“Why?” It’s a question I’ve had my whole life but never had the guts to ask. “Why are you like this? Why do you want to hurt people? Why are you so fucking evil?”
Udulf smiles at me, his steel-gray eyes so familiar. “There is no such thing as evil, my son.” I feel sick. Because it’s in this moment when I truly accept that he is my real father. I come from this man’s seed. “There is no judgment on the last day of your life. There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. There is only the game called life. You either play it, or you don’t.”
I scoff. “And this is the best you can do?”
He looks around, still smiling. “No. This is the best you could do. But I’m giving you another chance, Cort. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? Maart does. Hell, even Rainer does and he’s pretty stupid. Because he’s a free man, thanks to you, and he chooses…” Udulf shrugs. “Nothing.” He laughs. “He chooses nothing. He wants nothing more than to stay the same. He wants his camp, he wants his kids, he wants his pathetic title of trainer. He wants to wake up every day and know that it will be predictable. And if that means walking away from you and sticking it out with Maart here, that’s what he’s going to do. But don’t feel bad. Even if your big dream of freedom was more than just some worthless supply ship, he wouldn’t go. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t have it in him. Freedom, my son, is highly overrated for most of the pathetic people of this planet. They say they hate the games we play, but what else would they do with their lives if we weren’t pushing them in one direction or another?”
“Wow.” I can only shake my head at him. “You, Udulf, you are the pathetic one. Not the people you control. They don’t have choices, and you do. And you had better hope there is no Hell, because if there is, there’s a fire pit with your name on it.”
“Do you want the fight or don’t you?” Udulf asks. I open my mouth to say no. I will not play this game with him or anyone else ever again. But he continues before I can answer. “Choose carefully, Sick Heart. Because if you say no, you walk out of here with no one. Just yourself.”
“Evard—”
“Evard is staying,” Rainer says. “He was trying to tell you that when he got off the ship. But you told him to shut the fuck up.”
I step away from Maart, Rainer, and Udulf, trying to put distance between myself and them. Anya is standing off to the side as well, the expression on her face one of stunned shock.
I look Rainer in the eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you? He’s free. You’re free. We’re all free. Why would you want to stay in this hell?”
“Because,” Udulf says, “this hell is their home. It’s all they know.”
“I’m not gonna do it,” I blurt. “Fuck this shit. You people can all fucking rot here. I didn’t fight for my life for twenty-two years to just walk away with nothing.”
“That’s the whole point of the fight,” Maart says, his eyes narrowed down into slits. “If I win, we’re all free. I told you that, remember? Out on the Rock. I fucking told you, either we are all free, or none of us are.”
“Oh, that’s a nice touch,” Udulf says, pointing his finger at Maart. “Freedom to choose. Everyone gets to choose to stay! I love it!”
He’s fucking sick. I don’t even look at him. I’m only looking at Maart. “If you win, I’m dead, you dumbass! Only one of us gets out alive!”
“That’s right.” Maart says this without feeling. If my heart is sick, his heart is cold. And that’s exactly what he wants me to think.
I take a deep breath and calm myself down. “So you want to be the hero?”
“You never did.”
“You’re free to make this decision because of me, asshole.”
“And you only got here because of me. You know that’s true, Cort. So that argument doesn’t work. You’re too weak to think big. You’ve been in too many fights to see past your own survival instinct. You got me out for the same reason you got Rainer and Evard out. You can’t live without us.”
“And that’s how we know you’re going to say yes,” Udulf says. “The fight of the century. The Sick Heart against the one man who can beat him.”
“Will beat him,” Maart adds.
I huff out a laugh. “You people are all a bunch of deranged lunatics if you think I’ll fall for this bullshit. I’m done. There will be no fight. I’m packing my shit, I’m getting on that ship, and I’m never looking back.”