4. Zela
Thursday
Ilied; it is that bad.
“You know, when Diane told you to show me around, I don’t think she meant for you to take me to the strip club,” I grumble as we pull up to a huge warehouse in what looks like a shady part of town.
Honestly, I have no idea what it is, but with these three, I feel like a strip club is a fair bet.
“Aww, sis, what's wrong? Got something against tits?” Jace says in a fake, sweet tone meant to mock me.
Too bad for him; I can play that game too.
“Nope,” I pop the p. “The tits are fine. It’s the unwanted extras I’m more than happy to stay away from.” I screw up my face, and he barks a laugh.
“I bet you like tits. Everyone likes what they don’t have.” Isaac catches my eye in the rearview, raising his brow as if daring me to argue.
I roll my eyes at his boring ass joke. Like I’ve never heard that one before.
“Don’t call her that,” Kolson snaps at Jace before throwing the car in park. The second the car’s off, they pile out, but I make no move to follow.
Jace hops out, and a second later, Kolson leans down to look in at me.
“Let’s go.” His voice is rough and demanding. I’m sure it makes most people fall in line, but I’m not most people, and I don’t take orders from him.
“It’s not a strip club, if that’s what you're worried about,” Jace calls out from behind him, as if he thinks that will somehow make me want to go with them. I wasn’t kidding, though. I wouldn’t care if it was.
No, my issue with this is my lack of choice. I didn’t want to go with them, and I definitely don’t want to be forced to follow them around, relying on them.
I was supposed to go down to the old fighting building today and get the information about the new location. I’m scheduled to fight opening weekend.
This weekend, I don’t have time for this shit.
“If you don’t get out of the car, I’ll pull you out and drag you in, kicking and screaming,” Kolson tells me, his voice unwavering despite his threat. I turn to look at him, ready to tell him off, but when my eyes meet his, I see the truth of his words.
He’s not just saying that in hopes of making me comply. No, he means it.
Fuck it.
The faster I get in there, the faster we can head back to the house. With any luck, I’ll still have time to slip away before dinner and get the new address. If not, I’m not sure what the hell I’ll do. Finding them isn't easy.
I should have taken Reed’s number one of the million times he offered me it.
Rolling my eyes, I get the satisfaction of watching his narrow in annoyance.
“Fine.”
I don’t give him time to rethink his threat before I slide across the leather seat toward the opposite door. He’s fucked in the head if he thinks I’m going to try to squeeze past all three of them.
None of us says another word as we head toward the building. Isaac and Kolson walk ahead of me while Jace walks a few steps behind me as if I’m a sheep he’s herding toward the door.
It makes my skin crawl having him at my back, and I can’t stop myself from looking back over my shoulder at him every few seconds.
We’re parked around the rear side of the building. A few other cars are scattered throughout the lot, but not many.
What the fuck are we doing here?
Kolson stops at the back door, rapping his knuckles on the hard steel six times before it swings open.
Jace flops his arm down on my shoulders as we make our way inside. I shrug him off, and he barks a laugh that bounces off the concrete walls of the hallway before putting it back again and pulling me into his side.
It’s going to be a long day.
“Aww, don’t be like that, Zela. You’re family now.
” He smiles at me as he all but drags me under his arm.
Unwilling to play this game with him, I stay put and choose to ignore him.
I can see that he lives for reactions, and while I have no problem standing my ground, I won’t be his source of entertainment.
The hallway feels like it goes on forever with them as company, but as we get closer to the end, I hear signs of life from the rest of the building. Shouts and movement, the scrape of something heavy being dragged along the concrete floor.
Isaac and Kolson disappear ahead of us, but I don’t see where they go as I look around the room.
Fuck.
I stop dead.
Jace’s arm all but slams into the back of my neck at how sudden, but I hardly feel it as I force him to a stop beside me.
Tables and chairs are being set up throughout the space.
People pull large stacks of chairs from one area to another as others roll large, round tables into place.
I watch as others bring out tablecloths and other decorations to set them up and make them look fancy once they’ve been put in place.
Everyone moves seamlessly from one place to the next; the occasional bark of an order is the only sound that can be heard amongst the almost frantic movements of people and furniture alike.
It would be far more impressive if I weren’t about two seconds from a panic attack.
They can’t know. It’s not possible.
I repeat the words in my head over and over like a mantra. But despite how true it might be, it doesn’t bring me any comfort.
