5. Uri #2
“Break her!” Robert yelled. “Break her so I can put her back together and make her perfect for me.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I took a deep breath. Corinthians swayed on her feet. “Stay down,” I said loud enough for only her to hear. “Please stay down.”
“I can’t,” she mumbled.
***
“Robert wants you to fight that girl again,” Kenbral announced. “She was being brought out when I was coming in.”
I didn’t need to ask him who he was talking about because he never said her name.
Every time we saw each other over the past few days, Corinthians was all he talked about.
Robert made him her sparring partner. “I’m not fighting her again,” I told Kenbral as we sat in our cages.
My next fight was supposed to start soon, but Kenbral and Robert bringing up Corinthians threw me.
I hadn’t seen her in weeks, and not because I didn’t want to.
After our first fight, Robert had me returned to my cage, where I sat for the next few weeks before he let me out.
I didn’t even know what day it was. Robert was upset that I had prolonged our fight.
He wanted Corinthians to have the full experience of a real fight against someone bigger, stronger, and out of control.
To prove a point, he locked me in here, only allowing me to be out when I had a fight or punishment.
“You have to,” Kenbral moaned. He’d been fighting nonstop.
Robert knew that putting me in here and having him out there would make me angry.
He was right; it did, but not with anyone besides him.
Kenbral lay on his side, eyes swollen shut and lips busted.
He’d gone against one of the Franklin brothers earlier.
It wasn’t a death match, but Robert always wanted them to end in death.
If Kenbral was in here, it meant he didn’t kill whoever he fought. “He’s not going to stop until you do.”
“He can’t make me,” I said, shaking my head.
I didn’t move too much because I was in a new collar.
This one had spikes on the inside, and if I moved too much, they would pierce my skin.
I’d already been cut once and didn’t realize it until I felt blood rolling down my neck. To be safe, I decided to sit still.
“He will kill me if you don’t,” Kenbral mumbled. “Just to get you to do what he says, he will kill me, and you know it.”
“He won't kill you,” I told Kenbral. I smiled as I opened the doors. “He won't kill you because then he won't have anything to hold against me.”
“He has her.” Kenbral coughed, then laughed. “She’s all he talks about. His pet and the things she will do for him.”
“She’s not a pet,” I angrily replied. “She’s a kid.”
“So are we,” he wheezed. “But he doesn’t care. I heard him talking to her daddy. They are going to talk to her uncles and have the rest of the kids start fighting too.”
“What else did they say?”
“That’s all I heard before I had to fight,” Kenbral answered. “Robert’s pet doesn’t know.”
Two security guards walked into the room and came to my cage. Slowly, I stood, watching as the first one pulled the remote from his pocket. “Mr. Strong said to show you this, and you will fall into line,” he warned, waving the controller side to side. “I would advise you to do what I say.”
“I will,” I told him. I put my hands out, and they put the cuffs on me.
After they were secure, I walked out of my cage and towards the door.
The crowd's screams over their bets were loud, but my focus was on finding Corinthians.
I wanted to see her, to make sure she was okay.
I walked down the aisle and to my corner of the ring and stopped. “Get in.”
“You have to take the collar and cuffs off first,” I said, holding my arms out.
The security guards shared a look, and I waited.
“It’s the only way I can get into the ring.
I have to bend. I can’t do that with these on.
” They hesitated, and then the guard who had put the cuffs on me finally took them off.
I turned around and let them take the collar off.
I rolled my neck and shook my hands. I couldn’t feel anything, but that didn’t matter. The security stepped back, and I smiled as I turned around.
“Thank you,” I said, looking between the two of them. “And I’m sorry”
“Sorry?” One of them asked, and I nodded. “For what?”
“Getting you killed,” I answered him and pointed to Robert, who was standing at his chair.
Corinthians stood on the other side near her father.
Her head was down; her long hair covered her face, but I could see the bruises on her arms and shoulders, which made me mad.
The rule was that my collar wasn’t supposed to come off until he released me.
They didn’t know that, and it wasn’t my problem.
In the past, before my promise, I would’ve run off, but now I couldn’t.
Robert was going to kill them for not knowing the rules, and his attention would be focused on them and not me.
“Get in the ring, Uri!” Robert yelled. “Now!”
Slowly, I turned and climbed into the ring.
Luca Franklin stood on the other side, watching me.
He was a few years older than me, but we were the same size.
The bell sounded, and I ran towards him.
I wasn’t waiting for him to make the first move.
Not this time. I wanted this fight over and done with as fast as possible so I could get back to my cage.
With any luck, Robert would put Corinthians in hers, and I could check on her.