I can feel the pulse at my temple throbbing with every heartbeat.
I’ve always been hot-headed, but ever since these crazy fuckers started pumping me full of their cocktail of drugs a few days ago, anger has been my constant companion.
The trainer jumps back, his eyes going wide with fear for a split second before he gets pissed and shocks me with the cattle prod again. In the same goddamn place too.
My roar of pain echoes off the wooden walls.
When the trainer doesn’t seem satisfied with the pain he’s inflicting with just the cattle prod, he turns on the metal shock collar around my neck, too. My roar cuts off as the muscles in my neck strain, freezing from the current.
Only then do I collapse down onto my knees. The chains are the only thing keeping me from face-planting onto the disgusting concrete floor beneath me.
“Damn, this guy’s a fucking tank,” one of the junior trainers, who hasn’t gotten the courage to fuck with me, mutters under his breath.
“He’d better be. The boss bought him to be a replacement forhimin case Jett’s plan doesn’t work.”
My brain fights through the anger enough to process some of their words.
He must be some other fighter if I’m his replacement. Maybe one who’s already fucking lost it. Unsurprising, considering the bullshit they’ve done to me in the past few days since I got here.
All thanks to my fucking dad. Turns out, fighting for a living wasn’t enough to cover the debts he kept on racking up.
I was a sucker, too. I walked right into the Mercer family’s trap. I knew they’d bought my dad’s debt from his previous brokers, but I thought I was just asking them for more time to pay it off.
I didn’t know I was the goddamn payment.
The next time I see my dad again? He’s dead. The rest of my family would be better off with him six feet under, too.
If I see him again.
The people who run this hellhole don’t seem like the type to ever let me go.
The trainer paces in front of me, the cattle prod crackling menacingly.
“You’ll learn your place,” he huffs. “You’ll be fighting down in the cages in no time.”
I lift my head and glare up at him, my lips curling back in a snarl. If I’m stuck here any longer, who knows, maybe my face will be stuck like this. I don’t have to say anything to telegraph exactly what I’m thinking.
This asshole doesn’t seem to be a big fan of my look because he presses the cattle prod into my side once again.
I grit my teeth, the muscles in my body locking up all over again.
Fucking hell.
There are certain kinds of pain you can get used to. I’ve learned how to handle the impact of fists against my flesh.
This kind of pain, though? It hurts just as badly as the first time.
Maybe that’s because I’ve had a lot less time to get used to it. Maybe this sort of pain is the point.
As I slump forward in my chains, my gaze is cast towards the floor, and I feel shame gnawing at my throbbing ribs.
The three trainers leave me alone when the sound of some commotion outside filter into this torture chamber of a barn house.
“Oh shit, I didn’t know they were bringing her in!” One of the junior trainers hisses.
Her?
What would a woman be doing in a shithole like this?
