by Devon Hughes
“Stop it!” he yelled through the fence.
The man didn’t hear him over his own high-pitched shouts, but the parrot did. It turned toward Marcus and cocked its head, clicking its beak together a few times.
“Come on,” Pete said, watching the bird anxiously. “We should probably go.”
Marcus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He turned to his brother with narrowed eyes. “What happened to helping the animals when they’re hurt?”
“Marcus, they’re training. They do this every day.” He started to guide Marcus away toward the exit, but Marcus shrugged him off.
Instead, he leapt at the chain-link fence. He managed to scramble up it one-handed, still cradling his hurt arm to his chest.
“Marcus!” Pete said in alarm. “You can’t go in there! Those are wild animals!”
But they weren’t wild, Marcus knew. They were prisoners.
Years of crashing and burning skate tricks had made Marcus fearless and, as Pete fumbled with his keys to get the gate open, he was already hiking his leg over the top bar.
“Alert!” Perry the parrot shrieked next to him, flapping its wings. “Alert, alert!”
“FLY!” the man taunted below.
Marcus dropped to the ground and watched as the eagle-dog took a few trotting steps, sprang hard from his haunches . . . and was yanked backward like a rock in a slingshot as the bands pulled taught. He yipped once, then sank into a heap on the floor.
Marcus ran toward the injured animal, but before he could reach him, another man stepped in his path and grabbed Marcus by the arm. Though this guy was older, with thinning hair and a gut, he had an imposing frame, and his grip meant business.
“What is a kid doing in my gym?” the big dude growled, looking over Marcus’s head toward Pete, who had finally made it through the gate. “Did you forget that this is a restricted area?”
“Sorry, Horace,” Pete said, shuffling Marcus behind him. “He’s my, um, intern. Can you give us a minute with the Underdog?” he asked, practically groveling. The guy must be a manager or something. “I need to check how his wings are doing so we know he’s ready to fight.”
The man named Horace frowned and spit right at Pete’s feet, but when Pete started pulling medical supplies out of the pouch at his waist, the boss relented. “Give ’em five minutes, Slim,” he called to the younger trainer. “Then back to work.”
“Fine,” Slim answered with a tight-lipped grin. Marcus didn’t return the smile.
Horace walked away with a huff and Slim slunk off toward an exit, tugging a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. Marcus watched them go with disgust.
Finally, he knelt down next to the animal, still lying with his legs tangled underneath him and his wings splayed out to the side. There were feathers everywhere on the ground, and there was a burnt smell from where they’d dragged on the treadmill.
“You’re okay, buddy. It’s okay.” Marcus reached a hand out, but the eagle-dog flinched away from him.
Carefully, Pete removed the harness, and as he rubbed ointment on the scabs where the new wings had broken the skin, Marcus stroked the animal’s soft ears, trying to soothe him. He could feel the eagle-dog quivering all over.
Or maybe it was Marcus who was shaking. He couldn’t tell. Everything was so real he felt numb.
15
AFTER THE BOY LEFT, CASTOR KNEW HIS SHORT MOMENT of relief was over. Castor’s handler nudged him with a steel-toed boot.
“Again,” he said with a smile.
Slim was a slight man with bulgy eyes and a grin constantly plastered on his face, but the smile didn’t mean he was happy—Castor had learned that fast.
Castor scrambled to his feet now and got back into position.
“Fly!” Slim shouted, and Castor tried, really he did, but the bands yanked him back once more, and this time, Slim brought the whistle to his wormlike lips.
The sound split through everything. Castor had thought the guard’s whistle was bad that first day when she’d signaled it was time for slop, but that was nothing but a quick toot to get him moving. Slim’s whistle went on and on, a high, sharp scream that had Castor on the ground, curled into a ball, shaking.
“Enough!” a voice roared suddenly.
The whistle stopped.
“Horace. You’re back.” Slim let out a high, nervous laugh. “I, um, didn’t see you standing here.”
