CHAPTER THREE - ANYA

 

 

The muscles.

The tattoos.

The pure, raw power of him.

But most of all, those silver-gray eyes.

There is no way to get Cort van Breda out of my mind after that encounter in the reception hall. The way he looked at me. Like he was drawn to me.

But then… that sneer. If he had been closer, and Pavo hadn’t been talking, I think I might’ve heard a growl.

Sick. Heart. That’s what they called him in the Ring of Fire article. Two words with two periods. Like you have to pause between each one to get the full effect of how disturbing he is.

I was raised a certain way. I have been around certain people who had expectations of me. And if I didn’t meet those expectations, there were consequences. I became intuitive. Instinctual. It was a survival mechanism.

And eventually, these instincts became habit. And those habits turned into something natural and innate. Something I did without thinking.

I read people.

I put very little weight on words, even though I have more words inside me than maybe anyone else on this godforsaken planet. Words don’t mean much. I’ve lived with more than my fair share of empty promises, so I know this first-hand.

No. I look for something other than words.

I look at the eyes first.

The lips.

The eyebrows.

Are the shoulders tight and tense? Or open and relaxed?

Words never tell you as much about a person as body language. You don’t need words when you can look a person in the eye.

But even this is not enough.

Not in the world I live in.

You need to see into their hearts. That’s where the truth lives and this is how I process my world. This is how I get through it.

Pavo is still raging about Cort, even though he disappeared nearly half an hour ago now. “The fucking nerve,” Pavo is saying over and over again. “The fucking nerve.”

Pavo has described how he will win this fight tonight about seventy-five different ways. He wants to break Cort’s bones. He wants a head injury. He wants to snap Cort’s back and force him to watch, powerless, as he chops his throat and crushes his windpipe.

And as brutal as it sounds, it’s a lot tamer than the plans he was making last night.

Pavo has just been sipping the Lectra today, but last night he was raging drunk on it and today he has to pay the price for that. Lectra is a weird drink. It turns you inside out for a while, and then, when it’s gone, you flip back—but if you get in the habit of this, eventually you’re never the same on the trip back.

When you’re an addict, you’re never yourself again. Ever.

You’re always a little bit meaner.

A little bit darker.

A little bit closer to hopeless.

I’ve only sipped the blue liquid about half a dozen times. I was not high last night. As long as it is my choice, I will never drink Lectra with Pavo. It sexualizes you. Makes you crave things you never normally would. Erases inhibitions. Degrades common sense. Reduces what’s left of your moral code.

And let’s face it, no one on this ship can afford any more erosion of their moral codes.

Last night Pavo couldn’t stop talking about cutting off Cort’s dick. In fact, all he did was talk about what he wanted to do to Cort’s dick.

I was forced to listen to him last night. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve been forced to do more than just listen to him, so whatever.

He spent most of the night jerking off in a corner, talking the entire time. Talking about Cort and how they were boys together. “He was my friend,” Pavo said drunkenly. “Did I ever tell you that, nyuszi?”

I hate that nickname. Bunny. Gag. But when you’re locked in a cabin with a psychopath on Lectra, you don’t make a fuss about the small things.

“We were boys at the same training camp.”

I didn’t want to hear it. I don’t go around forcing people to listen to my childhood stories, why can’t he give me the same consideration?

But I was there. And try as I might, I could not tune him out completely. Also, I actually was interested in the parts about Cort, since none of this was ever mentioned in that Ring of Fire article.

“He was two years older. Prettier than me. Everyone said so.”

Oh. So that’s what this is about. Jealousy. Figures.

“We learned everything together. And he always thought he was better. Always faster. Always tougher. He took the slaps, the punches, the scarring without whimpering or sniveling. He was always better with the pain. But I was a good fighter. I still am a good fighter. I’m going to win tomorrow, nyuszi. You watch me. I’m going to pin him to the platform. Lie on top of him. Make him feel how hard the fight makes me. Then I will take it all from him. Everything he has will be mine.”

That’s how the spoils work for the fighters. They inherit the loser’s training camp. This is a big deal for the men who own the fighters. They will lose all their up-and-coming prospects, but only in that particular camp. This is why they don’t have just one big camp. They typically have dozens of smaller ones instead.

I don’t know what Pavo will get from Cort if he wins. No one even knows where Cort’s training camp is. No one knows where he stays. The Ring of Fire article said he owns no house, no fancy car, no ten-million-dollar yacht. These are all things Pavo has. He has been rewarded handsomely by my father over the years. He is the pinnacle of my father’s stable.

