____
Despite working with Gjarper and the practice he did on his own, Valon still wasn’t winning in the Pit. Bastian seemed pleased in the beginning that he was getting the shit beat out of him every night, but now, he only seemed to grow more annoyed.
It was only a week and a half later, after Valon had lost yet another fight. He was recovering in the kennels, his new companions resting next to him. It wasn’t common for anyone to come down to where he stayed and never in the middle of the night.
And Bastian was definitely never in attendance.
Valon had counted on this, knowing that Bastian would never allow him to keep the three, if only because he didn’t want him to have anything that would make him remotely happy. There was a chance he might have let them stay, but he would have bred them to fight, instead of being coddled, and if they didn’t perform well, they would be put down.
“What is this?” Bastian spat out, looking from Valon to Loki and the others.
Valon did well to hide his surprise, sitting up. He ignored the pain, a feat he’d learned. Loki’s ears perked up as he went on alert, baring his teeth the closer they came. Volk and Timber didn’t seem to notice the danger he was in.
Gjarper stood off to the side, ever silent, ever watchful, but unlike the others, he didn’t look surprised to see the dogs, making Valon wonder if he had always known.
“You cost me money every time you enter the Pit and lay on your back. Now you’re costing me money by feeding your pets?” The rage in his face was clear, but more was the sadistic gleam in his eyes. “Grab them.”
“No!”
But the moment he was on his feet, ready to fight for them, two of Bastian’s guard grabbed him, holding him in place as the others grabbed the smaller dogs. Only, when one of them made to snatch Loki, he snapped back, crouching low as though prepared to attack. He had grown bigger than both Timber and Volk, and his size intimidated the men.
Bastian pulled a blade from his coat, wrenching Timber from the man’s hand, who struggled in his hold. Volk, however, seeming to realize what was happening, bit the man’s hand that was holding him. He scrambled to his feet, trying to run away, but the man brandished a small revolver, aiming it at him. Before Valon could even voice a protest, he shot Volk twice, dropping to the ground, blood already seeping from his fur.
“Wai—”
But it was too late. Bastian’s knife had already cut through Timber neck. He dropped him to the ground, uncaring that a line of blood was slowly seeping across the dirt toward Valon.
The anguish he felt at the sight of them wounded Valon in a way that he couldn’t describe. He had stopped caring about things since his nënë’s murder, but he had allowed these creatures to become a part of him. He learned what it was like to feel again. And now that two of them were gone, he felt that void opening up inside of him…one he was afraid to look into.
There was only Loki left and Valon couldn’t—wouldn’t watch him die.
“Whatever you want,” he said desperately. “You want me to win a fight, I’ll do it. Or anything.”
Only two people in that room knew exactly what Valon was truly offering, what those precious words meant. And while he had meant what he said, Valon didn’t dare look to Gjarper to see his reaction, knowing there would be shame there. But there was nothing more to offer a man who had everything he could possibly want…except for something he had previously tried to take.
The silence had stretched between them before Gjarper broke it. “If the boy fights tonight, and wins, then we stand to make a large profit if we bet on him.”
“Look at him,” one of the others sneered. “He can’t fight in this condition. They’d kill him in minutes.”
Valon didn’t respond to the criticism. To some, Loki might have meant nothing. But at this moment, Valon would give anything to save his only friend, even if it meant offering up a piece of himself.
Bastian considered the man’s words, studying Valon with dark eyes. “You fight. You win. If you lose, it dies, and I kill you myself.”
He waved the others away, and they followed behind him as they all left the barn. “Get him ready,” he called over his shoulder. “He fights within the hour.”
Only when they were out of sight and Gjarper was the only one left to see it did Valon wince, wrapping an arm around his middle as though that might help the pain he was in. After fighting for so long, he knew what certain injuries felt like, and he knew that tonight he would be fighting with sore ribs and a well-placed hit might actually break one of them.
But he had no choice.
He wasn’t just fighting for himself.
Loki crept forward, sniffing around his dead companions, whining as he nudged them, wanting to get up again.
“I’m sorry.”
There was no need to apologize. It wasn’t as though Loki could understand him anyway, but Valon felt the need to do so because he was sorry.
Sorry he couldn’t help save them.
Sorry he couldn’t help save himself.
But maybe, and he was hoping, he would get them through the night.
“You need to prepare,” Gjarper said from his position by the doors.
But for the time being, Valon ignored him, going over to a corner in the back of the barn, getting down on his knees before digging his fingers into the dirt. The dirt was hard already, made even harder due to the elements, but Valon didn’t stop his process as he dug the first hole, shredding his fingers in the process. When he finished the first, he immediately started the second, and only when the two were done, he carried Timber and Volk over one by one, laying them inside before covering them up.
“You are as dumb as you look,” Gjarper said once he returned, seeing the condition Valon’s hands were in.
Shrugging, Valon didn’t offer a response as he followed Gjarper back out, heading to the room where Gjarper usually readied him. Inside, Gjarper removed his tools from the box he kept them in.
