“I’m working on it.”
He eyed my shirt. “I can see that.”
I looked down. Splashes and swipes of pale blue blood were crusting over on the black material of my T-shirt and up my arm. That must’ve been why Sushi thought I was hurt. She probably had no idea what color my blood was and assumed all of this was mine.
“Geez,” I muttered under my breath. “Looks like I’ve been rolling in it.”
My brain flashed back to that shark lady hugging me, smearing grateful tears all over my shirt. Had she noticed how much blood she was getting into? Maybe when your kid was dead, you didn’t care.
Warcry let out an annoyed sigh. “Are ya at least gettin’ paid, grav?”
“What? Oh, uh, yeah.” After that execution, my USL account was up a thousand credits. The Komodo Emperor had made sure to have his double-0 rank transfer the money after the shark parents left, along with another speech about how it was the least the Dragons could do for my service. The words had rung kind of hollow this time around, with the blue guy’s corpse still sprawled out on the floor.
“Did you even negotiate or’d ya just take the first number they offered?”
I grunted. “So you’re supposed to watch my back. I guess that means the Emperor expects people to come after me?”
Warcry ran his hand down his face like that answered his question.
“I sure as bleed all ain’t here to make your tea. Far as anybody knows, you’re the Dragons’ only Death cultivator.” He shrugged. “Makes sense the rest of the Big Five would want to do you in before you do them.”
“And you’re supposed to stop whoever the other gangs send.”
“That’s what bodyguards do, isn’t it?”
“What if you have to kill them to stop them?”
His eyes narrowed. “I’d do me job, wouldn’t I?”
“What if they’ve got a good reason?”
“You mean ’coz you’re slaughtering an arena full of folks hand over fist?”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t realized my hands were clenched into fists until just that second, a piece of bread balled up inside my right one. I didn’t even really feel mad. There was just this weird, wired energy cruising up and down my brain pathways, some kind of ancient caveman rage building that didn’t even require conscious anger to set it off. “What then?”
Warcry must’ve seen it in my eyes or caught the tension in the air, because he stood up straighter, uncrossing his arms like he was getting ready to fend off an attack.
“If the Emperor told you to do it, then I’m supposed to make sure you get it done,” he growled. “No questions.”
“A whole arena full of people can’t be bad,” I said. “What if I’m killing a bunch of innocent people? Or half bad people, half good people? How many does it take to tip the scale the wrong way in this situation? When do you say screw the assignment and call it off?”
Warcry’s face twisted into an ugly scowl. “Planning on a repeat performance, are ya?”
“If I was, would you stop me?”
“Not if I want me shot at the title.”
“A championship’s more important to you than innocent lives?” That wired energy exploded inside my brain, and I shoved him. “What the heck is wrong with you?”
He shoved me back harder. I banged into the sink, then shoved off and locked up with him, getting my arm over his neck and throwing a knee. He tried to get his arms inside to block, but wasn’t fast enough. The shot knocked the wind out of him with an oof. Flames roared down his head and shoulders. He barreled into me, eating up the knee-space between us and hooking punches into my bad ribs.
The renewed pain from the festering knife scars made my knees weak and folded me in half. I went down, but held onto the clinch and dragged Warcry with me.
We crashed into the cabinets. Wood cracked. I rained elbows on him. Warcry tucked his chin and took them on the shoulder and back. Twisting, he shoved his crowbar of a forearm into my throat and pushed until I was pinned against the cracked cabinet door.
Sushi’s yelling seemed to drift in from far away, like it’d been happening for a while, but the sound was only now reaching me.
“Bad!” The little fish darted around us, her blue and brown eyes wide and panicked. “Stop!”
Warcry blinked and backed off. I took a shaky breath and slumped against the cabinet door.
“I’m on your side, ya moron,” he growled, blood in his teeth. I couldn’t remember hitting him in the mouth, but his top lip was busted.
I swallowed past a bruised throat. “What if that’s the wrong side?”
“No more!” Sushi’s fins trembled. “Both bad. Grady and Warcry apologize.”
Warcry’s face twisted like the thought of apologizing left a bad taste in his mouth.
Sushi widened her eyes at me.
I had started it, I guess. It hadn’t even really had anything to do with Warcry. He was just there when it boiled over.
Gently, I prodded at the knife scars, seeing if I could feel any broken ribs.
“Sorry for being a dick,” I muttered.
Warcry stood up and hocked a bloody wad into the sink. “You’re off your head ’coz your girlfriend lit out for another planet. It happens.”
I nodded and didn’t say that was just the gravy on top of the crap pile. He was trying to give me an out. I should take it.
He stuck out his hand, and I grabbed it and the counter, hauling myself up.
“What we need is a night out,” he said.
I stared at him. “Sorry, man, I’m not into redheads.”
“As if I’d be interested in a bony ponser like you,” he sneered, grabbing a washrag out of a drawer and running some cold water on it. “I mean a proper lads’ night. Get some drinks, catch a fight that ain’t us, blow off some steam. I was heading out to the local kokugikan
