Survival Rout

by Ana Mardoll

  The offer is given reluctantly, as though he's afraid I'll feel pressured to say yes, and I find myself hesitating as I wonder if he'd prefer me to say no. I nod slowly. "I like milk."

  He shows me to the living room and I find a seat on a recliner, the armrests on either side of me forming a comforting bubble of personal space. Milk is set on the coffee table alongside my cupcakes, then he sits on a threadbare old couch and turns his head away to look out the window. There's a bird feeder there, but mostly I think he's giving me privacy from those direct eyes of his.

  We eat in silence—two cupcakes apiece—and then sit in continued silence. Somewhere in the house a clock ticks. I fidget with my hands and wonder if I should just go, but then I look up to find his gaze on me: curious, but not unkind. "I brought a book," I tell him, touching the bag across my shoulder, and he nods as if this explains everything.

  I drop by his house once a week after that, though we never really converse beyond the bare minimum of niceties. He's not unhappy, I come to realize; he's simply not a social person. We sit in his living room and he smokes and watches the birds while I read my book. It's a strange ritual, but it makes me happy; I feel comfortable in his presence, despite the familiar fear. And it's nice to see him happy in his own way, shrouded in the scented smoke of his cigarillos, content to be relieved of the burden of herding a bunch of college kids to their deaths.

  Miyuki doesn't understand my visits, but at least one other person from the Arena comes to see Handler. I run into Matías one day, just as he's leaving. I've got my book bag with me—the one that straps across my body and doesn't pull too hard on my spine as long as I don't get greedy with books—and I see him navigating the steps carefully with his cane. He nods at me and gives me a sad sort of smile, the kind of greeting you'd give to someone going through the same hard times as yourself.

  "Matías! Hey! Um, how are you doing?" I'm used to hugging the other girls and sometimes Christian and Justin, but this doesn't feel like a hugging situation. I'm suddenly very aware of my hands and unsure where to put them; I end up clutching the strap of my bag with both hands.

  He nods in an easygoing way and stops walking to lean on his cane. "I'm good, really! I got an apartment with another altered, a guy I met at one of the meetings. He needed someone to go halves on a place he'd picked out, and I needed a roommate, so it worked out pretty good. You?"

  I shrug. "Pretty good? Miyuki and I are living at our old place and still trying to sort everything out. Planning to go back to school in the spring. You should come over to Sappho's place; I never see you on pizza night."

  He nods at the invitation, avoiding my gaze. "Yeah, Tony's been on at me about that," he admits, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I know I should but, uh. I didn't want to make it awkward." His gaze slides back to the house behind him and he bites his lip. "Neither of us does. You know how it is."

  I blink at him. "No? I mean, I understand why Handler doesn't visit, but you were one of the fighters, right?" I'm confused now, because I had thought Matías was a retired fighter kept on to teach the other boys after an injury left him unable to compete.

  He smiles, but the expression doesn't reach his eyes. "Well, yeah, I was. But I guess I'm not so clear anymore on the difference between a captive who feeds the fighters before they're sent to be killed versus a captive who trains the fighters before they're sent to be killed." He runs a hand through his hair, looking sheepish. "Everything seemed clearer over there. Now there's time to think, and maybe I think too much. Sorry. I'll, uh, try to drop by."

  I'm at a loss; now I really do want to hug him but I'm afraid the act would physically hurt one or both of us. "I can tell you the other boys miss you, for what it's worth. I know they'd like to see you. They talk like your training saved their lives, you know." He doesn't reply but his smile is warmer as he turns to go. My eyes are drawn to the movement of his cane and I open my mouth again without thinking. "Matías, did Celia not offer to heal you?"

  I see a brief flash of weariness in his eyes and I feel an answering stab of guilt, understanding all too well the desire to not keep explaining the same intimate details to strangers. "She did, yeah," he says, his tone light in contrast to the stiffness around his shoulders. "I said I was good. I get around just fine on my cane and the pain isn't too bad with the medication I'm on. And, well, it's kinda hard to explain."

  "I'm sorry," I blurt out, wishing I hadn't said anything. "I didn't mean to be rude, I just wondered."

  "It's okay." He looks down at his leg, a melancholy smile dancing over his lips. "Getting my knee busted saved my life. Took me out of the fights and into teaching. And I don't think the Master would want me back in this condition; he already thought I was dead weight. So, for a lot of reasons, I decided not to mess with things yet. Maybe later. Hey, I gotta go; I'm teaching a cooking class up at the grocery market. Come by some time and I'll get you a discount seat!"

