Chapter 6 Cade
Cade
Time passes.
I don’t know if it’s days, weeks, or months, but it goes on without interruption—as if that little boy’s dying gasps don’t haunt me.
“Let me out!” My scream is nothing but a hoarse whisper because I’ve yelled it so many times.
Please let me out of here, I’ve begged. Give me something to replace the death of the little boy in my mind.
I know they’ve heard my calls. I know they’ve told him, but Marone leaves me locked in my cage, surrounded by darkness, starving for food, and to forget.
Curling into a ball, I sink into the dark recesses of my mind, reliving that moment for the millionth time. Every time I revisit it, my thoughts on what was worse change—his death or the cheers I got for it.
Throughout my life, I have always wanted to make a name for myself in the fighting circuit.
I wanted my name to be cheered by the thousands for my skills, but not like this.
The voices of a dozen men are almost as loud as that little boy’s, each of them battling for the number one spot for the worst.
“Please stop,” I cry out loud, pressing my hands against my ears, hoping for a moment of silence in my brain. Repeating the mantra three hundred times finally granted my wish. The noise in my head stopped because the door crashing into the wall replaced it.
Heavy, booted footsteps pound into the room. Two sets of them come to my side. When I peek my head up, I notice two more waiting by the open door, rifles held across their chests. When I try to ask what’s going on, the muscles in my throat fail me, leaving me puffing my questions like air.
Weak, with aching bones, they pull me from my steel enclosure, once again pinning my chest to the edge when standing.
Once my hands are bound behind my back, I’m led out of the door.
The path is similar to the one I took last time, bringing back memories in painful flashes.
Before they can become one long, continuous image, we turn down a different corridor, spiking my anxiety differently.
“Where are we going?” This time, the question does come out. It’s a hoarse whisper, but at least it’s heard.
“You’re needed in the arena.”
Arena? “For what?”
“Shut the fuck up!” A guard in front snaps, whipping his head around back to eye us. The men holding me cower beneath his glare, but I remain defiant, carrying my head high enough to meet his stare despite my exhaustion.
The mustached man in front turns back before I drop my eyes, so I consider myself the winner—until the elevator comes into view. My feet shuffle then, and I dig my heels into the concrete, doing anything to slow us down.
“I don’t want to go in there,” I mumble, more to myself than the others.
Still, one responds, “No one gives a shit what you want. Now shut the fuck up.” He ends his demand by throwing me inside, where the other guards wait on each corner.
The mustached man is the last to enter, keeping his back to me while inputting a series of numbers into a keypad.
When I attempted to look, the man holding my reins punched me in the back of my skull.
“Eyes down, fucker.” With his free hand, he forcefully keeps my head down until a ding separates the elevator doors. When everybody filters out, my head is yanked upwards, and I’m thrown out of the opening.
The mustached man catches me by the back of the neck and squeezes, pinching my corded muscles until I’m sinking in pain. “Don’t try anything with me, boy. I won’t hesitate to shove this gun down your throat and blow your fucking guts out if your teeth come anywhere near me.”
Through gritted teeth, I hiss, “Glad to see I scare you, fucker.”
Tightening his hold on my neck, my muscles begin to pop and scream. “You don’t do shit to me but keep running your mouth, and I’ll show you all I can do to you.” And with that, our walk continues. His grasp on me never lessens, but eventually, I become used to the pain.
Somehow, wherever that elevator took us is creepier than the dark room I’m held in. There, only my imagined shadows and steel cell exist, but here, someone polished the walls and cleaned the floors. Down this corridor, there’s only one door—a metal one at the very end.
With his fingers digging into my flesh, I’m unable to look up when another series of numbers is entered into a keypad. None of that matters, though, not when the shouts and cheers and roars seep beneath my skin.
Similar to before, I’m exposed to a room full of men, but instead of there being only twelve, there has to be more than a hundred.
And instead of there being a dozen boys on their knees, there’s a cage in the center—empty, covered in freshly spilled blood.
If I had any sense, I would have done everything in my power to get out of the mustached man’s hold, but I think, for the first time, I truly understand the hell I’ve been brought to.
