Chapter 10
The arena for the Execution Battle occurred in the dilapidated city of Tar that had a huge grey wall circling it to keep inmates in.
Enormous and vast. A playground for slaughter.
Facades were torn down, leaving only the carcass of steel and timber to suffer weathering.
There were still abodes available. Apartment buildings and store fronts and even a small suburb on the outskirts had accommodations for anyone eager enough to fight to stay in a quaint home for the full ten days.
Having limited spaces with lavish beds and foods and hot showers gave the inmates reason to claim regions and invade territories, always resulting in death.
And death was their main priority.
It was in their best interest to kill as many as possible.
With prisons pushing at the seams, it meant there was less to go around.
Less space, less food, less privacy, less medical attention, less laundered clothing.
After each Execution Battle at least a third of the inmates had been killed and the rest lived peacefully until the prison was piled up again.
It was no good to have them all killed.
People tended to forget who they were.
I remembered when I was younger, my brother telling me when Soulless were exterminated immediately, people forgot about their wicked nature.
Activists began rebelling against the culling of Soulless, trying to convince people they were human beings and after a while the death penalty was lifted.
A horrible time. Soulless were everywhere, destroying the world.
It took the harming of many innocents to finally bring the death penalty back and ensured it stayed in place.
The Execution Battle.
Overhead, drones would buzz with cameras that would televise to the world the true nature of Soulless. The ten days of death and torture would remind the world of what they were.
Of what I was.
The van rocked from side to side and Dig Graves kept his thigh tucked neatly against mine.
It did not matter how I repositioned myself, I could not veer away from him.
Our hands were chained to a notch in the seat between our legs and our ankles were confined under.
At least he could not snap anyone's neck.
Four hours we drove.
I did my best to ignore his thigh on mine, his constant stare, his sunglasses and instead focused on applying my sunscreen by squeezing it onto my fingers and bending into my lap to apply it.
“You’re flexible,” Dig Graves commented. “I can’t wait to find out what other ways I can bend you.”
“Yoga.” I slathered cream on my forehead. “I suggest it, particularly for yourself since you have anger problems.”
“I don’t have anger problems.”
“You’re a mass murderer.”
“Because it makes me happy.”
“Chai frappés make me happy.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty good too.”
I was certain I had not rubbed the sunscreen in properly and so I re-sat, looking for a reflective surface realising the only one close by was Dig Graves’s sunglasses. I did not have to ask him to continue looking at me, he did so on his own accord.
“I only do things that make me happy.” The reflection of my breasts showed in the glass. “And you make me so happy. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”
“I do apologise, but I actually have no plans to attend this Battle.”
“Princess, you’re in the Battle.”
“I prefer the battle of politics.”
“You wanna go into politics?”
“‘Want to’ not ‘wanna.’”
“That’s great you want to, real strong ambition.”
“‘Really,’ not ‘real.’”
“Your really smart.”
“‘You’re,’ not, ‘your.’”
“You’re good at lots of shit.”
“Not particularly.”
“You got someone you like fuckin’?”
“‘Fucking.’”
“Who do you like fucking?”
“I have no sexual preference to anyone.” My cheeks warmed. “No one at all.”
He cracked into a grin. “You like my sunglasses, don’t you?”
“Your what?” I needed to hump his face.
“My sunglasses, you keep looking at them.”
“Looking at what?” I’d even have him penetrate me in the armpits.
He cocked his head. “What is the first thing you notice about someone when they approach you?”
“For me, it’s the audacity.” I wondered how long he could hold his breath while face down between my legs.
“You notice if they’re wearing sunglasses, don’t you?
“Can I see your tongue?”
He stuck it out, showing me. Yes, that would do well.
A grin claimed his lips.
“Prin—” He sneezed.
A blanket of sunshine withered down upon the city. A car slept on its side, buildings scattered their old bones and what glass was left was shattered into claws.
Drones watched us above like Divinities.
As I stepped out of the van and into the city of death, my breath caught.
“Magnus!” I ran to him.
My brother hopped out of a black SUV donning his crisp white jacket. He popped his silver shades upon his oiled hair and opened his arms to me.
The inmates were herded into a cluster and looked on as the officers did not stop my run.
I stopped in front of Magnus, inhaling his vanilla shampoo. “Please tell me you got me out?”
He did not speak.
His body tightened. Stiff and cold as rock.
