Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Robin: A Step Closer to Death
The first blow catches René in the temple with a wet crunch that echoes through the speakers. René’s hand, still reaching for Cas’s leg, goes slack.
But Cas doesn’t stop.
The second blow lands harder. Then a third. And a fourth.
Blood spatters across the stone platform, across Cas’s chest, across the wooden plank lying forgotten beside them. Each impact sends a fresh spray, until the microphones pick up nothing but the rhythmic thud of metal against flesh and bone.
“Cas has lost it,” Jason mutters. “He’s properly lost it. Again.”
Marco’s reflection stares back at me from the glass, his face pale. In seven days, one of us will be down there. One of us will be holding that blood-slicked weapon.
One of us will be the one still standing when the bell rings.
The crowd’s roar builds to a deafening crescendo, but all I can hear is my own heartbeat hammering. All I can see is the red spreading across the arena floor.
And Cas, still kneeling beside what’s left of René, the Deathball heavy in his trembling hands.
It’s so unfair. René was the only half-decent one. Why did he have to die?
Still, it’s relief, not grief, that floods through me so fast my knees nearly buckle. Cas is alive. Bloodied and shaking, but alive.
He fucking did it. Made champion. He’ll live to see next year’s season.
But then he wobbles.
His grip on the Deathball loosens, the weapon slipping from his fingers to clatter against stone. For a moment he sways there on his knees, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing.
Then he pitches forward.
Face first onto the platform. Motionless.
The crowd’s roar cuts off like someone sliced through a wire. Twenty thousand people holding their breath.
“No.” The word tears from my throat before I can stop it. My palms slam against the glass. No, no, no! “Marco.” I spin toward him, panic clawing up my chest. “We have to get down there. We have to—”
“He’s breathing.” Marco’s voice is steady. “Look at his back.”
I press my face against the glass again. Cas lies crumpled on the blood-slicked stone, but Marco’s right—his shoulders rise and fall in shallow, rapid movements.
“He’s just badly injured,” Marco says. “They’ll skip the ceremony and take him straight to Evander.”
The game architects are already flooding onto the platform. They roll Cas onto a stretcher, one of them pressing gauze against his thigh wound.
“I need to see him.” My voice cracks. “Now. Please.”
Marco doesn’t argue. He barks orders at the guards, demanding immediate escort back to the dungeon. Usually, we all stay in the box and receive food and wine. Sometimes sponsors drop in to see us.
But today, we’re out of there, moving through corridors at a pace that feels like crawling when every fiber of my being wants to run.
The next ten minutes blur together—stone walls, echoing footsteps, Marco’s tense silence beside me. The guards unlock doors with maddening slowness. Everything takes too long.
By the time we reach Evander’s office, my shirt is soaked with sweat.
Cas has beaten us there.
He’s stretched across Evander’s operating table, still in his bloodstained arena gear, writhing around. Low moans escape his throat—horrible, animalistic sounds that make my stomach clench.
But he’s alive. Making noise. Moving.
“Oh, good,” Evander says without looking up from the supplies he’s laying out. Not sarcastic—genuinely relieved. “You can tell Caspian to calm down. Or help me restrain him.”
“What’s going on?” I demand, rushing toward the table. “We saw him collapse.”
Evander glances up, his dark eyes sharp with concentration. “Profunda femoris branch. Deep artery in the thigh.” He gestures toward Cas’s leg, where blood seeps through hastily applied bandages. “Serious bleeding, but slower than if he’d nicked the femoral. Otherwise he’d already be dead.”
My throat goes dry. “He lost consciousness from blood loss?”
“Adrenaline likely kept him upright until the fight ended.” Evander moves to Cas’s side, peeling away the blood-soaked gauze. “Now I need to work.”
I rush to Cas’s head, his wild curls damp with sweat. Emerald eyes just about flutter open when I squeeze his shoulder.
“Cas. Hey.” My voice sounds steadier than I feel. “You did it. You’re a champion.”
His lips curve into a weak grin. “Told you.”
I glance toward where Marco was standing, expecting to find him watching us with that jealous tension he gets whenever Cas and I are close. But the space is empty. He’s given us privacy.
Guards enter carrying a bottle of fizzy wine—the victor’s prize. Cas’s eyes light up, and he feebly reaches for it. I pass it to him, popping the cork and sending foam across Evander’s sterile workspace.
“Robin! Caspian!” Evander barks. “This is a medical facility, not a bloody tavern.”
But Cas is already drinking straight from the bottle, wine running down his chin to mix with the blood on his chest.
I get my first clear look at his thigh wound. The gash runs from just above his knee to mid-thigh—deep, jagged, like the Deathball’s spikes carved through muscle and sinew. Dark blood wells from the torn flesh, more than bandages can contain.
“Fucking hell,” I breathe.
Evander reaches for scissors, cutting through Cas’s arena shorts with quick movements, peeling away the fabric.
Cas, eyes wide with delirium, grins up at Evander. “Always knew you secretly wanted to get in my pants.”
Evander pauses, scissors poised over Cas’s groin. “Do you want me to stitch you up or not? Because I can save my medical supplies.”
“I don’t trust your needle that close to my cock,” Cas half slurs, taking another swig of wine.
Evander’s mumbled response is too quiet to catch clearly, but it sounds suspiciously like something about pretty green eyes not making up for smart mouths.
Cas tips the bottle again, wine spilling across his bare chest as he lies flat on the operating table.