Pavo also has wives. Many, many wives by this point in his career. You get one each time you win in the Ring of Fire. And Pavo has won thirteen or fourteen times now, Cort twice that many, so Cort should have a pretty large harem. The article didn’t talk about that either.

If Pavo wins I will not go to Cort’s harem. I will stay here on this ship. My father has already explained it to me. He will take a controlling interest in the Bull of Light and I will probably live on this ship for the rest of my life.

It’s not a bad place, I decide. It could be worse. A lot worse, actually.

The Bull of Light is like a city. There are hundreds of people here. Women working in the laundry and the kitchens who I could make friends with. Men I could have sneaky affairs with. I could even get a job. I could work in the kitchen or the laundry too. Because Pavo is beyond delusional if he thinks my father will let him stop fighting.

We will not be playing house. He will fuck me constantly for a few days while he drowns himself in Lectra, hopefully get me pregnant, and then he will leave for Thailand to continue training and I will stay here. Pavo will have at least four or five more fights before they let him even think about trying to buy himself out.

The men in his class only fight once a year. And every time he fights there is the possibility that he loses. That means that I will not be safe if Pavo wins me. I am property and I suspect my ownership will change many times before they let me die.

By next year, I might have a baby with me. If Pavo loses the next fight, the baby and I would both go to the winner.

The obvious solution to this is to not get pregnant.

The other, even more obvious, solution is that Pavo loses tonight’s fight.

Then I would go home with the Sick Heart.

I try to imagine that for a moment. Fully imagine how bad it might get. I would be somewhere far away. Not on a floating city with the possibility of some semblance of a life. My father would lose track of me. Lose interest in me too. I would become part of Cort’s harem, wherever that is. I would eventually get pregnant, I would eventually have babies.

But this is his last fight. It is known. I would not be given away. Ever. I would be his, and his alone, forever.

Cort van Breda is nice to look at. I’m not even gonna pretend he’s not. From a distance, though. I could look at him all day long if he wasn’t such a looming threat. But to be with him all the time? Forever? To be left alone with him and his violence? Not even under the protection of my father?

He could do anything he wanted with me.

He could sell me. Leave me somewhere. Beat me. Starve me. Tie me up and never come back. He could lend me out to his friends. And he seems very committed to those friends, so I imagine that’s a given.

No. The Sick Heart is a risk.

Going home with Cort van Breda would be orders of magnitude worse than staying here and being Pavo’s. If Pavo wins, my father would not stay here, but he would come often. He is obsessed with this ship. He might even want Bexxie to stay here too. I could beg for that. I could make it happen.

In my world, this scenario—being Pavo’s property, having his babies, living here on the ship with Bexxie nearby and only occasional visits from the men in control of me?

This is a fairy-tale ending as far as I’m concerned. Something right out of a fucking storybook.

Pavo must win.

Bexxie returns a little while later. Her face is flushed and her eyes are calm, like she just woke up from a long nap. “Look what I found.” She plops down onto the couch next to me and offers up the program in her hand. It’s for tonight’s fight.

There is a picture of Pavo and Cort on the front, both of them shirtless, both of them looking like monsters. Inside there’s a short welcome paragraph from Cort’s father, a small writeup about my father and… a full-page picture of me.

“You look so pretty in that pic, Anya. I love it.”

Looking at the dress I’m wearing, I recall posing for it now, but I didn’t know they would use it as promotional material. And it seems like too much. I’m not really the prize. The prize is the ship. I’m just a trinket that comes with it.

“They want you downstairs for wardrobe.” Bexxie leans into me. Her little hands grip my arm and she snuggles up against my breasts like I’m her mother. I lean my head on hers. “They’re not going to let me watch.” She pouts out these words. “Daddy says it’s too violent. And that’s stupid.” She sits up straight again. “Why did I come all this way if I can’t even watch?”

I’m glad she won’t be watching. She’s already seen way too much in her short nine years.

“You get to watch.”

Get to watch? Hah. That’s an understatement. I was already told I will be on the platform with them. I will be forced to watch. I will see every horrific thing the two fighters do to each other in perfect clarity. I will spend the entire time wondering which monster will take me home. Which one of the blood-covered animals in front of me will be my master?

Bexxie gets up and offers me her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you down.”

I let her pull me up and then I let her keep hold of my hand as we exit the reception hall and head down the stairs. Several of my father’s guards fall in behind us. I can’t quite decide if they’re doing this for my protection, or to make sure I don’t run.