I lifted my head, looking up at my brother who had the same eyes, the same nose, the same mouth as mine. While I smiled, he clenched his jaw.
“Duckie,” he said. His voice, soft and brittle.
My smile cracked. “You got me out? Didn’t you? Magnus? Didn’t you?”
He looked down at me with glassy eyes. Under my hand, his heart thumped quickly.
“Duckie, I tried. I couldn't do it.”
It felt as if the world had been pulled out from under my feet. My knees bent. I almost collapsed if it were not for Magnus, holding me up.
Dig Graves stepped toward us.
Pure anger rippled across the features of his face, but for once, he was not looking at me. This anger was curated for my brother. Dig Graves balled his hands into fists and was about to step forward again until an officer held him back with a baton.
I settled the dread in my belly and looked back to my brother, clasping his arm, digging my nails into his skin. “What about Tommy? Did you get Tommy out? He is more innocent than I. He’s just a boy.”
“Who? Oh.” Magus scrunched up his nose as if he had smelled something rotten. “Duckie, that boy is Soulless. I cannot get him out.”
I frowned. “He is not. You know as well as I do his situation is wrong.”
“He killed his father.” Magnus laughed as if I were stupid. “Duckie, only Soulless commit murder.”
“It was an accident.”
“It was not.”
“It was.” That single tear bubbling up in Tommy’s eye had been birthed by guilt and grief. “We must save him.”
“We must save him?” Magnus heaved out a laugh. “How long have you known the boy?”
“Two days.”
He laughed again. “Oh, Duckie.”
“Magnus, he is innocent, it’s morally wrong to keep him here. You must save him.”
“I’m not saving him!” Magnus ripped the words from his throat. “You need to be thinking about yourself not some worthless boy.”
I let his arm go, blinking. There was a subtle greed in Magnus.
I always knew of it growing untamed inside the garden of him like an unplucked and prickly weed. Though he was a good person, at times he watered the weed more than the flowers.
He’d take the biggest slice of cake, spread a bit of gossip about his opposition and greatly enjoyed the way the maids and house staff cowered around him.
It was difficult for me to notice, because Magnus always put me first. It wasn’t until I was in high school when I had cheated on my exam that Magnus came into the principal’s office and somehow re-structured the events differently, making it seem as if another student had cheated and not me.
They were expelled. I asked Magnus what had occurred as I was still confused about the events, he had patted my head and told me not worry about it.
I was good. There was nothing to discuss.
“Duckie, listen to me.” Magnus grabbed my cheeks. “I’m going to do everything I can to get you out as soon as possible. When the alarm rings, just run and hide. Okay? You’ll be completely fine.”
I pointed my finger to my largest, most erotic issue on hand. “Dig Graves may interfere with that.”
Dig Graves who was perpetually grinning, tilted his head to me. “Hi.”
Magnus ripped his eyes up to the madman. “Don't you touch my sister.”
“Your sister is going to fuck me,” Dig Graves said. “And we are going to do nothing but fuck, and fuck some more.”
Pure poetry.
“And when I’m fucking her?” Dig said with a sinister smile. “I’m going to—” He sneezed and sneezed, each one grew louder after the next. “Hold—on—give me a—second.” He sucked in a breath as if he were drowning, furiously rubbing his eyes under his sunglasses. “Can anyone see a cat around here?”
Before he left, Magnus hugged me. He squeezed me until I could not breathe, and I had to grit my teeth to endure it.
I did not like this odd affection. The touching of fronts together.
Hot. Tight. Irritating. I preferred a handshake or a brief nod.
Or, if the person was somewhat appealing, and I was in the mood, a brief sexually intimate encounter that occurred below.
Lastly, Magnus pressed his lips to my forehead, and he was chauffeured quickly into the SUV.
I stayed here, in the new home of serial killers.
The inmates were positioned in a circle, all facing each other, and they clutched their weapons while I cradled my sunscreen. We glared. Every person picked their target. The smell of fear and wrath took root in the air.
Blood was about to carpet our feet.
Dig Graves stood opposite me at least ten long lunges away gifting me his full attention. I focused on him, my eyes wide, my heart skipping a beat.
Above us the drones flew high above our heads and the countdown to the Execution Battle began.
Five.
“Don’t you dare run away from me.” Dig Graves threw across the circle.
Four.
“If you run, I’m going to hunt you down.”
Three.
“There is nowhere you can hide. I. Will. Find. You.”
Two.
“I will always, always find you.”
One.