Chapter Thirteen

Zaar stands in front of me with his knuckles taped. He is a guest fighter—only his second time in the ring. He has black hair and pale skin, and his eyes look at me without emotion. He may be friends with Daniel and Landry, but he lacks their evil streak. Not that he is much better. He goes along with whatever they say, whatever they do. In fact, I don’t think he is capable of experiencing an independent thought whatsoever. I stare into his eyes and see neither wickedness nor a sense of decency. They are empty slits.

I spent the morning with Erick, the two of us training under Anil. Erick is my age, and he is a hobby fighter like me. An occasional. Anil is a year older. He told me that Zaar has a bum left knee, to exploit this weakness as soon as the match begins. I don’t know how he knows this, but I believe him. I would trust Anil with my life.

Erick and I train together often, and so he knows what a hard time Daniel, Landry, and Zaar give me. How they torment me. He knows how much I need to win, and he wants me to win, too. That is why he has been studying on my behalf. First thing this morning, he opened his books, showed me how my roundhouse kick would be better presented as a sharp side kick. How I will generate more power if only I can master the technique. So we practiced it again and again, too much in fact, because now my quadriceps tingle with fatigue.

I hop up and down. Now is definitely not the time for fatigue.

The crowd is much smaller and quieter than when I was here last. Zaar is an Upper Mean, but a lot of guest fighters are Upper Means. They are never Premes. Wren was the exception.

Close to the ring sit Daniel and Landry, laughing, shouting words of encouragement to my opponent. I hate them, truly I do.

“Don’t die, Eve!” Daniel shouts as the ref moves into position. I snap my knuckles and shuffle my feet back and forth. “At least not quickly. Draw it out so we can enjoy it, okay?”

Something hot prickles my skin. I will show them. I will show them there is no X marking my back. I will crush Zaar. Just to show them.

Zaar’s arms twitch with anticipation. I haven’t fought him before, but I know I can win. He is lean—lean enough to be quick. But he doesn’t have much muscle. And he doesn’t have much technique. And he has a bad left knee.

Yes, this is a different fight than against Wren, when I knew I would lose. My lips curl into a smile that makes his empty eyes narrow.

“When I blow the whistle, you may begin,” says the ref, and he looks at me pointedly. It’s the same ref as last time, and a small growl of laughter ripples from my stomach. I jump up and down, and my heart pounds with adrenaline that courses through my veins. The crowd hollers.

Maybe I was wrong when I was talking with Wren. Maybe I do like fighting.

Zaar pounces as soon as the whistle is blown and clips me in the jaw. Now I laugh loudly. “Was that supposed to hurt?” No sooner do the words leave my mouth than I aim a side kick to his bad knee. Just like Erick and I practiced. Just like Anil said to do.

A perfect shot, and I can hear the snapping bone over the crowd. Blood drains silently from his face, and I take the opportunity to place an uppercut under his chin. And a fist to the eye.

I stare at Daniel and Landry and smile as blood rushes in my ears, as Zaar screams at my toes.

Maybe I am cruel.

The ref calls the match; I am the winner. It took a matter of seconds, and it is hard not to feel a surge of excitement even though I think I should feel guilty. But perhaps I shouldn’t. Zaar has taunted me alongside Daniel and Landry for years now. When the others have threatened me, when they shoved me around and hit me for the fun of it when we were kids, he would laugh. He never stopped them.

Suddenly, I want to hit him again. I look down, but he has already disappeared. He is being carried out of the Bowl, and I know where he is going. The same place I was a week ago. I glance at Daniel and Landry and see them speaking to each other, tight-lipped, their bodies wooden.

“Let’s go!” Erick shouts from behind me. He leans over the ropes and offers me a hand. Once I climb over, he squeezes my shoulder. “Well executed,” he says as he leads me through the crush. His voice is distant.

