My knees hit the concrete floor hard. The impact shoots up my spine, but it’s nothing compared to the hollow ache spreading through my chest.
“Well, I’d say I told you so, but I’m not a complete dick.” Cas’s voice carries that familiar twisted humor, hollow at the edges. He’s trying to make me laugh. It doesn’t work.
I will never laugh again.
“Andfuck! Me and René, man. I’d far rather smash Jason’s skull in. René’s the only one out of the rest of them who’s not a total prick.”
I nod because he expects me to. Because I should care about René, about Cas’s chances, about anything other than the way Marco’s dark eyes go soft when he looks at me. The way they crinkle at the corners when he almost smiles. The way they’ll look when he realizes one of us has to die.
Cas’s hand finds my shoulder, squeezes hard. “Listen, this is fucking shit, but at least they’re not making us fight each other. We’re going to survive this, Robin. Be together next season. It’s you and me, mate. Just like I said.”
Footsteps echo in the corridor. Heavy. Familiar. My stomach clenches because I know that stride, know the way Marco’s sandals hit stone when he’s trying to control his rage.
I look up to see him filling the doorway of our cell, his face carved from granite.
Cas doesn’t say a word. Just stands and slips past Marco, leaving us alone.
“The guards were late to get me,” he says.
“Marco,” I whisper, or try to whisper. My tongue has healed, but it isn’t co-operating right now.
Marco crosses the remaining space in two strides and pulls me to my feet. His hand presses against my cheek, thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
And there. There it is.
That look in his eyes like something inside him has shattered beyond repair. Raw grief mixed with a fury so deep it could burn cities. His pupils are wide, dark as the ocean during storms, and for a moment I see straight through to his soul. See the boy who used to rescue his brother from cliffs. See the man who whispers my name like a prayer in the dark.
I see someone drowning.
“This is the Emperor’s work.” His voice comes out strangled, barely controlled. “Shoving me in the middle of the matches. Making me seem unimportant. Making me just another fighter.”
His hand drops from my face, fingers curling into fists.
“He knows what you are to me. After last night… He fuckingknows.”
I try to find words that don’t taste like ash. “It’s only two weeks’ difference. We might have been the final match any—”
“No.” Marco moves away from me, starts pacing the narrow cell like a caged animal. Three steps to the wall, turn, three steps back. His shoulders bunch with tension. “No, the architects wouldn’t have done that. They’ll have wanted you for next season. You’re hot fucking property. I bet they’re not happy about this. And look how they separated out René, Jason, and Max—they’re improving the favorites’ chances of going through.”
He stops pacing, slams his palm against the stonewall.
“This is all my fault. If I’d just let the Emperor fuck me last night…” His voice cracks on the words.
Something sharp and protective unfurls inside me. I slide my arms around his waist from behind, press my face against his shoulder blade. Feel the rapid rise and fall of his breathing.
“If I’d come to your villa last night and found the Emperor touching you,” I say against his shirt, “I’d have bashed his brain in with the nearest heavy object before the guards could stop me. Then I’d be dead anyway.”
Marco’s muscles tense under my touch. “I’m going to fix this.”
“How?”
His fist connects with the wall again, harder this time. Stone dust trickles to the floor.
I can’t help it—a manic laugh escapes before I can stop it. “Careful. You’ll need that hand to kill me in two weeks.”
Marco spins in my arms, his face twisted with fury. “Don’t fucking joke about this, Robin. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Before I can reply, Marco has pushed me against the stone wall, pressing his lips against mine as if he’s drowning and I’m air.
