C2 Shaye

Sweat trickles down my back as I dodge Bono’s charge. The crowd boos and stomps their feet. Xanth standing guard at one of the exits looks away from me like he’s disappointed.

What the hell does he expect?

I have to get out of here. They’ve got to let me out of this arena or I’m dead. But there are no escape routes in the cement walls. No handholds to climb over the fence outside either, not that I could squeeze through anyway with Bono shouting at me and ready to throw punches and half a hundred guards waiting for me to die.

“Afraid, little kitten?” Bono taunts, puckering a kiss at me and grabbing his junk through his black leather outfit. “Care to finish what we started in Rowan’s cell?”

Acid burns the back of my tongue. Why did it have to be Bono out of all of the prisoners? Hell, for that matter, why am I even here? I glance around at the crowd, hoping to find someone who can help me, but they all scowl at me with hate in their eyes like I’m shit.

They continue their insistent chanting, “Kill her, kill the god-killer.”

I swallow the panic clawing up my throat. My hands shake crazily, and I frantically search for a way out. I wipe my sweaty palms on my thighs.

I’ve got to escape this arena or I’m dead. Bloodstains are splattered along the cement walls too high to climb.

How many have died here for the gods' entertainment?

My stomach turns again, and I fight the urge to vomit when I realize that these walls were stained with blood from past fights...past casualties.

Chills run up and down my body, not just from fear but from disgust, anger, and loss as well. How we are nothing but pawns in their sick games.

Xanth meets my gaze again and something passes between us. Like he’s trying to tell me something I can’t decipher. I take a step toward him. Maybe he can help me get out of here.

Except the disappointment in his dark eyes freezes me. He wants me here? He wants me to fight? I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.

He expects me to fight this massive guy all by myself? He obviously wants me dead or why would he not help me? Something inside of me shatters at that thought; it cuts so deep into my core. I doubt I will ever recover from it completely. How could he act like he cared about me yet leave me to this monstrosity?

Me against a brute that outweighs, outmuscles, and has a good twelve inches on height compared to mine?

My heart pounds in my chest and the world seems to shift around me as if reality has just been pulled off its hinges. How can he ask me to do this? He knows I can’t win.

There’s no one to save me from this nightmare and my chest hurts from the feeling of betrayal that I can’t breathe.

Bono plows into my side, knocking us both down. Pain burst through my hip and shoulder. Bono’s weight crushes me.

He punches me in the stomach and face. A metallic taste coats the inside of my mouth and I feel like I’m choking on my own blood. I cry out, holding up my hands to try and protect myself. His punches are coming so fast that I can’t keep up. I try to curl into myself, but his body is pinning my legs and body down.

The crowd’s cheers echo around me. Blackness curls around the edges of my consciousness. But pain shatters through me and I feel every hit.

Bono’s meaty hands grasp my head, and he squeezes. My skull feels like its cracking.

“Taste this, bitch,” he says.

And his power, like sharp razor blades, cut through bone and into my very core.

I scream and scream. I claw at his arms and hands, trying to stop him. I buck and thrash, but he only squeezes harder.

The air is being crushed right out of my lungs. My vision starts to go black around the edges and panic churns in my gut. I don’t want to die.

I try to scream, but I can’t feel my voice. I open my mouth to try again only to be cut off by Bono’s hand. Blood floods my mouth. Panic flutters up in my throat.

I need air. I need to breathe before I drown in my own blood.

I don’t want to die like this. I can’t.

My magic swirls inside of me. A bit of my water magic trickles out past the cuffs and collar, but it’s not enough. I thrust all my power and will forward, but the metal bands burn my skin. I can’t access my power fully. Panic churns in my gut. I scrape my nails down his arms and across his hands, trying to get the pain to stop. Trying to get him off me.

“Die, bitch,” he snarls, and spit drips on my cheek.

Terror wraps around my heart, crushing me bit by bit in line with his hands on my head. I feel like my skull is cracking like an egg. Pain whips through me and I can’t think, can’t do anything except shove against him. I feel like I’m boiling inside. My blood is bursting through every cell of my body.

Cool liquid rushes over me from every direction. It blasts into Bono shoving him off me. The crowd gasps. My lungs seize as I try to drag in a breath of air that won’t come.

But my vision is blurry, and I see multiple fragments of people standing with their mouths agape like hungry fish. I inhale a rush of stabbing air and my vision clears.

I roll over, holding my head that feels like it’s been split open. There’s a hush over the crowd of gods and goddesses along with their demigod pets. The quiet is so loud that it’s deafening and roars in my ears like I’m in a tunnel whipped around at hyper-speed.

Fearing Bono’s retribution, I blink against the lights making spots in my double-vision to a form pressed up against one side of the cement wall and I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.

A figure is flattened into the concrete like smooshed dough into a cookie cutter. Colored water and blood ooze from all around the body like a waterfall.

His lifeless eyes stare directly at me so open and wide that I turn away.

The crowd starts stomping their feet, shouting for my death again.

Huge metal doors grind open and my heart gallops in my chest. I can’t go through this again. My body starts to shake violently, and I can’t stop it. Crackles of energy tear through me. All the lights in the area explode thrusting me and everyone into blackness.

Screams and shouts vibrate through the arena. But I fall into a heap, unable to flee as a deeper darkness drags me under.