“Why? What’s in the ring?”
“It depends. Changes every fight. But if we get there first, we get to see the lay of the land and grab whatever weapons suit our fancy.”
“Weapons? No one said anything about weapons.”
I spread my arms wide, my skin a showcase of scars, a museum of the consequences of that ring.
“There’re plenty of them. Mostly knives. They’re dulled, but they still do a fuck ton of damage when the person using them is fucking insane,” my lips peel back in a toothy smile. “So you better run fast.”
“Rowan didn’t have us train with knives,” Griffin huffs, his hands anxiously opening and closing as he flexes his fingers.
“Yeah, the trainers back at the farm know better than to have us train with weapons we could use against them,” I snarl.
“But Rowan’s not one of them, he’s?—“
“You’re stupider than I fucking thought if that’s what you think,” I snap, my dominance rolling off me in waves. “He may treat us nicer than any of the others but he’s still one ofthem.”
Griffin’s jaw snaps shut as he narrows his gaze on me. I hate the way he’s fucking looking at me right now.
Like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on in my head.
Well, fuck him. I don’t want anybody poking around in there.
But I can tell the moment it clicks for him.
Whenever I’m given a dose, I feel myself slipping away. I lose pieces of myself bit by bit, and the only thing that’s left is rage andsuspicion. Soon, I’ll be like Rage, practically gnawing at the bars of my cage and unable to do anything else other than snarl.
My default is always to direct that anger towards the people who fucking deserve it: the people who put me—put us—in this god damn fucking situation.
And that includes the kid.
Because at least that way, I still have a little bit of control.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I snap, glaring at Griffin.
He holds his hands up like he’s surrendering.
“Okay, okay, man. I get it.”
“I don’t think you do,” I bite out. “But one day, you’ll get it. ‘Cause there’ll come a time where the fucker has to pick between himself and the rest of us and the fucker will pick himself. Because we’re just their stupid fighting dogs.”
Rage lets out a soft snarl, his gaze cutting towards the door, and Griffin and I freeze.
A split second later, I hear footsteps. Two sets of them.
“Damn, Rage, you can sense things fast,” Griffin says.
Rage’s gaze cuts to him, his one good eye almost glowing in the dim lighting. He offers Griffin the barest hint of a nod.
He’s been giving these surprising amounts of acknowledgement to Griffin and I a lot more often these past few weeks. Almost like Mirabelle’s presence around him has brought him a sense of his sanity back.
The footsteps grow closer. I can pick up the sound of a man walking slowly and the uneven click of high heels.
“Let me in, I need to see them before the fight,” Rowan says, his voice muffled through the thick steel door.
“You sure you wanna bring the girl in?” One of the transporters who works for the fighting ring asks.
The girl.
