Losing Nuka (Litmus Book 1) (19 page)

Rolling out of the way, I scramble into a crouched position before swinging my leg out, kicking Knox’s legs out from under him. He loses his balance and falls backwards as I get to my feet completely.

I know I should kick him while he’s down—it’s what they’d want me to do, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

Being so big, he struggles to get back up. By the time he does, the buzzer dings.

“Saved by the bell,” I mutter.

Round one down. Two more to go.

We each go to our respective corners for a breather, and I notice Knox has reduced himself to regular size. He’s still trying to catch his breath, and he even looks a bit wobbly on his feet. He’s pale, and I start to wonder if he’s going to be okay.

Brett hands me a bottle of water from below. As I take a sip, my jaw locks and feels tight, pain radiating down the left side of my neck from where he punched me. The rest of me is still raring to go, so much so, the plastic bottle I’m holding begins to melt under my heat.

“Oops,” I say, dropping it to the ground.

I know I won that round, but I need to make sure I’m not distracted again in these other two. If one punch could hurt me this badly, I can’t let him get another one in.

The two-minute break feels like it’s only thirty seconds. There’s another ding, and we’re up again.

Knox is struggling. He’s back to gigantor size, but it’s obvious by the look on his face that he’s straining to maintain it. I can use this to my advantage.

Round two moves swiftly and without much of a challenge. I get in a few great punches before Knox even has the chance to retaliate. His movements are slowed down now he’s a giant, and I’m pretty quick on my feet, so I manage to duck, weave, and escape most of his attempts. When he does finally connect, the laws of gravity seem to disappear as I go flying across the arena. I land with a thud, but I get back on my feet, albeit struggling a bit.

Knox starts transitioning down a notch. He’s back to Brett’s size and really isn’t looking too good. He’s wobbly, a little disoriented, and looks like he could pass out … or vomit. I think I can knock him out if I get a good punch in. A little voice in my head tells me to go easy. They don’t want us knocking out volunteer challengers.

When the bell rings, ending the second round, I walk to my corner. When I turn around, Knox is on his knees in the middle of the arena, grabbing at his chest and shrinking back to his everyday size.

Rushing over to him, I help him to lie down.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah. It just takes a lot out of me. I … I don’t think I can transition again, and there’s no way I can beat you as I am. I didn’t think a girl could hit so hard.” He laughs and then starts coughing.

“Take a breather, and we’ll see how you are in a few minutes.”

Standing, I make my way over to Felix who jumps up onto the platform. “He’s not sure he can go on,” I tell him.

Felix goes to talk to Knox and is then suddenly announcing my win.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have just experienced history here tonight. In just two rounds, Heatwave has managed to wipe her opponent out. Knox, my boy, you fought hard, but it seems we have a feisty new Litmus fighter on our hands.
Heatwave!
”

Really? Just like that, it’s over? I won?

The crowd cheers as medics rush the stage to tend to Knox. Brett jumps in the arena, quick to come to my side to hold my hand up, victorious.

He lets me have my time in the spotlight before dragging me off the stage where we’re escorted by security back to the employee quarters. When we get into the outer corridors, Brett lets go of my hand. “Look at you! I knew you could do it. And you barely broke a sweat,” he says, slapping me on my shoulder. His excitement is a little overwhelming.

“You’re exaggerating, because I feel gross. I’m covered in sweat, and I’m not entirely sure it’s all mine.”
Eww.

“Want to have a shower before I take you upstairs?”

“Nope. I want to rip Cade and Jonas apart right now.”

He stops walking and turns to face me. “You have every right to be angry, but you may want to tread carefully with them.”

“I just won them a lot of money, they can hear what I have to say.”

He doesn’t say any more, just leads me upstairs to the corporate box. When we walk in, all heads turn to us. There’s people smiling at me all round, raising their drinks and congratulating me as we make our way through the crowd. Jonas and Cade are by the windows that overlook the arena. Locking eyes with them, I nod my head in the direction of their office, and they follow us, letting us in.

“You really should have showered before coming up here, Nuka,” my mother chides.

“Well, you shouldn’t have told everyone who I am.”

“We probably should’ve asked you firs—”

“No, we shouldn’t have,” Jonas says, cutting her off. “It’s part of her image, her brand. The daughter of Paxton James has come to the dark side to seek vengeance. You can’t make this stuff up!”

