I gather enough strength to raise my head and see Hector’s tail swaying above my stomach. The pointy tip presses against the right side of my abdomen. I tighten my muscles, but it’s like trying to stop a knife with my skin. The tail pierces through my flesh and drives into me. The pain is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced, unleashing the fire of hell at the center of my body. Through the haze around my senses, I scream.
Hector tries to ease my pain, but he’s unable to match the scorching acid in my stomach. The change that started inside me with Hector’s first cut is accelerating at the speed of light, altering every cell in my body.
“Breathe,” Hector says through my screams. “Accept my gift.”
I hear the weakness in his voice. This is costing him, but I can’t use the opportunity to kill him like I hoped.
Finn kisses my forehead, his soft hands still on my temples. “You’re strong,” he says as I thrash and spit and growl. “You’re so strong.”
I feel anything but strong as I sob like a child. If this doesn’t stop soon, my heart will collapse.
Finn suddenly pulls his hands away from me, shouting, “What the fuck are you doing to him?Stop!”
I don’t know what is making him react like that, then Hector says in relief, “Here we go. That’s it. We have arrived.”
Arrived?My breathing slows almost instantly, and my lungs no longer fight for air. Hector pulls his tail out, and my body quickly heals the wound, as well as any other bruise I carry. I raise my head to see blood everywhere, but my cut is almost sealed tight. I pull at my bindings, snapping them with ease. I do the same to my legs and climb down from the table.
The floor feels unstable, but I take a deep breath to compose myself. My screams still echo in my head, but I’m calmer than I’ve been in a very long time. Hector, as pale as a ghost, places his palm over my heart. “You are glorious, my champion. Do you feel it?”
“I… do.”
“I need to rest,” he says. “This was more than I expected.”
I’m overwhelmed by a strong sense of concern. “Are you okay? I can carry you.”
He chuckles. “I’m fine, but maybe our friend needs carrying.”
I turn to look at Finn, taken aback by the shock in his eyes. I open my mouth to ask him what’s wrong, but I catch my reflection in his pupils. I touch my face, feeling the roughness of what can only be small scales across my forehead and the sidesof my cheeks. I look down to see scales on my upper arms and shoulders as well. I should be shaken, but I’m not, yet Finn is horrified.
He looks at me as if he’s seeing a monster.
*
Elijah paces back and forth in the locker room. I can hear thousands of people as they fill the arena. When it becomes too much, I tune them out with ease. My control over my body keeps surprising me. My lungs, my liver, my senses… all under my control. I’m more than I have ever dreamed of being, and my fear of facing Isaac has turned into excitement. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive this fight, but I’m eager to find out and make Hector proud.
“Can you please stop pacing?”
Elijah, wearing his house’s burgundy suit, stops in front of me. “How could you let him do this to you?”
“Do what? Make me strong enough to take down a giant?”
“You shouldn’t be strong enough for that.No oneshould be strong enough for that.”
“Then you would rather I die out there?”
He rubs his face. “How could he even turn you into… this?”
I look down at my bare arms, decorated with scales. My eyes are tinged with yellow, which I only noticed once I saw myself in the mirror after returning from the sewers. “It’s not for me to tell.”
“He’s a mutant, isn’t he? He must be if he made you into one.”
“I’m not… I’m not a mutant.” I shouldn’t feel ashamed even if I were one, but I can’t bring myself to accept that. Yes, I’m more than human—I can feel it in every cell—but a mutant?
Elijah snorts. “Right, so these things on your skin are from the sun.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.” I also don’t know why I care. As long as Hector’s satisfied, that should be enough, yet Elijah’s feelings… they still matter. His disappointment with me is unpleasant.
“I’m asking you to fight against whatever is happening to you, Caden. I can see in your eyes that you’re not really here. I’m not sure how much of you is even left.”