Bodies sway around us, and they call my name. Their faces blur into one flesh-colored mask, and then Daniel shoves into my path and lowers his head so his dark blue eyes line up with mine. “That wasn’t a very smart thing to do, Eve,” he hisses at me. But he steps out of my way without another word and disappears into the crowd.

I watch him go—watch his tall frame and curly brown hair be swallowed up by the Bowl. My eyebrows pull together. It was a strange exchange; I would prefer it if Daniel had shoved me, thrown a punch, even. I suppose he wouldn’t do anything too stupid, especially not with Erick’s club-like arm draped over my shoulder. Or perhaps he knows now what I am capable of. Perhaps he will leave me alone.

“Quick work of our guest,” Anil says once I’m in Blue Circuit’s training room. He doesn’t smile—he never does. “Bruno isn’t happy, I should warn you.”

“What, with me?”

Anil nods. “You know how he is about clean play.”

Bruno is a good fighter, but he only wins by a slim margin each time, even when he can destroy his opponent. He is a gentle giant. I am not.

“Whatever,” I say as I tear off my blue armband and have a seat on the couch in the corner. I toss it at the nearest punching bag and notice that the others aren’t looking at me. “What?” I finally demand. “You’re the one who said to go after his knee, Anil. And I did the exact kick we practiced all morning, in case you didn’t notice,” I add as my gaze shifts to Erick.

“We didn’t say anything,” Erick says limply. His eyes still don’t meet mine.

I stare at them, and it isn’t guilt bubbling in my stomach; it is anger.

The door flies open before I can say anything more.

“What the hell was that?” Bruno demands. He is bulky with muscle that pushes against his brown skin with every movement. His neck is so thick it strains the opening of the T-shirt he wears. Right now, it bulges with veins.

I scramble to my feet. “What the hell was what? I’m just doing my job, Bruno—we got the win. Besides, what’s it to you? The guy’s scum.”

“You broke his knee. He’s going to be laid up for months. I don’t care how big a jerk he is—nobody deserves that.” He crosses his arms, and I feel like a child being scolded. The feeling makes me hot in the face. “And don’t get me started on the last few sucker punches,” he adds.

It is unfair. It is unfair, it is unfair, it is unfair.

Isn’t it?

“Nobody put you in charge,” I say. “If the League wants to stop stuff like that from happening, they can change the rules. But you and I both know when we step into that ring, anything can happen—broken bones included.”

He stares at me like I am barely human. Like he can’t quite recognize what I am. “You shouldn’t need rules to tell you not to do that, Eve. I thought you would have the decency—”

I push past him and out the door before he can finish. He is wrong. He doesn’t know the full story. He doesn’t know that I had to send a message to Daniel and Landry. He doesn’t know, and that is why he doesn’t understand. Nothing more.

Without thinking about it, I head in the one direction I know my fight will be well received.

“Certainly makes up for your loss against the Preme, doesn’t it?”

I nod as I hold out my fists, knuckles up.

“Unclench your hands, Eve.”

I do as he says. The lemon juice is barely noticeable—my knuckles have mostly healed from my fight with Wren, and today wasn’t enough to do any new damage. Still, he cleans them. It is just something we do.

My mother didn’t see the fight—she never goes. It’s a good thing; she wouldn’t be impressed, I am sure of it. Not that I feel guilty. I don’t. I was justified in breaking Zaar’s knee, and for the uppercut and the punch at the end. I was.

I watch her as she does embroidery in the corner, mumbling something about a clock under her breath. Her shoulders are hunched forward, and her neck is bent down at an awkward angle as she studies her stitches. It is something she started doing after Jack was sent aboveground, and now I can’t imagine her doing anything else.

Back then, she was different. Back then, she laughed, loud and often. She chatted noisily with friends at mealtimes. She sang me songs, she told me stories while I sat on her lap, imaginary ones with happily-ever-after endings that helped me sleep at night.