“But it is made up. He’s not the reason I’m here.
She
is,” I say, pointing at Cade. “I didn’t want anything to do with the political world. I grew up in it, remember? It’s why I’m setting my charity up in
your
name. I don’t want to be associated with them. Not to mention I had to come up with a stupid stage name to protect my identity, and you just go and throw it in everyone’s faces.”

“No one knows your real name,” Cade says. “The only information made public is that Paxton had a daughter, your name was kept out of it. We made sure of it. I didn’t even know your name and I’m your mother.”

“It wouldn’t be too hard for someone to do some digging,” I say through gritted teeth.

“This isn’t a big deal, Nuka,” Jonas says.

“Maybe not for you. My whole life I’ve been the daughter of assassinated presidential candidate Paxton James. I wanted to come here and be someone else, be my own person. Why aren’t I known for being Cade’s daughter? The daughter of Deakin?”

“It doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Jonas says simply.

“I don’t friggin’ care. I don’t want my dad to be part of my marketing strategy.”

“Nuke,” Brett interrupts. “You’ve said your piece. How about I take you down to get showered.”

When I turn to give Brett a death stare, he looks sheepish, boyish even. How can someone so tough be so weak when it comes to Jonas and Cade?

“Brett’s right. You’ve said your piece, we’ll take it into consideration, but you can’t come up here demanding things, young lady. We’ve been more than fair—”

“We’ll give it some thought,” Cade says, interrupting Jonas in a more calming tone than his. “You did well tonight. You should go celebrate after you’ve showered and filled your promotional commitments up here. Just forget about the business side of things. We’ll handle it, okay?”

Knowing that this conversation is over—at least from their side—I storm out of the room but not before I get one last warning from Jonas. “We know what’s best. Remember that.”

-15-

HEATWAVE

“Get showered, then we’ll head back upstairs to talk to the important people,” Brett says.

“You can tell the ‘important people’ to go f—”

“Nuke, it’s part of your job.”

I tense my jaw and let out a huff. “Fine.”

Showering as slowly as I can to put off the inevitable, I eventually get out and change into skinny jeans, sparkly top, and my leather jacket. Brett’s waiting for me by the door when I get out of the locker room. “If you’re a good girl, I’ll take you to the after party with the rest of the fighters.”

“Why are you so scared of them?”

“Of who?” he asks.

“Cade and Jonas.”

“Do I really have to tell you about needing this job, again? I’m starting to sound like a broken record.”

“I just don’t understand why you won’t stand up for what you want. It’s not like you’re defying them by telling them you don’t want to do something.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t risk it, Nuke. I have nothing to fall back on.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t cut you loose because you state your opinion. And I’m sure you could get back on your feet if they did.”

“How, by joining Shane’s crew? Breaking into people’s homes and selling whatever I can get my hands on?”

“Have you even tried to do anything with your degree? You could—”

He stops walking and puts up his hands. “Just stop. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to get into this with you.
Again.
Let’s just go, pretend to like each other, mingle, and then I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.”

“
Pretend?
Ouch.”

Brett sighs. “You know what I mean.”

Brett leads me into Deakin’s corporate box, placing his hand on the small of my back as any good fake boyfriend would do. He proceeds to drag me around, introducing me to stiff people in formal attire who congratulate me on both my win and for my relationship with Brawn. I have to bite my tongue to keep from sarcastically saying,
“Yes, it’s a full-time job trying to hold down a man.”
Ugh.

After twenty minutes of schmoozing, everyone starts congregating by the windows. Another fight has started. My face finally drops from the forced effort of having to smile.

“Now’s your chance to escape—they’re distracted with Taser and Slider,” Brett whispers in my ear. His arm’s still around me, even though the crowd has moved away from us.

“Then let’s get that drink.”

We sneak out, Cade catching my eye as we reach the door. She looks alarmed, but then half-smiles and gives a subtle nod, turning Jonas’s arm towards her so his back is to us and he can’t see us leaving.

With our obligations fulfilled … kind of … Brett walks me around the upstairs area to the opposite side of the arena,
arriving at another door.

“The fighter’s box,” he says, opening the door.

