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)
I’m on the same side of the aisle as the control booth, so I could crawl over all of the stalls and make my way there. But tonight, I only shuffle silently to the next stall—Matt’s.
Then I don’t know what to do. I can’t risk making noise to wake him up. Crash is in the stall across the aisle and he’d never expose me to the guards, but he might wonder why I made so much effort to talk with Hatchet, a white supremacist who claims his only use for females is between their legs.
And too many undercover agents have already been outed and killed while trying to take down the Cage. So I can’t ever expose my brother.
Who’s…looking up at me. I don’t know if he was already awake or just felt me staring down at him, but I can see the gleam of his eyes through the dark—then the gleam of his sudden grin.
He can do a pull-up. Easily, and using only one arm. A show-off move that makes me huff out a little laugh when he lifts himself up so his head isn’t far from mine. In truth, there’s nothing remarkable about his being able to do that. Not here, where these guys often exercise in their stalls like this.
Except it’s utterly remarkable that he’s doing it, and I’m here to see him. My stifled laugh becomes a stifled sob when he reaches up with his free hand to hug me as best he can. It’s the first time in three months we’ve been able to really touch or show affection, and I can’t stop my tears, can’t stop myself from clinging to his arm.
His voice is thick as he whispers, “How you doing, sis?”
I can’t answer. But my tears are raining all over his head, so he has to know.
He lowers and pulls himself up again, keeping up the pretense of exercising. This time when he comes up, he says, “You’re like a ninja up there. How’d you think of this?”
My throat tightens unbearably. “It’s how Tusk got Lissa into his stall.”
“Aw, fuck.” His fingers hook my dangling hair behind my ear. “I’m so sorry. I liked her, too.”
I fight to swallow the tears that start up again. Because there’s more that needs to be done. “The control booth doesn’t have bars on top. If the guard leaves for the bathroom or something, I can open the stall doors.”
Slowly Matt nods, but doesn’t answer right away. Instead he takes his time, lowering and raising himself through five reps before coming back up. “You’d have to go over these other stalls.”
Over Flack, Airbag, Abyss, and Handlebar. I’d be safe with three. Flack…I don’t know. He can be pushy and scary. Not like Tusk. But not a good guy, either.
But maybe the promise of freedom would bring out the nice in him. “If they saw me, I could simply tell them what I was doing.”
Nodding again, he doesn’t say anything but performs a few more reps while wearing his thinking face. Finally he comes up and says, “After what went down with Bravo, the guards are going to be on their best behavior for a while—and won’t leave that station unmanned. It’ll probably be a few weeks before they get careless again.”
We don’t have a few weeks. “The next fight is in ten days.”
“And I’ll make it through again.”
By tearing out a piece of his own soul. Because ‘making it through’ means killing his opponent. I know how it affects him. I know how it affects most of these guys, though some are better than others at hiding it.
My brother’s good at hiding it from everyone else. But he can’t hide it from me.
“Matt,” I whisper.
“I know.” His eyes close, his expression tormented. “But what’s the alternative—you jump the guard in the control booth? You spend every night risking yourself by crawling over all these stalls and hoping no one notices, praying a guard has to take a piss so bad he doesn’t call in the other one to cover him? We have to wait for them to get careless.”
“What about a distraction? Something that brings the guard out of the control booth?”
His gaze sharpens. “You got any ideas?”
I shake my head.
“I’ll think on that one. Chances are, protocol is they don’t leave the booth unmanned if there’s an emergency or a commotion caused by one of the fighters. Instead at least one will lock himself up tight inside.”
So it can’t be an emergency. “What if…they’re sick? Like what if it’s not piss that they can’t hold. What if they both have the shits?”
Matt pushes his fist against his mouth to stifle his laugh. For a long minute he simply hangs from the bar, shaking. Then he lifts himself again. “They’d have to get sick after the shift started, or else they just get someone else to cover.”