Chapter 46 - Kiera
KIERA
“Kiera…” Leo called out hesitantly from behind me.
“What’s the hold up? I told you I want to see what you get up to while I’m gone.”
She frowned. “This isn’t the best ex—”
“Don’t be stupid. Look at how excited everyone is.” The crowd was crushing in from either side, tearing us away from Chels and Tanner and Bella as they excitedly herded toward the biggest tunnel.
“Who cares about all of this? We can still go home. Have some fun of our own?” Spencer hedged, but I ignored the implication.
“I’m having plenty of fun here. Come on.” I marched onward, giving them the option to either chaperone what happened next or leave me to my own exploration. And exactly as I predicted, they chose the former.
I was determined to keep moving forward. No matter how tight the ball of anxiety in my chest grew, I knew I needed answers.
But god, I fucking hate crowds.
Being stuck underground was already a big no for me. At least after Spencer showed me how close the fresh air was, I felt a little safer.
Though, as the crowd shoved down the long tall tunnel, I realized Spencer hadn’t been kidding about the other dangers lurking in the dark.
Along the hall’s edges were a few makeshift stalls with rusty, corrugated metal for roofs. The wood display cases out front of them showcased all sorts of forbidden goodies. But the most popular by far was the stand selling glass bottles with clear liquid inside.
Vodka?
Tons of the bikers around us were chugging the shit. But when an open container of it wafted past me, the smell nearly made me empty my stomach.
Spencer leaned into my ear. “Moonshine, baby. Nasty stuff. It’ll have you fucked up for a week.”
Scrunching my nose, I went back to observing. Another stall had weapons, mostly knives and axes. A special sign showed the prices for personal inscriptions.
How many of them are carrying weapons like that right now?
Before I could question it, the crowd carried us forward. There was a bright light at the end of the tunnel: beyond it, the roar of a crowd was already swelling to an apex. I shielded my eyes against it, still trying to adjust from the dim, red lighting from the main tunnel.
But with each step, the light grew closer, brighter, inescapable. I turned my head just in time to see the last stall before the exit.
Dagger For Hire
I wanted to laugh since clearly it was a joke. No one would offer that.
But Leo had followed my gaze, her face grim with concern as she studied my own expression carefully.
What the fuck?
Before I could figure out what was going on, we were kettled through a narrow doorway. Leo’s massive body shielded me from the shoving of the other bikers as we stepped into a massive concrete arena. Everything was flushed white under stadium lights.
“Holy shit.” I blinked, struggling to see anything through the glare.
Spencer grabbed my hand, guiding me to a row of rickety seats to our right. They were the old kind of movie theater seats, the ones we had as kids. Narrow and tight with worn, woven fabric made to look like velvet. Nothing like the new leather ones with the fancy levers and buttons.
Leo squeezed to my right, letting Spencer sit on my left.
Surrounded, there was no way I could get past either of them in such a narrow space.
Whatever was about to happen, I was stuck here.
A deep pit of sand sat at the bottom of the arena, surrounded by high concrete walls topped with barbed wire. I’d come here seeking answers, but for the life of me, I could not figure out what the fuck I was seeing.
Turning in my seat, I tried to get a sense for how large this place really was. Hundreds of bleachers rose above me, making a circle around the ring on the ground.
It looked like some kind of underground, dingy colosseum cobbled together from the scraps of Valemont’s refuse.
As I looked around the place, I knew it was more than that. Almost everyone here had a sword tattoo. But they weren’t all the same.
Some had nothing but a blade and scales. Others were dripping in some kind of liquid. Others still sported a rounded fist around the pommel.
Almost every seat was filled by the time the house lights faded to darkness, leaving only a perfectly light circle in the pit.
Leo was already leaning back in her chair, almost like she wished she’d bought some popcorn for the night.
The crowd roared as a woman with short hair and metal, spiked pauldrons over her suit jacket stepped into the light. She held a microphone close to her lips and let her roaring voice reverberate through the arena. “Ladies and gentlethems of the night, welcome to The Hollow!”
The words set off a wave of cheers from the rambunctious crowd.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking over my shoulders at the excited audience, wondering what the fuck they were cheering for.
“Who’s ready for a showdown?” The announcer threw out her arms, waving the crowd's enthusiasm on.
Another roar came from beside me, barreling down toward the pit before us.
