Chapter 14. #3
He lifts me by the arm he's caught, so I only have one arm to block his fist. When it connects, I feel dizzy.
I can feel the lingering bits of the pain all across my skin now.
All the hits I took will catch up with me soon.
I get good footing beneath me to throw my head into his nose and his grip loosens.
Just enough for me to grab his sleeve, pull him forward and connect my head into his again.
Again. Again. Again.
Each time he’s thrown back. And each time I pull him back forward to wreck his skull with mine. I'm dizzy I think. But so is he. I can feel blood seeping down my face. But I can also see his.
He pulls a dagger from a hidden pocket in his pants. A last-ditch attempt to get me away from him. But the dagger only sinks deep into my palm.
The pain is striking. Much sharper than the dull throb echoing across my body.
I like the look on his face, though. Like one who knows when he's cornered. Who knows when his life is up.
I pull him forward using my impaled hand to knock my head into his again.
And I can barely feel the impact echoing through my insanity.
Bump.
Bump.
Bump.
“Christian!”
Xavier’s voice pulls me out of the haze. It pulls me out of the madness.
And everything finally gets quiet.
Blood cakes my face. The room is spinning. I release Olsen, who falls to the floor, moaning incoherently, and drop into a crouch.
When did it get so quiet?
“I win?” My throat is parched.
Olsen’s incoherent moans are the only response, and I grin. I feel shaky when I rise to my feet. But I drag myself to the edge of the ropes and hold out my hand. Tobias is frowning but he slides the gun into my palm anyway, the one that wasn’t impaled.
When I turn, one shot echoes into the air, biting into Olsen’s ankle. His moans become more insistent. This time, it has just a bit more suffering.
I approach him again and fall into a crouch.
“I think I remember you saying something about my people.”
Olsen looks completely out of it, so I smack his face a few times.
“Wake up, Mr. Veteran, we have to finish our talk.”
Another incoherent sound. Tsk tsk.
I point the gun into his flat palm and pull the trigger and Olsen’s eyes sharpen up as he recoils from the pain, gritting his teeth.
“Fucking bastard.” He glowers at me through the pain and I smile.
“Much better.”
“Guns aren’t allowed in the ring,” An unfamiliar voice pulls me out of our conversation.
I know who she is the moment I see her.
Mal Taiga.
The Don’s wife and the lady of the house.
Her almost white hair falls over her bosom in a long braid to her waist and her brown eyes are cold and unfeeling, just like the rumours said when they coined her the ‘ice queen’.
Her presence commands authority and attention, her features are sharp and beautiful, just like Reuben’s, and a black jumpsuit covers her body, with a long brown jacket—not worn—but thrown over her shoulders.
I tilt my head. Why wear it if you’re not going to wear it?
Day 1,355 and people fashion remains a mystery.
“He looks just like you,” I say softly.
Her eyes widen a fraction, but her surprise is masked by her practiced cold exterior so quickly, I could be convinced I imagined it.
“It’s unreasonable to demand his life just for this.”
“Just for this?” I repeat and she regards me with cold precision.
“If I can’t keep my place here it’s no better than killing me,” I repeat my earlier words, holding her gaze while speaking slowly. “He knew that. You knew that.”
Her silence tells me she did.
“He asked for this fight before my recovery, and we agreed on the terms. His life is mine.” I hold the gun up for her to see, “It’s only fair that anything goes.”
Olsen sputters, “You crazy piece of—”
“The adults are talking, Olsen,” I point the barrel of the gun at his temple. “Don't think I've forgotten. What was it you said? You’d break in the kid gently? That you’d like how tight she was?”
I didn’t think Olsen’s face could get any paler.
I tuck the gun under his chin, “That you’d use Lucia until she bled.
” I’ll kill him for that if nothing else.
I've seen up close how hard Lucia is trying to heal.
How desperately she's trying to gather the scattered pieces of herself.
I'll give him that courtesy and put a knife in his throat just like I did with those two.
To show the others they better not fuck with mine. Not with Lucia.
And not with Evie.
“He wouldn’t have done any of those things,” Reuben’s mother barely stops me from pulling the trigger. “He was under my orders to goad you into a fight.”
