Page 2 of Harmless
“Take it easy.” He held his palms open and out to the sides, while his swallow made his throat bob and press my blade in deeper against his skin.
“You must not know what happens to people who try to sneak up on me,” I mused.
“I didn’t try. I did.” A cocky smile spread across his lips, despite the fact that his life was literally hanging on the edge of my knife. One wrong move and he’d have another smile right under his jaw. “Guess I’m not that bad of a hunter after all, huh? I caught me a ghost.”
“Might need your eyes checked, Hunter. It seems I’m not the one who’s caught.”
I kept the pressure against his neck rock steady, and the kid finally seemed to get the picture that I wasn’t a nice guy and therefore not letting him go.
“Look, I just wanted to talk.” He held in his breath, trying not to press against the blade any more than necessary and add to the blood running down his neck.
“I’m not much of a talker.” In my spare hand, I brought up my second knife and let it dance across my knuckles again. “I let my knives do the talking.”
“I wanted to ask you about the Butcher.”
“Why would I know anything?”
Santos and I were careful to not appear outwardly friendly to the other gladiators. Any whiff of friendship would be used against us. We’d seen it dozens of times with the fighters who became close as brothers, or lovers. They had always been set up to fight against each other, one forced to kill the other.
Our mutual survival depended on acting indifferent toward each other. We’d been brought here together and luckily ended up as roommates simply because it was logistically easiest for our overlords. Only in those private moments in our room, lying awake in our beds at night, did we allow ourselves tiny shreds of vulnerability with each other.
It never got sexual, because Santos didn’t swing that way and I wasn’t going to push that boundary, especially not when he’d been exploited enough by the guests. Sometimes it was a vent session, a mutual exchange of I-can’t-fucking-take-it-any-longers. Other times, one of us had to drag the other out of unfathomably dark mindsets. The kind where Santos teased the edge of his machete along his wrists or I stared at my knives a little too long, knowing how easy one stab through the neck would be.
In an environment that was truly every man for himself, we were extremely lucky to have each other. And we made every effort possible to protect this rare friendship we had from outside threats.
Apparently, the fucking Hunter saw right through all that.
“I know you two are tight. You make a good show of not acting like it, but I could see it. Plus, his jaguar’s protecting you.”
I didn’t allow my face to flicker. “Even if that were true, what’s to stop me from slitting you open right now?”
“My value has shot up since I killed the Animal. I’m set to take the Butcher’s place in the next fight.”
“Your head must be all kinds of fucked if you think I care how much money is riding on you.” It was true that I’d get in trouble for killing a valuable gladiator outside of a scheduled fight. Maybe take some beatings, get thrown in the isolation dungeon, yawn. Like I wasn’t already numb to all the punishments of this place.
“And I want to help!”
The Hunter’s last statement was made on a desperate rasp. I didn’t realize I’d pressed my knife in a fraction deeper until I saw he was on his toes, trembling as he fought to keep the kiss of sharpness away.
I pulled my blade back by a hair’s width, using my peripheral vision to make sure no pitmasters would interrupt us. “Help with what?”
“Revolt. Escape. Getting free and telling these assholes where to shove it.”
Only then did I fully pull my knife away, partially out of shock, but mostly out of pity for the delusional bastard. This kid didn’t need me to kill him. If he was being serious, he’d do that all on his own.
The Hunter doubled over, taking his first deep breaths in probably a full minute while he pressed a hand to his throat to stem the bleeding.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Actually, no, don’t tell me.” I held a palm out to him as I turned to face my targets again. “I don’t want to be part of this stupid idea or know why you’d want to get the Butcher involved.”
“I think he’s already involved,” the Hunter wheezed. “Something’s going to happen, or is happening already. We need to be ready.”
“You’re a new gladiator, so I’ll make it clear for you.” I started flipping a knife again, warming up my wrist. “There is nowein this place. The moment you start teaming up with people, making friends, they’ll be sure to ruin that by throwing you all in the pit until only one of you survives. That was why you and your three buddies got sent out to fight together. You want to watch another friend you’ve murdered die in your arms?”
There was silence behind me for a while, enough for me to sink three knives into the bullseyes of three separate targets.
“No,” came the quiet answer behind me. “I don’t want to murder anyone. I want out of here.”
“Thenyouwill be murdered. Those are your only choices.” I spared a glance at him over my shoulder and actually felt a drop of sympathy for the guy. He was just in shock. Santos and I called it BGS— Baby Gladiator Syndrome. Sometimes the new fighters were in denial, unable to accept their new reality at first. They were desperate for a way out that wasn’t as a corpse.
