Focusing on me, his champion.
The one he now controlled … in every way possible.
As if knowing what I was thinking, a slow victorious grin pulled on his lips. My legs physically shook as I tried to keep from sacrificing my life just to take his life first. But as his wide, glittering eyes looked up to 152, standing like a broken child behind him, I planted my feet into the sand.
A wave of protectiveness washed over me when I saw who 152 was looking at: me. And I saw Master’s livid reaction to who held her gaze. This time when he looked at me, there was a new fire in his stare. He had given his mona to me—but he didn’t want her to want me. He wanted her affection all to himself.
My cheek twitched as I fought the smirk threatening on my lips. Master caught it, though. His knuckles became white as he gripped the arms of his seat. He leaned forward, his hard face showing how much he wanted to order my death. For a moment, when he rose to his feet and the crowd quieted down, I thought he would see through his biggest wish.
Then a darker man, dressed in strange clothing, stood beside him and shook his hand. The male was smiling wide, nodding his head at something Master said. As I glanced to the dead male beside me in the pit, I saw the similarities to him and the strangely dressed male. It was his Master. The one my Master had needed me to win over.
I had done as Master planned.
The crowd grew restless as the males talked. When Master finally looked back my way, he dismissed me from the pit with a quick flick of his wrist. Turning on my heel, I jogged out of the ring and down the warriors’ tunnel. I forced myself to look unaffected. But when the tunnel darkened and I knew I was out of the spectators’ view, I drew to a stop and clenched my teeth at the pain stabbing at my body. I glanced behind me and saw my bloodied footprints on the sand. I raked my gaze over my body and growled low when I saw I was littered with gashes, deep slices showing more than a few hints of open flesh.
I hadn’t been touched in five years. Hadn’t sustained a scratch since I became champion and simply decided that no opponent would ever touch me again. I knew this match had just made the excitement for Master’s sick spectators that much stronger. The champion, the Arziani Pit Bull, had just been wounded in the show rounds.
It would raise expectations. More investors would join, eager to have their champions bring me down once and for all.
I heard the guards beginning to move in behind me. I kept going, struggling to walk all the way to my cell. As I passed 667’s cell, I heard a high-pitched giggle drifting into the hallway. I stopped dead as his mona laughed again. The sound cut through me like a knife. Not because I couldn’t stand the sound, but because I’d rarely heard that sound in my entire life.
As his mona laughed again, 152’s beautiful face came into my head. I saw her tears, I saw her fear … I didn’t see her laugh. My heart stuttered as I envisioned her smiling at me or laughing at something I’d said. I couldn’t breathe as I was trapped in that dream.
It fell apart when I caught 140 moving to his cell door. He stared at me with his vacant, lifeless eyes, as his arms threaded through the bars and hung across the horizontal bar.
When 667’s mona laughed again, 140 moved his attention to the other champion’s cell door. He spoke without looking at me. “It’s only a question of time,” he said coldly, his body still bathed in his opponent’s blood. “When Master feels like it, needs something, or simply wants to fuck with his mind, he’ll kill her.” 140 pointed at 667’s cell. “He’ll start by taking her away from him every now and again. He’ll expect her and she won’t arrive. When she does, she’ll be hurt and bruised. She’ll be quiet. He’ll bring her to his cell door or have him brought to the mona quarters. Then, with 667 restrained, Master will take her or stand by as he orders another warrior or guard to do it for him. 667 will slowly begin to break, seeing his female being forced to take another male’s cock.” His hands moved to tighten on the bars, then he bit out, “He’ll kill her in front of him. And he’ll die along with her.” He looked to me, but I knew his eyes were still locked in the past. “Only he’ll be forced to still live in this pit, waking each day and fighting some other man-made animal he doesn’t give a shit about in the ring. And the worst part is, Master won’t even think of it again. He’ll move on to play with another warrior’s head. Because that’s what he does. He created this empire to toy with us, his slaves.”
