by C. C. Ekeke
“It’s not.” Jordana shook her head, cornrows swinging side to side. Her voice grew thick. “I’ve criticized how Brie treated you...and I was even worse. You deserve better than us.”
Hugo swayed a bit, the frank apology unmooring him body and soul. Jodie searched his face, pressing a hand on his chest. “I hope we can be friends.”
Hugo’s heart swelled. “We already are.” He drew Jodie into his arms despite her sweatiness. In fact, the perspiration amplified her fragrance.
Under different circumstances, Jordana was girlfriend material. But what remained of Hugo’s heart had to stay walled off. For my own good. They embraced a long while, until Hugo heard the game ending.
“Bye.” He kissed Jodie’s forehead, sending shivers through her. Hugo walked out of the locker room without looking back.
When he returned home later, Mom was upstairs napping while Sione paced around the garage on his cell. By his tone, the discussion seemed positive.
Despite himself, Hugo dialed up his hearing to listen.
“…don’t worry about my share, brutha,” Sione reassured whoever he addressed. “Lina’s giving me fifteen grand.”
“It’s pricier buying our way in,” the person he spoke to cautioned with a Bay-area Samoan accent. “Let's call the Hayward crew—”
“Not yet, Afa,” Sione dismissed. “And money isn’t an issue with Lina wrapped around my finger.”
Hugo dialed back his hearing, shocked and angry. His first instinct said to go ragdoll Sione around and warn him off making Mom his personal ATM.
But Hugo realized that might not solve things. Tossing his backpack into the common room, he raced upstairs. “Mom!” Hugo roused his mother. “Are you loaning Uncle Sione $15,000?”
Mom stared back with puffy eyes. “Yes, for his new business. You shouldn’t eavesdrop!”
Hugo couldn’t believe his ears. “After he ripped you off last time you loaned him money!”
“Bogota!” Mom sat up, pushing hair from her face. “This is different. He showed me the business plan. A surf shop with sports drinks and vitamins. It looks quite profitable.”
Hugo had no faith in any business Sione ran. “You’re sinking money into another black hole.”
Mom placed a hand on his forearm, motioning for him to relax. “A lawyer is drawing up the loan contract. I'm being careful.” She offered a wide smile. “Let me be the parent.”
Hugo disliked this but felt better knowing Mom wasn’t being naive. “Okay.” He turned to leave.
“Wait.” Mom caught his hand. “Feels like ages since we actually talked.” She patted her bed. “Sit.”
Hugo ground his teeth but sat on the comfy bed.
He’d given vague updates about his fledging career. Despite typical motherly concerns, she’d been lenient. But if Hugo revealed his recent failed mission, or the sidekick dilemma, she’d freak. “Things are good with the superheroing. There’s still a lot to learn.”
“Take as long as possible,” Mom remarked dryly. “But I want to discuss something else.”
By her nauseated expression, Hugo knew her target. “I so wanted to avoid this conversation.” Both of them awkwardly laughed.
“Were you safe?” Mom blurted out. “With Jordana, Presley, and—”
“I used protection, Mom!” Hugo snapped, his cheeks burning. “I’m not dumb.”
“Good…but not that kind of safe,” Mom sounded queasy. “With your abilities, are you being safe with how you—please get there first.”
“OH!” Hugo’s stomach lurched up into his throat. “That’s…not a problem. Lady Liberty trained me to handle mind over matter when controlling my superstrength,” he explained. “I have full control over…everything.” Just thinking about sex in Mom’s presence made his skin crawl.
“Thank the Lord,” she exhaled in palpable relief.
“Let’s never discuss that again?” Hugo pleaded.
“Gladly,” Mom exclaimed. “I’m not done.”
Hugo rolled his eyes indignantly but stayed seated.
“Are you and Jordana dating?”
“We weren’t serious.” The sharp pang in his chest made breathing hard for Hugo. “But it’s over. Probably for the best.”
Mom frowned hearing this. “Why would you think that?”
“Brie turns out to be a manipulative bitch.” Hugo listed off on his fingers, ignoring Mom’s grimace. “Presley ended up being an accomplice to murder.” He couldn’t continue. The list of romantic failures pressed on his chest with oppressive and excruciating weight. “My heart gets stomped every time I put myself out there.”
