by Zara Starr
Dammit, one day she was going to lose her shit at these guards who thought that they could treat the females like cattle.
After a while, the pod came to a halt again, the door sliding open, and two guards waited outside. The guard on the inside gestured for Amelia to step out, and she was taken away with one guard flanking her on each side. She was led down a passageway and was soon out of sight.
What did this mean? Why had there been two guards? Tanya had been assigned two guards after she had escaped and spent some time in Mal’s room, but she couldn’t imagine Amelia doing something like that. The woman seemed very docile, nervous, unwilling to break the rules.
What other reason could they have for separating her from the other females? Had she been chosen as the prize for this season’s winner?
Tanya thought back to when they had been lined up for the contestants to inspect them. Gage hadn’t even looked her way, but she hadn’t noticed if he had chosen anyone else. Because just after that, Slinin had approached her and the whole process had been so traumatizing, she hadn’t thought about anything else.
Finally, the pod started moving again. It went in one direction, but then the guard got a message on his earpiece. He lifted a claw to his ear, cocking his head in a comical way, and then nodded.
He brought the pod to a halt and then they started moving in a different direction.
“Where are we going?” Tanya asked.
The guards didn’t answer.
She was getting angry. She was being treated as if she meant nothing.
“I know you heard me,” she said. “My bio-enhancer allows that. Isn’t that why I have it? So that you can hear what I’m saying? It’s pathetic that you’re ignoring me.”
The guard still didn’t answer her and so Tanya stood against the far wall, as far from the creature as she could get, seething.
When the door opened, they were in a private room that overlooked the arena with large glass windows. It was decorated tastefully, luxuriously, and Tanya had the feeling it was almost like a high roller suite for customers who paid a lot to see the matches. She imagined it with drinks and food, a couple of rich spectators chatting to each other and only keeping half an eye on the match.
While down there, two people were fighting each other to death.
Tanya walked closer to the window and looked down on the arena. It was a different angle than the stage where she always watched the fights from. At the bottom, Saithin workers were cleaning Mal’s blood from the floor.
Tanya’s stomach turned and she felt sick. They did everything as if it was just a part of the job, run-of-the-mill. Let’s clean up this puddle of blood and prepare for the next one. She turned her face away, looking at the guard.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
The guard looked at her with his expressionless face. She wished she could read what was going on in his mind. She hated that she could never tell. “The warrior who lost? Mal? What happened to him?”
She knew that she shouldn’t show too much emotion. They weren’t even supposed to know each other. Maybe she was going to give something away by asking about him, by referring to him by name. But she couldn’t help but ask. She was in that strange phase again, where it felt like her body was taking over and she was only along for the ride, watching the chaos ensue.
She had worried that the guard would get upset or suspicious when she asked about Mal, but instead, he just ignored her. Like he had in the pod. Like they always did when she asked something that they decided wasn’t any of her business.
She felt the familiar anger rise again. A part of her was glad to feel it – she understood anger. She knew how to deal with it. She didn’t like fear, she didn’t like uncertainty. She hated helplessness. But anger was something that she knew well. When she felt it, she felt like she could handle everything.
This time though, she didn’t act on her anger. It would only make things worse. Instead, she tried to swallow her rage and stay calm.
Another door to the suite opened and a Saithin stepped inside.
It wasn’t just any mantis. It was Slinin, Mal’s Master, the one who would have ended up owning her if Mal had won.
But Mal had lost. Which meant that she didn’t belong to this creature. Thank, God. She was relieved – even though this creature was like all the others, something about him freaked her out even more. Maybe it was the complete emptiness when she looked into his eyes. Or the way he didn’t seem to care about anything or anyone other than himself.
“Yes,” he finally said, looking her up and down. “That will do.” His eyes landed on her cheek and he cocked his head to the side. Did they all do that? Did they know how ridiculous they looked?
“She has a mark on her cheek,” Slinin said.
The guard swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, she does.”
“Do you want to explain to me how it got there?” Slinin asked, clasping his hands behind his back. He didn’t look aggressive; he was quite upright and not very tall. But his strange coloring – red with blue spots – and his inexplicable calm was somehow intimidating.
Tanya could feel the fear radiating from the guard. It was so contagious, that she was starting to get nervous too. And Slinin wasn’t even looking at her.
“We had an incident,” the guard said in a shaky voice. “She was trying to get away. I didn’t know how else to stop her.”
“You are useless,” Slinin said calmly.
The guards didn’t seem to know how to respond, so he didn’t respond at all. Tanya thought that the comment was strange too. It was so matter-of-fact that it could almost not be seen as an insult. But it was. It just looked like Slinin had stated a fact, and he hadn’t specifically meant to be insulting.
“So? Are we going to finish this?” he added.
The guard nodded and scrambled toward a pad against the pod wall. He pressed a couple of buttons on the screen and an image that looked a lot like a receipt popped up.
“The transaction has gone through,” he said.
