Ash (15 page)

I sat up quickly. “Wait,
we?”

Jayden grinned. “Yep, your
homeboy Lucas must have some pull with all of his high-up friends, because we
happen to be paired together, and we happen to be fighting the two weakest and
injured guys.”

I squealed and jumped
into his arms. He winced and pushed me back a little.

“Oh, damn. Sorry, Jay. Are
you still hurt?”

He nodded and lifted his
shirt to show stitches on his ribcage, and I noticed then that his calf was
still bandaged.

“You don’t mind having a
gay gimp for a partner?”

My mouth dropped open.
“You’re gay?”

He rolled his eyes. “I
love you, bitch.”

I smiled. “Right back at
ya, bitch.”

And that was it. In our
own special way we had just said goodbye.

Jayden and I stood in the training room
with Bryan, Jayden’s trainer, and Ryder. On the bench sat a short dagger and a
short wooden stick with a spiked ball hanging from the end. Our two
chosen-by-the-other-side weapons. Freak me. I shivered.

Ryder lifted one foot and
rested it on the bench seat, which from my angle only emphasized his muscular
thigh and ass cheek. Damn, Ryder’s ass …
not the time, Charlie.

I focused on my trainer’s
words. “You two have a serious advantage here. No one in the culling becomes
friends, it’s every man for himself. Even these two will be against each other,
trying to get the last spots. The buzzer rings as soon as two ash die. It
doesn’t even matter which two or which team.”

Jayden and I shared a
look and nodded. No way in hell was I letting anyone take out my new best
friend.

Bryan shifted his focus
to me. “I saw your fight. Well done. Jayden is pretty badly injured, so I think
he should have the spike ball. The dagger will mean you will have to get closer
to your opponent…”

The rest of his sentence
was left unsaid, but we all knew what the words would have been. Jayden might
not survive being close enough to use a dagger.

Ryder interjected. “But
Jayden is stronger. If he gets pulled to the ground he can handle himself. She
can’t.” 

“No, I agree. I’ll take
the dagger.” I shut them all up. Ryder’s expression did that stoic, cold thing
again. He seemed upset with my choice, but the buzzer sounded, eliminating any
more time for arguing.

I grabbed the dagger,
letting it roll in my hands, trying to ignore the dried blood at the tip. They
couldn’t even wipe the blade down? Sometimes the members of the Hive were true
animals.

Ryder approached me and
leaned in so close I thought he meant to kiss me. Instead, he whispered in my
ear: “Charlene Bennett, you are a direct descendant of the fourth house. Don’t
forget that.” His words were strangely smooth and echoey, and something
unfurled inside my chest, seeking, strong. Before I could say or do anything,
we were thrust out into the fight.

As per the previous
rounds, we were checked for unauthorized weapons, then the fight buzzer rang
out. The stomping and hollering from the crowd was sickening. It rang in my
ears and had the blood pounding through my veins. Crazy mofos, how could anyone
enjoy this? This was not sport or entertainment, this was real live ash getting
slaughtered. It was sickening. I wanted this entire goddamn Hive to burn down!
I might be an ash, and I might have had ash friends now and a possible ash
crush, but my hatred of the system still remained.

I forced myself to focus
on the fight. I couldn’t change anything if I was dead. The two ash across from
us definitely looked a little worse for wear. The shaved head ash, with his
stupid pimp goatee, had his right arm in a hard cast; his other hand held the
throwing stars. Great weapons choice from our sponsor. It was going to be near
impossible for him to throw that with one arm all banged up. The other ash, who
had long, light brown hair tied back at his neck, had a bandage over one eye
and held a bow and arrow, which would totally screw with his depth perception.
Still, they both had long range weapons. We needed to get in there fast.

“Stay by my side!” I
roared, as Jayden and I took off. Bow and arrow guy dropped to one knee and expertly
let loose an arrow. Shit! Even with sucky depth perception, he knew what he was
doing. I hadn’t expected him to move so quickly and I was too close to dodge
his arrow. The razor sharp end slammed into my thigh, lodging itself quite
deep. I screamed, turning to find Jayden right beside me. In a flash, before I
could protest, my friend broke the end off, leaving the head embedded.
Holy
mutha effing fuck
,
that hurt so badly. Luckily the adrenalin kept me
moving. I followed Jayden as he dropped and rolled behind an obstacle barrier. We
crouched side by side as I panted in pain.

