Bonus Chapter
The Pit Fight
JINX
The pit stinks like fear.
Not my fear. I don't feel fear anymore. They burned that out of me years ago, along with everything else that might have made me human. What's left is just a body. A mindless mass of brawn and brute strength.
Tonight's target is some kid fresh from juvie. Big for his age, with shoulders like a linebacker and hands wrapped in tape that's already spotted with old blood. He's been fighting for two years. Won enough bouts to catch the Custodians' attention.
They want to see what he's made of.
They want me to break him.
The crowd roars as they lead me into the arena. Not my name. H3 doesn't have a name. They call me the Beast. I've killed over thirty people in this pit. I've never lost a fight.
The lights are blinding. Spotlights aimed at the concrete floor, leaving the audience in darkness. I can't see their faces, but I can hear them. Rich voices slick with alcohol and anticipation. The rustle of money changing hands as bets are placed.
The Custodians love their entertainment.
My opponent is already in the ring. He's pacing, rolling his shoulders, loosening up. His shaved head catches the light. There's a tattoo on his neck, prison ink, a date I can't quite read from this distance.
Our eyes meet.
He doesn't look scared. That's unusual. Most people who face me are already half-broken by the time we touch gloves. They've heard the stories. They know what I can do. But this kid looks at me like I'm just another obstacle to overcome.
Stupid. Or brave. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.
The handlers push me into the ring. The gate clangs shut behind me, and the crowd goes wild. They're here for blood. They always are.
"Rules are simple," the announcer's voice booms through the speakers. "Fight until one of you can't get up. No weapons. No time limits. No mercy."
No mercy. That's the only rule that matters.
The kid settles into a fighting stance. His form is good. Self-taught, probably, but refined through two years of blood and desperation. He's fast on his feet, balanced, ready to move.
I don't bother with a stance. I just walk toward him.
The first exchange is testing. He throws a jab, quick and clean, and I slip it. Counter with an elbow that he blocks on his forearm. We circle, feeling each other out, reading patterns.
He's good. Better than most of the meat they throw at me.
It won't save him.
I close the distance faster than he expects. Duck under his cross, drive my shoulder into his stomach, take him to the ground. My knee pins his hip. My fist hammers into his ribs once, twice, three times. I can feel them flex under the impact. Not broken yet, but close.
He bucks, throws me off balance, creates space. Scrambles back to his feet with blood in his teeth and fire in his eyes.
"That all you got?" He spits red onto the concrete. "I've had worse from cellmates."
He comes at me. Hard, aggressive, throwing combinations that would put most fighters on their backs. I eat a hook to the jaw that makes my vision swim. Return it with a knee to the solar plexus that folds him in half.
But he doesn't go down.
He straightens up, gasping for air, and keeps coming.
The fight stretches. Minutes that feel like hours. We trade blows with increasing brutality, each hit harder than the last. My lip splits. His eyebrow opens, blood streaming into his eye. We're both breathing hard, both hurting, both refusing to quit.
The crowd is losing their minds. This isn't what they expected. They expected a slaughter, a quick demonstration of the Protocol's superiority. Instead, they're getting a war.
I catch him with an uppercut that lifts him off his feet. He hits the ground hard, bounces once, and lies still.
The crowd erupts. The handlers move toward the gate, ready to drag out the body.
He gets up.
Slowly. Painfully. One hand braced against the concrete, then the other. His legs shake as he pushes himself vertical. Blood drips from his face, pools at his feet. But his eyes find mine, and they're still burning.
"Not done yet." His voice is a rasp. "You want me dead, you're gonna have to work for it."
There’s a stir in my chest. Something I don’t understand because I'm not supposed to feel anything anymore. The Protocol burned that out of me. Pain is instruction. Attachment is weakness. I am a tool, and tools do not feel.
But I feel something now. Looking at this kid who won't stay down. This stubborn bastard who keeps getting up when anyone else would have quit.
Respect, maybe. Or recognition. He's fighting the same way I used to fight, before they broke me. Before I became this.
I hit him again. Knock him down a second time. He stays down longer this time, his body refusing to cooperate with his will. The handlers edge closer.
He gets up again.
Blood is pouring from his nose, from his mouth, from a gash on his forehead. His right eye is swelling shut. He can barely stand, swaying like a drunk, but he raises his fists anyway.