But he’s alive. Talking. Making terrible jokes.
For now, that’s enough.
Evander works in relative silence after that.
The only sounds are the soft snick of surgical tools and Cas’s occasional satisfied gulp from the wine bottle.
I don’t take the bottle from him. He deserves it.
He just killed a man with his bare hands and a metal ball of spikes.
If he wants to drink himself senseless, that’s his right.
The needle flashes in and out of Cas’s skin, Evander’s dark hands pulling torn flesh back together one careful stitch at a time. Blood seeps around the edges of the wound, but less now. More manageable.
Cas tips the bottle again, wine dribbling down his chin. His eyes are glassy, unfocused.
“There.” Evander ties off the final stitch and steps back, surveying his work. “That should hold, assuming you don’t do anything stupid like try to run laps tomorrow.”
“Finally,” Cas mumbles, voice thick with alcohol and exhaustion.
Evander strips off his bloodstained gloves, tossing them into a waste bin. “And now you’re through to next season, I’ll finally get a break from patching you up every other second.”
Cas snorts. “Oh, don’t worry, Doctor. You’ll still be seeing me. I’ll be here next week. With Robin. When you’re patching him up after his match.”
The words take me by surprise, stealing my breath.
Cas turns his head toward me, eyes struggling to focus. “Right? Tell him, Robin.”
I can’t speak. The words stick somewhere between my chest and my throat, refusing to come out. I can’t accept it. Can’t picture myself on this table next week, having just murdered Marco in the arena.
If I make it that far.
“Hey!” Cas suddenly snaps. “Don’t fucking do this, Robin.” He’s angry now. Upset. “You’re going to kill him next week. Kill Marco. You’re going to make champion. Don’t… don’t leave me. Don’t you fucking leave me here alone!”
The panic in his voice makes my chest ache. But I still can’t find words.
Evander moves closer, concern flickering across his face. “You need to rest now, Caspian,” he says quietly.
“How about you shut the fuck up?” he throws back at Evander.
Evander presses his lips and looks down at the floor.
I can see Cas already feels bad for it. But he doesn’t apologize. He tips the bottle up, takes another huge swig, then slams the base down on the table.
But Cas’s angry expression is already softening, his grip on the wine bottle loosening. The adrenaline that kept him conscious is finally wearing off.
“Close your eyes,” Evander says softly.
“I don’t need you to tell me what to do,” he mutters. But he doesn’t fight when Evander presses a hand to his shoulder. And he does close his eyes, cuddling the bottle to his side.
His voice becomes mumbly, words blurring together. “Robin… Marco… Doctor Death…”
The names tumble from his lips without connection or meaning. Then his eyelids flutter, and within seconds he’s snoring softly against the operating table.
I grab the empty bottle as Evander pulls a thin blanket over Cas’s bare chest. “I’ll keep him here tonight. Watch for any complications.”
I attempt a weak smile. “Sure you can handle him if he wakes up?”
“He won’t be waking up for hours,” Evander says, checking Cas’s pulse. “Trust me.”
I turn toward the door. I need to find Marco. Need to feel something solid and real after watching my best friend nearly bleed out.
“Wait.”
I hesitate, then slowly turn back.
Evander’s expression is grave now, all traces of humor gone. “Caspian is right, you know. Next week, you need to fight with everything you’ve got.”
Shock hits me, a cold slap to the face. “Why are you saying that? Isn’t Marco one of your only friends here?”
Evander nods slowly. “I love the bloody bastard.”
“Then…”
When Evander looks at me, his gaze holds something I don’t expect—compassion mixed with steel.
“If you hold back next week, Marco will hate himself for the rest of his life.”
I step backward, my shoulder blade hitting the cold stone wall. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means Marco would rather die fighting than live knowing you threw the match for him.” Evander’s voice is quiet but unrelenting. “He’s proud, Robin. Stubborn as hell. If he survives because you didn’t give everything you had, it’ll destroy him.”
My hands curl into fists. “So I’m supposed to try to kill him? That’s your advice?”
“I’m saying you fight with everything you’ve got. Both of you.” Evander moves closer, his expression intense. “Because that’s the only way either of you can live with whatever happens.”
The room feels too small suddenly. Too hot. I can’t get enough air.
“And…” Evander hesitates, then continues. “And you deserve a fair shot, Robin.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“Nothing about Deathball is fair. You know that.” His voice drops lower. “But you deserve that, at least. A real fight. An honest one. A chance at surviving.”
The words circle around my brain. Fair. When has anything in my life been fair? When my parents died? When Esme and I almost starved during the famine year? When Victora’s soldiers dragged me away in chains?
When I fell in love with the man I’m supposed to murder in seven days?
“I have to go.” The words scrape past my throat.
Evander nods, turning back to check on Cas’s vitals, and I push through the door and stumble into the corridor, my legs unsteady. I lean against the door to Evander’s office, sliding down until I’m sitting on the cold floor. My head falls back against the wood with a dull thud.
Evander is right. Nothing about this is fair.
Not for me. Not for Marco. Not for Cas lying unconscious on that table after beating a man’s skull to pulp.
My hands find my hair, fingers tangling in the waves. I pull. Hard. The sharp pain across my scalp feels good—clean and simple compared to the mess inside my chest.
I pull harder, until my eyes water. Until my scalp burns.
But it’s nothing compared to what’s happening in my heart.
It’s destroying itself from the inside out.
Complete annihilation.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.