SICK HEART

by Huss, JA

  It’s not any of those things. It’s Bexxie. Because I am suddenly very, very, very sure that I will never see her bright, smiling face again. And that might be the most tragic thing to ever happen to me.

  Cort sighs, clearly frustrated with me. When I look up, I see a blurry version of him through my tears. He’s slouched down in his chair, leaning back, his elbow propped on the chair arm, his fist under his chin. Like he’s about ready to throw me over the side of this rig and make me take my chances in the ocean.

  And can I blame him? So far he’s had to wrap my bloody knuckles, stitch up my head, share his water and food with me, even though we don’t have enough for one person, let alone two a at this point, and now I’m sitting here—surrounded by his reluctant kindness—and all I can do is cry.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - CORT

  What the fuck?

  Like, literally, what the actual fuck is wrong with this girl?

  I seriously want to slap her. What is her problem now? I’ve fed her, I stitched up her head, I brought her into the kids’ room so she can eat at a fucking table and relax a little, and all she wants to do is cry?

  I don’t get it. I mean, I get girls, OK? I have eight of them back at camp and only one of them would even think about crying in front of me. And she’s only four years old, so whatever.

  But Anya is a grown-ass woman. Grown women don’t cry. Especially when I’m going out of my way to not only keep her alive, but keep her comfortable. She’s not even eating that food. I’m about to take it from her, eat it myself. Fuck her. Does she have any idea how dearly we’ll pay for this extra meal in two weeks?

  No. She doesn’t. But she will. She’s not gonna like that day. At all.

  She is weak and I don’t know if I can take much more of this.

  I don’t like weak people. I don’t want to take care of her. I don’t want to take care of anyone, actually. Maybe Evard, but only on certain occasions. And Anya Bokori is no Evard. She is no one to me. Just a way to piss off Udulf and hopefully get some secrets I can use later to fuck with him or Lazar, if either of them ever forgets who they’re dealing with.

  But she tires me out. Just thinking about all the stress that’s coming—and how she’s adding to it—pisses me off. I don’t even feel like getting my ass up out of this chair to train, that’s how weary she makes me.

  So I just… sigh. And stay where I am. Staring at her blotchy face as she wipes her cheeks and works her way through her silent breakdown.

  I understand some of it. I do. I’ve been through the same shit. I was a house boy for a little while, so I get that part. It’s all very traumatic. But she’s old now. It’s over. She’s here, she’s being fed and cared for—what more does she want from me?

  Why did I even bring her here in the first place? Why? I don’t even like her.

  I mean, maybe I could like her. If she wasn’t such a stupid girl. If she would just do what I tell her without comment. Her silence isn’t really silence, anyway. It’s filled with all kinds of judgment and expectations.

  And who the fuck is she to judge me?

  Her eyes dart up to mine. She lets out a hitched breath, then reaches for her fork and begins to eat.

  She eats slowly and takes small bites. I know she has to be hungry. She did go two days without food. I refuse to feel bad about that. It was punishment for being a brat. I have a pre-schooler who is better behaved than Anya. All I wanted her to do was jump some fucking rope. Just keep busy so I could concentrate on myself.

  Why is she so dramatic?

  She doesn’t look at me again, just continues to eat her food. And I should just get up and go out to the training mats. Just get on with my day and leave her here.

  But if she’s not going to train today—and I don’t think it’s a good idea, not with the head wound—then what can she do?

  Leaving her alone isn’t an option. Most people have a hard time with solitude, especially out here in the middle of the ocean. She needs to be kept busy. I learned this a long time ago when I first started taking kids into my camp. They’re OK if you keep them busy. You have to take their mind off the past. They need to forget where they came from and only think about the present. That’s the only way you get through this shit.

  But they are mostly boys, and they are all fighters, and Anya is not only a girl, she’s a weak girl. I don’t know how she’s made it this far, to be honest. She would’ve been knocked out of my world by the time she was six.

