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

in me. I wasn’t ever going to kill myself. My heart was not that sick and I was gonna have to ride this life out for as long as it lasted.”

My hand crosses the distance between us and I place a flat palm over his heart.

He has a heart tattoo there with a big keyhole inside of it. But not the kind you draw as a kid. It’s an anatomical heart. And I suddenly realize something, something I never paid attention to before. All the skulls have silver eyes. It’s not easy to see because most of his tattoos are in grayscale. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And that’s when I realize… these skulls on his body… they don’t represent the death of his opponents.

They represent the death of his kids.

Sick. Heart, I sign.

He nods. “Yeah. It’s fucking sick all right.”

I shake my head no. And change the signs around. Heart. Sick.

His mouth turns down and his eyes go distant for a moment. Unfocused. Like he’s remembering something. Then he looks at me again. “There was someone else. I can’t remember her. Not her face, but I know she was there. I just don’t know who she was.” He goes distant again, then refocuses. “It’s stupid. Like…” He scoffs. Maybe it’s even a laugh. “Like, I get it, OK? We all imagine that maybe this is all a mistake. Maybe we were kidnapped. Or lost. Or switched at birth before we left the hospital. We all want to think that we were dropped into the wrong life. That there is something else out there. Some other place where we truly belong. It’s a fantasy. A very common one in kids. So I get it, right? But I’m telling you, Anya, I wasn’t always this way. I just know that once upon a time my heart wasn’t sick. Not until that girl got taken away. Before that, I was someone else.”

I think I stop breathing in these moments.

He knows. He remembers. He just doesn’t understand that he knows and remembers.

He is heartsick because of what happened to him.

And this is when I truly realize that his secret is my secret too.

Cort throws his hands up. The rain has stopped and the sun is peeking through dark gray clouds. Thin columns of light shoot down towards the water surrounding us. Like we’re being cradled in the hand of God.

“But I haven’t been him for a very long time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - CORT

 

 

The storm quiets as Anya and I sit in the leftover drizzle. My chest feels tight, like I can’t breathe, and I know this is because I said all those words out loud. It’s been a long time since I thought deeply about life before Udulf and I don’t even understand why I felt the need to bring it back up tonight.

Maybe because she understands me?

But even so, that doesn’t make her special. We all come from the same dark place. We all live the same pointless lives. We all know that at any moment death is just right around the corner.

So why her? Why think about it now?

I’ve tried to piece my place in this world together as best I can over the years based on what I see around me. How these kids of mine come to the camp. How Maart and Rainer came to be. And Evard. Even Ainsey. They are both products of a Lectra-induced fight-night win.

They are the prize of a prize. Because when I win, I have to breed with them before the night is over. ‘Them’ meaning the girls put up as a prize. Like Anya. Udulf wants my bloodline and it’s not like I’ll be settling down and raising a little family for the Ring of Fire breeding program.

He takes it from me.

He take everything from me.

I don’t know how many of those girls have gotten pregnant during the post-fight, Lectra-induced sex party. At least two, obviously. So that’s one way you get born into our world. Breeding.

You can be kidnapped by traffickers, you can be sold by your parents, you can come from foster care, or an emergency-relief tent in some third-world country. So that fantasy of mine—that I was someone else, that I am someone else… it’s not really wrong.

I got here somehow.

And even though I’ve been doing my best to not think about who I really am and where I really came from, it’s always been there. In the back of my mind.

I am Udulf’s son.

And he threw me away. Probably to save himself somehow.

Just like I will throw Ainsey away to save myself.

Anya gets to her feet and leans out over the edge of the helipad. I grab her leg out of instinct. This makes her look down at me and sign, Just looking.

Seventeen languages. That’s pretty fucking crazy. No wonder Lazar kept her. I’m sure the people he sent her to assumed she could read and write. She’s so pretty. These sick fucks like to keep the pretty ones as pets. Treat them like daughters. Which is a whole other level of sick evil.

The daughters don’t go to school, of course. They hire tutors for them. But they don’t really teach them anything of consequence. They learn a little math, they learn a little reading, they might paint or practice an instrument. But they do not teach the daughters foreign languages.

It’s not like most people are even capable of learning seventeen languages. So she’s a genius. And that’s the real reason Lazar kept her all these years. She’s too smart to let go. Too smart to even kill.

So why did he put her up as sacrifice for this fight?

Anya said, If you won, I died and Udulf’s secrets went with me. And if Pavo won, you died and Lazar’s secrets went with you.

This is what doesn’t make sense to me. What secrets? And why get rid of her now?

Anya sighs. Then she starts backing up, her eyes trained on the horizon.

“What are