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Page 17

 

  Boden grabs the neck of my sweatshirt with one fist and cocks the other for another smash. Okay, I just need to survive this punch, then someone is bound to reach us.

  I grab the pinkie of the hand on my sweatshirt and give it the hardest twist I can, flipping it all the way over.

  It’s a little known fact that where the pinkie goes, so goes the hand, wrist, arm, and body. Otherwise, something breaks along the way. He jerks with it, gritting his teeth and twisting his body to follow the pinkie.

  That’s when I catch a glimpse of the people around us.

  I was beginning to think this camp had the slowest soldiers in history. But I was wrong. A surprising number of people made it to the fight in record time. The only problem is that they’re acting like kids in a schoolyard—running to watch the fight rather than to break it up.

  My surprise costs me. Boden jams his elbow into my right breast.

  The intense pain just about kills me. I curl as best I can with two hundred pounds of muscle on top of me, but that doesn’t protect me from the bitch-slap he whips across my face.

  Now he’s adding insult to injury because if I had been a man, he would have hit me with a closed fist. Great. If he just slaps me around and I still get beaten, then I’ll only prove that I’m someone everyone can push around.

  Where’s Raffe when I need him? Out of the corner of my eye, I see him among a blur of faces, his expression utterly grim. He writes something down on money, then passes it to a guy who’s collecting them from everyone around him.

  It dawns on me what they’re doing. They’re taking bets!

  Worse, the few who are cheering for me aren’t cheering for me to win; they’re screaming for me to last just one more minute. Apparently, no one’s even betting that I’ll win, only on how long I’ll last.

  So much for chivalry.

  CHAPTER 19

  While I’m taking in the scene, I block two more hits with Boden sitting on top of me. My forearms are taking a beating and my bruises are getting bruises.

  With no rescue in sight, it’s time to get serious about the fight. I lift my butt and legs off the ground like a gymnast and wrap my legs around Boden’s thick neck, hooking my ankles at his throat. I rock my body forward, jerking my legs down.

  Boden’s eyes widen as he’s yanked backward.

  Entwined, we swing like a rocking chair. He lands on his back, legs spread around my waist. I’m suddenly sitting upright with my ankles wrapped around his throat.

  The instant we land, I slam my fists into his groin.

  Now it’s his turn to curl.

  The cheering crowd instantly mutes. The only noise I hear is Boden’s groaning. Sounds like he’s having trouble breathing.

  Just to make sure he stays that way, I jump up and kick him in the face. I kick him so hard his body spins halfway on the dirt.

  I wind up for another kick, this time to the stomach. When you’re small enough to have to look up at everyone around you, there’s no such thing as a dirty fight. That’s a new motto for me. I think I’ll keep it.

  Before I can complete my kick, someone grabs me around my ribs, pinning my arms. My heart thunders from the adrenaline, and I’m practically panting in my need for blood. I kick and scream at whoever holds me.

  “Easy, easy,” says Obi. “That’s enough. ” His voice is like velvet brushing against my ears, his arms like steel bands across my ribs. “Shhh…relax, it’s over…you won. ”

  He guides me out of the circle and through the crowd as he soothes me, his arms never relaxing their hold. I glare my most condemning glare at Raffe as I catch his eye. I could have been beaten to a pulp, and all he would have done was lost a bet. He still looks grim, his muscles taut, his face pale as though all the blood had drained from him.

  “Where are my winnings?” asks Raffe. I realize he’s not talking to me even though he’s still looking at me. It’s as if he wants to make sure I hear it along with everyone else.

  “You didn’t win,” says a guy near him. He sounds gleeful. He’s the one who collected all the bets.

  “What do you mean? My bet was the closest to what happened,” growls Raffe. His hands are fisted as he turns to the guy, and he looks ready for a fight himself.

  “Hey buddy, you didn’t bet she’d win. Close doesn’t count…”

  Their voices drift into the wind as Obi practically drags me to the mess hall. I don’t know which is worse—that Raffe didn’t jump in to defend me, or that he bet that I would lose.

  The mess hall is a big open cabin with rows of fold-up tables and chairs. I’m guessing it would take less than a half an hour to fold up all the tables and chairs to pack for moving. From everything I’ve seen, the whole camp is designed to be packed up and moved in less than an hour.

  The place is deserted even though there are half-eaten food trays on the tables. I guess a fight is a not-to-be-missed event around here. Obi’s grip on me relaxes once I stop struggling. He guides me to a table closest to the kitchen in the back.

  “Sit. I’ll be right back. ”

  I sit on a metal folding chair, trembling with the adrenaline crash. He heads back into the kitchen area. I take deep breaths, calming down and getting a hold of myself until he comes back with a first aid kit and a bag of frozen peas.