  Girls don’t last long in the gym. There is no female league in the ring. You fight whoever they put in front of you. And sure, chances are you’re going to get a girl or two. Even I’ve fought three of them over the years. So if you’re a little girl in a training camp you got there for one reason and one reason only. You’re not pretty enough or compliant enough to be a slave and you’re worth too much for them to kill you without seeing if they can make their money back first.

  And if you’re a girl in a training camp and you make it to your tenth birthday, you got that far for another reason. The early years are mostly about following directions. But of course, you have skills. At least the beginnings of them. You can take a punch and deliver one back. You’ve had more black eyes than you can count, two of your ribs always scream when you take a deep breath, you don’t smile much, if ever, and your thoughts are mostly consumed with revenge plans that will never pan out.

  If you’re a girl in a training camp and you make it to sixteen—and I have one that age at my camp—you are a certified badass. You forgot all about your sex. There is no difference between you and the boys you train with on the mat. This is your life and you either like it, or at the very least accept it. You have killed at least ten people to get to this point. And you have no regrets. You dream of making it all the way.

  But if you do make it all the way—age twenty or so—you are cold, and demanding, and jaded, and I use them as teachers to keep the little ones in line.

  I have three over the age of twenty. We all came up together. Me, Rainer, Maart, Cintia, Ling, and Sissy. That’s the only reason they’re still alive. We fought for them. And we fought hard. And their loyalty to us is absolute.

  But I don’t feel too sorry for the girls, because they have it easy compared to us. If you make it to twenty and you’re a boy, they are just a younger version of me.

  They are out fighting for their own camps. Trying to live long enough to buy their way out, just like I did. But no one makes it. That goalpost is so high and so far away, I can’t recall a single fighter in my lifetime who has actually bought their way out.

  I will be the first. And even though, at this point in the game, I can’t see many ways in which I fail, there are ways. These men who run us can do anything they want. Even rip this reward out from under me for no reason whatsoever.

  I’m trusting Udulf to keep his word. But that doesn’t mean he will.

  Almost no boys make it to twenty. They have even fewer chances than the girls because no one underestimates them in the ring. I’ve seen the boys when they get face to face with one of my girls. They smile, thinking it’s gonna be easy.

  But there are no rules in the kind of fighting we do. There are no refs, there are no tap outs, and the only way you get off the platform is by killing your opponent.

  So the very first thing I teach my girls is how to go for the balls. There is no weak spot on a female the way there is a man.

  Sure, you can hit them in the face. That stuns a girl who hasn’t been hit much. But my girls know exactly what to do when a boy, or a man, hits them in the face. So they have no weakness, other than their smaller size and weight, when they step in that ring. And smaller size can always be used to their advantage if they have the right ajarn. And my girls have the best teacher on the planet.

  I’m not saying I’ve got a perfect record when it comes to the girls. I don’t take a lot of them, for obvious reasons. And most of them die fighting before they are ten. But the ones who make it to Anya’s age—you do not
fuck with those women.

  I feel a little bad about leaving Cintia, Sissy, and Ling behind when Maart, Rainer, Evard and me walk away with our freedom, but they’ll be OK. None of the twisted fucks like Lazar want women like them at their age. They are good for running camps and that’s what they’ll do for the rest of their lives. Cook, and clean, and teach.

  It’s the best I can do. I cannot afford to fight for their freedom. I don’t have three more fights in me. Hell, I don’t think I even have one more fight in me. I won’t ever admit it—not out loud anyway—but if Anya wasn’t on the platform that night, Pavo would’ve won.

  I let out a long exhale, then look over at Anya and see that she’s done eating. Her crying is over now, her face wiped dry and her eyes waiting for me to tell her what comes next.

  What does come next?

  I could just take her back out to the training floor and make her do busy work, work on those moves I showed her yesterday, but it’s probably the wrong choice.

