Champion

by Emmy Chandler

  I click my pen beneath the table while Graham seems to be considering the question. “And for the record, I’m asking for your advice, as the veteran among us. Not for your permission,” I clarify.

  “I never assumed otherwise,” Graham says at last, while Hardy snorts. “My advice is that we let them get used to seeing you sit here, first, before we ask them not to chase, just because they see you running. So why don’t we have breakfast?” He picks up one of the bags from the reddish grass behind the bench and sets it between us. “I think I still have some—” he frowns down at the bag. “This isn’t mine.”

  “It’s Roth’s.” I hadn’t realized that during our tense exit from D block, he hadn’t noticed my extra pack. “I figure anything good he had would either have been on him when they took him or in this bag.”

  Hardy looks surprised by my competence.

  Fuck him.

  I take the bag from Graham—this is my loot—and rifle through the contents, pushing aside a spare shirt, a disgustingly stiff pair of underwear, which I drop on the ground behind us to be forgotten forever, and several bags of potato chips, until I find…

  A knife. An honest-to-goodness switchblade, with a quick-release lever.

  Holy shit.

  I decide not to show Graham yet, because I don’t want Hardy to see it. I haven’t decided whether or not he’s trustworthy. Instead, I pull a bag of chips from the pack, then close the flap and set it on the ground, as if it isn’t the most valuable, useful thing I’ve seen since the shuttle dropped me off in this shithole.

  The most valuable, useful thing, other than Graham and our new alliance-with-benefits.

  “Nothing good.” I hand the chips to Graham, then dig in my own bag for one of the starter ration packs I was issued on Station Alpha.

  The guys both scarf their breakfast, but I make mine last nearly an hour, while I try to pretend I’m not the center of attention. Then, with my food gone, I set Roth’s backpack on the table next to mine and begin transferring everything of his that I can use into my own pack, including his knife, rolled up inside the clean shirt.

  I shove my breakfast trash into Roth’s bag, on top of the chip and cookie packets that remain, then I push the whole thing toward Graham. “Roth’s food’s all yours, if you want it.”

  I stand, but Graham pulls me right back down. “Where are you going?”

  “For a run. On the track. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “Can you run with your backpack on?”

  I roll my eyes at him. “I can tie my shoes and wipe my own ass too.”

  Hardy snorts.

  “Look, every second I waste sitting here is a second that could have been spent training,” I whisper. “Besides that, I have a lot of anger and resentment to burn off right now.” And since I can’t just punch every man currently looking at me like I’m a piece of meat, running seems like the most productive and least suicidal use of my time.

  “She getting antsy?” A man in line for one of the bench presses calls out. “I can help you burn some energy, honey.”

  I flip him off as I step over the bench seat and throw my bag over my shoulder. “Come run with me,” I say, and when Hardy stands, I give Graham a pointed look. “Just. You.”

  “Thanks, man, but we’re good,” Graham says, smoothing over my dismissal. “And I don’t want to keep you away from the weights.”

  Hardy nods, then heads over to the line for leg extensions.

  “He’s not a bad guy, you know,” Graham whispers.

  “I know. But so far, you’re the only one in here I’m sure I can trust.”

  “Fair enough. But we need every ally we can get so maybe you could give him a chance to earn your trust?”

  I give Graham a non-committal shrug, and that seems to satisfy him.

  “Good. Let’s go run.”

  “Just a sec.” I dig Roth’s retractable blade from my bag and slide it into my pocket as nonchalantly as I can, hoping no one else notices.

  Graham’s brows rise. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Unless your guess is ‘fold-up spork.’ Come on.” I head for the track, and Graham jogs to catch up with me.

  After a few minutes of stretching, which inspires another round of catcalls, we start running, and though I fully expect a bunch of the other inmates to jump in, they all seem content to watch from the sidelines.

