SICK HEART

by Huss, JA

  “Oh.”

  I don’t understand everything right away. It’s not magic. It takes me a few weeks. I have to be immersed in it. And then one day it just… makes sense.

  She is signing all these words in a fast and furious pace that only someone who has been practicing sign language for years would be able to do.

  “OK,” I breathe, trying to put these pieces together.

  So Lazar would rent me out…

  “Oh, fuck.”

  A month or two at a time. They were told I was Hungarian, like Lazar. And I do understand Hungarian. I think that’s my first language. But I never went to any Hungarians. They would talk in front of me. I was so small, anyway. They just did their business in front of me. Then Lazar would pick me up and make me tell him everything.

  My eyebrows go up. “With words?”

  Until I was seven. Then I stopped talking and just wrote it all down. She pauses, looking me in the eyes. Udulf had me once.

  I think I stop breathing. “When?”

  He was the reason I stopped talking.

  “Why?”

  Anya swallows hard and stares into my eyes. He scared me.

  I feel sick. “Why?”

  She shrugs. I don’t remember. I was so small. All I remember is feeling afraid. And his words did that.

  Everything I thought I knew about Anya flips in this moment.

  She was with Udulf.

  When she was seven.

  “I was supposed to kill you,” I say. “That night on the ship. Udulf told me that afternoon that if I won, I was supposed to kill you. That Lazar told him to tell me to do that. Did you know about that?”

  She shakes her head. But I am not stupid. I knew it was coming. I think Udulf found out about me. I think… She stares at me, long and hard, with such intent in her eyes. I think the fight between you and Pavo was a way to erase the bad blood between Udulf and Lazar and start something new.

  I don’t even know what that means. “How do you figure?”

  If you won, I died and Udulf’s secrets went with me. And if Pavo won, you died and Lazar’s secrets went with you.

  “What?” I squint at her. Because I’m not sure I understand.

  I’m tired of being silent, Cort.

  “So… talk!”

  No. You don’t understand. I’m tired of keeping their evil secrets. I’m tired of being a victim. I’m tired of being a thing that has no mind of her own. I’m tired of not fighting back. I want to train because I want to fight.

  She pushes her chair back, scraping it on the floor, and then picks up her shake and walks out. Stiff and limping, but alone. And without help.

  I run all her silent words back and forth in my mind.

  She is keeping Udulf’s secret. I am keeping Lazar’s?

  How does that make sense? It doesn’t. I don’t have any of Lazar’s secrets. And I highly doubt that Anya could be keeping a secret of Udulf’s that would change anything. He’s… untouchable.

  It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. The entire sick world I live in is evil. And that’s all there is to it. It’s just evil.

  I sit there at the table for a little bit, listening as things happen around me, just counting all the times that Ainsey’s chest rises and falls against my own. Wondering where all this will finally lead.

  Nowhere good.

  I know I’ve been selling myself the lie for as long as I can remember, but that’s all it’s been. Just a lie.

  There is no happy ending here. Even if we get out—even if Rainer does come with us—there is no happy ending. Because I will be leaving all these kids behind.

  And what else can I do? Forfeit my life, my one and only life, to run interference for them?

  If I thought that would save them, I’d at least consider it. But it won’t save them. In six months five of these kids will be dead. In one year, at least ten. In two years maybe three make it. In five—none. Maybe not even Paulo.

  There is no way to stop the fights. And they can call this Cort van Breda’s camp all they want in that rag of a magazine. But this isn’t my camp. This is Udulf’s camp. I’m just a fucking employee.

  No, that’s not even right.

  I’m lower than an employee.

  I am a slave.

  Eventually, I get up and when I take our dishes into the kitchen, I find Anya helping Irina clean up.

  Part of me is surprised that Anya can forgive and forget so easily. But then again, she made it pretty clear that she was raised in violence when she pointed to her swollen and bruised eye and asked me if I thought that was her first.

  Yeah. This whole world is sick.

  And maybe it’s better out there. In that alternative reality where the normal people live. But I don’t think so. Because those normies are just living another kind of lie. They live in ignorance. They have no idea we’re even here. And they don’t want to know. They want us to stay the world’s sick, dirty secret. Because if they had to admit that we’re real, then they’d have to do something about it.

  Or not do something about it, which is what I suspect would really happen. Ignorance is bliss.

  I leave the kitchen and take Ainsey up to the helipad. Some of the kids already have their sleeping mats out. They are allowed to sign now, so some of them are busy having silent conversations. But most of them are playing hand-slapping games, a more elaborate version of patty cake that’s popular back in the village where we live. They’re allowed to laugh out loud now too, so plenty of them are doing that.

  And their meals have changed. No more rehydrated meat. It’s still frozen and not even close to high quality, but it’s a helluva lot better than those dried-up chicken cubes. They get vegetables too. Not just oranges. Frozen peas and carrots. Berries too. They get protein shakes for breakfast now. That’s what Irina fed Anya tonight as dinner.

  Funny though, Irina brought me chicken and rice.

  She’s judging me, I think.

  These rules I’ve had in place for nearly a decade suddenly seem very stupid. Why not let them talk? Why not let them laugh? Why not let them cry?