First, they cleaned and bandaged Valon’s hands, carefully wrapping the gauze so that it wasn’t too tight. Since they had first begun training together, Gjarper had changed, and while Valon could never say they were friends, he was the only man here he at least could talk to without fear of punishment or Bastian finding out.
“Don’t forget what I told you,” Gjarper said quietly, the same thing he always said before Valon entered the Pit. But this time, there was an edge to his words that wasn’t there before. “If you lose…there is nothing I can do for you.”
Valon stared down at his bandaged hands. “I won’t lose.”
-
8
______
Valon entered the ring, the shouts of the spectators loud in his ears. Some were there for him—he recognized their faces—and knew that they had probably bet against him considering his odds in his last three fights. Which meant, if he won, then Bastian stood to make a lot of money, more than enough really.
His competition was a beast of a boy. He looked like he had been fighting since the time he was able to walk. Scars covered a good majority of his body, and when he turned his focus on Valon, it was clear that he was ready for things to get bloody.
It was the same boy he’d been forced to compete against in his first fight.
So much was the same, but a lot was different since the last time he’d entered the ring with him. First, Valon was not as afraid. Yes, he knew this fight would not be an easy one, and it was doubtful that this would be over in seconds like the last time, but Valon wasn’t the same.
The boy didn’t look as big as he once did, and even he seemed to notice the difference in Valon as well. He still had at least twenty pounds on him, but Valon had grown taller so they matched more evenly.
The roar of the crowd, money waving in the air, dogs barking in the distance—it all added to the atmosphere, but Valon, though plenty of incentive filled him, still couldn’t bring himself to want this. He hated fighting, not because of what he could potentially do
to the other person, but because of a sweet, dark emotion that it sparked to life inside of him.
Bastian sat in a chair above the crowd, raising his hand to silence the crowd. It only took a second. Once they were quiet, he gave Valon one last meaningful look before he nodded.
It was time.
If his training had taught him anything, then Valon knew not to run at his opponent, to wait, gauge his weaknesses and plan a mode of attack, but this other boy did none of that. No, he ran for Luka, hooking his arms around his waist and hurling him to the ground. It was an easy enough thing to do considering Valon was a little less than half his size.
Bits of twigs and gravel bit into Valon’s back as he hit the ground hard, but he didn’t have much time to focus on that with this bloke on top of him, raining down blows, landing a solid one against Valon’s side that made his ribs protest.
Pain. It was something he knew, something he craved, and as he suffered under the weight of his opponent, that pain started to call to him.
Punch to the face.
Valon smirked.
Punch to the temple.
An amused chuckle left his lips.
The more hits that came, the more something died inside of him, and soon he was laughing outright, drawing cries of alarm from the spectators, their yells growing louder. Bastian was still seated, though he shook his head as though he knew Valon was about to lose this fight. It didn’t matter to him, not really. He had kept him around far longer than he would any other boy who had come to him, and now it was time to cut his losses and be done with him.
No one, however, seemed to notice the fear entering the larger boy’s eyes as he realized that though he might have the upper hand in the fight, he was slowly losing his edge now that he was faced with someone who seemed to be getting off on the pain.
He struggled to his feet, kicking Valon as hard as he could, wanting to end it, and it was a hard enough blow that Valon stopped laughing, clutching his side and rolling into the injury.
Then, as many people did once they thought they had done, he turned his back to Valon.
With a surge of strength, Valon leaped at the boy, pulling him down to the ground as he’d done him. He scrambled up his torso, planting himself on his chest as Valon used his fists in a way he had never done before.
“Look what you made me do!”
The words felt pulled from him as he landed blow after blow, bloodying the boy’s nose as he’d done to him. Valon could remember every blow he had taken just minutes prior, and delivered them just as the boy had done to him. The other boy could have gotten away if he truly wanted, but fear kept him paralyzed and his struggles were useless.
Valon was laughing louder than ever, feeling the slickness of the blood on his hands, the way the bones in the boy’s face cracked beneath his fists. It was heady, the power this gave him, and he didn’t want it to end.
His own blood dripped from his face, mingling with the rest of it flowing freely. His mind was free for once, lost in a haze that he wasn’t ready to come out of.
He didn’t even notice when the boy stopped struggling beneath him. Valon was enjoying it too much.
Someone hauled him up from behind, dragging him away from the bloody mess that he’d left behind.
Through it all, Valon never stopped laughing.
____
Everything was terrifyingly loud when the fight ended and he was dragged from the Pit, the warm, acrid scent of blood still lingering in Valon’s nose as he was led from that place of horror into the old house where he had once stayed. No one spoke, the silence hanging heavy around them. When they passed the occasional person in the hall, they shrank back, the sight of it making Valon laugh in spite himself.
He could only imagine what he must look like. Covered in blood. His face and body battered after the fight. But as quickly as that thought formed, he remembered what the other boy looked like…at least before he’d died beneath his fists.
Not once, in his entire life, had Valon felt such power.