Mom gripped Hugo’s shoulders and held his gaze. “There will be more loves and heartbreaks in your life. But you keep going until you find who you were meant to love. Like your dad and I.” Mom’s voice caught on that last part.
Hugo fought to swallow his roiling emotions. “What if I never do?” he lamented. “When I become a superhero, I’ll have to lie and be away a lot.” Hugo’s vision started to blur as he considered the lonely road ahead. “What if I never find someone who accepts the real me?”
Her smile was so positive, Hugo almost broke. “You will.” She cupped his face. “And she'll be so lucky.” Mom pulled him into a firm hug. With tear-stained cheeks, Hugo gladly sank into her arms.
Chapter 19
Connie is dead.
The reality was an overcast sky refusing to clear. Greyson had failed Connie. All his choices, losing Lauren, killing Dad and Hurricane, had been for nothing.
Numbness became a welcome friend. Better than swimming in constant pain.
From then on, Greyson was mute and obedient, going through the motions of existence. His senses seemed filtered through sepia, voices or orders coming through a tunnel.
Greyson vaguely recalled he and the other slaves arriving at Dourado via convoy. The Golden City lived up to its name, a sprawling work of art between jagged goldenrod mountains and crimson shorelines. Spiraling palaces jutted in the skies, sparkling in daylight. Sunbridge, House Carneiro's palatial home, was a jagged and impenetrable fusion of metal and mountain stone.
During the ride, Rodrigo described more Amaranthine history. Greyson retained little, his brain useless.
Once in Dourado, days bled together in their new gilded cage below Sunbridge. At dawn, new slaves ran three miles to get in shape for the gladiator pits. Food had lost most of its flavor to Greyson. Someone kept shaving his scalp, but Greyson was too submerged in self-loathing to care. Sleep was a welcome escape, dreamless and fathomless.
The day of Dourado's Opening Gladiator Fights was the day Greyson finally surfaced from his fog. He found himself in some stuffy underground dressing room. Too many people clustered here, guards and one other prisoner, alarming Greyson even more. The thunderous boom of people above, no doubt eager for indiscriminate slaughter.
Some tiny and wizened Amaranthine woman was kneeling before Greyson, slathering glowing paint onto his face and chest.
He recoiled. “What the—?” Greyson then noted golden-armored guards nearby lift their sizzling pikes in anticipation.
“Easy, Greyson! She’s getting us ready for our fight.” Rodrigo stood in the corner. A glowing neon purple paint dot was on his forehead and some glowing Y-shaped pattern covered his chest with another dot near his throat. The young swarthy Amaranthine had gained more muscle and hadn’t lost his enthusiasm. “Madna’s preparing us for the pit fights.”
Greyson looked down, seeing the same half-finished painting on his chest. The pattern looked strange paired with their collars. “What are these symbols?”
“Warrior marks from Amarantha’s natives,” Rodrigo explained. “Before the Europeans wiped them out. We’re going out dressed as natives to play cannon fodder to House Carneiro’s champions.” That clearly miffed Rodrigo. “Can you believe it? We’re a tune-up fight to the real gladiators.”
So that’s how I die. Greyson watched the shriveled lady work on the gleaming symbols.
/> Madna made a hand-washing motion and croaked out something in Amaranthine. Rodrigo smiled fondly. “She’s done.”
Greyson stood up. Then the guards in gilded armor ushered them into a long and narrow corridor. The booming crowds grew louder as they neared a spotlight in the corridor center. Greyson frowned, seeing only Rodrigo and their retinue of guards. This group seemed sparse.
“Where are the other slaves?”
“Already at the pit elevator.” Rodrigo pointed ahead. “I told them you be sick and I be watching you.”
Warmth seared Greyson's blackened soul. Rodrigo had a good heart. Totally wasted on Greyson.
“I’m not dying easily.” Rodrigo gestured. “We need to survive the Carneiro champions and impress the Dourado elite. Maybe we get chosen for the national games!”
Greyson’s forced smile had no joy. This kid still had no clue how the world crushed such hope. But faced with Rodrigo’s oozing enthusiasm, he didn’t have the heart to be honest. “Do what you have to,” he replied, his voice hoarse.