Horace was hard to miss. The Pit’s supervisor was shaped like Enza—a solid, square mass of man, with arms coated in fur. Every time he came around, Slim’s eyes bugged out even more, and he got all twitchy and nervous, like a rat.
Castor didn’t blame him. While there was a cruelty in Slim that crackled with his every movement, Horace was completely detached from Castor’s pain—it was like he didn’t see him as an animal at all—and that was more terrifying than anything.
“You’re messing up training for my whole gym with that thing,” Horace growled, and snatched the whistle out of Slim’s hand.
Looking around, Castor saw the other animals on the floor, too, wincing from the noise. Now he felt even worse.
“The scouts said this one was tough. Special.” Horace frowned down at Castor, who was feeling anything but tough. Then he looked back up at Slim, his thick eyebrows knitting together like two caterpillars. “And I told you the mayor wanted a win for Scratch this season, after all the rioting fans at the Mash-up. I ain’t about to disappoint her, not with promotions coming up. Do you want to disappoint me?” Though Horace’s voice was soft, you couldn’t miss the threat in it.
“No, sir,” Slim mumbled, staring at the ground. Now it was he who looked like an omega, all deflated and cowering.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The worthless mutt won’t do what I say,” Slim whined, and Castor could sense the restraint it took his handler not to kick him again.
“He doesn’t respect you.” Horace huffed. “You need to make him understand that you’re his master. That he does what you say, no matter what.” Horace tugged on Castor’s harness, coaxing him back to standing, and Castor couldn’t help but flinch.
What does “no matter what” mean?
Horace was rummaging around in a cabinet now, and he brought back something that looked like a human arm. He held it out to Slim.
“Put this on.”
Slim looked at the object uneasily, but he did as he was told and slid the rubber guard over his own hand.
“Hold out your arm,” Horace commanded, and Slim tentatively reached his covered arm toward Castor. “Now watch.” Horace cracked his knuckles, leaned over Castor, and said very calmly into his ear, “Attack.”
Horace looked Castor right in the eyes, something every dog knew was a direct threat.
“What are you waiting for?” Slim screeched, and the sensitive hairs inside Castor’s ears quivered. He thrust his arm forward more forcefully. “He said move!”
Horace held up a hand to silence Slim, which made the smaller man sulk.
“Attack,” Horace repeated calmly.
When Castor hesitated once more, Horace lunged. In one smooth motion, he flipped Castor onto his back in an alpha roll, pinning Castor’s body on top of his new wings uncomfortably. Castor was shaking all over, and it took everything he had not to howl in despair. Even Alpha had never used the alpha roll because it was so degrading.
Don’t let the handlers think you’re weak, Moss had warned, and now Castor understood why. Castor felt as cornered as he had felt back on the docks before he was taken here. He was afraid. He missed home. He missed his pack and his brother. He missed feeling normal. Lying in that prone, vulnerable position, something inside of him snapped.
Castor bucked upward, throwing Horace off him. His paws slammed into Slim’s chest, and his teeth sank deep into the man’s arm. As Castor’s mouth filled with the metallic tang of fresh blood, he realized he’d bitten the arm without the rubber glove.
“My arm!” Slim wailed, clutching it t
o his chest. He stumbled backward and fell on his behind, his feet kicking up sand as he scrambled to get far away from Castor.
“Good dog,” Horace said quietly.
Castor looked around the Pit; all of the other animals had stopped their training and had turned to stare at him.
Castor felt a cold unease in the pit of his stomach.
16
MEALTIMES WERE USUALLY NOISY, SOCIAL OCCASIONS where the animals could leave the misery of training behind. It was a time to unwind. And the only time Castor could get water since he still couldn’t reach the water bowl in his cell. But when Castor reported to slop that afternoon, there were no boisterous howls, no chatty nickering, no joyful whinnies to greet him.
“That was pretty scary, what you did in the Pit,” Samken finally said. He looked up at Castor from under thick lashes, a quiver in his voice.
