“Remember, boy.” Ivan Petrov’s snarky voice came from behind me. “Win this one and I’ll let you know where your baby sister is.”
You’re a survivor, my little Kingston. You were born to reign in every life.
My mother’s voice, which I hadn’t thought of in so long, came back to me, renewing my strength. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t home. I would reign over this fucking arena and kill anyone who tried to end me.
Including my own father, who was the reason I was here.
He owed these criminals a debt that he didn’t pay, so they’d gone after Rora. Instead, they got me. At least I hoped they’d only got me.
Without acknowledging the man, I made my way into the ring, determined to give them a show they’d never forget.
I stood at the center, my eyes locked on the boy at least five years older than me. Judging by his expression, he had something to prove. Not that I could blame him. Whispers claimed that he’d been born here and never knew anything or anyone but the people in this facility.
His cheek was bruised; his eyes blank.
At ten, I was bigger than the average kid, but this guy dwarfed me. I was weak. Unprepared.
The punch to my face came out of nowhere. I heard the crunch, then felt the searing pain in my skull as the blood gushed out of my nose.
Ignoring the blood, I cracked my jaw, keeping my attention on my opponent. Then I pulled back my fist and released it into the boy’s ribs with all my might. I didn’t stop there. Alternating fists, I punched nonstop. All the pent-up frustration and anger from the last two weeks boiled over.
The boy’s eyes widened, his breaths coming in ragged pants, but I was too far gone to consider his fear. It was kill or be killed.
Fury surged. At my opponent. At this fucked-up place. At the vermin surrounding this wannabe-gladiator arena.
A crimson haze crept along the edges of my vision, pushing everything and everyone out, and leaving me alone with a boy like me. We were both victims.
Another punch and he fell to his knees, blinking in confusion before falling over. The dust cloud around him. Gurgling sounds filled the air.
I froze, my mind finally falling silent, as I stared down at the body. The red fog of rage lifted, and I braced for the consequences of my actions.
A man appeared out of nowhere with a black bag while I stood immobile, unable to comprehend what just happened.
“Punctured lung,” a man muttered as the boy choked on his own blood, his eyes showing life for the first time in the two weeks I’d known him. He spit out blood, but something solid hit my boot.
I lowered down, wiping at the blood on my shoe, and spotted a tooth. I reached for it, along with a fistful of sand. As it moved through my fingers like an hourglass, his life slowly faded away.
That day, I became a ghost.
Chapter 9Kingston, 11 Years Old
My defenses cracked like lightning across the sky.
With each passing day, I descended deeper into hell. Every passing night, I slipped into madness. There were hours when breathing alone was intolerable.
I was desperate to escape this hell. The escape seemed impossible. My reality became a fight. Became another struggle to survive.
“You,” the guard called out, and every fiber of me knotted. His eyes focused intently on me. Bile rose in my throat, my skin crawling with revulsion. But I hid it all behind a blank expression filled with nightmares.
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to stay.
The choice wasn’t given.
Standing up, my legs unsteady, the snickers and pity drifted off the other boys, wrapping around my throat like a noose. If only it’d suffocate me. Relief shone in their eyes at not being the ones chosen, but that was how it went in this hell. Some days just weren’t your day.
Eyes on Ivan and Sofia, I let myself imagine the day the life left theirs. I learned quickly who it was that ruled over this hell. Who was responsible for the life I was forced to endure. A life I didn’t want, but was too much of a coward to try to end. So each day, I did what was demanded of me, taking the lives of other boys to continue “earning” my place in this hell.
Every muscle in my body tightened at the picture of me running into the knee-high snow. I wouldn’t make it a hundred yards before being dragged back. I should know; I’d tried it more than once.
I closed my eyes, attempting to drown out the grunts and moans. The sounds were perverse and wrong in my ears.
“Come here, boy.” A demon with a woman’s voice. I moved on autopilot, the perfume invading my nose.
I shut my mind down, seeking refuge in a warm paradise where teeth, stained with the blood of those who’d dared touch me or had tried to kill me, hung on the wall as décor.
Chapter 10Kingston, 12 Years Old
Fear was part of my every breath and each heartbeat. It shouldn’t be, I needed to be braver, but I couldn’t shake it off.
Two years, four months, two weeks, and twelve days. Eight hundred and seventy-eight days in a windowless, empty basement cell in the middle of the Siberian landscape. The only time I caught a glimpse of the outside world was when I was taken upstairs to fight.
The training didn’t bother me as much as the killing. I tracked the number of lives I’d taken by the teeth I pulled from the corpses. They were just boys, not so unlike me.
One day, someone would probably rip my teeth out when they were done with me.
I leaned against the pillar as I watched a fight between two older kids, my racing heart hidden behind my well-worn mask. Days and months of torture did that to you.
Bright lights surrounded the arena, illuminating the strangers scattered all around it. They shouted, cheered, waved their money in the air with greed in their eyes. The walls behind me were painted red, just like the blood staining the sand in the arena. But that wasn’t what captured my interest.
It was the only window in the room that stretched on the far wall, letting me see the clear blue sky. It didn’t look cold, despite the snow covering the ground. If only the window would open, I’d jump out of it and try my luck at escaping again. I’d take my chances, even in these rags my captors called clothes.
I missed my brothers. My sister.
Their faces slowly faded in my mind, but I clung to them with all I had. Each night before I fell asleep, I cataloged everything I remembered about them. They were looking for me. I knew it in my heart. My father would abandon me, but not my siblings.
The only comfort in all of this was that my baby sister had been spared. It was one of the only things keeping me going, though I still remembered that day clearly. Her eyes full of terror; her chubby cheeks stained with tears.
A loud roar pulled me from my thoughts to where a boy twitched and bled all over the sand beneath the ring. He fought to breathe; he fought to live another day. But everyone knew he wouldn’t. With each passing second, the light in his eyes dimmed until it was extinguished completely.
“Fuck, he didn’t make it.” A mutter by a boy behind me had me turning around. “The Killer is unbeatable.”
His dark blue eyes were resigned. Tired. He looked the way I felt. Beaten and hungry. I’d seen him around, but I didn’t know his name. After I was forced to kill the first friend I made, I never bothered to learn their names again.
“Louisa, stop this instant.”
Sofia Volkov’s voice interrupted the boys in their morbid discussion. She strolled in, glaring after the girl who’d escaped her control. Dressed in a fancy blue dress and holding the hand of another girl—a twin, by the looks of it—the pair looked crestfallen at being scolded so openly.
So the rumors were true. Sofia Volkov had a weakness, and they were living under this roof.