And there, the devil sits on his throne, savoring the fear in my eyes.
High on his platform, Marone eyes me through the chain links, a smile edging over his crystal glass.
At his feet, a blonde girl kneels. As the guards bring me closer to the ring, I take in her greasy strands and the blood crusted on her scalp.
There are a ton of girls like that sprinkled over the laps of dirty, disgusting men.
Some sit idle, waiting submissively at their feet. Others—
Vomit crawls up my throat when I see their tear-streaked, bloodied, and swollen faces as they take men into their bodies.
Every hole is filled. Their desperate sounds of begging, unable to escape.
The ones closest look me in the eye, but there’s no life there.
They’re empty, broken vessels—dolls to be played with.
As I walk along the narrow path, the cage looms closer, near enough for me to choke on the acrid aroma of iron.
There are two more guards positioned at the entrance of the arena, who open the door as we approach.
The muscles in my legs remember their function and resist again.
With my arms being essentially useless, I flail my legs, kicking, digging, and shuffling until I’m right before the entrance.
“I would save my energy, boy. You’re going to need it.” And with that, the bindings holding my arms together are severed, and I’m thrown face-first onto the sticky floor. The crowd’s laughter rises when I get up and face the horror that covers me.
My clothes… my hands. I lift my fingers to my face, touching the residue on my lips.
Vomit doesn’t crawl anymore, but like a hydrant, it sprays out of my throat, dousing the gore on the mats with everything left in my body.
The crowd doesn’t laugh then, but Marone does, a booming sound that echoes over everyone’s horror.
It goes on until I stand to my feet and charge in his direction.
The links are the only thing that saves him, and he knows it when I snarl, “I’m going to fucking kill you!
You sick fucking bastard! I’m going to fucking kill you! ”
“Let me see you make it out of there first.” As he says it, the cage doors open again for a fighter covered in blood.
Head to toe, a man, maybe nineteen, two years older than me, a fuck-ton of a lot taller than me, stalks toward me, a red-coated blade dangling by his side.
The roar of the crowd thundered through the arena, each cheer a violent and needy wave crashing against the bloodied octagon.
Inside, the other fighter and I stand, his bruised, swollen eyes narrowing with breaths sharp and uncontrolled.
The light above our heads glints off his sweat-slick, marred skin, highlighting every contusion as he sizes me up.
“Hammer!”
“Hammer!”
“Hammer!” The mob roars, riling up the other fighter. Unlike the little boy, this one doesn’t allow me to say stop. Fists clenched, posture low and predatory, the man they call Hammer charges for me, running and then flying, swinging his fist high above his head to fall right on top of mine.
The butt of the knife cracks against my skull, immediately sending a rivulet down my face. I blink through the dense liquid, my heart racing as adrenaline powers through my veins. For a moment, there’s a brief pause, and I use it to glare at Marone.
“This one’s not so little, boy.” He doesn’t scream.
His tone is entirely controlled, yet I can hear it in my mind as if he’s speaking directly in my ear.
Turning back around, I eye Hammer, watching his knuckles fade to white as he bounces on his toes, waiting for the perfect moment to strike me a second time.
Like before, he lunges first, a series of uncontrolled, aggressive jabs cutting through the air toward my face.
Before he can come too close, I slide back, eyes tracking the movement, catching when his right hand shoots out, a hook aimed low, straight for my liver.
I twist away just in time, but it lands anyway.
The force of the punch sent a shock through my ribs, leaving me breathless for a second.
Unable to stop myself, a pained groan spits from my lips, but at least I’m still standing.
“What the fuck are you playing around for? Fucking kill him!” I look to see if Marone is shouting that shit at me, but no.
Pissed, Hammer growls, his anger rising at being called out.
He closes the distance again, this time swinging with reckless abandon.
A hard right hook lands square on my jaw, snapping my head back with a sickening crack.
The crowd erupts in cheers. Marone is nothing but pleased, if his light laughter says anything.