  He hands me the frozen peas. “Put this on your jaw. It’ll help with the swelling. ”

  I take the bag, staring at the familiar photo of green peas before gingerly pressing it to my tender jaw. The fact that they have the power to keep food frozen impresses me more than the rest of the camp combined. There’s something awe-inspiring about the ability to maintain some aspects of civilization when the rest of the world is sinking into a dark age.

  Obi cleans the blood and dirt off my scrapes. They’re mostly that, scrapes.

  “Your camp sucks,” I say. The peas are numbing my jaw and my words come out slurred.

  “Sorry about that. ” He rubs antibiotic ointment onto the scrapes on my hands. “There’s so much tension and jittery energy that we’ve had to accommodate for our people to blow off steam. The trick is to let them do it under controlled conditions. ”

  “You call what happened out there a controlled condition?”

  A half-smile brightens his face. “I’m sure Boden didn’t think so. ” He rubs antibiotic ointment on my scraped knuckles. “One of the concessions we made is that if a fight breaks out, no one interferes until there’s a clear winner or it becomes life-threatening. We just let people take bets on the outcome. It blows off steam for both the fighters and the spectators. ”

  So much for the power to maintain a piece of civilization.

  “Also,” he says. “It helps keep the number of fights down when the entire camp is taking bets on the outcome. People take fights seriously when there’s no one to rescue you and the whole camp is watching your every move. ”

  “So everyone knew this rule but me? That no one is allowed to interfere?” Had Raffe known it? Not that it should have stopped him.

  “People can jump in if they want, but that invites someone else to jump in for the other side to keep it a fair fight. The betters wouldn’t like it if it suddenly turned one-sided. ” So much for making excuses for Raffe. He could have jumped in, we just would have had to fight someone else too. Nothing we haven’t done before.

  “Sorry no one explained the rules of the playground to you. ” He bandages my bleeding elbow. “It’s just that we haven’t had a female get into a fight before. ” He shrugs. “We just didn’t expect it. ”

  “I guess this means you lost your bet. ”

  He grins sourly. “I only make big bets that involve lives and the future of humanity. ” His shoulders slump as though the invisible weight on them is too much. “Speaking of which, you handled yourself well out there. Better than anyone expected. We could really use someone like you. There are situations that a girl
like you could handle better than a platoon of men. ” His grin turns boyish. “Assuming you don’t clock an angel for pissing you off. ”

  “That’s a big assumption. ”

  “We can work on that. ” He gets up. “Think about it. ”

  “Actually, I was trying to get to you when that gorilla got in my way. The angels have taken my sister. You need to let me go so I can find her. I swear I won’t tell anybody about you, your location, anything. Just please, let me go. ”

  “I’m sorry about your sister, but I can’t jeopardize everyone here based on your word. Join us, and we’ll help you get her back. ”

  “It’ll be too late by the time you can mobilize your men. She’s seven years old and wheelchair-bound. ” I can barely get the words out through the lump in my throat. I can’t actually say what we both know, that it might already be too late.

  He shakes his head, looking genuinely sympathetic. “I’m sorry. Everyone here has had to bury someone they love. Join us and we’ll make those bastards pay. ”

  “I don’t intend to bury her. She’s not dead. ” I grind out the words. “I’m going to find her and get her out. ”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to imply that she was. ” He had, and we both know it. But I pretend to believe his pretty words. As I’ve heard other people’s mothers tell their daughters, politeness is its own reward. “We’ll be moving soon, and you can go then if you still want to leave us. I hope you won’t. ”

  “When is soon?”

  “I can’t disclose that information. All I can say is that we have something major in the works. You should be a part of it. For your sister, for humanity, for all of us. ”

  He’s good. I feel like standing up and saluting him while humming the national anthem. But I don’t think he’d appreciate that.

  I am, of course, rooting for the humans. But I already have more responsibilities than I can handle. I just want be an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. My biggest concern in life should be what dress to wear to the prom, not how to escape a paramilitary camp to rescue my sister from cruel angels, and certainly not joining a resistance army to beat back an invasion to save humanity. I know my limits and that goes way beyond them.

  So I just nod. He can make of that what he will. I hadn’t really expected him to let me go, but I had to try.

  As soon as he walks out the door, the lunch crowd shuffles back in. It must be understood, either implicitly or explicitly, that when Obi talks to one of the fighters, everyone gives them privacy. Interesting that he took me to the mess hall during lunch, making everyone wait until we were finished. He sent a clear message to everyone in the camp that I am someone he has noticed.