Straight through the Heart

Chapter 25

We enter the square boxing arena.

As I stare into his eyes, I briefly consider running.

He's the biggest and meanest guy I have ever faced.

I am really considering running.

The only thing stopping me from running is the fact that I have a bomb in my head. Otherwise, I would be long gone from here.

 Also, everyone is staring at us. There are only two sparring pads.

I take a deep breath and charge. 

Ben steps up, "I don't want to send you to the hospital." He looks at me.

"Remember what I said last time," he looks at my opponent, "If you do it again, then I am sitting your ass out." The opponent snarls at Ben, who is unfazed.

"Knock out, or tap out. That's how you end the fight." 

Everyone gathers around. 

"Is this a normal sparring fight?" I look to Ben.

"Sweetie," he winks. "Nothing is normal around here."

My opponent starts swinging as soon as the fight starts. I nimbly avoid and dodge all punches as I back away to gain some distance from him. 

I think back to the times I sparred with my cousins. They were always bigger than me. I have plenty of experience with using my size to my advantage. Unfortunately, I am not at my full peak, but it will have to do.

"You going to keep running away?" He growls, thirsting for my blood to spill.

I do a fast roundhouse kick to his chin. He backs away and holds his chin. Coming back toward me, he goes for some more punches. I block them and parry back with some hard punches to his ribs and torso. 

Before he can land another punch, I open his hand and push back his fingers. The crack of his fingers make a crunchy noise as I bring him to his knees. He groans as I punch him once again at his face. 

I keep aiming punches at him as he is thrown back by the force. Kicking him in the torso, I run toward him once more. This time, the kick isn't as effective. He barely moves and catches me unawares. Landing a punch to my face, I barely have time to block it and am knocked to the ground. 

Before I have time to recover, he pulls me up by my hair (which is very unfair and dirty). Throwing me across the mat, I land really hard against the thin mat and groan. I think I bruised some ribs. I hear some jeers and cheers from the sidelines when I land on the ground. Glad to know everyone is supporting me. 

I roll against the ground and quickly get up. I am still a little disorientated and barely manage to dodge his next attacks. 

My arms hurt from his punches and I can feel them slowly get sore and weaken. I grip onto his next punch and twist his arm around his back. Kicking straight to his back, he is thrown forward and onto the ropes that surrounds the arena. 

Each time he bounces forward, I land another punch to his face. Each crunch beneath my knuckles only make me push harder.

But it also makes me vulnerable to certain attacks. He somehow breaks through my defense and  punches me sideway. I back away unbalanced. Then, he grabs my throat and lifts me up. 

I struggle before clipping his chin from below. I swing around and twist my knees between his neck. We topple over and I hold him in a grapple on the ground. He struggles but it only pulls his shoulder from its socket. 

And he fucking bites me. 

I yell in pain before walking away from him. 

He charges towards me and I sweep at his legs so he falls. I land on top of him and start pummeling at his face until I feel someone pull me off.  All I see is red as I aim my attacks at him. 

"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa." Ben steps back as I swing my fists toward him. I pause and drop them.

"We have a winner." 

I climb out of the arena and spit some blood into the trash. I look for some water to rinse out my mouth but find none. Instead, I go and sit on an empty bench.

"Damn bitch. You didn't need to nearly kill him." Amber sits next to me.

I look at her without saying something. Honestly, I didn't mean to nearly kill him. I got too caught up in the fight. I don't know what I was thinking. Looking at my raw and bloodied hands, I am surprised by what they can do to a human being. I have been brought up to use fighting only as self defense. This felt like a street fight more than a sparring match. 

"Will he be okay?" I finally ask her. 

"He will heal within a day or two." She shrugs like she doesn't care. I don't think she actually cares.

"What's up with the healing?"

"You should know."

"What do you mean?" I ask her. She's being very vague.

"I can't say anything." She touches her nose and smirks.

"Fuck you." I say angrily. "Can you find someone else to bother?"

"Ouch," she grins. "And here I thought I was spending some quality bonding time with my dearest friend."

"Well, I got to prepare for my match too." She gets up.

"Wait, where are they bringing him?" I see my opponent brought away on a stretcher. 

"Where the losers go." She says cryptically once more.

I watch as the doors close behind the guy. Is he going to become one of the experiments that I saw before?

I continue to sit quietly on my bench as I spectate the other matches. Some are bloodier than others. Some are quicker than others. I watch as they all seem to fight at an almost inhuman pace. Some fight on part with my cousins and perhaps even my mother. 

I hope I don't need to fight them because my fight was pretty close. 

What I do notice is that none of the losers are brought away the same way that my opponent was. 

I wonder why that is? 

When everyone is done sparring, we head to the cafeteria. I wait in line for my turn.  So far, everyone has left me alone either pretending I don't exist or perhaps that I am too beneath them to associate with me. This is fine by me. 

I grab my food and sit in a corner by myself and observe. All I have been doing is observing everyone. 

I have gathered  a lot of information but am still missing a lot of key pieces. 

One such piece is why the hell I am still alive and where the hell is my brother. 

I miss my brother so much. 

I hope he is okay.

I wish there was some way to contact him, some way to know that he is okay. 

I assume because I am alive that he is also alive. 

After eating, I head back to my room. I have been given a lot more freedom in a while, enough for me to walk around without any chaperones. However, I feel like I am constantly being watched regardlessly. 

On my bed, I see a piece of paper tucked inside my folded pajamas. Looking around, I wonder who it is from. Hope rises as I hope it is Rob. 

Opening the folded paper, I read the contents. All it says is "I'm ok." That's more than I have gotten in a while. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and sink to my knees. 

He's alive. 

____

Short. kinda a filler.

sorry I've been MIA.

Engineering is difficult. I am on the quarter system so I have midterms every other week :/ Thank you for being patient!!!

<3 <3

Much love,

Lystra