  It’s only one month a year where all those rules are strictly enforced, but still. A month of life is a month of life when you only get so many.

  Why do I deprive them? Maybe I should’ve spent my time making them happy instead? Feeding them the best food, taking them nice places, letting them enjoy themselves.

  But then Udulf would’ve closed my camp and they’d all just end up with someone else. With someone like Pavo.

  I sit down on the concrete and lean my bare back against the hot cinder brick wall of the old machine building, closing my eyes and enjoying the last rays of sunshine before the darkness comes. Four albatrosses immediately start crowding me. This is kind of an evening ritual with the older ones, the ones who have been around a while, the ones who think of me as family.

  Just thinking that word hurts a little.

  Ainsey wriggles around until she’s facing forward, at first reaching for the birds, who tolerate her and don’t bite. But she knows they aren’t pets and her attention soon turns to watching all the kids playing their games and talking with their hands.

  She doesn’t get up and join them. She doesn’t belong here.

  Why did I bring her in the first place?

  It’s a stupid question. In two months, I will abandon her to Udulf. And even though I keep telling myself I can live with that, I can’t live with that.

  God, Cort. You need to pull yourself together.

  There is no way to save her. I can’t risk another fight. I can’t wait six or eight months to get it scheduled and train for it.

  I can’t do it.

  Ainsey snuggles into my chest. She has no idea she is my daughter. No one has ever told her and no one ever will. She just loves me for some reason.

  I hate that.

  I hate that she loves me without knowing why when I will be the one to sentence her to death after I walk away.

  A
little while later Anya and Irina come up and lay their mats down over near the corner where Maart likes to sleep. Neither of them looks at me as they chat in sign language. They are not that far apart in age. Irina is only thirteen, and I still don’t know how old Anya is. She could be sixteen for all I know. But I think it’s more likely she is eighteen or nineteen. She’s just kinda small, not that much taller than Irina, so I do see the logic behind Maart’s decision to pair them up for that fight. But size has almost nothing to do with the kind of fighting we do. Anya could train for the rest of her life and she would still never be as dangerous as Irina.

  Because every time Irina walks out onto the mat she is fighting for her life.

  I’m sure Anya has done plenty of fighting in her own way. But she has never known that moment of fear when the only way to not be dead in ten minutes is to kill the person in front of you.

  Budi walks over to us, holding out two mats. I nod and he sets them down beside me. Then he lays his mat down just a little bit to the left of the birds. They are warning him not to get to close, and he takes that warning seriously. Budi is not in my group, he’s with Rainer because he’s nearly nine now. But in month two on the Rock, they are allowed to sleep anywhere they want. And I guess he wants to sleep by me.

  He lies back with a sigh, then folds his hands on top of his stomach and stares up at the darkening sky. The sliver of a moon is already rising and pretty soon all the kids will look up there and point to it, signing the number for ‘three.’

  Month two, day three.

  A few other kids walk over and put their mats next to Budi’s. And soon, I’ve got myself a collection of twelve little disciples. I feel like a cult leader. Like I’m leading these kids to their glorious demise.

  It’s not that far off the truth, either. That’s the part that sticks with me. I am this bigger-than-life man with skulls on his body and a sick heart inside his chest.

  I fall asleep to that thought, Ainsey tucked up next to me like a pillow.

  And I think, as I drift off, that I’m not Sick Heart. I am heartsick. Just like Anya said. And I have always been heartsick. I just got the words mixed up back in the moment when it counted.

  And then I just decided… to forget.

  To become someone else instead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - ANYA

  The days and weeks go by fast as I recover from my ass-kicking. I join Maart’s group. I don’t exactly know why I end up in Maart’s group. He didn’t invite me in, but when Irina woke me up that first morning I went back to training, I just followed her down to the mats and started jumping rope with her. Then we did drills, and then we did heavy bag, and then the next thing I knew, I was in Maart’s group.

  Maart didn’t even object, which was surprising seeing how he hates me and adding another person to his group threw off all the numbers. Now he had five kids, not four. But it all worked out because Maart started training Paulo one-on-one.

  I learned though silent conversation that Paulo had a big fight coming up in a few months. But I guess the reality of fight club life never really sunk in until now. I knew that they have to fight for their lives, but I never imagined these fights took place with tiny children.

  I knew it. But I didn’t really comprehend it. Until now, this was just a fact floating around in my head. It didn’t have meaning because Pavo was the only fighter I knew and he was always big to me. Already a man in my eyes.

  I can’t picture these little ones fighting for their lives in a few months.

  All these small kids.

  And half of them here have already won at least one fight.

  Half of them are little killers.

  After I realized that I understood what I was up against. All the kids I would fight in the next test would be winners. Like Irina. She told me she had already won five real-life fights. She has one coming up too.

  And that was… sobering. So I just buckled down and did my best. Which is pretty bad, but Irina is a surprisingly good teacher.

  If Maart pays any attention to me at all, it is only to yell. He tells me I am worthless. I suck. I will never be a real fighter. I am wasting his time. And I’ve heard him telling Irina more than once that the more time she spends with me on the mat, the lower her chances are of winning the next time out.