What other explanation could there be?
How else would one explain the fact that these three, my new soon-to-be stepbrothers, have just brought me to The Pit?
I’m not a strong believer in coincidences, but the longer I stand here looking at the cage in front of me, the more I want to be.
I haven’t fought in over a month while they relocated to a ‘bigger and better’ location. Not to mention, I didn't even know where the location was until just now.
Nobody knows I fight.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
Two people do, but one of them disappeared 5 years ago, so it’s not as though I think he told anyone. Besides, the last time I saw him, I was still weak. Even he wouldn’t assume this is what I did every other weekend, and he didn’t know Vixen.
Only one person knows that, and despite knowing better, I trust him not to tell anyone.
I’ve been careful, just like he taught me.
“Zela!” Kolson’s sharp tone pulls me from my spiral.
I blink hard, pushing down my growing panic, and turn toward where his voice rang out. Kolson and Isaac stand across the room near a set of steps I hadn’t noticed before, their eyes both fixed on me.
“Sir.” A guy, probably around the same age as Kolson, approaches him with a clipboard and a serious look on his face.
He’s vaguely familiar, probably from my time fighting here, but I don’t know his name.
The only people I know are some of the fighters' alter egos, and Reed… and I guess Kolson, Isaac, and Jace.
“Tucker.” Kolson greets him with a straight face and a nod, and while there isn’t much emotion, he also doesn’t sound as annoyed as I’m used to. Meaning he either really doesn’t like me or he does like Tucker.
Not that I give a shit either way.
“Five fighters have yet to gather the information for the new location,” Tucker tells him, and just like that, Kolson’s pissed off again.
“Who?”
“Spite, Grimm, Vesper, Huntsman, and Vixen.”
I try to control my reaction, but fuck, it’s so weird to hear her name, my name. My heart is pounding so hard I’m shocked they haven’t heard it yet.
Do they know?
Isaac looks my way, and before I can stop myself, I’m speaking.
“Weird-ass names,” I say, trying to keep his attention off of me. The last thing I need is for him to look too hard at me. I need to blend in.
“All the fighters are anonymous. Not even we know who they are,” Kolson says, and I’m kind of shocked he took the time to explain.
I know that, or at least that’s what I’d always been told. But seeing as they own the damn place, I felt the need to make sure.
Without another word to Tucker, Kolson turns and heads up the stairs, clearly expecting the rest of us to follow him, and of course we do.
We reach the top, a platform that overlooks not only the fighting pit but gives a clear view of every seat in the house.
“Stupidest fucking rule I’ve ever heard of,” Jace grumbles as he drops into one of three chairs with a pout.
“You only hate it because it stops you from fucking them,” Isaac says, shaking his head.
“And? Have you seen them? Of course, that's why I hate it!” Jace yells, throwing his hands up in annoyance.
“Don’t act like you don’t get plenty of pussy as it is,” Kolson shoots back, rolling his eyes at his brother's dramatics.
His eyes dart around the room, taking in the setup that's taking place below us, as if daring someone to step a toe out of line. Jace barks a laugh at his jab, but even though Kolson didn’t seem to mean it as a compliment, that seems to be how Jace takes it.
“I never said that, but there’s no such thing as too much pussy.” Jace wiggles his brows in delight as he folds his arms behind his head. “But tell me you haven’t thought about it, Kol?”
A wicked smirk twists his lips as he watches his brother, hungry for a reaction. Kolson doesn’t give him one, though, instead keeping his eyes fixed forward and acting as though he hadn’t even heard him speak.
“Tell me if Vixen came up here after a fight and said she wanted to wrap those pretty lips around your cock, you would turn her away?” Jace presses, unable to accept his silence.
Jace’s question hangs in the air around us as if it has physical weight, and Kolson isn’t the only one who feels it.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! This is bad.
“Who’s Vixen?” I force out the question and almost sigh in relief when my voice doesn’t waver.
They don’t answer me for a second before Isaac lets out a sigh as if taking pity on me.
Fucking assholes. Why bring me here if they were just going to act like I was such a goddamned inconvenience the whole time!
“She’s our best fighter,” he tells me, and I see something in his eyes—maybe respect mixed with something else, but he looks away before I can figure it out.
“Best female fighter,” Kolson clarifies.
“Oh, we'll see about that. I bet our little fox wipes the floor with all of them.”