“Plan?” I huffed. Even
injured, these guys were lethal. They had not made it this far without winning
fights. And they wanted this desperately.

I realized Jayden wasn’t
even listening to me. His eyes were pulsing and his fangs distended. “Your
blood.”

Oh shit. I looked down at
my bleeding thigh. Right, of course, the weird attractiveness of my unicorn
blood.
Wait a freakin’ minute.
The obvious answer had been staring me in
the face the entire time. I knew my blood attracted these a-holes. I knew that
it was some sort of special, weird, not-really-ash blood. Might be time to use
this to our advantage. I wiped the blade of my dagger in my blood, letting it
thickly coat the tip.

“Don’t bite me, bitch,” I
said to Jayden. “This blood is going to be useful to us.”

His eyes were crazed.
“Trying not to,” he said through clenched teeth.

I popped my head up and
saw the two guys advancing slowly. They were close and I was confident enough
to pull my arm back and let the dagger fly, giving up my only weapon. It sailed
through the air and sank into bow and arrow guy’s shoulder. Try shooting me
with an arrow now, asshole.

He cried out at the thud,
but then, almost in the same instance, his nostrils flared and his eyes
widened.
Holy crap … it worked.
Both guys were standing there stupidly,
fighting the lure of my unicorn blood. I reached down and grabbed Jayden’s
weapon.

“Stay here!” I jumped out
from behind the barrier and sprinted the ten feet between us in record time. The
hot burn in my thigh faded a little as my mind focused on what I had to do. Both
ash twisted to face me, fangs extended, and I felt my own descend in response.
Their eyes were as black as night and pulsing. I expected them to snap out of
their blood haze any moment and come at me double-team style, but despite the
fact they were facing me head on, they still seemed stunned, especially the one
with my bloody knife in his arm. Focusing on him first, I raised my arm up and whipped
the flail in the air to gain momentum, bringing the spike down across his head.
He didn’t dodge it; the spike sank in with a sickening thud. Something awoke in
him then and he grabbed my shoulder with a death grip, holding me in place.

I was focused on
spike-head and hadn’t expected the other guy to move so quickly. But as I felt
fangs sink into my neck, shock ran through me. That fucker. Hell to the no! No
one got to suck my blood, no freakin’ …
oh my gods.
It was like a sudden
rush of euphoria flooded through me and spilled forbidden pleasure into my
body. I didn’t even feel his fangs any longer. All I felt was the weightless
pleasure of the sucking motion on my neck.

 “Charlie!” Ryder’s deep
bellowing voice carried through the cheering, those low tones hanging in the
air, and a semblance of sanity started to filter into my hazy brain. What … no!
I kneed the guy with the spike hanging out of his head in the balls before
dropping to the ground to get this neck sucker off of me. I could hear him
growling and fighting like I was stealing away his favorite chew toy. What the
fuck was up with my blood?! Was it Nutella flavored?

I pushed those thoughts
from me as I heard Jayden come up from behind and engage neck biter. Although I
was feeling a little woozy still from loss of blood and the last tingles of
that feeding euphoria, I tracked the scene. I would admit to some surprise that
the guy with the spike in his head was still very much alive. I’d hit him hard.
Dammit, he was not just alive but fighting.

I attempted to dodge as
he kicked out at my legs. Of course I managed to trip over my own feet, and
landed hard on the mat anyways. The sharp jag of pain in my thigh increased as
the head of the arrow went deeper. My eyes drifted across the floor and my
heart started pounding as I realized the dagger lay five feet away. I lunged
for it just as spike head caught my ankle, my fingers grazing the hilt. It was
just out of my reach. Turning back, I flexed my knee and, as hard as I could,
kicked at the spike which was still in his head. Was he not removing that
because the injury would be worse?