  My prison uniform is too baggy and my shoes are total shit. The pack bounces on my back, until I tie the ends of the straps around my waist. The difference in gravity is difficult to adjust to. And the jogging trail is uneven.

  Nothing about this run would have qualified as even satisfactory in my life before prison, yet the half hour I spend on the track is the best half hour I’ve had since setting foot on Rhodon.

  The best non-orgasmic half hour, anyway.

  I concentrate on my stride. On regaining the cardio vascular endurance I lost during my weeks sitting in a cage on the prison transport. And within minutes of that first step, I’ve forgotten about the eyes following my every move. The yard full of prisoners just waiting for me to get too far ahead of Graham. There is nothing but me, and the rhythm of my breathing. The cadence of my steps. And the gratifying burn of muscles that have been underused for weeks.

  The only thing missing, other than decent workout clothes, is my music.

  “Sylvie!” Graham’s voice cuts through my bliss and I stumble to an awkward halt to see that I’ve pulled far ahead of him. Hardy heads across the yard toward me, ready to intercept anyone who gets too close before Graham catches up. So I turn around and jog back to him.

  “Holy shit.” He’s panting. “Do you run marathons?”

  I shrug. “No, but I like running and I haven’t had a chance to really move in so long…”

  “You’re fucking fast.”

  “I know. That’s the only advantage I have. I’ll never be as strong as most of these men, but if I can run circles around them, I can dodge most of their blows. In the arena, anyway.” In tight quarters, where there’s nowhere to run, my speed means little. Which makes challengers in the bullpen an entirely different threat than the ones I’ll meet on the sand.

  11

  GRAHAM

  Hardy and I spend the rest of the week making sure Sylvie has an escort every minute of the day. He’s not as strong a fighter, so I only leave him with her when I’m near enough to come to his aid. Like while I use the weight machines. I can hop off and be across the yard in two seconds.

  For the moment, my position in the new pecking order seems to be enough to keep her safe, at least while I’m nearby. In part, that’s because I beat to death the first two men who tried to grab her. If anyone else had stepped in to help them, the outcome would have been drastically different, but no one wants to risk an injury that could get them killed in the arena. Because unlike Roth, most of us don’t have corporate sponsors willing to pay for medical care.

  Presumably, his sponsors have set their sights on a few other top tier fighters, for if and when he loses, but no one knows for sure who those are. And the men nearest the top are the ones with the most to lose. Which makes them the least likely to take a big risk.

  However, men who expect to die in the arena at the end of the week have no reason not to make a grab for her. Those are the bastards we have to watch out for.

  Sylvie was mad after I killed the first one. She thought beating him would be enough to teach him a lesson. But what she can’t seem to keep in mind is that it isn’t the guy who grabbed her who needs to learn a lesson. It’s everyone watching to see how he fared. When killing the first one didn’t stop the second, I think she started to understand.

  Fortunately, since then, it’s been pretty quiet, and we’ve settled into a routine.

  While Hardy and I take turns on the weight machines, Sylvie runs on the track, with the spring-loaded knife in her pocket. I join her for about half an hour every day, to keep up with my own speed and stamina, but I spend most of my tim
e building strength. Normally, I would also spend serious time grappling with Hardy, but that isn’t possible with no one else to watch out for Sylvie.

  She doesn’t use the machines, because though she’s very strong for her size, if the men see her max out at less than half what most of them can lift, they’re going to start remembering that they can overpower her. Which will eventually lead some of them to try.

  Instead, after lockdown she builds strength through exercises that involve lifting her own bodyweight—every imaginable variation of pushups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, planks, and triceps dips on the edge of the bed. When those become too easy, I collect a bunch of water pouches, fill them, and tie them together with shoestrings to make a weight belt for her.

  She never complains. She never hesitates. In fact, the thing she says most often, in our cell at night, is more. And while I know she’s asking for more weight, more difficulty, more of a challenge, every time I hear the word come across her lips, I remember the way she demanded more of me in bed, back before we knew about the security footage.

