“Nice. Looks fragile, though,” one of them says.
“Oh, yes, but she puts out well enough,” Graham says, and they all laugh, making me want to scratch their eyes out. “Not that it matters,” he adds. “As long as she gets pregnant, I’m happy. Any offers?”
“I haven’t seen enough of what he can do yet,” one of the men says, and he cocks his head. “Show me more.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing; none of it makes any sense in my reality.
But this is their world … their domain … where everything wrong is the norm.
These aren’t people … they’re monsters.
“More!” Graham shouts, beckoning more fighters to step forward. Soon, Cage is overwhelmed, fighting as well as he can, but he’s losing. He can’t beat that many people at the same time. Does Graham actually want him to lose? Bring him to the point of death before releasing him from his pain?
How could he?
I keep jumping up and down in my chair, trying to shake these ropes off, but it’s no use. I don’t stop making a ruckus, trying to get them to stop. However, none of them seems to give a shit about me sitting here tied to a chair, watching the dirty fighting game in front of me.
Cage is barely hanging on, and his face wears a look of utter defeat. He’s almost ready to lay down his life. But I don’t want him to die. It would kill me.
“Cage!” I scream. “Don’t give up!”
Everyone’s looking at me again, but I don’t care.
I just want him to push through all of it and come out victorious.
He didn’t give up on me, so I won’t give up on him. We can make it. We can pull through. Together.
Accompanying Song: “My Name Is Human” by Highly Suspect
Cage
My ears catch the sound of her voice. From the corner of my eye, I see her sitting on a chair, but I can’t look for more than a second because I’m already brutally smacked in the face. Fist after fist, it just keeps raining down on me, and I can barely keep up. A hook from the left from mystery man one then a kick to the knees from mystery man two.
I don’t know why we’re fighting or what the point is, but I don’t have the time to ask either. The hits just keep coming, and if I don’t dodge them, I’m down on the floor. Once that happens, I’m a goner, so I can’t let it happen.
But fuck … it’s hard.
I keep shuffling, defending myself even though my body shakes with adrenaline.
Blood pours from the wound between my ribs, and it hurts … but I bite through the pain and keep fighting.
That’s all I can do. Keep fighting … Keep fighting to live.
I don’t know how long this has been going on, but it feels like ages. Father put me here after our struggle. I woke up on the floor with a man staring right back at me. That same man just threw a punch at me, which I barely dodged.
Father wants me to fight them all. Not for money but as punishment. But why? He keeps adding more. I can’t beat all of them. Does he want me to die? Does he hate me so much that he wants to get rid of me? All because we tried to escape. Maybe it was a stupid idea.
However, the moment I hear her scream and see her twitching in the chair, I know we did the right thing by standing up to him. It’s what she wanted, and I’d rather have her be proud of me than him. I don’t care anymore about what he thinks or wants. All that matters to me is her.
And if I can’t have her—can’t give her the freedom she deserves—then what’s the point?
Another hit to the chin makes me go down, and I struggle to get up. They kick me in my stomach, and I cough up blood.
Her shriek goes through marrow and bone, but the sound wakes me. Pulls me from my misery, from my self-loathing … and I get up and fight again.
With her here, watching me, there’s no fucking way I’ll ever go down.
Why? Because I refuse to let her see me defeated.
To make her watch me die.
No.
However, my body is tired from the drugs and weak from the wound, unable to fight as it usually does. The men in the stands laugh at my pain and her squeals, and it makes me wanna lash out. So I grab one of the men by his waist, topple him, throw him over my shoulder, and toss him out of the ring.
That gets their attention all right.
“Stop!” one of the men barks, and everyone stops fighting me.
Father seems furious. He stands up and screams, “You think you can act all fucking proud? No fucking way.”