"Come on," he gasps. "Let's go."
The third knockdown is brutal. I break his ribs with a body shot. Feel them crack under my knuckles. He goes down hard and doesn't move.
The crowd screams for me to finish it. Kill him. End this spectacle and give them what they paid for.
I walk toward him. My body moves automatically, muscles primed for the killing blow. One punch to the temple while he's down. One stomp to the throat. There are a dozen ways to end a life, and I know them all.
His eyes open.
He looks up at me, this kid who should be begging for mercy, and he smiles.
It's not a defiant smile. Not a challenge. It's something else. Acceptance. Peace. He's made his peace with dying, and he's not going to beg.
He's just going to look at me while I do it.
I raise my fist.
The crowd holds its breath.
I can see it all laid out in front of me. The trajectory of the blow. The impact. The spray of blood and brain matter. Another body to add to my count. Another number in the Protocol's success rate.
His eyes don't waver. Brown, almost black in the harsh light. Steady despite the pain. Despite the certainty of death.
He sees me.
Not the Beast. Not H3. Not the Protocol's greatest success. He sees something underneath all of that. Something I forgot existed.
A person.
My fist doesn't fall.
The crowd goes silent. The handlers freeze. Everyone is waiting for the kill that doesn't come.
I lower my hand.
"What the fuck are you doing?" One of the handlers' voices cuts through the silence. "Finish him!"
I turn my back on the kid and walk toward the gate.
"H3! Complete your objective! Kill the target!"
I keep walking.
The handlers intercept me before I reach the gate. Three of them, armed with shock batons, faces twisted with confusion and rage. Protocol subjects don't disobey. Protocol subjects don't walk away from kills.
"Get back in there," the lead handler snarls. "Finish the job, or we'll—"
"No."
The word feels strange in my mouth. I can't remember the last time I said it. Maybe I never have. Compliance is the foundation. Obedience is the path. I am a tool, and tools do not say no.
But I'm saying it now.
The first shock baton catches me in the ribs. The electricity is familiar, just a different flavor of the pain they've been feeding me for years. I don't go down. Don't even flinch.
The second baton hits my shoulder. The third, my neck. My muscles spasm, my jaw locks, but I stay on my feet.
"Isolation," the lead handler barks into his radio. "Get the Protocol team. Subject H3 is malfunctioning."
They drag me out of the pit. Through the corridors, past the cells where other fighters watch with hollow eyes. Into the basement levels where they keep the equipment for discipline.
The next three days are pain.
They strap me to the table. Hook me up to the electrodes. Pump me full of chemicals that make every nerve ending scream. They run Protocol refreshers, conditioning loops, everything designed to reset a malfunctioning weapon.
"Why did you stop?" They ask me, over and over. "Why didn't you complete your objective?"
I don't have an answer. Or I have too many answers. I stopped because he looked at me like I was human. I stopped because for one moment, I remembered what it felt like to be more than a tool. I stopped because killing him would have killed something in me too.
They don't accept these answers. They can't. The Protocol doesn't have parameters for mercy.
By the third day, I'm barely conscious. My body is just burns and bruises and needle marks. My mind is fractured, scattered, held together only by stubbornness.
But I don't break.
They try to make me. They use every technique in their arsenal. But something has changed. Something about looking into that kid's eyes and seeing myself reflected back. Something about choosing, for the first time in my life, to walk away.
I am H3. I am the Protocol's greatest success.
But I am also something else now. Something they didn't program. Something they can't control.
Not anymore.
ASHER
I thought I was going to die in that pit.
I was ready for it. Two years of fighting had beaten any fear of death out of me. I'd seen too many bodies dragged out after bouts, too many kids who thought they were invincible until they weren't. Death was just the price of admission. The final exit from a game I never asked to play.
When they told me I was fighting H3, I knew it was over.
Everyone knew about H3. The Beast. The Protocol's crowning achievement.
He'd killed a ton of people in this pit, and those were just the official numbers.
Rumor had it the real count was higher. Rumor had it he could snap a man's neck with one hand.
Rumor had it he wasn't even human anymore, just a killing machine wearing a man's skin.
I didn't care. Rumors weren’t real anyway.
If I was going to die, I was going to make them work for it. I was going to fight until my body gave out. I was going to look my killer in the eye and make sure he remembered me.