“I had no choice,” Castor explained. After hours of being ground into the floor by Slim’s boot, the insistent whistle driving Castor crazy, the unthinkable humiliation of Horace’s alpha roll, what else could he have done? “They just kept pushing me harder and harder.”
“Most of us don’t want to fight each other. But you have to be careful. That’s exactly how they trained the Invincible,” Moss said quietly.
Castor felt the fur along his spine rise. Moss was staring past the group to the poster of the white tiger head and the arching scorpion stinger, and Castor waited for the veteran Unnatural to say more.
Before he could, Enza cut in with a loud snort. “Castor is nothing like Laringo,” she protested indignantly. “Are you all really afraid of a mangy street dog? He doesn’t look anything like his poster.” She glanced toward the back of the room. “What a joke! I’ve never even seen him hold up those floppy wings.”
In her own illustration, Enza’s eyes looked crossed, her fur looked matted, and sitting on the ground like that, with her belly roll hanging to the floor, the grizzly was more flabby than ferocious. You couldn’t even see her tiger’s tail.
Castor knew Enza was cutting him down now to feel better about herself, but he was relieved that she’d broken the tension. And looking at his poster made Castor remember something else.
“She’s right,” he said, trotting over to it. “Even the Whistlers think I’m pathetic, or they wouldn’t have called me the Underdog!”
The animals were looking around in confusion, but Deja’s glass-like eyes studied him with interest and understanding. “The s-s-shepherd dog can s-s-spell?”
Castor had forgotten that being able to read was anything special, but now everyone was crowding around him, forgetting their trepidation as they asked about their own new identities.
Samken was the most excited about his stage name. He lumbered over to his poster and tried hard to mimic the fierce expression of the illustration. “Could I be the Enforcer?” he asked with a grimace that just made him look constipated. “How about now?” He looked up at the picture and blew out his cheeks. “Hey . . . what’s that other writing?” Samken reached a tentacle toward the ceiling.
At first, Castor thought he meant the Unnaturals banner, but then the elephant said, “Right there,” and slapped the upper-left corner of the poster. When he pulled the tentacle free with a wet, sucking sound, it left a slimy streak over a paw-print sigil that Castor hadn’t noticed before.
Castor squinted. Inside the sigil on Samken’s poster, he could just barely make out the tiny red letters. “Team Klaw,” he read, and that sent everyone into a frenzy.
“What team am I on?” demanded Rainner, nudging Castor with his horn.
“You’re also Team Klaw.” Castor tried not to flinch as he answered the armored lizard.
Deja had snaked up Samken’s treelike legs to get a better look. Her head waved out in front of his face like an extra tentacle, reaching toward her own red sigil. “It looks like I am, too.”
Castor nodded. “So is Laringo. And it says I’m on Team Scratch.” He walked along the wall, using his nose to point out the paw prints with the yellow text. “With Enza, Jazlyn, and Moss.”
Jazlyn flashed Castor a quick smile. But not everyone was excited. Samken, for one, looked crestfallen.
“But we’re best friends!” He reached a tentacle toward Jazlyn’s panther tail, giving it a tug. “We have to be on the same team!”
“You’re on the winning team,” Rainner said. “And we’re going to crush the competition!”
He shouldered against Samken playfully—as if the octo-elephant were an old buddy and not someone Rainner had recently attacked over breakfast—but Samken flinched away from him. He rubbed the soft skin of his side where Rainner’s armor had scraped against it.
Rainner flashed a reptilian smirk. “Like I said before, some animals were born to conquer.” He nodded up at the image of himself, mid-charge. “And others . . .” He smiled at Jazlyn and Castor, his mouth full of pointy little teeth stained with red saliva, and Castor remembered the rest: And others are destined to fall.
“The teams don’t matter, anyway,” Moss said. The other animals turned to look at the striped bull, who was still standing at the trough by himself.
“OF COURTHH THEY MATTER!” Enza, who’d been strangely silent, roared suddenly, and spit flew in all directions.