The interior is nothing like the Deakin corporate box. It looks more like a seedy nightclub in here than a high-class lounge. Under a giant black light, everything glows in pastel. There’s an unmanned bar to our right and bathrooms to our left. As we move farther into the room, there are couches strewn around the small area and a group of people huddled by the windows. At least that’s the same as in Deakin—everyone’s all interested in the fight.

Brett pours red drinks into glasses at the bar, offering me one.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay sober so I can drive your drunk ass home again? How will we get there if we’re both drunk?”

“I’ll only have a couple.”

Shrugging, I take the glowing drink from him. As I put the glass to my lips, the scent of pure alcohol fills my nostrils, making me shiver—and not in the good way.

“What is this?” I ask, wrinkling my face. “It smells like cleaning solvent.”

“It’s
your
drink. You proved tonight that you’re a Red.”

“Don’t even get me started on the really poor science gimmick.”

He shrugs and half-smiles. “I dunno, you seem pretty acidic to me.”

Pursing my lips, I try not to smile back. “What’s actually
in
the drink?”

“Vodka.”

“Is there any beer?”

He laughs. “Sure.”

Swapping my glass out for a bottle of beer, Brett downs my discarded drink in one go and then brings his with us as we make our way over to the window where the others are.

“Nuka!”

Brett immediately retreats to the couches a few feet away at the sound of Holly’s voice. She runs from the other side of the room and throws her arms around me. Everyone else takes their eyes off the fight, and suddenly I’m surrounded by the rest of Deakin and others I’m sure I’ve already met, but I can’t remember their names.

They’re all congratulatory, patting me on the back and fist bumping me.

“You were awesome tonight,” Holly says when the crowd goes back to watching the fight.

“Thanks.”

The fight round ends with a loud ding, and murmurs break out amongst the fighters.

“Who won?” I ask.

“Dunno. It was close,” Steve says, not taking his eyes off the arena.

“That close, huh?”

“It was one round each until that last one, and they’re both still standing. I reckon it’ll go to Taser, though. He got more hits in.”

“So I see you’ve still got a hold of him,” Holly says, distracting me from what’s happening in the arena.

“Huh?” I ask, turning to face her.

She nods to Brett who’s now joined on the couch by Ryker and Colton.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

“You must be really good in bed.”

Did she really just say that? Out loud?
“Uh … we … uh …”
No, I don’t have to tell her anything.

“Wait, what?” she exclaims. “You haven’t …”

“Not like that,” I try to say, but even I don’t know what I mean.

“Not like what?”

Glancing over at Brett, my eyes scream for him to come save me. He shakes his head, slowly and firmly. I swear I can almost hear his thoughts,
“I’m not dealing with crazy tonight.”

Sighing, I turn back to Holly. “Well, if you must know, Brett has some issues in that area. Maybe it was from whoring around all those years, but he can no longer … you know—”

“Nuke,” his voice interrupts me as he reaches my side. He looks at Holly. “She’s joking.”

Holly’s staring at us wide-eyed, and she’s clearly trying not to laugh.

“Excuse us,” Brett says, grabbing my arm and dragging me away.

“Was that hard? No pun intended.”

He shakes his head. “You’re going to be the death of me, I swear.” He tries not to smile, but his lips curve up at the edges.

“Well, if you’d just saved me when I wanted you to.”

“I’m getting another drink,” he says, walking to the little bar area.

A few more fighters approach me, Flynn being the only one I recognise. His light skin and golden hair are in complete contrast to the two guys he’s with who are both tanned with dark hair.

“Hey. These are two of my teammates. They wanted to meet you. Seb, Tao, this is Nuka … sorry,
Heatwave
,” he says mockingly.

They both offer their fists for me to bump.

“It was the best of a bad bunch of names they let me pick from.”

The three of them laugh. “Don’t worry. We all know what that’s like,” Seb says.

“Oh? What are your stage names?”

“I’m Titanium,” Seb says.

“Gemini,” Tao says.

“So I’m guessing you’re like some sort of man of steel type thing, and you’re …?”

Flynn laughs, slapping Tao on the back. “When you go into the arena with him, you have to fight two of him.”

“Note to self, avoid fighting Tao for as long as I can,” I say.

“Good plan,” Flynn says.