I would like to think of myself as a person who might run, but it’s a ludicrous idea. We’re in the middle of the ocean. Where would I go?

I roll my eyes internally. As if that was the reason. I have had hundreds of opportunities to run. Never happened.

I am not the kind of girl who runs.

Down on the main deck lots of people are milling about. It is massively wide. You could fit several houses side by side. But the front part of the ship is actually two long arms that extend outward like a forklift, if said forklift was a hundred and fifty meters wide. The topside is propped in the middle of the ship-sized forklift on massive robotic arms and ballasts.

I am not an oil rig expert, but our father is very excited at the prospect of winning a controlling interest in this ship, so he explained all this to Bexxie and me while we were traveling here.

The topside is a pre-fabricated oil rig minus the legs that anchor it to the ocean floor. Those have already been built and now this ship is carrying the working part—the power plant, the housing units, the office, the command center, the pumps or whatever they use to get the oil and gas up out of the ocean floor—so it can be placed on the legs.

A topside is a factory. And right now, the topside roof sits higher than the command center of the Bull of Light. So that’s where all the important people will be watching the fight.

But the fight itself will take place on the Bull of Light’s helicopter platform, which extends slightly outward over the side of the ship’s hull. That’s where I will be too.

Bexxie leads me below deck. I don’t even know where we’re going, but she seems to, so I don’t worry about it. We end up in a compartment that must be a salon, where a team of people are waiting to turn me into something else.

“I’m gonna stay with you,” Bexxie announces. “We’ll have mani-pedis together like the old days.” Then she pouts. “I hope you don’t leave. I don’t want you to leave, Anya.”

I don’t have any say in that—and neither does she—so I don’t encourage this line of thinking. I just sit down, close my eyes, and enjoy the moment.

I’m good at that.

And so is Bexxie.

I don’t get to choose my polish. I don’t get any say in how I look tonight. But Bexxie is more than satisfied with her gold and silver nails and toes.

After the mani-pedis are finished, I am directed to a flat table where they will wax me.

“I’ll see you when it’s over, OK?” Bexxie’s bright blue-green eyes look at me with fear and I nod. “OK,” she says. Then, without another word, she turns and walks out just as the team of body painters walks in.

The stylists undress me and point to the table. I lie down on it and open my legs.

I’ve never been Pavo’s prize before, but I’ve watched two of his fights.

This thought makes me pause and wonder where his other girls are. He must have a harem of them by now as well. And children. How many children must he have? Dozens, maybe. He’s been fighting for girls since he was twelve. Even if only half of them had two babies in those dozen years, that number is in the upper twenties. But it’s not likely that they haven’t been pregnant every other year. Some of the earlier prizes might not even be around anymore. Hell, even his oldest children are probably dead by now. Used up and thrown out.

And if he had boys, those boys started training for the fight ring by the time they were two or three. Most of his sons are probably dead, or they will be soon.

Cort, too, must have dozens of slave girls somewhere. He’s been in more fights than any other man in the history of this sport. When he was younger, his father used to make him fight three or four times a year.

I hiss when they rip the strips of wax off between my legs. But that is a small pain and it’s not enough to make me forget that I’m not really a prize, am I?

God knows, neither of them needs another girl.

They are here for their continued existence. They are fighting for their lives, they are not fighting for me.

The continued waxing makes me wince and hiss over and over. But soon that part is finished and when I get up off the table, the body painters immediately begin. I don’t know how they will decorate me. I don’t actually care. Not one decision about my life is mine to make.

I don’t know exactly what Cort and Pavo will look like tonight, but I’ve seen pictures in Ring of Fire.

If a fighter has tattoos, they like to paint those in something that glows. If they don’t, they make the designs up. The rest of their body is painted black. So when they are fighting in the dark, you can only see the glowing tattoos or symbols.

They reduce us to non-humans as often as possible.

How else would they live with themselves?

My body will be painted white with dozens of unsettling symbols in red. I don’t know what the symbols mean—slave girls don’t need to know that kind of stuff. But I do know they have meaning.

I will be the opposite of the men. My symbols will be invisible in the dark—the red will not glow. But the white will.

It’s intriguing and I almost wish I could watch myself from a distance. See me the way everyone else will. Almost like an out-of-body experience.

I keep still as they airbrush my skin until it has a pearl shimmer to it. I reposition when they ask me to, lifting a leg or an arm. And then, when that paint is dry, the artists begin creating the designs.

