but he throws the cleaver down, raising his pitchfork just in time for it to run deep into the guts of an attacker.
“Good job, birdie.” I slam the shovel into the side of another man’s head.
“Shut up, Marco.” But even as he stamps his foot down on his writhing victim to hold him in place while he withdraws the prongs, he’s smiling.
And I want that smile, five years from now, when he comes back to Atrea. When we’re both home, where we belong. Where, maybe, one day…
A blade slices into my arm. I didn’t even realize anyone was behind me.
The lizard flicks its head at the sight of my blood, its tongue seeking the scent of me on the air.
I block the next stab with the wooden handle of the shovel, but my attacker comes again and fast, and I can imagine this being his daily life in prison, always on edge, always fighting.
No doubt it’s how he got picked for this match.
I shove him to the ground, but barely slow him at all. He lunges forward, his thin blade stabbing down an inch from my toes. My knee collides with his face, but he only rolls over and scrambles back to his feet, scarlet streaming down his chin.
A sharp clang rings out as Robin’s weapon collides with a hacksaw, and seeing him stumble, I step back, dodging another knife strike and bracing him with my back.
He leans against me, fluid as he is in every training session.
When he pushes off the earth, I lean down to support him.
He takes hold of my side, leverages his grip to kick both legs into his attacker, knocking him into mine, and they both land on the ground, right in front of the hungry lizard.
“Clever,” I call over their screams.
But there’s no time for him to respond. The next are upon us, and the lizard won’t be long feasting.
I subconsciously break into a pattern of attack I learned from boyhood.
Three attackers, a fighter on your left.
Punch, duck, roundhouse kick, jab. And Robin…
he falls in next to me as easily, as confidently, as peacefully, as if we were home on our shared beach doing this together with the sun rising over tangerine waves.
Jab, knee, twist and elbow, and his every move complements mine. The men fall where they should, and we advance like warriors, out across the arena, just like we were taught. Take up space, move forward, don’t give an inch. Fight.
We fight. We fight on and on, tossing the men in our wake, never dead, always a living meal for the creature that seems to understand, as well as we do, this is survival. We’re reliant on each other.
But a wild animal is only ever one meal away from attack, and I keep one eye on it, the other ready for the next man.
Never on Robin. If I even look at him, I’m sunk.
He’s everything to me right now. His fighting ability, his intelligence, his raw and protective power…
But that softness. It’s everything I’m working for today.
Even if it’s the last time he ever touches me, all I can think about is laying my head down on his chest.
That one desire turns the condemned of Victora Prison into mincemeat, strewn across the arena in the bloodiest display this place has seen in years.
The crowd drinks it down, every drop of spilled blood.
We’re doing everything the game architects wanted.
Showing off the weapons they gave us. Smiling while we do it.
Making this look easy, even as our muscles strain, as our cuts gape wide and fill with dirt.
We make Victora look beautiful. Magnificent. Unstoppable.
But it never could be easy, not with me and Robin at the helm.
The fiddle speeds up as we demolish the last of the men, Robin’s shoulder meeting mine, sweat and dirt and blood, our breaths heaving in our chests, our dark eyes settling on the faun.
The man pauses. Turns. Grins at us. Then that sharp note sings from his instrument.
Every door in the arena slams open, and a screech that I know all too well slices through the air. My blood turns to ice.
“Run!”
I smash a hand into Robin’s arm to propel him forward, both of us making for the faun on his podium, while he plays ever louder, ever faster, as every sense is scrambled.
The uneven floor shifts beneath us, tumbling us down into small pits, where the sliding sand makes us slip as we try to climb out, slowing our desperate dash for the Deathball.
But we never stop. Neither of us. Because if the infected they’ve just let loose in the arena even touch us, we’re dead.
Robin makes it first, jumping up to snatch the ball down. He frees it from its hook, but goes flying backwards with the weight of it. Right into my arms. “Birdie, climb.”
“You’re coming up with me.” He clutches the ball to his chest, looks at me clear and hard.
I put on my captain’s voice. “Get up there and kill him. Now.”
He hesitates, looking past my shoulder. Then he swings the ball up and jumps.