Convinced I’m down, Hammer presses forward, looking to finish this so maybe he can finally rest. But these fuckers don’t know me at all. I’m no stranger to pain.
Shaking off the punch, I feel my eyes hardening with intensity.
With a roar to rival the crowds, I dive in low, catching Hammer’s legs and lifting him off the ground.
The shock of the spectators inflates my ego, their gasps surging my strength as I slam his spine into the slippery ground with devastating force.
Grunting in my ear, his back lands on the mat with a sickening thud, but he’s quick despite the pain he carries in his face.
Annoyed, he fights to get to his knees after me, kicking his legs up and trying to regain any semblance of control.
Needing this to be over and to prove that I’m not some dog Marone can beat around, I drop back down on top of him, quickly taking my forearm and pressing it dangerously onto his jugular.
The pressure I place on him is suffocating.
His breath came in ragged bursts. For a moment, I think I got him, but I admire his strength as his will to live remains unbroken.
With a sudden burst of rage, Hammer bucks his hips, creating just enough space to slide one leg free.
In a split second, faster than I’ve ever encountered, his hands shoot up, locking around my neck.
Feeling the grip he has on my throat, my eyes widen, and the realization that I’m about to die finally sinks in.
Fight or flight, my hands scramble up Hammer’s arms, trying to pry them off, but his hold tightens.
“My knife won’t be wasted on you,” he mutters, eyes deranged, while his forearm now digs into my windpipe, just as I did to him.
I can feel the seconds stretching, my face turning hot, swollen, and red as I fight for even a single gasp of air.
Maybe in my fading conscience, I imagine the crowd holding its breath.
Perhaps I dream up a semblance of sympathy.
That has to be the case, because when my eyes begin to close, I know it’s cheering I hear.
As black begins to creep around my vision, my dad pops into my mind—him holding my mom in the same position I’m in now. He laughed too. When she cried and scratched and begged him to let her go, just before she passed out. All he did was laugh.
With a primal roar and my fucked-up asshole of a dad in mind, I force myself awake.
Lifting my legs, I twist the lower half of my body, driving my knee into Hammer’s ribs in a brutal strike.
That’s all I needed for his grip to loosen.
Even if it’s just for a moment, it’s enough for me to break free of his hold and throw a vicious elbow straight into his temple.
Hammer holds his head as pain explodes through his skull.
I know what it feels like. It’s as if his body is on fire, but just like my father, before he could recover, I’m on him again, knocking him back onto the floor.
Locking my legs around his waist in a clinch, I hold him in place.
Grinding him with sheer force, elbow after elbow, I hammer down onto his skull with brutal precision.
It doesn’t take long for blood to pool, staining the flooring beneath them. With nothing but pure survival swimming through my veins, I roared an animalistic sound, a primal and deafening snarl.
This time, it is purely intentional when I grab the handle of the blade at his side and drive the rusted tip directly between his eyes.
It took a strength I didn’t know I had to pull the blade free.
Once I had, the force that remained coursing through my muscles wouldn’t allow me to stop.
One after the other, I plunge the knife into every open space I can find—chest, heart, ribs.
Throat.
Throat.
Throat.
I cut into his throat until bits of muscle and cartilage covered the floor, and when the guards came in to pull me off, I swung at them too, nicking one in the side while I drove the blade into another’s kneecap.
The guard cries out.
I think I finally found something to drown out the little boy in my head.
“It’s over!” I hear someone—Marone?—shout, laughter still in his tone. “Blade, everyone!”
This is the second time he’s called me by that name, and once again, the crowd erupts into wild applause. As Hammer lay motionless on the canvas, I took him in.
He’s much skinnier than I initially realized.
His muscles aren’t that big either.
I thought he was older, but really… I think we were the same age. We could have gone to the same school and lived in the same town. We could have been neighbors and friends.
Finally getting me to my feet, with blood on their hands and fury in their eyes, I’m made to stand tall, my chest heaving, blood dripping from my face. They force my fists to clench in victory.
“Winner!” everyone shouts.
Again, I had survived the fight, but it had cost me another piece of my soul.