Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

But it’s not like I can object. Rainer has tugged me into the stairwell and we are going down, so I don’t catch Lazar’s response. But I do think about Udulf’s words.

Cort’s new woman. That’s what I am now.

I sigh—internally, of course—and just float down the rest of the stairs, into some other part of the ship, and then I’m led into a room. The AC is on so high, it’s frigid. And I don’t realize until the moment I walk under the rushing cold air above the door that I am sticky hot with dried and cracking body paint, and sweat, and blood.

I just want a bath. And that’s never going to happen. I highly doubt there are bathtubs where I’m going and there certainly aren’t any on this ship.

Evard follows us in, leaving the door open. Then a few moments later, Cort and Maart enter as well. Maart kicks the door closed with the heel of his foot and he is holding another bottle of Lectra. Full.

“Want more?”

I look up from the bottle and find Maart’s gaze.

Rainer, busy on the far side of the room with something, tsks his tongue. “I don’t think she needs any more. She drank a lot and she’s probably not used to it.” He turns around with a small machine in his now-gloved hand. “Besides, it’ll make her bleed more when we tat her up.”

And even though I have been professionally uncommunicative for nearly fifteen years now, I am unable to stop the expression on my face.

Rainer points to me and his grass-green eyes brighten. “Gotcha,” he says. But then Cort is signing something and Rainer laughs. “Spoke too soon, I guess. He has plans for you tonight.”

Plans? What the hell does that mean?

Rainer buzz-buzz-buzzes the little machine in his hand and I realize it’s a tattoo gun.

Cort is settling down on the couch, pulling the little boy into an embrace. His quick fingers sign something to him, and Evard signs back with a smile.

My mind wanders to all kinds of dark corners at this display, but then I push it aside, look back at Maart, take the bottle, and drink.

Plans.

Fuck Cort van Breda. Fuck him, and his friends, and his boy. And fuck his plans too.

Maart pulls the bottle away from my lips with a sigh. “All right. You’re gonna really need to sit down. Over there.” He’s pointing at a chair. But then his gaze finds Cort, who is signing again. “Never mind,” Maart says. “Sit next to Cort. He really does have plans for you.”

Then the tattoo machine begins buzzing in Rainer’s hand. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzz. He points it at me. “Ready for your mark, Anya?”

I hold still, my head spinning and my vision going a little blurry.

“Goddammit.” Maart grabs my arm, pulls me over to the couch, and then pushes me until I fall into the cushions next to Cort. “Just stay there.”

“I told ya,” Rainer says. “She drank way too much. She’s gonna be hallucinating all night now.”

Cort signs something and they all laugh. And that laugh lasts for an entire eternity.

It floats into my ears and gets stuck in my head. Bounces around in there and then… then I lose track of time.

I lose track of everything.

I drift in and out of consciousness. There are skulls all around me. Skulls everywhere. I reach for one and find the soft skin of a belly. And when my eyes look up, I find… him.

The sick heart.

The man with skulls all over his body.

I start tracing lines of teeth and jawbones. I trace the outline of an eye. Then a heart. Not a heart you draw, not a cute thing at the end of a note or an emoji on a phone, but a real heart. An anatomical heart with pipes or vessels protruding and spurting blood everywhere.

Then there is a keyhole in the middle of it. And I have that key. It’s made out of a finger bone.

“Anya!”

I look up and see Rainer. Tattoo machine in his hand. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzz. Black and red ink all over his gloves. And then I look down and see that I am practically on top of Cort.

I blink. Then the little boy is pulling me off of the rock-hard body of the fighter. He pushes me and points his finger in my face. “You’re not handling this well.”

That echoes in my mind and I think I laugh. It might even be out loud, but I can’t be sure. I’m not sure of anything right now.

“She doesn’t drink it like we do,” Rainer says. His hand is buzz-buzz-buzzing over the skin of Cort’s ribcage.

Maart laughs. He’s sitting on the other side of me and I’m leaning in to him.

Cort snaps his fingers and it reverberates through my head. At the end of that snap, there is another tattoo machine. The little boy is kneeling at Cort’s feet holding a little cup of black ink.