Page 46 of Nasty
Spider Tattoo scowled, deep lines contorting his face. He was Dementor’s friend, or maybe they’d formed an uneasy alliance tonight in order to whittle down the competition, but he knew better than to take another step toward us. My eyes were promising death, and he must have seen it.
Dementor clawed and scrambled at my legs, trying to free himself, but I wasn’t going to let go. No fucking way. I tightened my grip, and he hollered as his ribcage flexed between my thighs.
“This has gotta hurt. Wanna tap out yet?”
“Fuck…you…man!’
“All right. Suit yourself.” I spun him around on the floor, winding my arm around his neck, the crook of my elbow right up underneath his jaw, pressing down on him, and Dementor fought every step of the way. I didn’twantto hurt him. Unlike Foster and Falco, inflicting pain on others didn’t make my dick hard. But he wasn’t going to give in gracefully, and the more he wrestled and struggled in this position, the more pressure I applied to his ribcage and his throat. If he was stubborn enough to snap his own neck against my hold, then so be it. Survival of the fittest. This was why stupid people were getting killed all the goddamn time. It was a motherfucking epidemic.
“You’re…fucking…cheating…man,” Dementor gasped.
I leaned down and spoke into his ear. “Why? Because I’m beating you? There are no rules in this place. I do can whatever the fuck I want.”
He grabbed at my arms, trying to loosen them from around his neck, and when that didn’t work, he started slamming his elbows into my sides, arching his back, trying to squirm his way free.
No dice, asshole.
It wasn’t my finest win, but when Dementor finally fell peacefully to sleep in my arms, I didn’t give a fuck.
I was moving up to the next floor.
TWENTY
BAD BUSINESS
FIX
Thirteen.
Lucky number thirteen.
What a fucking nightmare.
Jason shoved me in the elevator, though begrudgingly. He’d obviously wanted the fight to last a little longer, to see a little more blood—mine, preferably—and he’d been disappointed. But the cameras mounted on every wall and on every available surface in this damn place had logged and recorded my win, and he’d received the green light to send me up.
Now I was standing on a new level, in front of an entirely new crowd of crazed, murderous cretins, and I was going to have to do it all over again. And it appeared as though the news had spread, and my identity had already been shared with these fighters. They were all standing in a regimented line, arms across their chests, their faces grim and livid. Some of them must have already progressed two or three floors themselves today, and weariness hung over them. Others were fresher, though, contenders who’d come close to making it to the roof the last time they were here, and now they were hungry to reach their goal. None of them looked like they were going to letmestand in their way. The floor boss of thirteen was called Henson, and he’d decided to let the fighters chose amongst themselves who was going to face me.
He watched on, wearing a bored expression, as a huge guy with fists the size of my head lumbered into the rough circle sketched out on the floor in chalk.
“The Priest versus Jackhammer!” Henson yelled, as he wrote the information down on thirteen’s board.
“Fuck off,” I said, laughing down my nose. “Jackhammer? Are you going to fuck me to death?” Technically, thatwasallowed. Oscar would probably get a kick out of that play-by-play, especially if it was me getting reamed by a seven-foot-tall Goliath. This guy didn’t look like he was going to use his dick to murder me though. He looked like he was going to use those gigantic fists of his.
“I’ll call you Jack,” I said, rocking on the balls of my feet. No way I was ever going to refer to the guy as Jackhammer. Nope.
“Call me whatever you like. I’m gonna take my thweet time with you, thunshine.” His voice was unexpected—soft and light… and he had a fucking lisp. I refrained from laughing. It took everything I had, but I did not laugh.
“All right, then, Jack. Let’s get this over with. The night’s passing us by, and I’ve still got another floor to go.”
Mr. Hammer scowled. I wasn’t taking him seriously enough, and he was taking offense. He was far bigger than Dementor (whom I was beginning to wish I’d also renamed) and he was also much slower, too. He was waiting for me to make the first move, so I just stood there with my hands in my pockets, sending him confused glances out of the corner of my eye.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you were going to take your sweet time, were you?”
“Fuck you, man.”
“That’s what the last guy said.”
Jack was growing redder and redder by the second. He wasn’t used to this. People didn’t normally mock him, that much was clear. They were respectful because of his size. Intimidated by his sheer mass. I wasn’t shaking in my Stan Smiths, and poor old Jack wasn’t taking it too well. “Why don’t you come here and thay that?” he fumed.