As my foot connected for
a second time, I gained enough distance to close my hand fully around the knife
handle, and raising to my knees I leapt onto him before he could stand,
slashing at the tender meat of his neck.

He was already covered in
blood from the massive spike in his head, but the neck wound finished the job. I
left his prone body, standing quickly, dagger still in hand as I sought
desperately to find Jayden. I realized he was all the way across the gym and my
heart literally stopped beating when I saw neck biter on top of him slicing at his
neck with the throwing star. There was blood everywhere, doing that little
spurting thing which meant something serious had been hit. I wouldn’t make it
in time.

“No!” I screamed. Desperation
flooded through me – I would not lose Jayden here today. I would never give up
on my friend like that, and I knew he would never have given up on me. I had to
make it there in time. 

The heat that had begun
before, after hearing Ryder’s words, started to burn in my center, like a
forest fire which had just been doused with an ass-ton of fuel. I sensed that
this was what everyone kept harping on about – my special blood, the unusual
test, my genetic linage from the fourth house. This was what burned inside of
me. Everything about my life started to make sense then, the reasons I was
different. I took off to give myself a proper speed for launching, and without
a second thought bent down and sprang up with all of the strength I had. I had
planned on trying to jump in large leaps, closing the distance fast, but
apparently the fire had a different plan.

I freakin’ flew, like
some sort of strange bird, across the arena. The crowd gasped, and a weird sort
of dead-air silence fell over the fight. That’s right, bitches. Levitation. I worked
hard to land close as possible to the ash who was hurting my friend. Dude
hadn’t even looked up; he didn’t know death stalked him from the air. But he
was about to find out. I came down hard, knocking into him, throwing the
asshole off of Jayden, the pain in my leg roaring back to life with an
intensity that had my vision flashing with black dots.

I wobbled for a second,
breathing deeply. Not the time to pass out, no matter how much I wanted to.
Neck biter jumped up, and I was relieved to see Jayden was alive – clutching
his bleeding throat but alive.

Neck biter circled me
like a lion about to strike. Anger was coming off him in waves. I forced myself
to envision how I would kill him. Then of course, the moment I did that I
started raging at myself. This entire situation was screwed up. Why the hell
was I having to become a murdering monster? Because the vampires needed to
conserve space for their huge luxury Hive apartments?

Neck biter lunged, but I
was ready – I was so ready. I might not want to kill him, but I wanted to end
this. I dodged and threw out a high kick to the side of his temple. He wobbled
and I dropped to my knees, stabbing him in the stomach. Not a kill shot, but a
debilitating one.

He folded over and I took
the chance to tackle him to the ground, straddling him, his hands pinned under
my legs as he clutched his bleeding stomach. I couldn’t meet his eyes as I
brought the dagger up and slid it straight under his chin and into his neck.
Ryder had shown me many times the best ways to kill and debilitate quickly, information
that had been very useful during the culling, but which no twenty-one-year-old
should ever have to know.

I had no choice. I told
myself that over and over. I had no mother-effing choice. But I still hated
myself for it.

He started bleeding out, and
I clenched my thighs to keep him from lifting his hands and stanching any of
the blood. It was only that he was weak and injured already that I’d even had a
chance. If Lucas hadn’t used his money and influence to ensure I was one of the
last fighters … fuck this! This was so wrong. Tears lined my eyes as the last
of my innocence died. I wasn’t Charlie anymore, that girl who liked to check out
boys at Starbucks and get mani-pedis with Tessa…

It was inevitable of
course. I had to harden all of my soft edges if I was going to survive my new
life as a tasty Nutella unicorn, but it still pissed me off.

The ash beneath me ceased
to breathe, and stopped moving, and I stood up to the roaring crowd as the
buzzer sounded. I threw my dagger on the ground and met the eyes of my new
society. Then I raised both hands and gave them all the middle finger, turning
in a slow circle to make sure they all saw. Fuck you crazy assholes and your
sadistic game. My gesture was met with mostly glares and a few sparse chuckles.
Yeah, glare on, freaks, I didn’t give a shit.