When they finally reached a room at the end of the hall, Valon was shoved inside and instructed to ‘clean himself up.’ It was a bedroom, but there was not much inside beside an old mattress on the floor and two dressers against the walls. Heading into the bathroom, he turned on the faucet at the sink, splashing water on his face before he gazed at his reflection in the cracked, hanging mirror.
Red tinted water dripping into the basin, but still blood lingered in his hair and on his neck. Now he understood the revulsion he’d seen in their eyes as he was dragged through this place. He looked like a monster. And worse, he felt like one. Looking away, he grabbed one of the towels hanging nearby, scrubbing his face and chest as best he could to rid himself of the blood, wincing as he got around to his side. Now that the bloodlust was wearing off, the pain and fatigue was settling in.
Finished, he left the towel on the edge of the sink, hitting the light as he left back out again.
Not knowing what else was expected of him, Valon went to the mattress and dropped down onto it, stifling a groan as he stretched out. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this comfortable. No…he did. The night he had walked in on Bastian and the girl.
He almost wanted to get on the floor instead, not wanting to get used to this luxury when it was more than likely that he would be back in the barn before the sun came up. There was no point in enjoying it when it would just be taken away.
Just as he was sitting up, the door swung open. Gjarper and Bastian walked inside, but it was the person who was trailing behind them that got Valon’s attention.
Fatos.
He hadn’t seen his friend since the day they walked home together, and seeing him now was like stepping into the past. And that only made him ashamed of who he was now.
Fatos still looked the same, lanky with shaggy hair, but here Valon was, a brawler who Bastian had commissioned. And after this night, a killer.
But while he was lost in thought about how much he had changed, Fatos had similar musings, except he didn’t look nearly as surprised to find Valon there as he thought he should. In fact, he looked rather annoyed to be standing there.
Valon didn’t have time to consider this before Bastian began speaking.
“You did well tonight. You have finally earned your keep for once.”
More than, Valon assumed. Before he’d been tossed in the Pit, he’d thought he’d heard someone offer two-thousand dollars on his opponent. Considering Valon didn’t really have anything of his own in this place, took the occasional shower, and ate only when he was allowed to, it cost very little to care for him.
“For tonight, this room is yours. Relax. Enjoy it. I’ll even have my men bring you something to eat. After tonight, you have earned this.”
Meaning, after he killed someone. He put that reminder out of his mind for the time being.
“And I even brought your friend. See? I am good to those who are good to me.”
Clapping Gjarper on the shoulder, who merely nodded in acknowledgment to Valon, the pair left the room, leaving Fatos standing in their wake.
What did he say to someone he hadn’t seen in what felt like a lifetime? Was he meant to explain how he got here? Or did he already know?
“How did you know I was here?” Valon asked, keeping his voice down in case anyone lingered out in the hall. He didn’t want them to think Fatos meant something to him. Otherwise, they would just take that away as well.
“My father told me the day after you got here,” Fatos said as he looked around the room. “Bastian wanted to have you killed, but I told my father you were too important to die.”
Valon prided himself on not reacting to that revelation. He remembered getting here, being forced to sleep out in the barn like an animal, but he had never thought it was because he was going to die. He’d just assumed it was the way things were done.
“But I’m no one.”
He wasn’t saying that for pity because it was true. As Gjarper
had told him once, he was born of a drunk and a…no, he couldn’t bring himself to call her that, not even now.
Fatos looked surprised for a second before his brows knitted together as he looked at Valon in confusion. “Are we not friends?”
He spoke as though nothing had changed, but Valon knew that he had to know what happened to his mother and Ahmeti. They all did.
“Of course we are, but—”
“Then if you’re important to me, you’re important to them. Don’t forget that.”
Not important enough to actually sleep in a bed for the last eight months…
But Valon didn’t voice this thought, shoving it back down into the recesses of his mind instead. Fatos couldn’t have done anything about this. He was only a boy of twelve, though neither acted their age.
“Good for you though,” Fatos went on. “My father is letting me join the family business, so I’ll be here with you more often.”
Truthfully, Valon didn’t know exactly what the family business was. Of course, he knew the rumors, even Ahmeti had gloated about the things he had done in a distant past, but he still didn’t know what, exactly, they all did.
“I’m glad I have at least one friend here,” Valon said truthfully and gave a reluctant, but genuine smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Fatos headed for the door but paused when he was on the other side of it. He glanced back at Valon with a playful smile, but his eyes were guarded. “I was sure you were going to lose like last time when you stepped into the Pit tonight. My father didn’t let me hear the end of it after I lost his money.”
Valon wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just watched him walk away.
____
Valon lived to see another day and so did Loki, but that didn’t mean that nothing had changed from the night before to the present.
Everything had changed.
Valon had two days of healing, and then he was back in the ring, fighting for his life as much as he was fighting for Loki’s. Now that Bastian knew how to get to him, he used that as ammunition to get what he needed from him, and it worked. Before Loki, Valon had lost the majority of his fights—after Loki, Valon didn’t lose one.
Valon: What Once Was (Volkov Bratva Book 0) Page 5