667’s laughs came from his cell, and my eyes drifted to fix on his door. “I have been here since I was ten. I don’t know how many years have passed—Master makes sure we don’t know, doesn’t he? But I guess that I am in my twenties. I got my mona, I think, about two years ago.” I glanced back to 140. Now he was staring at me. “In all of the years I have been here, I only remember those days I spent with her. They are the only memories I have. I don’t remember much of my childhood, because of the drugs. I don’t remember my fights, because I have killed too many, too often. But I remember every second spent with her.” His face flushed red. “And I remember the gleam in Master’s eyes when he slit her throat as my punishment for not being effective enough in the pit. I received a blow to my arm that the Master thought made his warrior—me—look inefficient. So he killed my heart.”
“He is an unworthy male,” I responded.
140 laughed a humorless laugh. Then his face hardened back to a deathly expression. “Since my mona died, I have been thinking every night: Why are we here? Where did we all come from? Why did Master create this Blood Pit?” His face contorted. “And why the hell are we all obeying? We are all warriors. We kill. That is all we do. We kill every day. As children, we killed. As males, we kill. Yet we do not kill them.” He meant the Wraiths. “We don’t ask questions about anything, we don’t rise up. We only know this life. And we accept it.”
“Most of the male fighters are drugged more than we are. We are on special privileges because we are champions,” I said.
“The chiri give us our drugs every day. Every person in this pit. The monebi, the Ubiytsy, the fighters, us. Why? Why do we all do it? If the chiri were to stop the injections, the males would fight with clear heads. We could save the monebi, whose only purpose is to spread their legs and then be killed. We could be free.”
“You want to be free?” I asked, his words circling my head. I couldn’t stop his questions from becoming my own.
He shook his head. “No. I want to die. I want to leave this life.” I frowned. 140 leaned forward as much as he could out the cell door and said, “But I’ll take out as many of these fuckers as I can as I go. Master, if possible; his investors, at the very least. Since he killed my mona, I have nothing left to live for. Once I get my chance, I will take it with eyes wide open. And I’ll die with a smile on my face, knowing I have taken some of the Wraiths down with me.”
“How will you do it?” I asked, my heart beating faster. I was siding with his plan. My body celebrated the thought of his vision.
He shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But a time will come. I’m praying all of us slaves will finally rise up and take them all down. But if that never happens, I’ll die doing it myself.”
I was quiet after he had spoken. 140 began backing away. But before he disappeared into the privacy of his cell, he said, “You, 667, and I have been in these quarters almost the same amount of time. In all of those days, I have never seen you even gain a scratch in battle.” His eyes narrowed, then widened, clearly realizing something important. Moving closer again, he guessed correctly. “The mona. The High Mona that you have been servicing each night. He used her, didn’t he?”
My lips rubbed together, and a sense of failure took me in its hold. 140 shook his head slowly and sighed. “You want her.” He stared at me and added, “I thought you felt nothing for her. I have walked past the cell and seen her in the corner, alone, afraid.” His head tipped to the side as he searched my hard expression. “But you do. And he now knows it.” His hands took hold of the bars. “Am I right?”
My silence said ev
erything.
“How did he threaten her? Did he threaten to take her back? Did he hit her? Starve her? Give her to another warrior?”
I vibrated on the spot as I thought of the guard holding a knife to her throat. I held my Kindjals tighter, as I replayed the wide look in her eyes. Opening them, I hissed, “He was going to cut her throat. He had a guard stand behind her. He ordered me to make more of the fight. To draw out the kill.” I glanced away in annoyance, then added, “I was going to just let her die. I needed to let her die…”
“… But you couldn’t,” 140 finished. I wanted to snarl back that he didn’t know what he was talking about. That I didn’t care for the mona that had been forced upon me.
But the words wouldn’t come from my mouth.
I couldn’t get them out, no matter what I tried.
“He was going to kill her?” 140 prompted, and stepped back. His hard expression turned to sympathy.
“What?” I spat, edging forward toward his cell.
