Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Nina

T he alarm stops. Reke rubs at his ears, as if trying to clear away the leftover ringing. I can hear a ghost of the alarm in my own head, so much so that it takes me another moment to acknowledge that I haven't imagined it, that the alarm actually has stopped.

"Nina?" Holding onto my forearms, Reke pulls me effortlessly to my feet. "Did you just make a bet with the Hov?"

"I—" The doors open. The corridor before us is empty. "I think so. Or rather, I tried to get the Hov to host a bet with their patrons. Come on!" We skid around the corner, race down another corridor, and Reke stops us before an elevator.

My mouth drops open. It's got an entire glass wall (or the alien equivalent of glass), and I can see outside. Into space. Space , space. Outer space.

Well, mainly what I can see is my reflection and that of the elevator, because of the bright light inside and how dark it is outside. I watch as, behind me, the elevator doors close, and Reke presses buttons on a touch screen set into one wall. And then we're rushing downward and maybe sideways too. It's difficult to tell because the movement is so smooth.

I step closer to the glass, wanting to see outside properly, without my reflection blocking my view. I'm so close, the tip of my nose is practically touching the glass, and suddenly there are stars, brighter than I ever saw on Earth. They're not even twinkling; they're shining steadily, some so strong they're like the distant headlights of a car.

Then there are the spaceships. Four, five, six of them that I can count. Most whisk by before I can get a proper good look, but the closest is so still it might have been parked. It's a little like an Earth satellite, with large solar panels extending behind the main body. It releases a stream of exhaust—from its engines? exhaust pipes?—and shoots forward, disappearing from view.

I press closer to the window, looking down to see something of the outside of the station. Disappointingly, it reminds me of a skyscraper at nighttime, rectangular with the occasional illuminated window—or glass elevator. Of course, it's far larger than an Earth skyscraper, and I can't see the bottom because the rectangle has a kind of curve to its edge. So maybe it isn't a rectangle at all. Maybe it's a circle. Or a shape I've never seen before.

Nothing about what's happening out there is familiar to me, and it's fucking terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

Then I remember that over the stadium itself is a domed roof, and if the stadium is at the top of the space station, then perhaps it's really just shaped like a dick. A somewhat hysterical laugh escapes my mouth as I imagine an erection floating through space. Classy!

"Have you seen this?" I gesture to outer space , but when Reke doesn't answer, I finally glance back at him.

His attention is fixed on the two TV screens set into the back of the elevator doors. One's displaying the rows and columns of the fighting list. Instead of there being rows and rows of names scrolling up the screen, like I'd seen previously, there are three names grouped together. I recognize the shape of one as being Reke's name and another as mine. The third I guess is Venn's. The other columns are filled with … the betting odds? Before I can ask Reke, I'm distracted by the other screen.

It's split into thirds. The whole top half of the screen shows Reke and I. We're standing in an elevator and watching ourselves on a screen. It's trippy, with everything mirrored.

The bottom-left corner of the screen is much more interesting with a live feed of the Arena stadium. The camera is panning over the crowd, and the patrons are staring at the gigantic screens showing the same three feeds as what Reke and I are watching. They line the walls surrounding the battlefield, while the battlefield itself is empty of gladiators, its sandy floor stained with fresh blood.

My attention moves to the bottom-right corner, displaying a hypogeum; the one we were locked in or another one—it's impossible to tell. The viewing platform is empty of patrons, and the doors to the gladiator cages are open. The gladiators, hesitant at first, step out of their cages. They growl and threaten each other, but then their pain collars activate and most of them fall to the floor, writhing.

I wince as the main door to the hypogeum slides open. The gladiators climb to their feet, hands nervously feeling their collars. After another moment of hesitation, they all make their way toward the open door.

"They're coming after us, aren't they?" I point at the part of the screen showing the gladiators. As they exit the hypogeum, the feed switches to a camera in the corridor, tracking their progress.

"I can protect you." Reke picks a piece of Hov out from under a claw. His nose wrinkles, and he wipes his hands on one of the TVs, leaving filthy fingerprints over the faces of the patrons. "Yes?" He growls the question, low in his throat.

Is he asking for my benefit or for his?

"Yes," I agree. "I know you can."

The elevator stops. The doors open. Fluorescent lights flicker on, illuminating a shabby corridor marked by dusty footprints.

