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

watch from there. Then I glance to the opposite side of the ring near the encroaching jungle, and see Rainer, and Evard, and all the other fighters. Only Sissy, Ling, and Cintia catch my eye and nod.

I don’t nod back.

This fight looks nothing like the last one on the ship. There are no drums, there is no dark sky under a new moon, no body paint, no spotlights, no slave boys, no one in my corner at all.

There are no expectations here aside from death and rebirth.

But that’s OK. I have lived with the threat of death for as long as I can remember. This is just one more day in the life of the Sick Heart.

I hop up in the ring and stand a few feet away from Maart and it takes several long seconds before the owners even notice the fight is about to start.

Insult, upon insult, upon insult.

Maart and I walk towards the center of the ring and bow. And while we are looking down at our thumbs, he says, in a low voice, “Finally. Something really worth fighting for.”

And when I look up to agree, he punches me in the face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - ANYA

 

Cort is his usual cool, collected self as he walks down the steps of his porch and makes his way towards the center training ring.

Everything about a fight day is significant. Every decision has purpose. And isn’t that how they like it? These sick men who prey on children in the shadows?

But they do it in the light of day.

Oh, none of them are giving interviews about their pedophilic tendencies. Not to the masses, not even the Ring of Fire reporter wants to hear that shit. But these men are far, far, far too smug and confident in their untouchable status to hide their depraved, immoral, deviant behavior. And why should they? They are proud of it.

But it’s always hidden in plain sight.

That’s why the fight on the ship had the drums, and the dark moon, and the symbols painted on my body. That’s why there were black lights to make us glow. That’s why we were naked. That’s why there were slave boys dressed in gold.

They thrive on that shit. It’s like a secret handshake to them. It comes with a wink and a nod. And they all laugh and wink and nod back.

Take Cort’s name, for example. Udulf’s peers all know Cort was his biological child, just like we all know that Evard and Ainsey are Cort’s children. And Udulf gave Cort a different surname because Cort is no one to Udulf. He is nothing but a slave.

He told me that himself just yesterday morning.

Cort’s mother was of no consequence to Udulf. He has no idea who she was. Just some slave girl, maybe no older than a child herself when she gave birth. I’m not sure about that. But it doesn’t matter. The only point is Cort’s actual name. Van Breda.

It doesn’t make much sense unless you have other clues, because ‘breda,’ as far as I know—and I’m pretty fucking good with languages—can’t be translated into anything meaningful. It’s a Dutch city, but that’s not meaningful. You have to look at Pavo’s last name to really see what they are doing here with the surnames. Pavo’s surname was dripping with symbolism. It means ‘bloodline’ in Hungarian.

Because we are bred. Every single one of us.

I know Cort might think—or maybe hope is the better word—he might hope that these are not his people. That he is not one of them, but he is.

We are.

It is a plan.

And you only have to casually look at the name van Breda to see the connection.

Breeder.

That’s what Udulf thinks of Cort. His sick heart is nothing but a breeder.

These people, they all love a good symbol.

But two can play that game. Or, as it happens, thirty-one. Because that’s how many people live in this base camp. That’s how many fighters, including Ainsey and myself, call this place base.

Thirty-one of us. Thirty-two of them. It’s not quite one-on-one, but they could probably outnumber us two-to-one and it would still be in our favor.

I hear, rather than see, the first punch. Maart lands it sloppily on purpose.

This day is absolutely about a fight—but it’s not the fight these men came to see.

My first clue was Maart’s smiling face and little talk with me on the ship.

“We’re sticking together.”

“Are we?”

“We are.”

“What’s that mean, exactly?”

“You’ll find out.”

The second clue was learning that he made this deal before he and the kids came out to the Rock. This was always Maart’s plan. This was why he caused all that tension in camp with Cort. This was why he got on his back about me and Ainsey.

He needed Cort to believe it was real when it mattered.

And it was real, so Cort did believe.

Until Maart dropped the third clue.

The third clue was the fact that he left the girls behind with Cort.

I mean, maybe Maart gives no fucks about Zoya or Rasha, but Irina?

Come on. Everyone saw through that.

He loves Irina. He wants her to be the first girl in the Ring of Fire.

Or he did, before he set this whole plan in motion.

Maart needed Udulf and Lazar to be the arrogant pricks they are.

He needed them smug.

He needed them proud and cocky.

He needed them to think exactly what they do right in this moment.

That this fight is nothing but a cancellation. Of no importance whatsoever.

He needed these men to think that the Sick Heart’s time was up and that Maart was someone they could relate to. Someone like them. Someone smug, and proud, and cocky.

Someone who wanted to live and would do anything—make any deal with the Devil he could—to make that happen.

But that’s not Maart.

Not even close.

So while all the devils are watching Maart and Cort pretend to beat the shit out of each other, several small children are crawling under the skirt of the platform. And the older ones, the ones I don’t know—those women,