All that changed once Jack was taken. The laughter died. Friendships were discarded. No more songs or stories, no offers of comfort. Nothing.

I stare at her and see my own future in Compound Eleven flash in front of me. I gaze upon her misery and see it turn like a wagon wheel into my own. A cycle of despair—that’s all that awaits. Good thing, then, I have already decided to go.

“You should go down in the record books for that one,” my father says.

I stare at him hollowly.

“Fastest time to finish a match,” he adds.

I nod. I knew he would be excited. But it makes me feel only marginally better. I spread myself out on the bed that used to be mine. I feel much too big for it, even though I slept in it up until a few weeks ago. They always reassign kids to their own cells when schooling is complete. It’s to ready us for adult lives, with adult jobs. “Can we talk about something else?”

He is silent for a few seconds, and I hold my breath. “How are your friends?”

I relax. “Which ones?”

“Maggie and Hunter.”

They are my oldest friends, so it makes sense he would ask about them. But I don’t want to talk about those two, either. Not really. Things with Hunter are all uncomfortable silences, cool glances.

And Maggie has another bruise that I noticed yesterday. On her arm. A cluster of them, faint but there all the same. Like someone held her tightly. Too tightly. The thought makes me sick.

“They’re fine,” I say, my voice placid.

“And your friends in Blue Circuit? They must be excited for you to join them full-time, especially after today’s impressive display.”

Another lie I must tell. My friends in Blue Circuit were not impressed by today’s fight. And my friends in Blue Circuit will not be excited for me to join them full-time because join them I will not. “They’re good, too.”

“Are they excited?”

I sigh. “Yes, Dad. I’m sure they’re excited. I usually win, so why wouldn’t they be?”

Wren is wrong. I am not a bad liar.

And what a strange thing that is. Wren. The shooting range with him, the feeding of the Noms. Why should he spend time with me when he doesn’t have to? Are we becoming friends?

A small laugh slips between my teeth. What an outlandish thing to think. Of course we aren’t. Perhaps it was all to ease his guilt for beating me to a pulp. Perhaps he was bored. In reality, though, I don’t expect to see him again.

Especially since we didn’t part ways on the warmest of terms, my back still up about having to share my secret with him. I don’t think he will turn me in, though. I have thought about it through and through. He is a Preme of all things, and capable of great violence, but he isn’t petty. He was right when he said that if he wanted to hurt me, it would be much more direct. I believe him. But the Oracle was my secret before, and now it isn’t. Now this Preme knows, too.

“Which Preeminate do you kneel before once you’re hired on?”

My head snaps up. “What?”

“For the Combat League. Who do you make your pledge to?”

“Oh. I’m not sure. Whoever’s in charge of Recreation, I guess.”

“You should find out who, do it proper. It’s the best way to get your name on the banners.”

Earlier someone stared at me like they couldn’t tell whether I was really human. Now I am the one wondering that—about my father. Because the thought of getting on my knees before one of the Premes in charge makes me sick, and it should make him sick, too.

“As for this,” he continues, and he retracts his sleeve so that the ink on his forearm is exposed. “There will be mention…”

His voice trails off, and he looks agitated. My mother murmurs louder from her corner. I gaze at my father with my mouth open. For he is talking about Jack, and that is something we don’t ever do.

Already I know what he is going to say. That there will be mention of Jack tattooed along my own arm. Mention of the fact that he was exiled from the compound for breaching the rules, that he is presumed dead. I think of staring at those words every day; I think of my mother’s reaction to them when she pulled off her bandages just a week after he was taken…

“Eve.”

I startle. “Huh?”

“The tattoo—”

“Yes. I realize.”

“Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it make you go soft. Think how good it felt to set a match-time record today, taking down your opponent without breaking a sweat. Say it.” He nods at me encouragingly. “Say how good it felt.”

“It felt good,” I hear myself whisper. Then I repeat it again and again, until I can’t really remember feeling any other way.