Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Cort is still holding on to my bony shoulders, staring at me intently. “Walk onto the mat, look your opponent in the eye. Bare your teeth. Scare him. Then rush him before the fight starts. No one will stop it. No one cares if you cheat, Irina. There’s no such thing as cheating in our world because there’s no such thing as fair. And ya can’t have one without the other. Just find a way to get your hands around his throat and don’t let go. Do you hear me? Do you fuckin’ hear me? Do not. Let. Go.”
So that’s how I did it.
That’s how I lived.
I choked the life right out of that little boy. It was so easy, too. I don’t think anyone spent a single minute training that boy.
He wasn’t an opponent.
He was a sacrifice.
And when it was over Cort reached out his arms, pulling me up, carrying me out—and I was someone else then.
But that little boy came with me. He haunted me. Through the days after. Through the weeks. Months. Years. And then, one by one, other little kids haunted me too. The little blonde girl with the perfectly plaited hair came next, her matching outfit still in perfect condition because she didn’t even last long enough to get it dirty.
Then another boy. He broke my arm in that fight. I couldn’t use it for months. But I gouged out an eye. So he haunts me with one eye and one bloody hole where the other used to be.
The next boy tried to piledrive me into the floor. There wasn’t even a mat for that fight, just concrete. The only reason he didn’t bash me into it face first is because I was smaller, and quicker, and got my legs up around his neck. I held him there, between my thighs, hanging upside down along his front, looking up at him. And then I just snapped his neck with my knees.
And each time I killed one, they joined in with the ones who came before them. A little parade of dead children trailing along behind me everywhere I went.
All nine of those faces haunted me for years. Even after we escaped and no one else got added to the end of the line.
And this is why I never, ever think about them.
Because if I think about them, I will have to face the reality of what I did to them.
The next thing I know I am on the floor of Eason’s bedroom, my face stuffed into a pillow, and I am screaming.
CHAPTER 24
The whole place goes silent as Irina’s wail echoes off the high ceilings.
I look at them and they are horrified. Then they look at me with blame.
“Fuck you.” I snarl it out, blocking the door to the bedroom so they can’t get to Irina. Daring them to take one more step. “Fuck all of you.”
Then I slam the doors closed and lock them out.
I go over to screaming Irina, pick her up in my arms, take her into the bathroom, and lock that door too.
I need space. We need space. I want all of those fuckin’ people in my living room to disappear, but I can’t let go of Irina and I don’t want to leave her in here alone while I kick them out.
So I just step into the giant bathtub, holding the poor, sobbing girl against me, and sit down so she can scream into my chest.
She does this for a little bit, but my embrace seems to calm her. So after about a minute or so, the screams stop and she’s just doing her best to breathe.
“It’s OK.” I pet her hair. “It’s OK.”
But we both know it’s not.
Not of this is OK. Nothing about this life is OK. The world is fucked up. And there’s nothing we can do about it.
“I want to kill them.” She sobs these words out. “I want to kill them all.”
Last time she said this I didn’t really believe her. But I do now. “I know, Irina. Trust me, I know.”
She sits up a little, sniffling, looking me in the eyes. “But you did kill him. You did.”
She’s talkin’ about my da.
“You killed him and…” Her eyes are searching mine. She wipes her nose. “And…”
There is no ‘and’ here. I shake my head at her. There’s no ‘and.’
Nothing comes after killing your father for killing your brothers and selling you to traffickers. There’s nothing after that. And she has to know this. She knows this.
“I don’t care, Eason. I don’t fucking care if they kill me trying. I. Want. Them. Dead.”
“It’s a sick hate, Irina. Nothing good will come from it.”
“I don’t care!” She screams this. And then she’s sobbing all over again. “I don’t care! I don’t fucking care! They made me choke him, Eason! They made me choke that little boy so I could live. Fuck them! Fuck! Them!”