Spirals and spinning circles. Black suns and pyramid eyes. Arrows pointing to chaos. Stars, and pentagrams, and upside-down crosses.

To honor Pavo, they paint a snake eating its own tail around my right breast.

To honor Cort, they make one side of my face into a skull. My eye is outlined in deep black. My cheek becomes a jawbone showing teeth.

My hair starts out in two long ponytails. But they twist them up and secure them on top of my head like horns.

When I look in the mirror, I am evil personified.

And it fits, I think.

Everything about this night is going to be evil.

A group of teenage boys dressed up in slave attire—shirtless with gold skirts—escort me through the halls when I am done.

Two flank me on either side. They are young, because they are only my height. The two in front and the two behind are older. Maybe fifteen.

The younger one on my left whispers, “I hope Pavo wins.”

“Yeah,” the one on the right says. “You do not want to know what happens to the girls Sick Heart takes home.” I glance at him with frightened eyes. “I hear he kills them.”

Then the other one says, “I heard the same thing. He kills them all.”

“But don’t worry,” the one on my left says. “We’re all rooting for Pavo. He’s the favorite tonight.”

“He’s got a cheat,” the other one snickers. “And everyone knows it.”

“Shut up,” an older boy in front barks. “Quit talking to her.”

“It’s true,” a boy behind me echoes. “We all know that Pavo’s team hid a weapon on the platform.”

“You don’t know shit,” the boy in front says.

This whole time we are walking upstairs. But we stop at a large double steel door and then the two slave boys in front pull it open and step aside.

Immediately I am bombarded with the flashing lights of cameras. Dozens of men take pictures while reporters yell questions at me.

My two flanking escorts take my hands and lead me through the chaos. Disgusting, sweaty bodies reeking of the hot stench of oil and ocean push up against me.

“Just follow us,” the one on my right says. “We’re not stopping here. They want you on the platform right now.”

The boys who were behind me are now in front, pushing the crowd out of the way. The camera flashes stop and darkness takes over.

There is no moon tonight. And every light on the ship has been turned off.

Everything around me feels both empty and full in the same moment.

Then we are climbing another set of stairs. At the top I realize we’ve already reached the Bull of Light’s helicopter pad. Two spotlights come on, but not regular spotlights. Black lights. And my skin glows an unnatural bright white under the purple haze.

Both of my slave boys squeeze my hands. Then they lean in and kiss me on the cheek that’s not painted like a skull.

“Good luck,” the first one says.

“Pavo for the win,” the other one says, making a fist.

And then they leave me there, under the spotlights.

I breathe heavy and hard for a few moments, then almost fall into a panic when the spotlights go out. My heart shudders inside my chest. Because it’s all happening too fast and I don’t know what to do.

But of course, that’s not really true. I only have one job here. I am to stand in the center of the round helicopter platform and not move until the fight is over.

But then what?

What happens to me after the fight?

Men in the crowd begin to scream at me from the topside. They are much closer than I imagined they would be and when I look up, I can pick out a few individual faces as the black spotlight passes back and forth across the crowd.

I scan them, wondering what they are thinking.

They begin to boo me when I don’t move. They jeer and spew insults. And I realize I need to be in the center before anything else can happen.

I take a few steps forward and they cheer, clapping and whistling, calling at me.

The helipad hangs out over the side of the ship by just a little bit. Just enough so that when the helicopters land, there is no threat of the spinning rotors hitting anything on the command center. But this asymmetry, combined with the rolling motion of the massive ship, sets me off balance and I need to brace myself with feet spread apart to control the spinning in my head.

After a moment, I close my eyes, still slowly walking forward, and force myself to snap out of it.

Everyone is watching you, Anya. This is the fight of the year. If you ruin it, they will not forgive you.

I swallow hard, open my eyes, and find myself in the center of the platform, standing on the giant H painted on the concrete.

That’s when all the lights go out and the drumming begins.

A slow, thumping beat at first. Like the footsteps of some giant beast coming towards me. The drummers are close, but I can’t see them. I know it’s not a recording. The ritual has started and this is part of it.

The beat picks up and becomes tribal, turning this modern-day miracle of a ship into a jungle island in the middle of a sea of darkness.

And when I look around, past the men eager for the blood that’s coming, and truly take in the fact that there is nothing around us for thousands of miles and no moon overhead to light my way… I am lost.

But does it matter?

Haven’t I always been lost?

The pace of the drumming picks up. It gets louder and louder. And then there they are.