Slinin nodded. “I didn’t expect otherwise.” He walked closer to Tanya, who recoiled away from him. The Saithin smiled and it seemed devilish and smug. It didn’t work on the monster’s face.
The guard walked over to Tanya and roughly grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Hey!” she cried out, trying to fight it, but the claw bit into her shoulder and she bit her lip, wincing. The guard pulled out a scanner and scanned Tanya’s bio-enhancer, which was visible with her hair tied back into a ponytail.
“Do you want to keep any of the protocols activated?” the guard asked Slinin.
Why was he asking him? What say did this creature have over the guard? Did he have some kind of clout here that Tanya didn’t know about? She hadn’t seen him until he had been declared a contestant in the tournament. None of this made sense.
“Just keep the language synchronizer,” Slinin said.
The guard nodded and tapped a couple of things on the screen of the scanner before he shoved Tanya toward Slinin. She only took a few steps to regain her balance before she tried to back away again. But there wasn’t very far she could go. The suite wasn’t very big and the guard was there, stopping her from getting away completely.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” Slinin said. His face was serious, his hands were still behind his back. But the tone in his voice suggested that he could rub his hands together and offer her a disgusting smile.
Slowly, horrifyingly, Tanya started to understand what was going on.
Even though Mal had lost the fight, somehow, she belonged to Slinin.
He was her Master now.
Chapter Nineteen
Mal
Mal was hyperventilating. Air traveled so fast in and out of his lungs that he couldn’t get any oxygen to his brain. It stopped him from thinking clearly. It stopped him from deciding what needed to be done next.
Because something needed to be done. Mal knew that. Something had to be done, and soon. B
ecause he couldn’t let Slinin own Tanya.
He couldn’t let that happen. He was still healing from his injuries. He shouldn’t have been freaking out like this. He shouldn’t have done anything at all except rest until he felt better.
But there was a storm brewing inside of him. He couldn’t stop himself. Something had to be done and he was the only person that could do it.
Even if he had grown up without free will, even if he had been owned by someone his entire life. Even if he had spent most of his life in this gladiator dome, it didn’t matter. Nothing he had been through before, nothing that had shaped him, compared to how he felt about Tanya. He had known that he shouldn’t feel this way about her – it would only cause trouble.
But he couldn’t help it. He had tried. And it hadn’t worked – the feelings that he had developed for her had happened by themselves.
None of the excuses about being a slave, about belonging in the dome… none of it was good enough. Not when it came to Tanya.
Mal struggled to think straight – his head injury was healing but it wasn’t nearly what it should be. Not yet. But he didn’t have the luxury of waiting until he felt better. He was a fast healer, but he had to act even faster.
He ran through the gladiator dome in his mind, trying to create a plan. Trying to figure out what his next step should be. Because there was no way he was going to sit back and allow this to happen.
He stood on unstable legs and stumbled out of the shower area. He still wore the bloodied clothes that he had fought in, they hadn’t even bothered to strip him of it. Maybe they had figured that he might die, and then the effort wouldn’t even have been worth it.
But Mal wasn’t dead. And he was going to make sure that everyone knew it. Hopefully when it was too late though.
When Mal passed the weapons arsenal, he spotted the cart that he had loaded when he had tried to smuggle Tanya back to the prize quarters. It hadn’t been unloaded – no one had bothered to do it – and everything was exactly as it had been. He had not put any of it away after he had returned from the arena with the cart, after the guard had been kept busy long enough.
Now, Mal looked through the weapons, rifling through the things he had thrown into the path haphazardly. Before, he had chosen weapons for their size and shape. He had needed something that would hide her small body away.
Now, he was looking at the weapons with very different eyes. He needed weapons that were powerful. Weapons that would help him do what he needed to do.
Carefully, he sifted through what he had packed and he chose a couple of the powerful ones. The stronger the better – but not too big and too heavy so that he couldn’t move. He needed to be light on his feet, able to move fast when it was necessary.
Able to fight again, if he had to. Would his body allow him? He hoped that by the time he had to engage in combat, he would be ready. He didn’t have any time to waste.
Mal left the weapons arsenal and made his way upward, toward the arena floor. His heart thundered in his chest, his blood rushing in his ears. He had never done anything like this. He had always abided by the rules. He had always done what he was told, what was expected of him.
But that ship had sailed. He wasn’t sure when he had snapped. When Slinin had told him he was worthless? Or when he had made it sound like a given that Tanya would go to him? Maybe when he explained that breaking the rules was normal if you had enough money?
That was how it was in this world – you didn’t get anything if you didn’t take it for yourself. And that was exactly what Mal was going to do. It was time to break tradition. It didn’t matter that he had another Master now. It didn’t matter that he had any Master at all.
No one cared about Tanya’s fate. They all saw her as a slave, someone that could be owned, coveted. Someone that could be used.
That was wrong. All his life, Mal had fought for someone else, doing what they wanted, putting himself in danger so that they could be happy. And they didn’t lose anything, even though he had gotten hurt, even though he had nearly died.