It looks like the right corridor, but when I move to step forward, Reke catches me around the waist. He presses more options on the control tablet so that the doors close again and the elevator continues down.

"That wasn't the right floor?"

He grins, a feral smile filled with pointed teeth. "I worked out what you did, Nina."

Again, the elevator comes to a stop. The doors open. Reke breathes deep, his chest expanding. "This is the right one." And taking me by surprise, he rubs his tail between my legs, pressing the seam of my jeans against my otherwise bare clit.

A rush of obscene pleasure pulses up through me. My eyes widen, and I gasp. "My panties! I forgot." It feels like a lifetime ago that they'd fallen out of my pocket. The two Hov guards had been laughing so much their beady eyes had watered. My face burning and my heart racing, I'd shoved my filthy panties into one of Vennkor's pockets.

Had it only been yesterday?

"I can smell the residue of your desire. I can smell Vennkor's release. And my own pleasure."

I let out a shaky laugh. I knew he had a good sense of smell; I just hadn't realized how good.

We follow the footprints on the dusty floor. Well, I follow the footprints. Reke sniffs the air, following my scent. Soon, the corridor opens into a storage room filled with the library-style stacks. There's a dusty desk I didn't notice before, which looks somewhat like a service counter, including with another one of those strange hammock-chairs hanging from the ceiling. The screen set into the desk flickers to life, and with sinking dread, I step toward it.

It's the smallest screen I've seen so far, and it's divided into half rather than into thirds, with one side showing Reke and I as we are now, standing in a storage room. The other side displays the customary fighting list. Reke's, Venn's and my names are still the only three listed in the furthest left-hand column. The rows beside it are filled with what I presume are numbers. God, I wish my translator understood writing. Instead, I've got to guess, and judging by the increasing length of each entry, the betting odds against Reke, Venn and I escaping are growing.

"Most of them are betting we won't win?" I ask, my finger hovering over the scrolling numbers.

"Yes." He turns his attention back to me, and some of his swagger has disappeared. Probably he's never had so many people bet he wouldn't win. After all, his reputation is flawless. He's never entered the Arena and lost. The Hov have pampered him, relative to how they treat their other gladiators—throwing banquets in his honor, parading him before the patrons as their star creation, even making promotional videos about his life.

Now he's facing the very real reality that the patrons who've worshiped him his entire life want him to lose. They want him to be stopped. They want him to remain under the control of the Hov, a puppet to be paraded in the Arena for their entertainment whenever they demand to see him.

"Reke, I don't care what those dickheads think. They're fucking idiots, and they suck."

"Dick head. Like—" Raising a hand to the top of his head, he waves it back and forth, a terrible imitation of an erect penis.

"Exactly like that. " But my amusement fades away as the desk screen once again catches my attention. The feed showing Reke and me has changed to a live feed of the pursuing gladiators. They're passing the dead Hov we abandoned upstairs, mine and Reke's bloodied footprints leading down the long corridor to the glass-walled elevator.

"Holy shit." Two gladiators have pushed their way to the front of the group, their golden skin glinting in the artificial light. They're the Arrok career gladiators. The two who bet their own lives against those of Reke and Venn. The two who wanted to claim me as their prize.

Or, more importantly, the two who can meld their bodies together, forming one giant monster, over ten-feet tall and with tusks the size of my forearms. One of them glances toward the camera as they pass the Hov bodies, and it's like he's looking straight at me through the screen.

"Go." Reke pushes my shoulder, and my feet, finding little traction on the smooth floor, slide away from him and toward the storage stacks.

"I … " But there's nothing I can do to help him fight. I'd only get in his way. And Venn! I ache just thinking of him.

I race along the stacks. Nobody must have been down here since the Ambassador and me because the gap between two stacks where Venn's been stored is still there, as if he's of no more importance than a broken toy a child has grown tired of playing with.

With a heartbroken gasp, I check his vitals. His skin is even colder now, and it stings my hands when I touch him. I glance at the text on the screen, and while certain symbols conjure vague meaning at the back of my mind, I don't have the time to waste trying to decipher half-words. Rather, I focus on the tube down Venn's throat and the intravenouscatheters in his arms and chest, hoping that when I remove them, the machine will register the change and adjust accordingly.

I've no idea how alien technology works. And I can't fight off a dozen gladiators all out for our blood. But I'm a trained nurse, and I've no intention of letting any harm come to Venn ever again.