Our gags, which buckled tightly around the backs of our shaved heads, were steel bits sheathed in a layer of rubber thick enough for us to sink our teeth into. Our arms were cuffed behind our backs and held in place with canvas sheaths laced to the shoulders and fastened around our necks to prevent either one of us from curling into a ball to pass the cuffs under bent legs. The getup was confining, but I’d practiced in it for hours and could still high-kick without losing balance or strangling myself. Nor would it affect my stamina. Just six months ago I’d run the equivalent of a marathon with both arms tightly strapped behind my back.
I hadn’t ever worn the getup against a similarly-hobbled opponent tasked to kill me, but that was all right. By now, this felt far more natural to me than that sun bonnet. Ethan, standing at attention while the Bitch tugged at the laces binding the sheath to his arms, looked like he felt the same way. He even managed to wink at me, though I don’t know just what the hell he thought he was communicating.
Daddy announced that it was a quarter to seven. The sky was definitely a darker shade of blue now. The sunlight was just a thin slice of brighter concrete, beveled with distorted diamond-shapes, on the eastern edge of the pool. The Bitch led Ethan in through the cutaway flap above the Shallow End steps, escorted him all the way to the pool’s deepest point, kissed him on the top of the head, then withdrew. Daddy helped me down the same steps, sat me down in the Shallow End, told me that whatever happened I would always be his daughter and that he would always believe in me no matter what, then abandoned me as Ethan had been abandoned.
Neither one of us could see the other. It was, after all, a kidney-shaped pool, which meant that as long as we stayed at opposite ends we were hidden from one another by the curvature of the walls. Apart, neither one of us would be able to tell how the other was doing. The only way to tell was to risk meeting in the middle.
Above us, Daddy and the Bitch got to work repairing the flap so that neither of us would be able to use it to escape. It wasn’t a fancy patch. They just looped wire through the links, sewing the loose edges together. The two of them worked side by side, not speaking, not deigning to look at each other, but working as a unit just the same. Both their faces seemed shadowed, given the fading brightness of the sky. I wished I could see if Daddy was looking at me, but I couldn’t tell for sure. I didn’t think he was. Sweat stung my eyes and I had to look away.
Not long after that, our parents stood together and tugged at the flap. The fresh seal held. They turned their backs on each other and disappeared from my sky. A few seconds later, Daddy appeared again, this time sitting high on the lifeguard chair on the convex side of the pool. The Bitch took her own position on the lifeguard chair opposite him. I shifted position, got my feet under me, rose to a half-crouch, and waited.
Daddy said, “All right, kids. Make us proud.”
Ethan did not disappoint me.
He was too smart to come at a run. He came around the bend at a fast walk, his eyes dark as he searched for me, half-hoping I’d meet him halfway.
I remained where Daddy had left me, waiting.
Ethan was neither disappointed at my lack or initiative nor contemptuous of my cautious start. He slowed and stopped at the midway point separating the Shallow and Deep ends of the pool. He paced that invisible line between us, his muscles tensing, his shoulders cording from what must have been a hideous effort to wrest himself free of the sheath binding his arms. The sheath held, as he’d probably known that it would. He grimaced through his gag, mumbled a word his mouth was not able to properly form, then advanced another step uphill. Another two. His eyes rolled toward the sky, as he felt the space between the top of his head and the wire link narrow to inches. He bent his knees and advanced still further, still testing our battlefield, painfully aware that I would not just allow him to march up and put me out of my misery.
I still didn’t move.
Ethan advanced further. Now he had to crouch—not all the way, not so much he couldn’t keep both eyes firmly focused on me, but enough to unbalance him, enough that he could feel his advantage of height and weight diminishing with every step he took. I could see sweat cutting through the sheen at what would have been his hairline. He paused again, braced himself for the inevitable moment when I charged, and tried to persuade me with a look that hanging back was no good, because he was ready for any attack I could muster.
I didn’t move.
He advanced some more.
I saw his balls. I knew what balls looked like; I’d seen them close up, on that boy whose name I couldn’t even remember. These looked tiny and purple. The steroids had shrunken them to a fraction of their natural size.
Had I been able to talk, I would have mocked him for being a dickless wonder. It might have upset him, made him sloppy.
He took another step, reminding me that it was a waste of time to contemplate strategies I couldn’t use.
Another step.
I faked to the right.
He recognized my move as a feint, and anticipated a move in the other direction.
Another fake and I actually went right. A heartbeat before we collided I saw him brace for impact, but he expected me to hit him mid-body, at his center of gravity, where his superior weight allowed him to compensate. So instead I hurled myself at the ground and swept his legs with my own.
He went down.
Everybody’s fallen down. But few people appreciate just how much we rely on our arms to protect our heads from damage during a fall. Falling forward, we throw out our hands and take the damage there, turning a potential cracked skull into a mere pair of sprained wrists. Neither one of us had the option now. Ethan managed to compensate enough to take the bulk of the impact on his knees, but even that did not stop his fall, and when he landed flat on his chest, his head whipped forward, smashing nose and forehead against the hard concrete ground.
Without the knees, that fall might have been enough to finish him all by itself.
Daddy cried, “Good one, Jen!”
I managed a weak kick to Ethan’s calf as he rolled away, but didn’t waste time waiting to see where he went after that, not with life or death riding on who rose first. It was early, still. I got my feet under me and backed off, giving Ethan the space he needed to back against the wall and take stock of himself. His nose was broken and bubbling blood from both nostrils: good news, as that would obstruct breathing. There was more blood in the seams between the teeth clamped against his bit-gag. He couldn’t have bitten his tongue or cheeks, but maybe I’d loosened an incisor or two. Another advantage, in that he’d have that sickening taste to deal with.
But his eyes were still smiling.
Daddy yelled, “Don’t overestimate him, baby!”
Ethan came for me again.
I faked another dodge to the right, but he changed course without even trying hard, and I tried to duck and roll, but that was going for the same trick twice in a row, and he was ready for that, lowering his head and reaching me before I could move away.
He drove his head into the softer flesh below my ribs and drove me off my feet, the force of his charge carrying me all the way to the concrete wall of the pool. The impact drove the air from my lungs. I gasped as my head whipped back against the wall with a force that I experienced as a burst of blinding white light. Before I could recover he smashed the top of his head against my jaw, driving my skull against the concrete a second time. And then a third.