That was over now. Now, he was going to stand up for what he believed in, he was going to put himself in danger for something that would make him happy. He was going to save Tanya.
The arena had an area where the gladiators were allowed to train, adjacent to the gym, but the main fighting area was off-limits unless the fight was about to begin. It was heavily guarded, but not by Saithin guards. It was secured by advanced Saithin technology and it had a lot of scanners that the gladiators needed to look into or press up against to be allowed into the arena.
The moment the scanner picked up on his presence, alarms started going off. Mal wasn’t sure why – either the end of the tournament had already been logged and all gladiators were off-limits, or he had been logged as a gladiator that needed to recover.
Often, that happened, especially when the Masters were so hard on their fighters that they wanted to force them to fight even though they weren’t in any physical condition to survive. At least there was some kind of system for that.
Besides, Mal was in transition between Masters too. There was absolutely no reason why the system would allow him through.
The alarm was loud in his ears and red lights flashed, making his head ache after he had been hit so hard. But he couldn’t allow that to distract him. Saithin guards ran through the doors on opposite sides of Mal, straight toward him. They were shouting at him to step away from the arena, but Mal wasn’t about to back down.
He had done enough of that in his life. He fell back on what came naturally – fighting.
When the first guard reached him, Mal lashed out and hit the guard so hard that he flew backward. All the guards were surprised. Never before had a gladiator stood up and fought back.
But they didn’t let it shock them for too long. They were in attack mode now.
Funny, so was Mal.
Even though he had been severely injured and his head was throbbing painfully, adrenaline pumped through his body and gave him a second wind. He had more strength than he had expected, and he fought the guards off, two at a time, sometimes three. It took only a couple of hits to get them down – these guards weren’t used to having to fight. And Mal had fought his entire life.
After taking care of the few guards that had come towards the gladiator arena, Mal moved toward one of the doors that had remained open. As long as the doors were open, or the guards were opening it for him, he could get away. He hadn’t been outside the Dome in a very long time, but he knew the direction of the exit.
After all, it was where all the spectators came in from. And where they disappeared to after matches. It only stood to reason that it was the exit of the Dome, that outside these walls, Mal would finally taste freedom.
The next door he reached wasn’t open. When the scanner scanned his face and there was no beeping sound, he knew that he wasn’t allowed to pass.
Mal looked around, searching for a way through. A guard came through another door and froze in his tracks when he saw Mal. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the alarms.
Perfect. That meant that Mal had caught him off guard.
Mal ran toward the guard, moving quickly, and grabbed the guard by the claw.
“Let me go!” the guard protested. “You know what the punishment is for escaping.”
“Are you going to punish me?” Mal asked, dragging the guard after him.
The guard fought and kicked, but Mal was a lot bigger and a lot stronger. After this, he was sure that the Dome would increase security. The guards had become lax over the past couple of years, with the gladiators too used to their situation to bother fighting back. It was so normal for everyone to be slaves around here that the guards had never really had to stand up and fight.
Well, Mal was perfectly happy with being the front runner with this. It meant that things would still be relatively easy for him.
When he had managed to drag the guard all the way to the scanner, he scanned the guard’s features an
d the door opened.
“Let me go,” the guard protested again, but Mal shook his head. “I think there will be a couple of doors that you can help me through,” he said.
The guard tried to fight him, and for a moment, it looked like he was going to get the upper hand. Sick and tired of all of this, Mal knocked him out. He didn’t need the guard to be conscious to have him stand anyway.
Dragging the unconscious body slowed him down, but it saved him from having to fight every guard he came across. Thankfully, there were none. Where were they? Were these corridors always so empty? Or were all the guards in a different part of the Dome, ready to fight him when he headed in that direction?
Mal didn’t think about this for too long. He didn’t care what was happening, as long as he was able to get out of there. He went through a ridiculous number of doors, feeling like maybe he was going in circles. And then, suddenly, the last door opened onto the street.
Mal gasped, looking at the world around him. The street was filled with Saithin civilians, walking about, minding their own business. No one even looked at him when he slid out and dropped the guard at the door.
Mal hadn’t always been in the Dome. There had been a time when he had been trained in a different facility. But he had always been kept indoors, away from the light, away from the people who inhabited the planet.
Now, he felt almost shellshocked to be out in the open, around people. And no one seemed to think there was anything wrong with it. No one looked at him like he was out of place. For all they knew, he was one of them.
Mal looked down. Except for the bloodied clothing, of course. He would have to do something about that so that he could blend in.
Mal looked in both directions. He started running down the street. Quickly, he realized that the only time he was drawing attention was when he ran. Apparently, no one else did that. So, he slowed down. Even though he felt like he was running out of time.
What if he couldn’t find her? What if something happened and he couldn’t save her?
What if he was too late for some other reason? His heart beat fast in his chest and he felt the panic set in again.