I grasp him at the waist, pushing him up with all my strength.
The sound of the ball slamming onto the platform fills me with relief, but Robin’s still scrambling to get up.
The music never stops, but it becomes more erratic, and I see the shadow of the faun as he kicks at Robin, stamps on his fingers trying to knock him back down.
I grasp his foot and shove him up as hard as I can.
The screeches of the infected grow louder. The hungry, broken, unhuman sound they make is terrifying in and of itself, but it’s the knowledge that I could be making that same sound when they bring me back here for my final battle that horrifies me the most.
“Kill him, birdie!”
Robin’s legs disappear over the edge, but the music’s still playing.
I turn, my weapon lost in the scramble, nothing but this tiny dagger in my wrist cuff and twelve vicious creatures coming at me from every direction.
There’s no way to get up onto that platform now. Not without another man to hoist me up.
But Robin’s safe.
Safe for today.
It’s all the consolation I’m going to get.
I can’t even see the lizard, not with the way they’ve changed the playing field. It’s just those scarred and inhuman faces moving with uncanny speed, twisting and creeping limbs, eyes red, and black tongues.
I don’t want to go down like this.
Of all the ways to die…
Slam!
The Deathball drops down an inch from my skull.
One type of terror morphs into another. This faun cannot have beaten Robin.
I stumble out from beneath the deck, searching for him.
“Marco!” he shouts. “Grab hold!”
“What the fuck are you doing? Kill him!”
Robin lets out a cry as the faun’s foot slams into his back, but the fiddler, for whatever reason, keeps playing.
“Not without you!” he shouts. “Fucking grab it.”
“You’ll fall!”
“Marco!”
A vicious howl from behind me turns my logic to jelly. Survival mode kicks in, and I leap. The sharp barbs of the Deathball sink into my hands, but it’s less painful than what’s coming.
Robin hauls the ball up, even as a swift kick slams into his ribs. His grip on my lifeline never flinches. The chains break into the wood beneath him, I slam a hand down on the platform, then his hand takes mine, and he hauls me up next to him.
“You’re mad.”
He breaks an exhausted smile. “Kill that fucking faun.”
It’s the least I can do. In one fluid movement, I grasp the ball, swing it, and cave the faun’s head into his shoulders. The music stops. The fiddle falls to the stadium floor, and the body slumps down in a dead heap.
The crowd erupts into a celebration, and I reach an unsteady hand for Robin. He’s here beside me, breathing hard, shaking as badly as I am, both of us waiting for the next trick.
But all we hear is one loud, guttural cry, and can only watch the last of the infected drift away from us, winding their way to the far side of the stadium, where they, as one crawling, creeping mass, climb onto the lizard, and devour it.
The announcer speaks. I hear our names, something of a celebration, but all I can see is the fear in those large, dying eyes. A creature taken from its land, forced to fight in this arena. To die here. Never to see its homeland again.
My hand wraps tight around Robin’s. Tighter than it should here on this platform, in this arena, in front of everyone.
I’ve still got him, flesh and blood and real, next to me. Alive.
But this time, it’s Robin who hauls my arm up into the air. “Smile, Marco.”
And I do. Across the bridge they extend for us to climb onto. Up into the winners’ bay with the two thrones they tell us to sit on. Through my speech and through Robin’s speech. And all the way along the dark corridors that lead us back to the costume room where Evander awaits.
“Get out,” he barks at the guards. “I’ve got work to do.”
Just as soon as he gets the door closed on them, he crosses the room and steps out the one on the far side. “Two minutes.”
“Evander!” I snap at him.
“Oh, please,” he responds. “I’m not an idiot.”
The door shuts, and I’m alone with Robin, back in this ridiculous room where I last told him we can’t be together.
Never again.
“Birdie?”
He looks up at me, that hard gray glass ready to shatter with one wrong word.
So I step up to him, slip my arms around him, and kiss him. And kiss him. And kiss him.
I can’t speak. Maybe I’ll never find the words to say.
‘I adore you.’
‘I want you.’
‘I’m not giving up on us.’
I can only hope this kiss says it all.