  And I really want to give it to her.

  “You’re going easy on me.” Sylvie rolls away from me and onto her feet in one fluid motion, and for about the millionth time, I am awed by how graceful all her movements are. How controlled, yet seemingly effortless. But I’ve seen the work she puts in. The effort. She’s earned every bit of admiration, even if I’m the only one who’ll ever appreciate it.

  “That’s because we’re on concrete, but the sand will have a lot more give, so—”

  “Believe it or not, I have walked on sand before, Graham.” She’s angry, but not at me. She’s angry at the circumstance, and I can’t blame her. It’s not fair that she can’t train the way everyone else does. That’s just one more strike against her, in a place where the strikes add up quickly.

  But life isn’t fair. In here, neither is death.

  We only have about an hour between lockdown and lights out, and every night she has to choose whether to split that time between strength conditioning and sparring, or to neglect one aspect of her training in favor of the other.

  “Okay, smartass, escape my mount position.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Escaping it isn’t the issue. My challenge is getting close enough to hit without getting hit.”

  “That’s everyone’s challenge.”

  “Yes, but my wingspan is among the shortest in the bullpen. Possibly the shortest. Which makes that more challenging for me than for most.”

  “But if you can’t get off the ground, you can’t avoid the blows at all. Come on. On your back.”

  “Now we’re talking…” Across the aisle, an asshole named Roger sits right in front of the bars of his cell, watching us. “Put her on the ground.”

  From farther down the row, others call out for him to narrate what he’s seeing, and I have no doubt that half of them have their hands in their pants, wishing they were in my position. Or at least Roger’s. He fought for that cell. In fact, I think he squatted in it most of the day. That’s become a regular thing now, as inmates who can’t get close to Sylvie jockey for a position that will let them watch her.

  Watch us. Together.

  If I get here early enough tomorrow, I’m going to close that cell before anyone can claim it.

  In a place with no screens, we’re the live entertainment. But so far, our audience has been disappointed, and not just because most of our bed is blocked from view by a concrete wall. At night, with her pressed against me, despite my achingly hard cock and the moisture I know I’d find between her thighs if I were to touch her, we’ve been unwilling to do anything that involves removing clothing, to avoid creating another porn video for UA to market.

  I can only imagine how much they’ve already made on the first two. And how much anticipation those videos have built for audiences seeing Sylvie on the sand for the first time.

  I’m not really worried about her first fight. She’s hands-down stronger and faster than most of the other rookies. I’m worried about the next one. And the one after that.

  “I’m not new at this, you know,” Sylvie reminds me as she sits, then rolls onto her back on the row of mattress pads we’ve spread over the floor. One of them is ours. The other three came from Roth’s cell. They won’t stay put, which makes them practically worthless, yet there’s no way we can get any serious work done on the concrete floor without hurting each other.

  I straddle her, careful to stay north of her hips, with my fists up to defend my face. “Okay, take me down.”

  “My pleasure.” Her knee slams into my back before she’s even finished speaking, throwing me forward, forcing me to catch myself with my hands on either side of her head. Before I’ve found my balance, she hooks her left leg around my right one and her left arm around my right arm, near my shoulder, then grunts as she rolls us over in one smooth motion.

  I lock my ankles at her lower back in a locked guard position, but Sylvie pushes herself to her feet with her hands anchored on my shoulders, pulling my lower body up with her, as she holds the rest of me down.

  Then she punches me right in the jaw. Hard.

  “Damn it!” I hook my leg behind hers and drop her to the ground, but I’m only able to do that because she’s laughing. “What happened to pulling punches?” I demand as I pin her to the mat by her shoulders.

  “This play fighting isn’t going to get me anywhere.” She’s still smiling, but beneath that, she’s serious. She’s…worried. “I’ve taken men down in class over and over. None of them as big as most of the guys here, but their weight can be as much of a detriment as an advantage. But in class, the guys tap out, then we all stand up and go for a beer. That’s not going to happen on the sand. I need to learn how to finish them off, Graham.”

