“Please don’t do this! Please, oh God, please help me!” I begged and sobbed, thrusting my hands through the bars. I needed to touch him, to feel his skin, to show him I was human. I needed his compassion, and I needed his mercy.
“Back the fuck away,” he growled, and slammed his fist down on my fingers, making me yelp.
“You have to help me,” I screamed, still reaching for him. “Please!”
“Back the fuck away or I’ll chop those fingers off!” He finally looked at me, and even though his hands were shaking, his eyes were dead. There was no choice to be made; this was survival, and if it meant him or me, he would always choose himself.
Releasing the bars, I wrapped my arms around my middle and backed quickly away. As I did, another man swung the biter forward at the same moment the first man pulled open the cage door.
A flurry of movement followed when they released the biter from its leash. It lunged for them, and as a team they shoved it backward and onto its back. The cage door slammed shut, and its lock clicked into place.
Shaking, I watched as the biter rolled to its side and reached for the cage door, still intent on attacking the men. It hadn’t realized yet, or had forgotten already, that it wasn’t alone in here.
The crowd went wild, insane with bloodlust, screaming for my death, for the biter’s death, for any death. They wanted—no, theyneededto see someone or something die, and I finally understood why.
In that moment of fear came a sliver of clarity. They wanted to watch me die, not because they wanted me to die, but because they craved life. Trapped behind these gates, constantly afraid, none of them were really living. They were all just waiting. My death was the affirmation they needed, a reminder that they were still alive.
None of them would help me; I knew that now. And Eagle was gone, maybe they killed him, or maybe he—
It didn’t matter where Eagle was. Only that I was alone in this nightmare.
The biter stilled and lifted its face in the air, as if sniffing. Almost groggily, it turned toward me and fixed its hazy eyes on me.
An inhuman snarl sputtered past its rotted lips and I screamed, the sound so primal and raw, shredding my throat. I screamed and I screamed, unable to stop, because this was it.
This was where I died.
• • •
Eagle
It was Jeffers who’d taught me how to fight. He’d taught me how to throw a solid and just punch, and how to throw a sucker punch as well. He’d taught me how to fight fair and how to fight dirty, and that my defensive maneuvers would be what would make or break me. He’d also taught me to never, ever, under any circumstances take my eyes off my opponent’s hands.
I was doing that now, watching Jeffers’s hands. The guards encircling us had given us ample room, preventing the crowd from intervening, as well as keeping me from getting to Autumn.
The way Jeffers just stood there, as if waiting for me to come at him, full of rage and sloppy punches that would allow him to take me down easily, it reminded me of the first time I’d actually taken him down. Inside his garage, just seconds after I’d told him I was going to marry his sister, he’d set down his beer and gotten to his feet.
“No one who can’t get through me is marrying my sister.”
It had made sense to me. We’d grown up in a rough and tough blue-collar world, and fighting was just one of the many ways we blew off steam. Jeffers was also the closest thing Jenny had to a father. Their own father had split when they were young, leaving their mother to work double shifts just to keep the bills paid, and Jeffers to pick up the responsibility his father had fled from.
I’d wanted Jenny, and so I’d taken him down.
I wanted Autumn, and if I had to take him down again to get her, I would.
“Don’t shoot him,” Jeffers reminded his guards, a hint of caution in his tone.
“And what if he kills you?” The uncertain shout came from behind me, but my eyes remained on Jeffers hands.
“He won’t.” Jeffers’s voice was certain, but his twitching fingers told a different story.
“I will,” I growled.
“You won’t.”
Autumn would be dead within minutes if I didn’t reach her. And then what? What else did I have left to lose? I would kill him if I had to.
I lunged.