First Cort, then Pavo. They enter the helipad from opposite stairwells that lead up to the platform and they do not look the way I expected.

Oh, there is a skull and there is a snake. But Cort is not the sum of his tattoos like I had guessed. He is a glowing yellow skeleton, each and every bone outlined in fluorescent paint. His ribcage. His pelvis. The tiny bones of his hands. And yeah, even his cock. A long, thick line of yellow dangling between his legs.

Naked.

Well. I didn’t see that coming. But I’m not surprised. Everything about these fights is hypersexualized. That’s probably why Pavo was so distracted by Cort’s dick last night.

Pavo is painted as a snake. His face is the open mouth of a cobra, fangs protruding and ready to strike, his body covered in intricate neon-green scales that coil around his chest, and hips, and one leg. The rest of him is black, except, again, his cock—a thick line of green between his legs, swinging and slapping against his thigh as he walks towards me, because he is hard.

I roll my eyes.

They walk up to me without hesitation and each of them grips one of my hands.

Pavo squeezes tight. Like he’s trying to crush the tiny bones.

Cort’s grip is delicate. Like he doesn’t want to touch me, but is being forced to do so.

Drones circle above us. The drumming is so loud now, I want to hold my hands over my ears. The men on the topside walkways cheer with enthusiasm.

“Are you ready, Anya?” Pavo asks. He steps out of the line we make, far enough for him to look past me, at Cort. Pavo’s eyes find mine and he smiles. “He likes you, nyuszi. I can tell. I can see it in the way he looks at you.” Cort says nothing and Pavo belts out laughter. “He likes you because… the two of you share a secret, don’t you, nyuszi? You and the Sick Heart. You are more alike than you ever realized.”

I narrow my eyes at Pavo and sneer my lip, confused, but also annoyed. Just shut up already. No one wants to hear you talk.

“Oh, you don‘t know?” Pavo snarls. The spectators are growing tired of waiting and their cheers become jeers once again. “You really don’t know?” He shakes his head. Then he leans in closer to me, still focusing on Cort. “He doesn’t talk, Anya. Not a fucking word from him in public in over twenty years.”

My mouth drops open. Then I turn my head to see Cort’s face. It’s unreadable, his mouth nothing but a flat line, his silver eyes narrowed down into slits, staring straight into mine.

Pavo grabs my breast with his free hand and the crowd goes wild. “He is silent. Just like you, nyuszi.”

I don’t look at Pavo. Because right now I cannot take my eyes off Cort van Breda.

Is it true? Is he silent, like me?

“He doesn’t talk,” Pavo continues. “And neither do you.” Then he laughs. “I can only imagine how that would work out should he win. But he won’t win. Don’t worry. You will be mine in the end, Anya. And I will make you talk. I will make you do all kinds of things with that mouth of yours.”

Pavo is saying these words to me, but he’s really talking to Cort.

Everything I know about Cort van Breda flashes through my mind. He does not do interviews. He stands there. Looks pretty in his Muay Thai shorts and his skull tattoos climbing up and down his body. He didn’t say anything when he entered the reception hall earlier. He walked right past us and grabbed the Lectra bottle.

Maart talked for him.

Just like Bexxie talks for me.

I look back at Pavo, hoping he will say more.

But he doesn’t say anything.

He just punches me in the mouth.

My lip splits and my whole body goes whirling backwards from the force.

The crowd erupts in cheers as I hit the helicopter platform and slide almost a meter from the force of Pavo’s blow, my entire left side scraping against the concrete.

And when I finally gather my senses and look up… the fight has started.

Pavo and Cort are a flurry of arms and legs. Kicks and elbows. Pavo lands a flat foot right in the center of Cort’s stomach and Cort goes reeling back just like I did.

He doesn’t lose his footing, but he pauses for a moment as the pain in his gut sinks in. Then his eyes narrow down and focus on Pavo. Some of the spotlights from above weave around the platform, making me dizzy from the strobe effect. But there is one black light trained on Pavo and one black light trained on Cort. This presents a bizarre dichotomy, making the two painted fighters look like futuristic creatures straight out of the ancient world.

Pavo doesn’t wait, he’s already on the next attack. He pushes forward towards Cort, throwing a kick. But Cort counters the kick with an elbow and simultaneously hooks Pavo in the jaw with the opposite hand. Pavo stumbles, but Cort doesn’t give him a chance to recover. He hits Pavo with a powerful uppercut that lands flush with his mouth, the same way Pavo hit me.