  “You can come finish me off,” Roger calls from across the aisle, and all around us, men laugh, as if that’s the cleverest thing they’ve ever heard.

  “Come on.” I stand and reach down to pull her up, then I start stacking mattress pads on the slab of concrete that passes for a bunk in the bullpen. Roth was really onto something with that. A decent night’s sleep will change your life. “Let’s talk in bed.”

  “That’s not what the bed’s for, man,” Roger says, and Sylvie doesn’t even glance at him. The threats and obscenities have become so pervasive that we hardly even hear them anymore. They’re like white noise. Vulgar, salacious white noise.

  With the bed “made,” we wash up at the sink. Sylvie’s always careful to stay out of sight as much as possible, because the more skin the other men see, the more riled up they get. It’s not like they’ll ever forget she’s here, but we go out of our way not to remind them. Which is why we haven’t ventured into the showers even once since she stepped into the bullpen.

  Sink baths suck, but they’re much safer than a shower room that can hold up to twenty men, but only has one exit.

  “I really need to wash my hair. Do you mind?” she asks, when she’s dressed in her cleanest change of clothes, still damp from the sponge bath.

  “These are the moments I live for.” And I’m only kind of kidding. Though I don’t envy her the burden of washing a head full of gorgeous curls, I love having her bent over the sink in front of me while I pour water from one of the pouches onto her head.

  She’s only washed it once since she got here, but by the end of that experiment, I’d gotten pretty good at lathering up our bar soap and scrubbing her scalp. This time, just like last time, we have nothing to dry her hair on, so I help her wring it out over the sink.

  When she stands, wet curls falling halfway down her back, she’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Fuck the cameras,” I mumble as I pull her close for a kiss, plunging my hands into the wet mass of her hair.

  And now I’m rock hard with her pressed against me, torturing both of us.

  Sylvie groans as she backs away. Then she sinks onto the bed and piles her hair up over her head, to keep it from s
oaking her shirt. She won’t be able to finger-comb it until it’s dry, and even with me helping, that’ll take at least an hour.

  “You should really consider cutting your hair,” I whisper as I crawl onto the bed with her. Spooning her in our favorite position. “It’ll be a liability in the arena.”

  “I know. I wish I had some way to tie it back securely.”

  “They might do that tomorrow. During the prep filming. There usually isn’t much fuss over rookies, but with you, who knows.”

  “That’s the only reason I haven’t cut it yet,” she admits. “I’m hoping that if I wait and do it as part of the show, they’ll have something easier to work with than my switchblade. I’ve seen them do that for some of the men who come in with long hair.”

  “Yeah, we get a lot of those. After the first time their hair’s used like a handle by their opponents, they’re eager to cut it, even if that weakens their appeal.” Which can ultimately be just as damaging as long hair. The less on-screen appeal a fighter has, the less chance there is of him gaining sponsorship as he progresses through the brackets. And without sponsorships, there are no weapons, lifelines, or medical care.

  But in the end, all of that—the cameras, the interviews, the fight reels, the sponsorships—is just noise distracting us from the goal. Survival. When it comes down to it, no matter how many people are watching, you’re alone on the sand with your opponent, and all that matters is your ability to choke the life out of him. Or throw a punch hard enough to crack his skull and scramble his brains.

  Unfortunately, Sylvie doesn’t have the strength for either of those.

  “I hope you’re not squeamish,” I whisper as I pull her close, trying to ignore the erection making demands between us.

  She laughs, and her body bounces against mine, deepening my ache for her into a bone-deep need. “Graham, I’ve stabbed two men in the throat since I got here. And one in the eye.”

  “I know, but are you willing to do that with your bare fingers? Because you can’t take a weapon into the ring, so your best bet for ending the fight is going to be tearing soft tissue.”