  So I get up, walk over to the long shelf, and pull out a puzzle.

  It’s an old one. A black-and-white picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Hell, I think this puzzle has been here since I first started bringing kids out to the Rock. And it’s got to be missing a couple dozen pieces by now.

  I drop it on the table in front of Anya and point.

  I have every intention of leaving her here to do it herself while I go back outside, but then I think, Shit. How long has it been since I sat down and did a freaking puzzle?

  When was the last time I took a slow day?

  So instead, I sit back down, grab the box, take off the lid, and dump out all the pieces. And when I look at Anya, she’s not looking at me, she’s looking at the table. At all the little jagged edges. And she’s smiling.

  I smile too, unable to stop it.

  She’s pretty. A lot prettier than any girl I’ve been with in the last few years. I don’t get to keep the girls I fight for, they go right to Udulf. What he does with them, I have no idea. So it’s been a while since I’ve found myself wanting to stare at the face of a girl sitting across from me.

  She looks up, meets my gaze with bright eyes, and I suddenly feel like this is the right way forward.

  Make her happy, Cort. Why not? Be nice to her. Feed her better than you have been. Go a little easy on her, even. Because she has no future. None at all. She will probably be dead in six months, or sold as a breeder. Because unlike Sissy, and Cintia, and Ling, she is desirable. Not what Udulf is looking for, the sick fuck. But most men don’t have Udulf’s twisted sexual preferences.

  He’s going to sell her. Barter her. Use her in some business negotiation. And that will be that.

  So why not? Why not just make her last days happy?

  I start flipping pieces over, separating the edges from the middle pieces. Anya does the same and soon enough we have two piles. Then she keeps going, separating them into black, and white, and shades of gray.

  I work on a few edge pieces and watch her busily building a section of city behind and to the right of the Eiffel Tower. That’s kind of interesting. Most people would do the famous landmark first, but she is concentrating on some random group of buildings in the background.

  I continue with the outer edges and eventually both of us are standing up, taking this stupid puzzle seriously.

  I finish the edges and she still hasn’t touched the tower. So I go for that next. We work quickly and efficiently and pretty soon she’s grabbing the pieces I’ve put together and fitting them into the big picture.

  Even though the puzzle is five hundred pieces, it doesn’t take us long to finish. And, astonishingly, none of the pieces are missing.

  Anya looks down at the completed picture and smiles. Has she been to Paris? Is she having a memory right now?

  I’ve been to Paris a few times myself. Though none of those memories are anything I’d ever want to remember. They were all for fights. In the early days, when the stakes were smaller, and the rings were just gyms, and not helipads on massive billion-dollar ships.

  When I look up, Anya is watching me. She points to the puzzle, to the spot she was concentrating on in the beginning. I squint my eyes and lean down to see it better. It’s blurry, not meant to really be seen close up. Just something you put together from a distance.

  What is it? I sign.

  She places the back of one hand on top of her other palm, then presses them to her heart. It’s not a real sign, but I think I get her meaning.

  Home? I ask.

  She smiles. No teeth, just upturned lips and bright eyes.

  You come from Paris? I stare at the puzzle, missing her response.

  Interesting. Both that she remembers where she came from and that she can pick out the building on a random puzzle in the middle of the ocean.

  When I look back up at her, she’s watching me expectantly, wondering what we will do next. I hadn’t really planned anything after the puzzle. I figured it would take forever. But I don’t think we’ve been here for more than an hour or two. So it’s not even lunchtime.

  I point to the shelf, then flash signs at Anya, giving her permission to make a decision.

  She looks delighted, a spring in her step as she gets up and makes her way over to the shelf, carefully going through the other puzzles. But then she looks at the books and scoots down to pull one out, sitting back on her butt to page through it. It’s nothing I recognize, but it looks like something a pre-teen girl would read.

  The Country Club Girls. Never heard of it.

