I will be the first. And even though, at this point in the game, I can’t see many ways in which I fail, there are ways. These men who run us can do anything they want. Even rip this reward out from under me for no reason whatsoever.
I’m trusting Udulf to keep his word. But that doesn’t mean he will.
Almost no boys make it to twenty. They have even fewer chances than the girls because no one underestimates them in the ring. I’ve seen the boys when they get face to face with one of my girls. They smile, thinking it’s gonna be easy.
But there are no rules in the kind of fighting we do. There are no refs, there are no tap outs, and the only way you get off the platform is by killing your opponent.
So the very first thing I teach my girls is how to go for the balls. There is no weak spot on a female the way there is a man.
Sure, you can hit them in the face. That stuns a girl who hasn’t been hit much. But my girls know exactly what to do when a boy, or a man, hits them in the face. So they have no weakness, other than their smaller size and weight, when they step in that ring. And smaller size can always be used to their advantage if they have the right ajarn. And my girls have the best teacher on the planet.
I’m not saying I’ve got a perfect record when it comes to the girls. I don’t take a lot of them, for obvious reasons. And most of them die fighting before they are ten. But the ones who make it to Anya’s age—you do not fuck with those women.
I feel a little bad about leaving Cintia, Sissy, and Ling behind when Maart, Rainer, Evard and me walk away with our freedom, but they’ll be OK. None of the twisted fucks like Lazar want women like them at their age. They are good for running camps and that’s what they’ll do for the rest of their lives. Cook, and clean, and teach.
It’s the best I can do. I cannot afford to fight for their freedom. I don’t have three more fights in me. Hell, I don’t think I even have one more fight in me. I won’t ever admit it—not out loud anyway—but if Anya wasn’t on the platform that night, Pavo would’ve won.
I let out a long exhale, then look over at Anya and see that she’s done eating. Her crying is over now, her face wiped dry and her eyes waiting for me to tell her what comes next.
What does come next?
I could just take her back out to the training floor and make her do busy work, work on those moves I showed her yesterday, but it’s probably the wrong choice.
So I get up, walk over to the long shelf, and pull out a puzzle.
It’s an old one. A black-and-white picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Hell, I think this puzzle has been here since I first started bringing kids out to the Rock. And it’s got to be missing a couple dozen pieces by now.
I drop it on the table in front of Anya and point.
I have every intention of leaving her here to do it herself while I go back outside, but then I think, Shit. How long has it been since I sat down and did a freaking puzzle?
When was the last time I took a slow day?
So instead, I sit back down, grab the box, take off the lid, and dump out all the pieces. And when I look at Anya, she’s not looking at me, she’s looking at the table. At all the little jagged edges. And she’s smiling.
I smile too, unable to stop it.
She’s pretty. A lot prettier than any girl I’ve been with in the last few years. I don’t get to keep the girls I fight for, they go right to Udulf. What he does with them, I have no idea. So it’s been a while since I’ve found myself wanting to stare at the face of a girl sitting across from me.
She looks up, meets my gaze with bright eyes, and I suddenly feel like this is the right way forward.
Make her happy, Cort. Why not? Be nice to her. Feed her better than you have been. Go a little easy on her, even. Because she has no future. None at all. She will probably be dead in six months, or sold as a breeder. Because unlike Sissy, and Cintia, and Ling, she is desirable. Not what Udulf is looking for, the sick fuck. But most men don’t have Udulf’s twisted sexual preferences.
He’s going to sell her. Barter her. Use her in some business negotiation. And that will be that.