I wrapped those digits around the railing and began to grip it.
My muscle fibers overstretched and it became painful. I ground my teeth and focused on yanking myself up.
As soon as I got a good enough grip, I could snap back to my usual shape and size and if I held on, I was confident I would zip up to the railing.
My feet left the ground and I began to rise.
Yes!
I glanced at the other gate, where my opponent had emerged from. He was already halfway to my position.
He was going to be late. I would be out of reach by the time he got to me.
So long, sucker!
“And where do you think you’re going?” a craggy voice said.
The voice didn’t come from the railing above. It didn’t come from my opponent sprinting toward me either.
It came from the other opponent.
One that I hadn’t seen emerge from a different gate, one I hadn’t heard because of the gates’ grinding gears.
“No, don’t!” I said.
He launched himself at me. He pressed a claw and a foot to the wall I was rising up, grabbed me by the shirt, and tore me from the railing. He hurled me at the pit floor below.
My arms were still too long and my legs hadn’t recovered from stretching yet.
The impact was going to be bad.
I clenched my eyes shut as my back smashed into the pit floor. A deafening series of crunches and snaps filled my ears as my bones were pulverized into tiny pieces.
I was so close to getting out of here…
And now I was as far from getting out of this place as I had ever been.
The creature that scuppered my plans was a barbaros. Hair covered every inch of his body and his cold black eyes held nothing but disgust. He extended the claws on his front paw and grinned at me with his stained yellow teeth.
He pressed a foot to my chest to pin me down. My arms and legs ached like they’d never ached before.
“So long, Champion,” the barbaros said with disdain.
He swung his paw at me.
The nails were so sharp they would slice the skin from my bones in an instant.
And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
But the blow didn’t come.
“Back off!” another voice growled. “He’s mine!”
It was the creature from the first tunnel. He slammed the barbaros aside and into the pit’s wall. He beat at the creature with his stone flesh. He was a golar and was almost impossible to destroy. But he had weaknesses if you knew where to look.
While my opponents were busy destroying each other, I peered up at the observation window again.
I’m sorry, Ivy. You’re going to have to hang on just a bit longer.
I turned to the assholes that’d torn me from Ivy and a growl escaped my throat.
They wanted to fight me, did they? So be it.
Ivy
The cords strapping me down were unrelenting and impossible to break. They didn’t cut into my skin but they would have if they were any sharper.
“Don’t struggle too much,” the Supervisor said. “They grow tighter the more you struggle. They’ve been known to snap the bones of even the most powerful creatures. Never mind a pathetic human.”
“You wouldn’t let them hurt me. Not with the baby in my belly.”
“I wouldn’t hurt your womb,” he said with a nod. “But I don’t care about the rest of you. Broken arms, legs, it doesn’t matter.”
He actually meant it.
I turned to the scientists busy working on their various projects.
“How can you keep working without helping me? I’m a pregnant woman and this guy is threatening to torture me!”
None of the workers looked up. I might as well not exist.
I struggled and the cords drew even tighter around my arms and legs. I hissed through my teeth. Any tighter and they would snap my limbs for sure.
I wanted to scream and shout and struggle but it was no use. If I did that, I would only put myself in a ton of pain. And for what?
I glared at the Supervisor.
“Why are you doing this? We had a deal.”
“A deal you were going to break. If you didn’t try to negate our deal, none of this would have been necessary. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
Sure. Great argument, asshole.
“Blaming me for falling in love,” I said, shaking my head. “You know, for a scientist, you aren’t very smart. Nothing can fight love. You don’t know, because you’ve never felt it before. And you can’t detect it with all your fancy machines and technology.”
What the Supervisor said next surprised me.
“Oh, I know love exists, girl,” he spat. “Even creatures such as myself have loved.”
I peered into his eyes and saw he wasn’t lying. He really had been in love once. But who could ever bring themselves to love someone like him?
“Then how can you do this? How can you keep Kren and me apart? We want to be together and raise this baby. He doesn’t know about it yet but I know he’ll do the right thing.”
“You can love someone as much as you want, but that won’t stop an aggressive alien species from breaking into your home one night, stealing your things, and killing the one you love. I vowed I would never let another alien species have power over me again. I’ve spent my life ensuring I kept that promise. And soon, I’ll have the ultimate weapon so no one anywhere can harm me or my people.”
So, that was why he did these experiments. To punish them for what one alien did to his wife.
“These aliens aren’t the ones that took her from you,” I said gently. “None of them are. Especially Kren. He’s not even a prisoner here.”
“The same instinct runs through his veins.”
“He’s innocent. The same way your wife was.”
“She wasn’t innocent. She did her fair share of killing. We all do. All we shrale.”
The blood