  But I get up, walk over to Anya, pull the book from her hands, and toss it over my shoulder. She looks up, startled.

  She can read that some other time. We need to do something together, I sign. We’re not going to read. Especially not that book, I don’t add. Pick a game.

  She looks back over to the shelf, then crawls over there and pulls out Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

  When she looks up at me, she’s… smirking.

  Seriously, I sign.

  She makes motions with her hands, like she’s actually making real signs, except she’s not, and then gets up and takes the game over to another table and sits down.

  Hungry. Hungry. Hippos.

  I have never played this game, but I know it’s annoying. Because the kids love it. They fight over that game. I’m secretly hoping that the marbles are missing, but I should know better. Five-hundred-piece puzzle and not a single missing piece, so no. All the marbles are there and Anya dumps them in the middle of the hippos, still smirking, but having enough manners to not gloat in my direction. She pushes the game towards the middle of the table and points to the chair across from her.

  Bossy. I sit.

  Anya has one hand over the marbles and the other already on the lever of the green hippo, ready to make its mouth open and gobble up a win.

  Fine. She wants to play? I’ll play.

  She lifts her hand away from the marbles and then she’s flipping the lever on the green hippo. But there are four hippos to play with here, and only two people. So I flip the levers on the other three, my large hands and long fingers reaching round to make it work.

  Anya squeals at my cheating, swatting my hand off the pink one and taking over.

  For about thirty seconds, we are children. Stupid, happy children. She even stands up, getting all serious about winning.

  And she does win. Then, when it’s all over, we do it again. And again. And again.

  It is probably the most carefree moment I’ve had in… well, maybe ever.

  After about a dozen games, we get tired of it. I go to the shelf next and pick Connect Four. This was always my favorite. I don’t play games much, but Rainer loves them. And he will endlessly taunt me until I give in.

  She wins the first game, but I let her. I kick her ass in the next five. And then she gets up and grabs Trouble. Another annoying game. Why does she like the loud ones?

  We do this for hours. I pick Risk. She picks Perfection. I pick Clue. She picks Op
eration. And you’d think that the batteries in these loud-ass games would be dead, but no. The fuckers still work.

  I pick Battleship. She picks Mouse Trap. We smile. I laugh out loud dozens of times. She huffs a little, her vow of silence too practiced to laugh back. But she is happy, anyone could see that—her hunger this morning a long-lost memory, the gash on her head and my haphazard stitching something from another lifetime. And it occurs to me, later, after I’ve made dinner and we’re back outside, sitting along the beam eating our rice and rehydrated chicken, that I’ve never had so much fun in my life.

  I’ve certainly never had a day like this out on the Rock.

  I really do like this place, but when the kids are here, my thoughts are consumed with fighting. With skill levels. With the stress of who will be the next to die. And when I’m alone, I just slip into some quiet, somber life with the birds, and the moon, and the sea.

  I’ve never spent time with a girl like this. For a moment I wonder if this is what dating is like.

  Anya sighs with contentment when we lay our mats on the platform. Then she makes the sign for ‘moon,’ pointing at it, the way I taught her last night. But she uses three fingers and that’s not right.

  I grab her hand out of the air and she looks over at me, startled. Then I position her fingers into four. We are on day four. She looks at her fingers, then the moon, and huffs a laugh, getting it.

  The moon keeps time for us out here. That’s how we measure the month.

  She stares up at it, fully aware that I am watching her. But she ignores me for nearly a minute before she turns her head and meets my gaze. Then she reaches for my hand and, using her pointer finger, she writes ‘thank you’ on my palm, one letter at a time.

  She goes to pull away, but I grab her hand back, then use my finger to write on her palm. Why?

  She watches me spell out this word. But I know, before she looks up at me and shakes her head, what her answer will be.

  Not even this day filled with food, and games, and smiles, and laughter, and a perfect night under a waxing moon can make her answer that question. And for a moment, I’m conflicted. Do I even want to know?