  I watch him walk to his car, blinking against the setting sun. There are a million questions I want to ask him but never will. They would be too invasive, like the questions my co-workers ask me. But I can't imagine leaving my body the way it is, not even if it would keep me safe from being taken again. Perhaps it makes a difference not being in pain, but that's a state I can't seem to achieve. I'm much better now than I was in the otherworld, especially near the end when—according to Lynn—I was going through withdrawal after being without my medication for so long.

  I found my prescription in a nightstand drawer in the apartment, and Lynn confirmed it was one of the strongest a doctor could prescribe. Those pills made it worth coming forward to assume our past identities, but even they can't erase the pain. My doctor says we're 'managing' the pain, and tells me that hurting for the rest of my life is a reality I have to accept. Miyuki works xer hands over me at night and I thank every star in the sky that xie is willing to help me in the way xie does. But sometimes I stand in the shower and cry, letting the hot water hide the tears I can't hold in. I'm not staying this way. I can't.

  I've talked to Lynn and he's put me in contact with other healers in our group. Some heal with magic, others in more mundane ways. They all agree I can be helped—magic is, after all, magic—but there's some disagreement over how to accomplish this. The scar that stretches from shoulder to hip was created when three metal rods were bolted into my curved spine; these need to come out before flooding my system with regenerative magic. Getting the rods out isn't hard, but I need to survive the procedure. We're still in discussion but I'm not going to wait forever. I'm going to be healed, one way or another.

  My spine isn't the only body part that vexes me since our escape. At night I lie awake thinking about my changed eyes and the bargain I struck in exchange for their refinement. I swore never to tell anyone about the Shadow Man, and to do him a favor which he could name later. Our agreement still magically seals my lips, and this is upsetting; I hate keeping secrets from Miyuki, and I'd like to tell Celia what happened. I hope it might never arise; after all, the Shadow Man lives in the otherworld, far away from us. Favor or not, I can't imagine I'll ever hear from him again, not when I have nothing of value to take.

  Those sleepless nights become fewer and farther between. As the summer ebbs and autumn breathes life into the metroplex, I wake happy more often than not. Miyuki loves me and I love xer, and I have more fun than I'd thought possible with Keoki and Tony. I have friends who've been through hell with me. I have a job, I'm enrolled in classes, and I'm putting together the pieces of my life more successfully every day. Some parts don't make much sense, but we're managing. Miyuki finds a laptop case in xer closet but no laptop, and I have a shelf of notebooks near my bed which seems to be missing a few near the middle. But we'll find the schoolmate we lent these things to or the repair shop where xer computer resides. We've got this.

  I repeat the motto to myself as I pull into the parking lot and step out of my car. Evening comes earlier now in the autumn and I squint against an orange sky. I'd
been meaning to visit this place for some time, but kept putting off the trip in favor of more important things. Maybe I was afraid of what I would find. I dust down my jeans, straighten to the sound of my spine crackling all the way down and walk to the door, pushing it open as if it were second nature to me.

  I'm early enough that the bar is empty save for one man behind the counter. He's not just any man, though. To my altered eyes, he's one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen. He's tall and lithe, with blond hair so rich it glimmers in the light like real gold. He isn't pretty like Miyuki or cute like Keoki or handsome like Tony; he's beautiful in the way a painting or a statue is beautiful. I wouldn't kiss him any more than I'd kiss the Mona Lisa, but I could stare at him for hours.

  He looks up when I walk in, the automatic smile on his face faltering midway through forming. "Can I... help you?"

  He's one of us. I can't breathe for excitement and look around the room to make sure we're alone. "Yes! You're an altered, too? I had no idea one of us worked here! I'm Aniyah. I was taken a while back and they found my car outside your bar, so I was just wondering if you or anyone else here knew me." I give him a sheepish smile, letting him see my embarrassment. "You know how it is; memory gone, trying to piece things together."

  He blinks once, very slowly, then sympathy blossoms on his face. "Aniyah! I knew you looked familiar. Yes, you visited here over the summer! Mostly on music nights, to see the boy bands." He gives me a mischievous wink that is trying too hard, but in a good way; as if, by acting corny and undignified, he could subsume all my embarrassment into himself as a kindness to me. "Celia mentioned we had new escapees and might have hunters on the prowl in the area, but I never realized you'd been taken, dear."

  Wiping his hands on the cloth he'd been using to polish glasses, he reaches out glittering fingers in offer to shake my own. His smile is like warm summer rain after weeks of drought, welcoming and kind; even though we've just met, I can imagine being friends with this person. I take his hand and we shake like normal people do while an automatic smile spreads over my face in response to his own.

  "I'm Timothy, by the way. It's so good to meet you again."

  Note to the Reader

  Thank you for reading this book! I hope you have enjoyed it and you are very welcome to leave a review or recommend this novel to a friend; reviews and recommendations are the lifeblood of indie authors and I cannot thank my reviewers enough for their kind words. If I may, I would like to insert a brief note on genders in this novel and how best to label the characters in reviews.

