“And if I don’t?”
The punch comes out of nowhere.
His fist connects with my cheek with a wet crack that echoes off the bathroom walls. Pain explodes across the left side of my face, bright and immediate. I stumble backward, hitting the wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
I didn’t even try to block it. Didn’t see it coming.
“You’re fucking crazy!” The words tear from my throat as Jason heads for the door.
He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t acknowledge what just happened. The door swings shut behind him, leaving me alone with the taste of blood in my mouth and the sting of his knuckles still burning across my face.
Great. Another fucking injury.
At this rate, I’ll be unlikely to make it to the first match.
I press my palm to my cheek, feeling the heat radiating through my skin. This is insane. Everything about this place, everyone in it—they’re all completely out of their minds.
The question is, how long will I last before I go insane too?
Chapter seven
Marco: Field Trip
Perks of being the Deathball captain include: a very fucking nice villa, all the food and good sleep a man could desire, and not having to visit Victora Prison.
They brought me here every season until I finally made it out of the dungeon. And it never got any easier.
When the men start to file out, one after the other, I’m not surprised their faces come in varying shades from gray to green. Some hold their stomachs, some press their lips until they’re white, all are silent in their shared horror.
That is, until a retch breaks out somewhere up the back of the line. There’s a small commotion as one of them breaks free, a louder retch when he tries to hold it back. Then Robin slams an arm against the dirty stone wall to brace himself and empties his stomach in revulsion at whatever he’s just witnessed.
Looks like he had ham and bread for breakfast.
Good to see he’s eating.
He shoves himself to standing, wiping the back of one arm over his mouth, so I wander over and slap a hand down on his sweat-slicked back. “Better now, baby bird?”
He spits on the ground in response, disgust written in every feature.
Again, at least it’s not in my eye.
We’re making real progress.
It’s not that I’m desensitized to what he’s just seen—what I know is happening on the other side of those heavily guarded gates. I do have sympathy, for him and for them. But his reaction’s reassuring. It tells me he’s going to go hard at Deathball, given the choice is between that or being sent to rot in this godforsaken hellhole.
“What are you doing here?” he mutters.
I’m almost surprised he’s actually talking to me, like a normal person. Yesterday he looked ready to rip my throat out with his teeth.
It inspires a slight smile that I’m quick to wrestle down to a neutral face.
It’s wiser to address the whole group rather than just this man, who still manages to look hot right after vomiting, so I put on my captain’s voice and tell them, “Training. Make your way to the transport vehicles.”
There are communal groans of “Right now?” and “We did that yesterday,” and so on, but they follow my instruction regardless, which is all the enthusiasm I need.
Robin pushes away from the wall with a sigh, looking weaker than I’d like. But when he turns, walks past me, a purple-gray mark on his cheek catches the light. My hand shoots out by instinct.
There’s a massive bruise there. But on hisleftcheek. Not the bruise I gave him.
