“No.” I pushed the plates away from us. I looked back at Roth, who was now backing out of the room. There was nothing for him to do. “No, no, no.” I grabbed Angel by the face and looked into her eyes. She was confused.
“Inkpop? What’s the matter?” Her sweet voice questioning why I was panicking all of a sudden.
The first cramp was enough to confirm those fucks had poisoned our meal. They lost because of me, and even though I’d won, my reward would also be my punishment.
“Angel, I need you to throw up. It’s not going to feel good. I need you to do it now.” I spoke harshly.
“I can’t. I don’t want to throw up.” She shook her head, but I didn’t have time to try to convince her. I grabbed her face and stuck my finger as far down her throat as I could, she cried and tried to get out of my grasp, but I kept hold of her until she was retching all over me.
I let her go, just as the sweat and nausea began to roll through my body. I turned myself away from her and stuck my finger down my own throat, performing the same process as I had for Angel. I threw up everything I could, but my gut still clenched with cramps I thought would rip my abdomen in two.
“Ink, I don’t feel good. My tummy. Inkpop.” Angel whined and cried, rocking back and forth. Her arms wrapped around her midsection as she shivered in pain.
Within an hour, we were both crying in agony on the floor. I knew exactly what Angel felt because I was in the same boat. In fact, I felt worse because I’d given her half of my food, and she was exposed to more of the poison.
I held her tight against me, offering her the only thing I could; comfort. I cried like a baby when the poor girl passed out from pain and exhaustion. From the very beginning, I’d been waiting for someone to help us, someone to rescue us, but this was the last straw. No one was coming for us. All I had was Angel and myself. If we survived, it would be because of me alone.
Chapter 5
Months turned into years…
I stretched my neck out, the air up in the mountains of New Guinea was thin, and it made me feel even more fatigued than usual. I couldn’t afford to be fatigued or without oxygen. Not today.
I was about to go into my twenty-fourth stall brawl, and I was undefeated. I had bulked up substantially, working out, becoming my favorite pastime besides listening to Angel tell stories. The scars Ruby and her equally sadistic husband left on me both mentally and physically sparked fear in most of my opponents. I was all animal when it came to those brawls. I would do anything to come up the winner.
Today would be no different.
I walked toward the signature glass box, the beauty of the mountains all around us, and the marble flooring cold beneath my feet all felt relatively normal. I could admit the landscape itself was a sight to behold. The Giles family had homes all around the globe, yet out of the twenty or so I had been to, the ones on the islands had always been my favorite. The sun looked different, the people were different, but most of all, it smelled different. I pretty much had every country down when it came to how it smelled. The UK always seemed to smell like cinnamon mixed with fresh-cut grass and rain, and Chile smelled like spices and sweat. America, though, my country smelled like fumes, wood and, copper at least to me. Every time the scent hit me, we were on the same pier they took us from. The same small shops I remembered, even some of the same vessels still tied up to the dock, but the Wings of Diablo were never there for us. They never came looking.
“Oh, don’t you look pretty, I’ll take a slice of your colorful skin to remember you by.” The man I thought was called Viper hissed at me as I made my way to the opening of the box. Intimidation did nothing to me. I turned around right before I stepped into the box and took a few deep breaths of oxygen, trying to oxygenate my body over before the door was shut. Once it was closed, I had a maximum, three minutes and forty-five seconds before I would start feeling the effects of oxygen deprivation, and that was if the fucking bastard I was set to fight conserved his air too.
I watched as Harrington, hustled over to the front of the box to deliver his usual spiel. It never changed, except, of course, now the odds were always in my favor. Today my odds we 2 to 1.
The door was shut, the air became stagnant and muted. The man across from me had yet to throw a punch, but he was talking. I could see his mouth moving. He was wasting my damn air. I didn’t give a fuck what he was saying; I was already in my zone. In the place of his face flitted the face of one of the many people I had on my hit list. Ryder.
I could see the grey at the sides of his head, the asshole demeanor he always