“So now you’re saying he shouldn’t take responsibility for his words?” My eyes narrow as I stuff the gun into Olsen’s mouth, who makes a muffled protest. “That I let Reuben fuck me for a spot on the team? That I’m better off returning to my dead? Is this how I’m repaid for saving your son’s life?”
Her nose flares and she pulls a gun of her own to point at my head, removing the safety. “I am the woman of this house.” Her words are sharp and loud in the space. “If I say put away your gun, you put it away.”
“Respectfully, Mrs. Taiga,” I answer slowly, “I answer to your son. Not you.”
The poor miss looks like she can’t possibly believe her eyes. As though I’m an enigma she’s never seen before that dares to step in her path when she, the Queen, is in her own house.
Apologies, Miss.
There is a beat where neither of us moves. Her gun is trained on me, and mine is in Olsen’s big jabber that got us all into this mess.
The ‘me’ that isn't Christian is actually a bit happy.
I always wondered what it’d be like to be in a real stalemate.
Unfortunately though, Christian Adler can't die here.
I click my teeth, before turning to the man half-conscious on the floor, “You have kids, Olsen?”
There’s a single beat, where a familiar expression passes over his face, but it’s immediately obscured by pain and indifference as he grinds through his teeth.
“No, I don’t.”
Interesting.
Before I can even remove the gun from Olsen’s mouth, Tobias is grabbing my arm and hoisting me off the ground, taking my gun away from me with a pointed look.
Xavier’s hands are up in surrender as he steps between me and the Mrs. “He's concussed, Ma’am. Talking nonsense.”
I find it impressive how quickly we all seem to be retreating to the far end of the ring.
“I was just about to concede,” I defend myself.
“If you don't shut up, I'll shoot you myself,” Tobias grinds through a fake smile and Mrs. Taiga regards me with sharp precision.
“Teach him proper courtesy.” Her command is clear. “There won't be a second time.”
“Of course, Ma’am.” Xavier does a little bow as she puts her gun away. She gives me one last withering look, but for some reason, her expression is just a bit softer.
When she turns on her heel to walk away, the whole room seems to be holding their breath, and it’s only when the last of her personal guards leave, that I notice a familiar person in a corner of the room.
There’s that familiar tempest in Reuben’s eyes. The expression that I have yet to decipher, and like all the times before, it makes my insides itch. It creates a tether between us that feels much too close to my core.
Once again, immediately followed by the terrifying sensation of being seen through.
I look away, breaking the tether, and oxygen circulates the room again.
Luckily, that's the moment I choose to fall over.
Xavier barely catches me, but the stream of curses that leaves his mouth makes him sound very much like a Spanish Reuben.
It's refreshing.
“I’m surprised you didn’t shatter your fucking skull, cookie man.” I tune in just in time to hear his last words as he and Tobias help me out of the ring.
Even Gabriel appears with a small kit and starts bandaging my bleeding hand, pressing down gauze and wrapping it up as tightly as he can as we move.
“Everything about him is built like a giant.” I strain as Xavier throws my arm over his shoulder. “Except his head.”
“Don't bullshit me, you had more than enough chances to end the fight,” Xavier mutters. “Fucking lunatic.”
“… I was inspired?”
“Shut up if you’re not going to talk sense. Where’s the fucking doctor?”
“He’s waiting at the med ward,” Gabriel reports while wrapping my hand and I blink at him.
“Gabriel,” I blink through a new wave of dizziness, “I almost missed you.”
He snorts, “When you regain your senses, I'm going to tell you you said that.”
“… I had a dream once that you were nice to me. This must be another one?”
“… I'll start arranging the funeral.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Xavier snaps again, “Wrap him up properly until we get there.”
“Get the doctor for him too,” I mumble. “Olsen.”
The three of them almost trip over their feet to stare at me.
“You’re joking.” They say in tandem.
I huff. “He has kids.”
There’s another pause, but my eyelids are too heavy to stay open; I can't see what expressions they're making now.
“Bastard fucking lied to my face,” I can feel myself drifting off as I mumble. “Shit person but still a decent father. That doesn’t even make any fucking sense.”
The world goes black, but even as pain throbs across my body…
I can feel the warmth of the three of them close by.
And suddenly, the memory of cold nights and damp wet fur from pouring rain… feels like the lingering echoes of a nightmare that happened a long time ago.