Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Not that I’ll be fighting.
Victor’s eyes narrow. “These rules are for your own good. The healthier you are, the longer you live. And what we expect of you is—”
“Mad Max, yeah?”
Cherry’s head snaps up, eyes going wide, her face pale. “Wh– what?”
“What you’ve got is basically the Thunderdome. Two men enter, one man leaves. Except I won’t be fighting.”
“You’ll change your mind soon enough—”
“No, I won’t. So get the fuck out of my face and let me talk to my girl.” Who’s looking shocked, terrified, uncertain. “So, action movie fan—which one’s your top Mad Max? The original? Or The Road Warrior?”
Her wary gaze darts to Victor again before a hint of a curve returns to her mouth. “It used to be Beyond Thunderdome. Until Fury Road came out.”
“Aw, shit. I haven’t seen that one.” I’m lying my ass off. “So how about you curl up with me in my cell tonight and tell me what happens?”
“Cherry will be in her own stall, Mr. Stone. Because she’s a good girl. And she follows the rules. Isn’t that right, Cherry?”
Like a light blinking out, her wide and beautiful smile returns. “Yes, sir.”
“And you, Mr. Stone—”
“I’m not fighting in the Cage.” All the amusement drops from my tone. “Not now, not ever.”
“Not right away, no. The next match is in ten days, and you won’t have a clean blood test by then. But soon enough, you’ll change your mind.”
A clean blood test? “Is that because of whatever you slipped into my drink, darlin’?”
Those emerald eyes meet mine, the green shadowed and dark. Like she’s swimming in guilt.
“It’s all right, girl,” I tell her. “I ain’t mad.”
I won’t forget. But am I angry? Nah.
The drill sergeant tries again. “Mr. Stone—”
“But you, Vic. I’m going to kill you.” My broad smile tells him just how much I’ll enjoy it. “So go ahead. Make your threats, tell me how you’ll torture my family and friends, get it all over with. Just don’t block my view of Cherry, because the sight of her is the only thing that’ll keep me awake through all the jabbering you’re about to do.”
I can practically hear his teeth gritting. Because that’s my other natural talent. Pissing off tight-assed fuckers and making them lose their shit.
Though Victor doesn’t lose his. Instead he shakes his head and gestures Cherry forward, and she begins asking me how I’m feeling.
And, hell. Truth be told, I’m feeling pretty damn good.
Because I’ve got no intention of playing along with this Cage shit. Instead I intend to tear this operation down. And ride off into the sunset with the girl.
Just another day at the office.
7
Stone should be mad. He should be mad at Victor, at the situation he’s trapped in—and especially mad at me. Because I was supposed to save him. And I didn’t.
I wasn’t the one who ended up drugging him, as he seems to believe, but a detail like that hardly matters. The way it all turned out, I might as well have slipped him the roofie like I was supposed to. Because nothing I did made any difference. Except now I’m in even more trouble.
Victor hasn’t punished me for my rebellion yet, because he’s leaving that to Papa. But he’s watching me more closely. Reminding me to keep my smile on.
And although I was ready to die that night, I’m not ready to die now. It’s one thing to be killed for saving a man’s life. I don’t want to be killed for not smiling wide enough.
So I smile through the health checks. I smile while the first group runs around the track, and smile while Matt gives me a look that asks whether I’m truly all right.
I’m not. Because everything in the whole world is wrong. And I tried to do one thing right…and failed.
That failure hurts so bad. And it hurts to see Stone so determined not to give in. Almost every fighter who comes in is defiant, at first. Yet Stone’s defiance is on another level entirely. As if he truly believes they won’t get to his family. That they can’t get to his family.
But they always do. Which makes me even more worried for Stone. Because Papa won’t damage the fighters. But he’ll often make the fighters pay in other ways, and the longer and harder they resist, the more it’ll cost them. The more Papa will hurt them by hurting whoever the fighter loves. I don’t want to see that day come for Stone.
And today, it probably won’t. It might not for a week or more. So it’s with mixed emotions that I watch two guards escort him outside to join Crash and Handlebar at the track—my heart aching because he’s been thrown into this mess. But genuinely smiling again when he greets Crash like a long-lost brother, pulling him in for a back-thumping hug.