  I don’t want her to lose. I want her to win. So I work harder to become a better opponent. So that she has to work harder too. So that when she gets to that next fight, she will win. And she will live.

  It’s a weird way to look at things, but this is the world as I know it. And it makes total sense to me.

  Cort avoids me most of the time. He is constantly carrying Ainsey around, even though she recovered from her pneumonia and looks just fine as far as I can tell.

  Word spreads through the camp that Rainer won’t be leaving with Maart, Evard, and Cort when we leave the Rock. And that lifts the spirits of all the kids. But I think Maart is mad about this decision and I think Cort is sad.

  So… month two looks nothing like month one.

  Halfway through the morning of day six of week three Maart announces that we get the rest of the day off because it’s raining so hard, there is no way to the keep the mats dry.

  Rain doesn’t bother us much. It rains at least twice a day and there have been plenty of nights where it drizzled constantly for hours and no one even bothered to go down to the training level to sleep. But this is a true tropical storm, so we all end up in the game room, spread out among the tables, playing games, or cards, or reading.

  I choose a book, the one I was looking at all those weeks ago when Cort and I were still the only two people in the world, and I take it into the kitchen so I can be alone.

  “Read it to me.”

  I look up and find Cort standing in the doorway. This is the first time he’s talked to me since that day I woke up bruised and beaten. I smile at him. Because he’s smiling at me. And he’s shirtless, and dripping wet from being outside where he was tucking things into containers so they don’t blow away in the storm. His dark hair is longer now. Two months with no haircut leaves the ends curling up a little, making it messy and wild. He notices my attention and runs his fingers through it, trying to tame the waves.

  I look at the book and start signing the words.

  “No. I want you to read it to me, Anya.”

  I scoff. Because that’s a joke.

  “I’m serious. Read it.” He walks over to me. I’m sitting on a tall stool leaning my back into the corner. He stops just inches away, his wet stomach pressing against my bare knees. I stare at the skulls along his lower abdomen and notice the stars.

  Tiny red stars. Drawn the way a kid might draw a star. With messy points and crooked lines. I touch one and he shivers, then grabs my hand and pushes it away. But I don’t look up at him.

  “I get it,” he says, his voice a little bit frustrated and gruff. “You don’t trust me. And why should you? But if you tell me the things you know—”

  I place a hand on his stomach and push him forcefully away, then drop my book on the counter and exit the kitchen, pushing my way past the wet bodies of the children who linger in the hallway, sitting on the floor, backs up against the wall. I don’t know why they’re not in the game room, but I don’t care.

  Cort. Why do I even bother at this point, ya know? Of course he wants me to talk. He wants my secrets. If I would just tell him, he could… what? Make it all better?

  He can’t do that. No one can do that.

  I’m not saying shit. Ever. I don’t care if I’m ninety years old and living on a deserted island by myself, I am never speaking again. Ever.

  “Anya.” Cort follows me out onto the training platform. But I don’t stop. I head to the stairs and have to make a decision to go up or down. I choose up, because even though the rain is coming down in sheets, the sea is angry today and I don’t want to get that close to it.

  “Anya, stop.” He grabs my arm as I reach the first landing between the helipad a
nd the training platform. But I shrug him off and keep going. “Stop. It’s fucking raining. Let’s go down and talk about this.”

  Talk about what? How he wants to use me? I whirl around and flash fingers at him. You do not want to know what I know. Trust me. You don’t.

  “Fine.” He throws up his hands. Rain is running down his body in rivers. “Keep your secrets then. I just want to hear your voice. And I don’t want to wait until the last day. It doesn’t make sense to wait until the last day.”

  I don’t even know what that means, but even if I did, I don’t care.

  “Come back down. It’s raining, and it’s windy, and it’s getting cold.”

  I don’t care if it’s raining. I don’t care if I get wet. I don’t care if it’s cold. I don’t care about anything these days. We live like savages. Our whole day revolves around fighting. Killing, really. Because that’s all this leads to. Just killing.

  I can take a storm.

  “Anya.”

  I’m at the top now, and then so is Cort. He steps out in front of me. The rain has soaked him through. “Why are you running away from me?”

  I scoff.

  “What? What did I miss? I asked you to read to me.”

  Fuck you, I sign, spelling the letters out in quick succession with alternating hands.

  “What did I do?”

  You want secrets.

  “So? If you tell me why they’re so interested in you—”

  You’ll what? Save me? You’re not going to save me. We have one more month here and then I’m gone. Udulf shows up—

  “But maybe I can stop him?”

  Maybe? I don’t have time for maybes. Leave me alone.

  I turn away, but there’s really nowhere to go up here except the old mechanical room, which is still home to several nests. The baby birds are massive now, almost full-grown, but they can’t fly yet. They can, however, bite. Pretty hard. So I don’t go in there. I walk over to the edge where Cort and I used to eat our dinner that first month and take a seat on the steel beam, the rain coming down so hard now, it stings my skin.

  The crazy tropical wind is whipping my wet hair around my face, making it stick to my cheeks. But he was wrong about one thing. It’s not cold. The air is thick and hot and so is the rain.