Pavo goes down. Hard.

The drumming around us is deafening. Almost drowning out the cheering crowd.

For a moment I think it’s over. Pavo is struggling to get back on his feet. Cort turns his back to him, walking away.

But it’s not over. Because one of them is still alive. And spoiler alert: That’s not how this ends.

I have only been to two fights, and neither of them were at this elite level. They both involved Pavo, but that was years and years ago. One was the fight that ushered him into top-level status. The other one was at Pavo’s local stadium filled with a crowd of regular Thai people. He did fight that night, but it was more of an exhibition. There was a referee, there seemed to be rules, and most of the fighters that night looked like kids.

There are no rules here, they’re not even wearing gloves—not even wearing tape on their knuckles. And these two men haven’t been kids for a very long time.

They will fight until they no longer can.

I get up on my knees, refusing to be a compliant participant in the outcome of this night. Cort is turning back towards Pavo when my movement distracts him. His head swings in my direction. Pavo disappears into the darkness, his spotlight now gone.

The crowd begins to boo and shout, making sure their objections can be heard over the pounding drums. They probably have money on Cort and my participation in the fight seems to be a clear attempt at aiding Pavo.

Cort doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are locked with mine. He puts a hand up.

Stop, that gesture says.

But I’m not going to stop. I turn, crouched, looking for Pavo in the darkness.

Because… he. Hit me.

That piece-of-shit coward hit me.

That baby living inside a man’s body hit me.

That arrogant prick who thinks I will become his property hit me.

In front of all these people.

There is blood in my mouth.

My tongue has been split open.

I spit the blood out and suddenly… I am enraged.

And that’s when all the spotlights go out.

The drumming continues in the dark, a wild, frantic beat that drowns out the shouts from the agitated crowd.

There are flashes of yellow and green, the leftover glow from the fighters’ fluorescent body paint. But after a few moments, even that blinks out.

Someone runs past me. The wind flutters over my bare skin and I can just barely make out the slapping of bare feet over the drumming. I squint in the dark, trying to make out shapes. And holy shit, is it ever dark. No moon, no stars, every light on the ship is out. And if I wasn’t rocking back and forth with the rhythm of an ocean, I would be utterly lost. The kind of lost that drives people to madness.

Then, just as suddenly as they went out, the spotlights come back on. But all three of them are targeting Cort.

And they are not black lights. They are bright and white and he is alone in a shower of illuminated brilliance in the vast sea of darkness.

Cort shields his eyes from the intense glare and that’s when Pavo attacks.

He rams Cort like a bull. Knocking him down with a hard thump that sends a sick chill down my spine.

I get to my feet and take deep breaths as the white lights blink out and the black lights make them glow again, but leave me dark.

Pavo’s snake winds around Cort’s skeleton.

The drums have slowed, taking up a pace that conjures up images of being stalked. A beat that reminds me of the hunt. I crouch again, thinking, watching the fight.

Pavo is on top of Cort, but Cort hasn’t surrendered. They are grappling. Fast-moving arms, and legs, and elbows, and knees.

I look around, thinking about the boy’s words just minutes ago. He’s got a cheat. We all know Pavo’s team hid a weapon on the platform.

Pavo, the cheater.

Pavo, the deceiver.

He is vile, rotten, and wrong.

He has no sense of pride, or loyalty, or fairness.

He is nothing but scum and even my nine-year-old sister-in-name-only can see it.

So I know there is a weapon on the platform.

But where? The helipad is nothing but a flat plane. I stand up and begin walking in the hazy, leftover black light that leaks outward from the fight, squinting my eyes and searching for a shadow that might be a knife.

That’s Pavo’s weapon of choice. He uses knives as part of his training ritual with his boys. He cuts them. Slices marks down their arms every time they don’t follow one of his insane directives. So they can never forget who is in charge. So they have to carry their shame with them for the rest of their lives.

I walk faster, ignoring the two men fighting. They are on their feet now, and the blows are vicious. They are grunting and they hit the hard concrete more times than I can count as I scan the helipad for the knife I know is here.

Except it’s not.

There is nothing on this platform. It is bare. It is flat. It is empty.

So that means it has to be somewhere else, somewhere close enough that Pavo can get to it. There are only two choices. The stairwells. I jog over to the closest one, searching, my fingertips gliding along the smooth steel frame.

There it is. Fastened to the underside of a thick railing.

I pull, and it comes free with a rip of Velcro.

And then I turn back to the men… and walk into the fight.