Rodrigo beamed, not grasping Greyson’s point. “I will.” He slapped him on the shoulder. “We make waves, yea?”
They reached the spotlight bathing a square platform wide enough for several people. Six other slaves stood with the same glowing warrior marks as Greyson and Rodrigo. Two were young women, two more athletic-looking men. The last two were barely teenagers. Greyson swallowed hard. What crime could they have committed to end up here? They stared back with varying degrees of terror.
Greyson blinked momentarily. Then he combed through hazy memories, recalling the Dourado guards buying more slaves in Côte Royale after Briggs got himself killed.
Greyson and Rodrigo were prodded onto the square-shaped platform. Then the guards withdrew into the shadows. Now Greyson felt the platform rise. The ceiling slid away, revealing blinding sunlight and thunderous boos.
In seconds, Greyson was bathed in warm sunlight from the roofless stadium, dusty earth spread in every direction. Thousands upon thousands of spectators ringed the arena in stadium seats, all as large as ants. Every one of them heaped deafening, hostile boos on the slaves.
“What did we do to them?” A lissome woman with short blonde hair asked, visibly overwhelmed.
“We’re unknown, yea.” Rodrigo actually waved at the booming hatred. “We aren’t their champions yet.”
Greyson gaped at him. Had Rodrigo waited for this opportunity his whole life? Or maybe the youth knew this was his escape from the oppression of supers?
The platform stopped, blending with the hard soil reaching all corners of the arena. The slaves stood awkwardly as the boos soared. “What now?” Greyson asked.
Rodrigo clapped him on the back, lighthearted still. “We wait…for the champions.”
Greyson exchanged confused looks with the other slaves, all Americans. Facing this hostile crowd, he got flashes of his therapy group. The memories were a bittersweet rush, until he recalled the terrible ending. Greyson focused on his reality…and the end.
There was a loud rumbling, like an elephant roaring its displeasure.
The crowd hushed in collective anticipation. The seven slaves all turned attention to the north side of the arena and the entry sliding open on the barrier. Greyson only saw pitch-black nothingness inside.
Rodrigo leaned close. “Here the champions come!” He had the gall to smile.
Before Greyson could slap the shit out of him, the audience erupted into cheers. Greyson turned back to see a hulking man bounding out on all fours, moving like a cheetah and covered in sable fur. He slid to a halt, rearing back on his hind legs with a leonine growl that chilled Greyson to the bone. He was a feline-based super. A loud speaker blared out some introduction in Amaranthine. Greyson understood none except for the final word. “RAVAGER!”
The crowd went berserk, standing and cheering.
Another being emerged from the darkness, this time walking. Short and rangy, his whole body glowed volcanic yellow. Definitely an energy discharger.
The speaker announced his arrival in Amaranthine, ending with, “Scorcher!” The masses bellowed louder approval than for Ravager. The bestial competitor visibly bristled at this.
One champion left. The crowd chanted his name, the groundswell growing louder and louder.
A sharp whoosh sounded, and the audiences exploded louder than for Ravager and Scorcher combined. The ungodly response shook the entire arena to its foundations.
A man soared out of the dark entrance, bronzed and muscled like a Renaissance sculpture. He was Amaranthine perfection, making Greyson painfully aware of his own skinny physique. The flying man halted to hover above Ravager and Scorcher, wearing only a golden Roman Empire feathered-skirt.
Greyson covered his ears from the unrelenting crowd din. The other slaves also protected their ears with pained expressions. Only Rodrigo appeared at home amid this chaos.
The announcer could barely be heard over the audience when shouting the name of their beloved champion. “SKYLORD!" Skylord took in the spectators and smiled. Then his dark eyes settled on the slaves at the arena center.
Greyson gulped and stepped back. At a glance, he sensed shades of Titan in this super. He carried himself like a god among men, oozing with unyielding power. Despite Greyson’s desire to perish, something in him flinched away from this trio.
“Skylord, Ravager, and Scorcher?” he shouted over the crowd. Under less fatal circumstances, Greyson would have laughed at the awful name. He looked to Rodrigo. “What now?”
