SICK HEART, Huss, JA [novels for students .txt] 📗

It took me a long, long time to figure this out and the answer only just came to me that day we got off the ship and walked into Cort’s village.

At first I thought he was looking for something else, but that wasn’t it either.

Lazar sent me to Udulf to be killed.

Twice now.

And both times, I came out alive.

Why?

Well, that’s a pretty simple answer, actually. The first time Udulf got a phone call. I didn’t remember this until they started negotiating the fight between Maart and Cort the other day. It was a call from… someone. Doesn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the news.

Cort had won his fight.

He was officially in the Ring of Fire now.

On the night that Udulf was raping me and showing me a snuff film of Cort’s sister—Cort van Breda was morphing into Sick Heart.

And this changed everything.

And, well. The second time Cort took me without asking.

Funny how that worked out.

What was Udulf thinking that morning he came to visit us on the Rock?

Did I remember how he raped the girl in the movie?

Did I remember Lazar skinning her alive?

Did I know Cort was the little boy who watched?

Did Cort know he was the little boy who watched?

Did I tell him?

So many questions had to be running through Udulf’s mind during that short visit.

He left me there because he knew I didn’t tell Cort and he knew Cort didn’t remember.

So he left.

And he came back here, to Brazil. To Cort’s camp. To talk to Maart and... probably Rainer, too. And that’s when all this was set up.

“I remember you,” Udulf says, sipping on his orange juice. “You were… what, eight? Nine?”

I was seven, but who’s counting?

“Yes.” He smiles. “You were… something. Very pretty. I’m sure you hear that all the time. Don’t you?”

I sigh and push a piece of French toast into my mouth, chewing slowly with my eyes locked on his. These people are so sick. I never understood how they could live with themselves until Udulf’s little speech at Cort’s camp.

They don’t believe in evil. There is no Heaven and Hell. There are no consequences. This is nothing but a game.

Well, I don’t believe that. Not all of it, at least. There have to be consequences. There has to be more to the real world than just the tangible act of existence. Sick, evil people need to pay for their crimes at some point.

But here’s the really interesting thing Udulf said. This is a game to them. They are players in a very literal sense. There are winners and there are losers and nothing else in between.

It’s a good tip. One I will take seriously.

So when Udulf throws his napkin on his plate, and just before he pushes his chair away from the table, I decide to enter this game.

I lift up my juice glass and bring it to my lips. But before I take a sip, I say, in Dutch, “Of course, I remember you, Udulf.” And then I switch to Hungarian. “I remember your midnight confessions.” I switch to English. “How could I ever forget the man who masturbated to a movie of his own daughter being raped, and tortured, and killed.”

He is so surprised by my spoken words, he laughs out loud before he can fully understand the threat behind them.

I try not to think of their full implication as well.

Men like Udulf and Lazar are the reason I believe in God. Because if there is a God, there is a Devil. And there must be a Devil, because these men work for him.

“She talks.” Udulf’s shock has worn off. He is delighted at my words.

“I do. And I know why you wanted me dead that night.”

“Which night would that be, nyuszi?” Pavo’s nickname for me rolls out of his mouth like flowing water, easy and smooth. “The first time or the second?”

“Both.”

He smiles at me, a little bit tight-lipped, but he’s mostly pulling off a pretty good I-give-no-fucks expression. “Are you going to tell me? Should I guess? Or were you just making an observation?”

“You don’t want him to know.”

He huffs. “What are you talking about? The films?”

Interesting. It’s been eleven years and yet that memory is so fresh, his mind goes there immediately.

“Cort knows about the films. He used to enjoy watching them with me when he was small. He’s an animal. He came that way. He will die that way.”

“Maybe,” I answer back. Cort is not an animal. He did not come that way and he will not die that way either.

Cort did not watch snuff films with Udulf. I know this for a fact because Cort does not remember what happened to him. He has repressed it. He has made up some other situation to account for it. The bathhouse nightmare is the stand in. It is bad, but it’s something his mind can deal with. It’s something he can understand. Watching your sister be skinned alive—nope. That’s an experience that deserves to be forgotten. And if Udulf showed him a snuff film, the memory could come back. There was a chance.

And that would never do.

Not when Cort was winning.

Udulf watches me carefully. Maybe wondering where all this is going.

How many men on this planet own fighters in the Ring of Fire?

Eight? Ten? Maybe twelve.

It’s not easy to turn a small boy into a grown-up killer so ruthless he makes it all the way to twenty-seven.

I know this now. I know this better than Udulf does. I’ve seen it all first hand.

They all want to be there. They all want the opportunity to win those prizes. They all want their stable of little boys in the camps and harems of little girls in their bedrooms.

And both Lazar and Udulf made it.

Udulf would never admit this, but Lazar gave it away that night on the Bull of Light.

They need these warriors.

They are nothing without them.

Lazar mourned the loss of Pavo. Maybe he’s got another fighter on his way up, but I doubt it.

Udulf, on