  Emma Miyuki is a transgender person, which is a person whose gender does not match the gender assigned to them at birth. Miyuki was incorrectly assigned female at birth (AFAB) but is actually a nonbinary gender, i.e. neither a man nor a woman. Miyuki's specific nonbinary gender identification (for there are several!) is a demigirl. Miyuki answers to xie/xer pronouns and she/her pronouns, but prefers the former to the latter. A sample sentence introducing Miyuki to another reader might be: "Miyuki is a transgender demigirl who uses xie/xer pronouns," or simply, "Miyuki is nonbinary."

  Reese is also a transgender person, specifically a trans woman who was erroneously assigned male at birth (AMAB). Reese was not 'born a boy' nor did she 'change' her gender at any point in her life; she has always been a girl, even if rest of the world has not always recognized that fact. Please only refer to Reese with she/her pronouns! If you consider Reese's gender identity a 'spoiler', then it would be better not to reference her at all in reviews rather than concealing her gender with incorrect he/him pronouns. Thank you for being considerate; sensitive reviews for books with trans characters are easier for trans readers to navigate.

  Bless you again for reading my work! More resources on transgender characters and how to write about them are available at GLAAD.org and Nonbinary.org for those who are interested. I owe a debt of gratitude to Vee (@FindMeReading) of GayYA.Org for sharing their poignant thoughts regarding how trans characters are handled in book reviews and how we can better serve our community.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the loving kindness of more people than I can count in a lifetime. I am grateful to my chosen family and friends on Twitter, who believed in me and nurtured me during my coming out as genderqueer. I am indebted to the community of readers on my blog, who buoy my spirits on even the worst days. My very survival would not be possible without the members of my family who help me through the ups and downs of my disability without complaint and laugh at my jokes even when they aren't particularly funny. I am blessed.

  Particular thanks must go to the friends and colleagues who read and shaped this work prior to publication. Kristy Griffin Green and Thomas, my wonderful writing partners, touched every page of this book and are the dearest of friends. Nikki Murray, Smilodon Meow, Lutecia Sciavone, Rachel, Jules Bristow, and of course S. Qiouyi Lu worked tirelessly as beta and sensitivity readers for the material. Much of what is good in this book is due to these people; anything bad which remains is on my head.

  Thank you for reading and supporting me in my work. Blessed be.

  About The Author

  Ana Mardoll is a writer and activist who lives in the dusty Texas wilderness with two spoiled cats. Her favorite employment is weaving new tellings of old fairy tales, fashioning beautiful creations to bring comfort on cold nights. She is the author of the Earthside series, the Rewoven Tales novels, and several short stories.

  Aside from reading and writing, Ana enjoys games of almost every flavor and frequently posts videos of gaming sessions on YouTube. After coming out as genderqueer in 2015, Ana answers to both xie/xer and she/her pronouns.

  Website: www.AnaMardoll.com

  Twitter: @AnaMardoll

  YouTube: www.YouTube.com/c/AnaMardoll

  Arena Captives

  Prizes

  - Aniyah, the Alexandrite Prize

  - Chloe, the Ruby Prize

  - Emma Miyuki, the Quartz Prize

  - Hana, the Diamond Prize

  - Heather, the Emerald Prize

  - Imani, the Amethyst Prize

  - Sappho, the Sapphire Prize

  Fighters

  - Anthony 'Tony' Suen, the Basalt Fighter

  - Christian, the Obsidian Fighter

  - Justin, the Pumice Fighter

  - Keoki, the Granite Fighter

  - Lucas, the Scoria Fighter

  - Matías, the Teacher

  - Reese, the Breccia Fighter

  Content Notes

  Content notes (sometimes referred to as 'trigger warnings') are intended to help trauma survivors avoid being surprised by story elements which may trigger them. These content notes may allude to story spoilers, which is why they have been placed at the back of the book, with a link near the front. The content note system used in this book is the one created by the Fireside Fiction Company, and used here with permission from the owner. This book and the author are not affiliated with the Fireside Fiction Company in any way.

  The content notes for this book include:

  Animal Abuse ●● one moderate intensity scene

  Domestic Violence ●● moderate intensity references

  Self-Harm ●● one moderate intensity scene, low intensity references

  Sexual Assault ●● moderate intensity references

  Torture ● low intensity references

  Violence ●●● multiple moderate intensity scenes

  Return to Table of Contents.

  Version History

  The version information for this book file is below. Please note that not all bookstores push updates automatically to readers. Feel free to email the author at anamardoll@gmail.com or visit www.AnaMardoll.com to determine the latest version release. Most bookstores will push updates to readers when asked through their customer support.

  Current Version: 1.0

  Version History:

  1.0. Initial Release.

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