Those first few days in the prison, Castor had listened as Enza practiced her S’s long into the nights. He knew how hard she’d worked to conquer the speech impediment from her saber teeth, so hearing her lisp again now, Castor knew she must be pretty upset.
“I’m not thupposed to be with a bunch of thithies.” Enza swiped a thick paw at her own poster, slashing through Team Scratch’s yellow sigil. Now that she had everyone’s attention, she licked her lips and concentrated hard on the words. “I’m supposed to be with the Invincible.”
“You want so badly to be with your hero.” Moss studied Enza for a long moment, his jaw slowly working the cud. “Do you even know why Laringo isn’t in here with us?”
“He’s superior and deserves to be pampered,” Enza fired back.
But the other animals were watching Moss intently, waiting for an answer. They’d all been wondering, but no one had dared to ask.
The veteran stepped out from behind the trough so that he could address all of them. “The handlers trained Laringo so well, pushed him so hard, brainwashed him so completely, that now he doesn’t just fight on command—fighting is who he is. He’s kept apart from us because he’d slash into you at the slop. Claw you through the cells. Sting you in your sleep.”
“What about the rules?” Jazlyn asked. “You said—”
But Moss was shaking his gnarled horns. “For Laringo, the rules don’t matter. He became what they said he was—Invincible. Unstoppable. And fans come to watch, hoping that someone will beat him. The handlers will drive us into the ground if it makes us want to fight one another. They want someone to put up a fight against Laringo. Everyone loves underdogs.”
He looked at Castor and then walked back toward the trough, his tail swishing restlessly.
17
You smell the squirrel before you see him. You smell his brothers, too, urging you on your hunt. You follow their nutty scent through rustling grasses and over ground packed with pine needles. You hear the drumming of their little hearts, the catch in their breath. They scramble up tree trunks and dart through the leaves, but you are closing in.
You come into a clearing and see squirrels all around you, perched in the branches. Soon you will feast.
But strangely, they are not cowering from your slavering jaws.
They are staring. This is a stadium built of trees, and the squirrels are the audience. They start to snicker, a hundred squirrel voices tittering in unison, and your blood runs cold.
Then you feel it. There’s something on your back.
Crawling.
You crane your neck behind you, but no matter which way you look, it’s just out of your view. It’s creeping all over you, and the squirrels laugh and laugh and la
ugh.
“Get it off me! Get it off!” Castor howled in panic. He was already on his feet and chasing his tail in circles, tripping over his talons and slamming into the stack of metal weights as he tried to get a look at whatever terrible thing had a hold of him.
But there was nothing there. He was still training in the Pit. After dinner at the slop, Slim had made Castor do another two hours on the treadmill at a grueling pace—probably as revenge for Castor injuring his arm. Castor must’ve fallen asleep there after the “extra” training. There was no sign of the handlers and, looking around, he saw that the other animals had all gone back to their cells.
Castor’s muscles ached. He might as well catch a bit more sleep before the Whistlers came to get him. Castor collapsed onto the treadmill mat and shut his eyes, waiting for his dreams to carry him back to the Greenplains and far away from here. . . .
Then Castor heard snickering, and his eyes snapped back open.
The squirrels, he thought groggily, but it wasn’t a squirrel’s voice that spoke to him.
“I heard they brought in another dog.”
It sounded . . . canine.
“Hello?” he asked. He peered between the rows of exercise machines, but there was no movement among their metallic arms.
“I heard he took on an entire pack in Lion’s Head.”
The voice was closer now, and it seemed to be coming from above. Castor tilted his head back and squinted against the fluorescent light . . . and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw the starlike shadow dropping down.
It was hanging directly over him!
Castor tried to scramble out of the way, but his overworked muscles screamed with each movement.
At the first touch on his back, Castor’s body went rigid, and when the eight hairy feet traveled over him, his own fur stood on end. It was just like in the dream—worse than in the dream—and Castor shook his body violently, trying to get it, whatever it was, off him. Finally, the creature scuttled onto the floor, where he could get a good look at it.
