Hero shoved his twin closer to me, boxing us between him and Cayden. I focused on Brit. My heart hammered. She wasn’t me. She wasn’t alone. She’d chosen to be in that ring, and I would believe in her.
Brit arched her back, ran a blood-slick finger across her chest, and slipped it between her split lips.
“I do got this,” she purred, her voice not nearly as battered as her body.
Suddenly, a glow bloomed under her skin, making her moss-green power cover every inch of her power. Her muscles quivered and hardened, taking on the plastic edge of a toy. Although she still limped, she charged the titan and screamed. Like every other time, the man didn’t move, just smiled.
Brit struck his stomach with the sound of a car crashing into a tree. The boom reverberated through the bigger man’s body, and Brit’s shoulder dented all the way to his back. Almost in slow motion, the man flew off his feet and slammed into the cage behind him, coughing and clutching his stomach.
I cheered, the crowd going wild with me. Brit didn’t give him a moment. With fists glowing, she straddled the man. He managed to get his arms up, but not before she broke his nose. He bucked her off, and they were once again up and circling. I whooped, the crowd cheering and yelling with me. I flinched, kicked, and punched with her, definitely hitting the guy in front of me, who didn’t seem to notice. Brit jumped up and performed a fancy kick with her back leg, hitting her opponent in the head, just like her first strike. The man’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
“Yeah!” I jumped up and down as more of her sparkly fireworks filled the stage.
“And our reigning champion does it again!” a voice boomed.
Brit smiled and pumped her fists. Despite her win, she still limped. One of her eyes was so swollen shut I doubted she could see out of it. But she glowed. She’d loved every minute of her fight, and it made me grin with her.
“We need to go now,” Cayden said, nudging me.
I turned away from my friend, my smile so wide I could feel it pulling on my fake beard. A few men watched us. My sore throat burned from all the screaming I’d done. Everly bit her lower lip, probably feeling the same. Our voices. We’d thought of everything except our voices.
A hand brushed my shoulder, then traced across my cheek. I turned to find Erick’s cousin’s power slave staring down at me. His hood was slightly askew, showing me more of his face. It wasn’t just the forest green of his eyes that drew me this time. It was the cut of his nose and the chiseled shape of his jaw. He looked so much like Cayden.
The Cayden look-alike’s eyes widened, and he stepped back, disappearing behind two bodies pushing forward. One of them bumped the other, and beer splashed onto my shirt. A man with a real beard looked down at me with dirty, orange, half-lidded eyes.
“Did you sees a woman?” he slurred.
Cayden yanked me to his side. A rune already pushed in front of him, creating a wedge that forced bodies to move. Except we were so tightly packed in, they didn’t have far to go. We hadn’t made it more than a few feet before a face I recognized too well brought our slow progress to a halt. Cayden dropped his spell and cursed.
“Quinn, what are you doing?” Brody asked. “You shouldn’t be here.” He looked at Cayden and Hero, righteous judgment filling his eyes. “How could you bring her here, either of them? To see that?”
“Her.” The word rippled through the crowd. Heads turned, some amused while others gleamed with hunger. Off to my left, the grunts of people being forcibly moved aside grew louder. I couldn’t see anything, just a sea of chests and shoulders.
“To the boxes,” Everly hissed.
Hero’s usual cold face hardened. Using their elbows, knees, and magic, we pushed our way through the crowd of drunk and excited men. The booming voice announced the next match again. But the crowd around us had found something new to watch.
With no way to see over all the tall people, I blindly followed Everly with Cayden at my back. Trying to move in the opposite direction the crowd faced was like pushing through a ball pit. I couldn’t tell if I ran into someone or if someone reached out for me. My hair jerked to the right. A hand landed on my chest. Someone screamed as Cayden broke their arm, removing it from me.
Someone grabbed my wrist, and I screamed.
“It’s me,” Brody said. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
He blocked my path ahead before trying to pull me to the left. In seconds, Everly disappeared into the sea of clothing. A faint flash of her blood-red magic, subtly speeding the twins up, was my only sign they still existed.
“Move, Brody,” Cayden warned. “We’re on our way out, and you’ve made things much worse.”
“She can’t even use her magic yet,” Brody’s voice cracked mid-yell.
Cayden growled. “Shut up! What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re what’s wrong here,” Brody yelled, his hands on his hips.
A cheer from the crowd filled the air. The stats board lit up with the next round. Most of the men lost interest in us, but enough didn’t. The sound of cursing and shoving from my left grew louder.
I tried to move forward again, but Brody’s grip on my arm turned painful. His eyes glowed. “I’ll make you come. He put you in danger. He’s destroying everything.”
Sticky magic oozed out of Brody’s hands and seeped into my skin just as three men burst out of the crowd on my left. Cayden cursed,blocking my body with his. My vision dimmed; a slimy sensation spread from Brody’s fingertips, making my body numb.