“We’re supposed to be a tune-up. Easy kills,” Rodrigo explained eagerly. “Right before they face the champions of other Amarantha cities. They be champions three years.” He was gushing. “We don’t make it easy. Survive and fight back, we join them in the national tournament!”
Greyson shook his head at this crazy kid. Even if he wanted to fight back, Greyson saw no way they could fight this trio without powers.
“How?” the blonde woman in their group asked. “Our powers are inhibited—” She swayed and staggered sideways, eyes going glassy. The same happened to Rodrigo and the other slaves.
Greyson’s world swam. He sank to a knee. “What just happened?” His words came out slurred. The dizziness quickly passed. He stood back up.
Rodrigo shook his fluffy-haired head. “The gamemasters deactivated our collars!”
“FIGHT!” the announcer boomed over the stadium speakers.
Skylord hurtled forward like a missile. Ravager loped after him with a predatory charge roar. Scorcher came running, fists churning with white-hot flame.
The crowd roared with such bloodthirsty approval, Greyson couldn’t hear himself think.
Five slaves fled in different directions, which was smart. But to where? The entryway the champions had emerged from slid shut.
A shimmering field slid over Rodrigo. “Now we show them.” He bounced like a basketball to meet the champions.
Greyson stood stock-still, frozen between flight or waiting for death.
Then Rodrigo rebounded off the earth, colliding into Skylord. The resulting shockwave flung both supers backward, jarring Greyson’s bones.
Scorcher dashed forward, raising an arm and issuing forth a brilliant yellow energy beam.
The blast punched through a fleeing slave’s back, one of the adolescents, much to the crowd’s delight. The teen slave lay still with lifeless eyes, a smoking hole in her back.
In that moment, instinct overrode death wish.
Greyson ran.
Chapter 20
Greyson’s mind was a mess, legs pumping as fast as possible, heart thundering against the glowing tattoo on his chest.
Farther left, Ravager pounced on an older and strapping slave whose name Greyson hadn’t bothered learning.
Ravager sliced him to bloody ribbons with those claws. His death screams soared even over the thunderous crowd. Greyson tore his gaze away and kept running. Screams and jeers from every direction buffeted his ears.
&n
bsp; Then Rodrigo’s limp body dropped in his zigzagging path, not ten feet away. The crowd cheered.
Greyson stopped, fearing the worst.
But Rodrigo still lived. His chest rose and fell, face bloodied. The Amaranthine’s eyes found Greyson. “Do whatever it is you do,” he gasped, slowly sitting up. “Stay alive!”
No way would Greyson use his powers for these jackals’ amusement. Rodrigo’s plan to become a champion had been flawed from the beginning.
“Goddammit!” Against his better judgement, Greyson moved toward this foolish boy. Someone had to save Rodrigo from himself.
Until a hurricane swooped down from the sky, slapping Greyson across the face.
The glancing blow almost decapitated Greyson. Pain crackled down his spine so ferociously, he briefly blacked out. The next thing he knew, Greyson lay face down on dust-caked earth.
“Ohhhh!” he moaned, shocked that his stinging jaw remained attached. Greyson spit out a bloody tooth and looked up as Skylord flew away to attack two more slaves at the other end of the arena.
Despite the aches, Greyson pushed up to all fours. To get knocked down again? Lying down and waiting for death would have been easier. But something in him refused to stay down.
Greyson finally managed to stand…
…until five blades shredded his flesh from behind. Greyson shrieked, agony searing his shoulders. He fell, rolling around to escape the pain.
Ravager approached, his claws dripping with Greyson’s blood. The furry super grinned savagely. “Nowhere to run away, frail.” His voice was abrupt and guttural as he licked his fingers.
Instinct told Greyson to crawl. But he fought that instinct, lying still while Ravager advanced. Sounds of death and battle crashed around him. Greyson finally saw the end he’d craved.
Ravager stalked forward, shoulders hunched with coiled power. “I’m taking my time with you. Flay that smooth skin off. Then I’ll wear your lungs as a trophy.”
Greyson sagged on the ground and closed his eyes. This is gonna hurt. At least it will be over.
“Awkward,” someone purred.
Greyson opened his eyes and flinched.
