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

night jerking off in a corner, talking the entire time. Talking about Cort and how they were boys together. “He was my friend,” Pavo said drunkenly. “Did I ever tell you that, nyuszi?”

I hate that nickname. Bunny. Gag. But when you’re locked in a cabin with a psychopath on Lectra, you don’t make a fuss about the small things.

“We were boys at the same training camp.”

I didn’t want to hear it. I don’t go around forcing people to listen to my childhood stories, why can’t he give me the same consideration?

But I was there. And try as I might, I could not tune him out completely. Also, I actually was interested in the parts about Cort, since none of this was ever mentioned in that Ring of Fire article.

“He was two years older. Prettier than me. Everyone said so.”

Oh. So that’s what this is about. Jealousy. Figures.

“We learned everything together. And he always thought he was better. Always faster. Always tougher. He took the slaps, the punches, the scarring without whimpering or sniveling. He was always better with the pain. But I was a good fighter. I still am a good fighter. I’m going to win tomorrow, nyuszi. You watch me. I’m going to pin him to the platform. Lie on top of him. Make him feel how hard the fight makes me. Then I will take it all from him. Everything he has will be mine.”

That’s how the spoils work for the fighters. They inherit the loser’s training camp. This is a big deal for the men who own the fighters. They will lose all their up-and-coming prospects, but only in that particular camp. This is why they don’t have just one big camp. They typically have dozens of smaller ones instead.

I don’t know what Pavo will get from Cort if he wins. No one even knows where Cort’s training camp is. No one knows where he stays. The Ring of Fire article said he owns no house, no fancy car, no ten-million-dollar yacht. These are all things Pavo has. He has been rewarded handsomely by my father over the years. He is the pinnacle of my father’s stable.

Pavo also has wives. Many, many wives by this point in his career. You get one each time you win in the Ring of Fire. And Pavo has won thirteen or fourteen times now, Cort twice that many, so Cort should have a pretty large harem. The article didn’t talk about that either.

If Pavo wins I will not go to Cort’s harem. I will stay here on this ship. My father has already explained it to me. He will take a controlling interest in the Bull of Light and I will probably live on this ship for the rest of my life.

It’s not a bad place, I decide. It could be worse. A lot worse, actually.

The Bull of Light is like a city. There are hundreds of people here. Women working in the laundry and the kitchens who I could make friends with. Men I could have sneaky affairs with. I could even get a job. I could work in the kitchen or the laundry too. Because Pavo is beyond delusional if he thinks my father will let him stop fighting.

We will not be playing house. He will fuck me constantly for a few days while he drowns himself in Lectra, hopefully get me pregnant, and then he will leave for Thailand to continue training and I will stay here. Pavo will have at least four or five more fights before they let him even think about trying to buy himself out.

The men in his class only fight once a year. And every time he fights there is the possibility that he loses. That means that I will not be safe if Pavo wins me. I am property and I suspect my ownership will change many times before they let me die.

By next year, I might have a baby with me. If Pavo loses the next fight, the baby and I would both go to the winner.

The obvious solution to this is to not get pregnant.

The other, even more obvious, solution is that Pavo loses tonight’s fight.

Then I would go home with the Sick Heart.

I try to imagine that for a moment. Fully imagine how bad it might get. I would be somewhere far away. Not on a floating city with the possibility of some semblance of a life. My father would lose track of me. Lose interest in me too. I would become part of Cort’s harem, wherever that is. I would eventually get pregnant, I would eventually have babies.

But this is his last fight. It is known. I would not be given away. Ever. I would be his, and his alone, forever.

Cort van Breda is nice to look at. I’m not even gonna pretend he’s not. From a distance, though. I could look at him all day long if he wasn’t such a looming threat. But to be with him all the time? Forever? To be left alone with him and his violence? Not even under the protection of my father?

He could do anything he wanted with me.

He could sell me. Leave me somewhere. Beat me. Starve me. Tie me up and never come back. He could lend me out to his friends. And he seems very committed to those friends, so I imagine that’s a given.

No. The Sick Heart is a risk.

Going home with Cort van Breda would be orders of magnitude worse than staying here and being Pavo’s. If Pavo wins, my father would not stay here, but he would come often. He is obsessed with this ship. He might even want Bexxie to stay here too. I could beg for that. I could make it happen.

In my world, this scenario—being Pavo’s property, having his babies, living here on the ship with Bexxie nearby and only occasional visits from the men in control of me?

This is a fairy-tale ending as far as I’m concerned. Something right out