140 stopped. Then, running his hand over his face, he said, “Then you’re fucked. He tested you. He normally starts slow. But with you and his mona, he put everything on the line.” He crossed his arms. “We’ve all seen him parading the High Mona through the pits, holding her close, owning her, possessing her.” His eyebrow raised. “Even though he has given her to you, he hasn’t truly given her to you. And if he was willing to kill her for your submission, it means he will risk it all for you to break. It makes you the most sorry son of a bitch in this place.”
As 140 walked away, he said, “I didn’t even know her name. I knew her number but not her name. Fuck, I don’t even know my own. I know nothing. None of us know anything, outside of how we live and exist in here. But without the drugs, the privilege we earn as champions, it means that we can think. For ourselves. I don’t know what the world outside is like, but I know that this place of blood and pain is wrong. I feel it in my heart. I feel it with everything I am.”
The sound of the guards approaching made me move forward. With every step I took, the fire inside rose higher and higher, until I felt like I was burning from the inside out.
When I reached my cell, I slammed the door shut and leaned my heavy body against the nearest wall. My legs gave way as I slumped to the floor. My arms fell down, the injuries making them weak. My Kindjals clattered on the stone floor. Trickles of blood ran over my cut skin and onto the floor beside me.
I stared straight ahead, unable to move. 140 was right. All of the years here in the pit I had spent alone. Untouched and untouchable. And now they were gone. All because of Master’s whore.
I’d put my dick before my strength; now I was as much Master’s toy as 152. I had given him my pride. I had nothing left.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, but the sound of light quick feet approaching my cell pulled my attention to the door. My chest constricted when 152 appeared. A guard opened the door, then slammed it in her wake.
Her blue eyes were huge as she watched me sitting in the floor. Rather than be glad that she’d survived, it only fueled the fire in my blood.
Nervously, she stepped closer, then began to bend down to where I sat. Before she could, I threw my Kindjals across the cell, the noise thundering on the floor. She flinched and staggered back. Meeting her gaze to show her how much I wanted her gone, I snapped, “Get in the corner and out of my fucking sight.”
I heard her suck in a deep breath. A stab of some unknown feeling rumbled around my stomach. I pushed it aside when she scurried past me and crouched down. I felt her watchful gaze, but I didn’t look her way. My skin felt on fire, my muscles twitching in agitation. The air in the cell seemed too thick, too hot. I fought to draw in a simple breath.
Movement outside my cell door caused my head to turn. A guard let in a chiri, who had arrived to stitch my wounds. She carried a bowl of water in her hands, the needles and threads in a small bag hanging from a string around her fingers.
The chiri bent to work on my wounds. I pulled my arm away when she tried to clean off the blood. “Get off,” I hissed. “I’ll do it myself.”
The chiri bowed her head at my harshness and immediately got to her feet. She rocked from side to side like she didn’t know what to do. I looked up and saw her eyes widen as she stared at the stone floor. Her face was pale, and when I looked to her clasped hands at her waist, they were trembling.
140’s words about all of us in this pit played on my mind. About where we all came from. About how we all do what Master says without question. All the chiri wore the tattoo 000. I didn’t even know her name. I don’t even know my own …
“Leave them here,” I said, less harshly this time. “I’ll fix it myself.”
The chiri turned for the door, and I saw her shoulders slump in relief. She was scared of me. I risked a quick glance to 152 in the corner. She was huddled down, her body facing toward the wall.
She was scared of me, too.
For the first time since becoming the Arziani Pit Bull, Master’s cold and ruthless champion, it unsettled me. Everyone was scared of me. Even the guards never came too close to the cell for fear I’d snap their necks. It was a well-founded fear, I’d done it to them many times before. Opponents had even pissed themselves when I’d run into the pit from the darkness of the tunnel. Everyone stayed clear. It was something I’d ensured was the case.
667 had told me that we—all under Master’s rule—were the same. We had to protect one another.
I had only ever taken care of myself.
The clanging of the cell door shutting echoed off the stone walls. And then we were in silence. My head fell back against the cold wall and I closed my eyes, simply breathing.
