Page 96 of The Last True Hero
Twenty-Four
THIS TIME ADAMknew what to expect when the reiver guards dragged him toward the arena.
The crowd pounded their boots on the timber stands above him in an almost tribal rhythm, dust whispering between the cracks in the floorboards. BOOM. BOOM. CLAP. BOOM. BOOM. CLAP.
Light flashed as certain reivers hauled the domed lights in slow circles, taking in the leering faces, the pumping fists. Every sound was interspersed with the occasional shouted scream for blood, for flesh.
Adam shivered, the nerves in his body trembling. The moon hovered in the east. He could feel it in his veins now; the monster whispering in his ear. It could smell the blood, taste the bitter sweaty scent of the reivers’ hunger for violence on his tongue. Adam swallowed, his fingernails digging into his palms as he forced it back down. With his medallion back he was in charge of the monster again. But he could never forget how easily it had taken him in the cell, or the look on Mia's face when it did.
"You stupid son of a bitch," Colton muttered, on the other side of the silver mesh that kept them apart in the tunnel until they entered the ring. "They were going to play you against one of the weaker wargs. I can’t believe you volunteered, you dick."
Adam merely focused on the ring. The mesh fence surrounding it was still at least twenty feet high. There was no way he was getting over that.
Not without help.
His lips pressed together. He didn’t want to involve Colton. Adam sure as hell didn’t trust him, and there was an ugly part of him that simply didn’t want to extend any kind of olive branch at all.
But he wasn't ready to die yet.
And maybe Mia wouldn't come back for him—a part of him hoped she wouldn't—but there was enough doubt there that he wasn't sure. She knew what he was now. There was no future between them. But he'd seen her stand up to her townsfolk and push herself into dangerous situations in order to rescue others.
Mia was the type of woman who wouldn't walk out of here without coming back for him, if she thought she owed him.
And he couldn't let that happen.
"Only one of us walks out of this alive," Colton muttered. "I’m not going out of here on a stretcher so they can throw my body to the pigs. I paid my debt to you in that cell. I saved your life. So I don't owe you anything anymore. Fuck you, McClain. You had an option out."
"Maybe I didn’t like Vex's option."
Colton flexed his fists, jumping up and down lightly on his feet as he watched the spectators howling. "You got a better one?"
The metal gate in front of him sprang open, and someone behind him prodded him with one of the poles—wrapped in barbed wire—that they tended to carry around here. "As a matter of fact I do," Adam shot over his shoulder as he staggered forward into the arena.
There was blood spattered on the sand at his feet. As he and Colton waited, he’d seen some of the reivers dragging a body out by its heels. The crowd had barely been glutted by the warm-up act.
Nerves chased themselves in circles in his stomach. The monster shivered through him.Blood. Flesh. So close to warm human flesh….After years of wearing the medallion, he'd become complacent. But had the medallion ever controlled the monster within him, or merely found a way to suppress it as it lurked hungrily inside his body? He thought of Luc Wade, who’d once told him that fear wasn’t control.
You have to face that bastard head-on, Luc told him once.
"And here we have our challenger!" boomed the voice of the violet-haired announcer. Scars bisected her cheeks. "Captured only tonight, in the bowels of Rust City itself! I present to you, Scythe."
The crowd roared. Maybe they liked the look of him, or maybe it was just the fact that he had at least two inches on Colton, which might give him an edge, or predict a longer fight. His oiled-up muscles gleamed under the hot lights, and someone had at least found him a pair of jeans, though they’d paired that with a leather collar that offended him on all levels.
He knew now what it meant to lose everything: his name, his freedom, his humanity. Adam’s lip curled up in a silent growl that was barely human as he glared back at the crowd defiantly.
"And facing him in the ring for the first—and most likely—last time is the mighty Rattlesnake!"
The crowd lost control as Colton appeared with a shove. Some of the female reivers grabbed at their crotches and hooted, shouting down offers at Colton. Some of the men did too.
Across the arena, their eyes met, and he knew that Colton felt the same sickened feeling as he did. For the first time, he truly understood what it felt like to be considered nothing. To not even have his name.
Vex Cypher held up her hands as the crowd chanted and stamped their feet. “And what do we say to the monsters, my pets?”
“Die!” someone screamed.
“Fight!”
“Are we not mighty?” Vex bellowed. “Who rules the night? The monsters? Or the people of Rust City?”
