SICK HEART Huss, JA (best way to read e books .TXT) 📖

I scoff. “How do you figure?”

Maart turns his head to look me in the eyes. “Just look at her, Cort. She is nak su. They are all nak su. We have raised warriors in this camp. We have taught them all the skills they need to survive. It’s not their fault the entire world is corrupt. It’s not their fault they are born, and live, and die in the shadows of the forgotten.” His eyes dart down to the skulls tattooed on my body, then rise back up to meet my gaze. “And it’s not our fault they were forced to fight their way into the next world. We. Raised. Warriors. Don’t you ever fucking forget that.”

Then Anya is walking up to us and, once again, there is no time to process all the words that are being dropped at my feet today. After decades of time that has flowed too slow—that has dragged on like torture—it is suddenly going all too fast.

Anya stops at Maart first and bows to him. Not the pathetic slave bow from months ago, but a proper, reverent, solemn bow with praying hands and thumbs at her eyebrows. She holds that position, but she’s looking straight at him. “Ajarn Maart,” she says. “Thank you.”

He nods to her. Bows back. Then she moves on to Rainer and repeats her gestures of gratitude.

Then she is standing in front of me. And this is the moment when the full meaning of Anya hits me.

Maart was right.

She is a warrior.

But we didn’t make her that way.

She was always a warrior.

A silent ninja.

A master of mental assaults.

A champion in the ring of survival.

We just taught her more.

We made her better.

But for what? To be Udulf’s prize? His possession? His property?

Her eyes pierce mine and her silence is loud. Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. Don’t you dare reduce me.

So I don’t.

I bow to her before she can bow to me.

The four of us enter the thick, jungle understory via a smooth dirt path. Our world becomes something made of shadows. The blazing sun is on the other side of the canopy leaves above our head. Monkeys swing through the trees and birds chatter and scream at us as we pass through their domain. We are walking single file because the path is narrow. So I am the first to walk out into the large, open clearing we call the base camp.

This place is home, but it is also a prison.

And it’s weird. Because there are no walls around us. There are no guards here. I am not in cuffs. No one wears a collar.

But we are all in a cage.

It’s an invisible cage but that’s not why most people can’t see it.

They can’t see it because they don’t understand what it means to be owned in this day and age.

There is no escape from these people.

There is no walking away.

There is no way out and that’s not the brainwashing talking.

It’s just the truth.

These men who own us, they are a global network. You can run. Lots of slaves and fighters have tried. But you can’t hide. They find you in the end. Even if it’s only to kill you and turn you into an example.

So no walls or guards are necessary.

All they need is that threat.

And I bought into it.

We all bought in to it.

The temperature difference when we leave the jungle is immediate. The still, humid air of the trees is replaced with the searing afternoon sun.

The path widens so Anya, Maart, and Rainer all come up next to me as we walk forward.

The first clue that this day is not going to go the way we planned is the silence.

The second clue is the stillness.

All our warriors are here. On my left I can see Cintia in the first of three large, covered training rings. She is bending down, whispering to Ainsey as we walk by. There are a few other kids with them, sitting on the mats in the background.

Sissy is in the second ring with our four older fighters—two sixteen-year-old boys, a sixteen-year-old girl, and a seventeen-year old boy who will be going to the Ring of Fire in the next couple months. They are what’s left of my older kids. The ones who no longer go out to the Rock with us because they are past that.

The only ones to survive into adulthood.

No one is in the third ring, but when I look to my right, I see Ling leaning up against the porch of the small house she shares with Cintia and Sissy. The rest of the little kids—the ones not with Cintia—are sitting on the steps of the huts lining that side of the camp. Just watching us.

Rainer is the one who finally speaks as we make our way up the path towards the main house. “What the fuck?”

None of us answer him. It’s pretty obvious what’s happening because even from a distance of a hundred yards, I can count three of Udulf’s mercenary bodyguards standing on the large front porch of our house.

“He’s here,” I say, more to myself than my friends.

“Yep,” Anya breathes. “He’s here all right.”

“What are we gonna do?” Rainer asks.

“What do you mean what are we gonna do?” I answer.

“I mean, what the fuck are we gonna do? We’re not going through with this. Tell me we’re not going through with this.”

“Shut up, Rainer,” Maart growls. “Just… shut the fuck up.”

It’s a weird response from Maart. He doesn’t normally talk to Rainer that way, but today is not any ordinary day. We are free men. I think. And we’re about to walk away from this camp with a brand-new life.

It’s stressful. Even cold-hearted Maart feels stress. So I let it go.

We walk the rest of the way in silence. We climb the porch steps in silence. We enter the house in silence.

Udulf turns from the spread of food and drink laid out on the dining room table, a look