I wanted to black out. Just fall asleep and wake up with 152 gone and my life back to how it had always been. I felt the lines crease on my forehead when I thought about my life before the past couple of weeks. It was the same thing every day: wake, eat, be injected, train. Then on match days, kill. It was an endless cycle.
A hole caved in the pit of my stomach. 140 had told me the privilege we got from being champions was being free from the drugs. We could think. Think for ourselves. For so much of my life I had no memory of how I had lived, of how I was taken.
I didn’t even know my name.
Once I was off the drugs and moved into these quarters, I quickly fell into my routine. But now 140 had implanted a seed inside my head—one of free thought. Opening my eyes, I looked down at my cut arms and legs. I saw the blood washing over my stomach, drying over my identity tattoo.
901. I was 901, nothing more, nothing less. I was Arziani’s Pit Bull. The most efficient and successful killer the Blood Pit had ever known. I wondered if I was ever something more. If I was freed from this place, could I be more? The squeeze of my chest told me I was and I could.
I tried to envision what the world was like aboveground. I couldn’t. My only memory of being out there was when the Wraiths had taken me. When they had arrived in the night and taken me from my bed.
There was nothing else.
I thought of the thousands of investors. I thought of the spectators that sat in the crowd at the matches. They were not from the pit. They were from outside. They had lives. They were free.
So why weren’t we? Why wasn’t I?
The skin began twitching around my wounds. I knew I had no choice but to tend to them. If I was to be okay for the tournament, I had to seal the wounds so they wouldn’t get infected.
Taking the bag off the floor, I ripped it open, the thread already hanging through the needle. Holding out my arm, I picked up the needle and brought it to my first wound. I didn’t even flinch as the needle punctured my skin. I was used to more than this level of pain. Though I grunted when I reached halfway. I couldn’t reach the top of the wound at this angle.
Dropping my arm, I sighed. My jaw clenched in frustration.
“Why?” My head snapped to the corner of the cell at the soft question coming from 152.
As I
met her blue eyes, her cheeks flushed. Her arms were wrapped around her bent legs. Bent legs that were tucked as close as possible to her chest.
My eyes narrowed, not knowing what she meant. Seeing my confusion, she swallowed then explained, “Why did you do it?” She glanced away, then added, “Why didn’t you just let me die?”
I shifted on the floor. Then a pain hit my chest so hard, I thought it might cave in. She sounded so sad, so defeated. I couldn’t stand it. The red line over the front of her neck caught my eye. I realized just how close the guard had been from slitting it open. When my attention dropped back to her face, she was staring at me. I couldn’t understand her expression, but I noticed how beautiful she was.
So damn beautiful.
The metal bracelet on her wrist reflected the light hanging from the wall. As my vision became lost in my thoughts, I said, “I couldn’t see him kill you.”
There was a long pause. “But why? I don’t understand. You … you don’t want me.” Her head fell forward, her dark hair shielding her face. I thought she had stopped speaking, but then she whispered, “You should have let me go.”
That pain in my chest grew to a deep ache. “No one should die by the hand of a Wraith.”
She lifted her head and a lump built in my throat on seeing tears tracking down her smooth cheeks. She laughed a humorless laugh and asked, “Not even Master’s whore?”
My eyes fell to her bracelet again. I hated hearing how sad she sounded. My fingers curled into a fist. I took three deep breaths. On the fourth, I forced myself to meet her eyes. “You’re not a whore.”
She frowned. “You don’t believe that. You think I belong to Master, that I want him.” Her bottom lip trembled when she added, “He hurts me, you know. He makes me bleed and bruises my face.”
I stilled. The flames of hatred circled my heart, heating its blood. Then her head tipped to the side. “But you do not,” she added almost mutely. “You do not want me, but you give me your release to save me from pain. You do not want me, but you cause yourself pain to save my life.” The blush on her cheeks turned to a scarlet red. “And when you take me, you do not hurt me. You are gentle, although you are big in size. You could end this game that Master is playing with your mind. You are kind, and soft … you give me your care.”