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)
I wonder for a moment where Rasha is now. Boarding school, I guess. But where is it? France? I bet it’s in France. That’s why she was learning French. She wanted to live in Paris.
Paulo was already getting famous in the legitimate MMA circuits when I ran away. He was making good money. It was a complicated relationship between the two of them. Paulo was so confident and Rasha, while a very good fighter, was not gonna make it past her next fight.
You can’t get attached to people if they’re just gonna go and die on you. Paulo tried to keep her at a distance, but he always loved her. And as soon as we got the supply ship the first thing he did was promise to get her the fuck out of this shit and put her somewhere nice.
And he did. He kept his promise.
Obviously, Paulo doesn’t live in France. He trains at Sick Fights. He lives in the penthouse. But I can see Rasha in my mind’s eye living in one of those amazing Parisian apartments. She would only be sixteen now, but Rasha has never been a child. She can take care of herself.
Eason tilts his head a little, like a puppy with a question. “What?”
I didn’t answer his other question and we’ve been staring at each other while I had my thoughts about depression, and crying, and Rasha’s theoretical Parisian apartment.
I throw the covers off me and get out of his bed, already showered, and dressed, and wearing shoes. He smiles. He’s got a really nice smile. Everything about him is nice to look at. He was such a contradiction this morning. It upsets me a little to realize that he’s so normal. Just like the rest of us. That he’s not immune to the human experience the way he probably wishes he was.
He’s rich, and successful, and alive, and living on a beach that isn’t connected to a death camp.
It’s weird how someone could have so much and feel so empty.
He’s not wearing a shirt, so I get a good look at his tattoos. That face. Eason Dead Eyes. It’s scary-looking. It’s smiling, but with jagged triangle-shaped teeth and x’s for eyes. The opposite of a smiley.
It’s right in the middle of his stomach. And it’s not the only one. He’s got… maybe a dozen? Maybe more. “Do all the fighters have tattoos?” These words of mine come out so Russian, it takes me by surprise.
It makes Eason smile bigger though. “Most of them. Why do you speak like an American?”
“They don’t like Russians here.”
“Are ya Russian?”
“Probably not. But I sound Russian.”
“Was that your first language?”
Normally I don’t like to talk about myself, so when people ask things, I naturally deflect. But it’s different with Eason because he’s the only person in this whole country who understands what I am. “Yes, it was.” And with this answer, my American accent is back. “I don’t remember much about life before Cort. But I didn’t know English when I came to live with them when I was six. I learned that later because Rainer only knew English.” This makes me smile. “He was the only person in the whole camp who only knew English.”
“Was he English? Or American?”
“I have no idea.” This makes me laugh because I have known Rainer so long, he feels like a part of me. And yet I have no idea who taught him how to talk. “American, maybe. He didn’t have an accent like Maart. It’s funny, though, because I never even wondered about where he was from. He did know sign language. We all did, because Cort made us talk in signs for weeks at a time. We had a strict ‘no talking’ rule on the Rock. One month, no talking. Then one month with only sign language. And then, finally, the last month of each fight camp we were allowed to talk and eat good things like cookies.”
“Did you like him?”
“Who? Cort?” I scoff. “How could anyone not like Cort? He’s… everything. He’s everything.”
“Then why did you run away?”
“What makes you think I ran away?”
“Did you forget that I told you Maart was lookin’ for ya?”
“No. How would I forget that?”
“Because ya haven’t asked me about it.”
“Who cares.”
“Don’t ya care?”
“Maybe the better question is why do you care so much?”
“Forget it, Irina. It was just a stupid question.” He walks out of the bedroom and leaves me there, alone, in the middle of the room.
I keep standing there for a few moments, trying to figure out what just happened. Because something just happened.
When I leave the bedroom, I find Eason in the kitchen pouring green juice into a blender filled with ice. He grabs a can of protein powder and adds a few scoops. Then he watches me as he puts the top on and blends it up. When the grinding noise stops, he pours us each a glass.