With a laugh, the announcer brought the mic back to her mouth. “Since tonight’s a bit impromptu, let’s keep things casual and skip the formalities. Please welcome the first offering of the night: The Bull and The Spider!”
My forehead wrinkled as the announcer disappeared into the stadium. Then an old pull-down security gate began to lift from one of the concrete walls. The clanking metal resonated off of the hard walls and up the steep sides of the arena.
Only once the gate was lifted did a towering, hulking figure lurch from the darkness behind it.
The overhead light cast a dark shadow on her face, only her mean grimace translating all the way up in these seats.
But she wore a tightly wrapped bandage around her chest, her muscles gleaming with sweat.
Despite the distance to the arena, I could see veins popping out of her skin, smears of dark face paint dripping down her face and chest.
The crowd roared as the announcer came back over the loudspeaker. “With 17 career wins in just one year, weighing in at 230 lbs, this is The Bull!”
Leo and Spencer clapped from my sides, recognizing whoever this was. But the rest of the stadium roared for her.
And then, the sound of another gate lifting clattered through the crowd — one I couldn’t see. That’s when I realized what this was: some kind of demented fighting pit.
“Weighing in at 185 lbs, representing House Araneae, and debuting for her first fight: The Spider!” The announcer’s voice amped up the crowd, encouraging them to give this new contestant an earnest greeting.
With a clearly manufactured bravado, the smaller fighter stepped into the ring. She wore a torn up, sleeveless tank — one she could’ve ripped directly from Spencer’s closet — and her hair was cut into a tight buzzcut.
Jumping around the pit, The Spider kept her arms up near her face, trying not to let her guard down for even a millisecond.
Once the two stood at the center of the pit, they gave each other a smack on the hands that hovered somewhere between a greeting and some kind of pact.
I should have been more concerned, more worried about watching these two strangers potentially beat the shit out of each other. But I’d watched UFC fights while Gabe got drunk with his buddies.
And honestly, this seemed more civilized than televising it.
Without bothering to explain the rules of what was about to happen, a bell dinged over the loudspeaker.
Breaking my trance, Spencer placed her hand on my knee. “You okay?”
I couldn’t look away, afraid I would miss something important. Some explanation of what I was going to witness here in this strange, dingy tunnel.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
Leo looked away, long enough to check if I was lying.
But the truth was, I couldn’t tell if I was lying or not.
And then The Bull lifted her fists, the smaller Spider tightened hers to her own face.
Even from up here, I could see the nerves on the small fighter. Now in view as the two of them sized each other up, moving in a small circle, the Spider was tall and spindly. The nickname made sense for her build.
Spencer leaned forward and shouted toward Leo. “Feel kinda bad for this fucker. First fight and she gets pitted against this monster?”
With a shrug, Leo watched the pair in the ring. “Don’t count her out. Size ain’t everything.”
It almost made me laugh coming from Leo, but the joy was cut short by the sound of fist meeting skull. A thud echoed up the concrete walls as The Spider took a hit to the face.
“Jesus.” I winced, but couldn’t look away as blood splattered across the sand at the fighters’ feet.
Relentless, The Bull charged The Spider, pummelling her ribcage with boulder-sized fists. Despite The Spider’s attempts to protect herself, there was no fending off punches like that.
Someone’s going to call it.
They couldn’t let this go on.
Against my wishes, I’d seen plenty of MMA fights that dragged on too long. Gabe got off on the brutality of it all and loved betting on the gnarliest fighters. But this was something else. There was a feral energy in that pit that I’d never seen behind someone’s eyes.
Maybe just once.
The Bull backed away, giving The Spider a second to recover. The smaller fighter blinked away the blood pouring out of her face and lifted her fists.
Are they laughing?
My eyebrows knit as The Bull’s shoulders dropped, a smile creeping onto both fighters’ faces. “What is she…”
Before I could finish the question, a fist hurtled toward Spider. Landing just under the chin, the punch flung her head back and up and sent her body flying to the floor.
Out cold on the ground, the crowd roared for the beast standing at the center of the arena. Two people came out and grabbed The Spider’s arms and legs, carrying her back into the tunnel from whence she came.
“Jesus Christ, how could they let her get hit like that?” I felt my chest heaving, anxiety and fear filling my body.
Leaning down, Leo intercepted my gaze. “Princess, they all know the rules. It’s their choice.”