“I dunno,” Ryker interrupts, joining us with Colton at his side. “I’ve been training with her. I reckon she could take Gemini,” he says with a proud smile.

“Whoa, don’t let Brett catch you flirting. That one belongs to him.” We all turn towards Taser’s voice. “Yes, everyone, I’m here! Victorious again.”

I want to wipe the cocky smirk off his face.

Stepping forwards, he joins our little group. “I’d say we can share in the win, but it’s not like the drunk you fought put up much of a fight, did he?”

“Back off, Brayden,” Colton says.

“Not to mention you showed weakness by showing concern for your opponent. Have they taught you nothing?”

“Showing compassion is not a weakness.” Ryker beats me to the punch. “It shows she’s not heartless.”

Taser leans closer to me. “I don’t know how a little bitch like you has so many guys waiting in line to defend you.”

I flinch at his words, not because they’re hateful, and untrue—which they are—but because they’ve come out of nowhere. Narrowing my eyes, I glare at him. “Maybe it has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the fact that you’re a dick.”

Taser chuckles as the others let out a collective “oooh.” “I can’t wait to get in the arena with you, little girl. They’re going to need a body bag when I’m done.”

Brett’s gruff voice cuts through the air. “That’s enough, Brayden. Go be an ass somewhere else.”

“Why are you so whipped?” Taser asks Brett but doesn’t take his eyes off me. “She doesn’t seem all that special,” he adds, roaming over me with his eyes.

“Nuke, let’s just go,” Brett says.

“Yeah, run away. Until next time,” Taser taunts.

Brett starts dragging me away.

“What the hell is his problem?” I ask, as we start to make our way downstairs and back into the crowd.

Brett showed me the fourth entry tonight, so we have to exit through the opposite side of the building.

“I don’t know. He’s always been painful, but I have no idea what his deal is with you.”

He holds my hand as we make our way across the main floor and through the busy bar area when a high-pitched screeching voice calls after me. “Heatwave. Heatwave!” Ignoring it, we continue on. “Nuka!”

Stopping dead in my tracks, I turn towards the voice. Only the fighters and staff are supposed to know my real name.

Has it got out already?

I’m almost knocked off my feet when I see who the voice belongs to.

“Gabby?”
Gabby from high school, Gabby?
“Last time I saw you, we were kind of wasted on a dancefloor at my birthday,” I say as she hugs me. “What are you doing at Litmus?”

“Me? You’re asking what
I’m
doing here?
Heatwave?
”

“That’s a bit of a long story, actually.”

A warm hand wraps around me from behind. “Nuke, we going?” Brett asks.

Gabby’s face lights up. “Brawn!” She looks star-struck.

“Who’s this?” Brett asks with a polite smile.

“Gabby. We went to school together,” I tell him, not taking my eyes off her. “I still don’t know why you’re here … how you’re here? You’re …” I stop myself before saying the word “normal.”

“My dad’s an investor. Sometimes he lets me come. You have no idea how much I freaked out when I saw you take the stage. I tried following you backstage, but they wouldn’t let me. Oh my God, this is insane.” She starts jumping up and down excitedly. “And you and Brawn … Oh my God, you’re so lucky. This is so awesome.”

“Okay, okay, calm down, geez,” I say, her smile becoming contagious.

“I never pegged you as someone who hung out with the cheerleader, peppy type,” Brett says in my ear.

I nudge him with my elbow. “Shut up.”

He turns to Gabby. “Is it okay if I take my girl home?”

I swear Gabby’s blushing. “Uh … sure. Of course. Nuka, we’ll definitely have to catch up.” She leans in for another hug. “And
soon.”

“It was good seeing you,” I say politely, before turning to head out.

We make it through the rest of the crowd, getting a few more stares and people wanting to shake both our hands along the way.

“That’s the only downside to parking at this club,” Brett says as we get into the hallway. “We have to walk through the crowd to get out.”

We make our way down the darkened hallway that leads to a tunnel, similar to the other club entrance.

I climb up the narrow stairs leading to the VIP area of Alchemy, the bar in the city. Brett follows close behind me.

“Damn,” he says under his breath, but I hear it.

Stopping mid-step, I turn and look down at him below me. “What?”

He shakes his head. “I was wrong—you’re not going to be the death of me, those jeans are,” he says with a cheeky smile.