“Yeah.” Sasha took out her other list, also gifted to her by Bradley. “Are any of these people fighting together? My friend cobbled together a list of whom he thought I should bet on.”
Amara snatched the list out of Sasha’s hands and instantly got to work on her computer. “Yes, at least four of them are fighting tonight. Two have retired, and the others are not here. You’d need to come at another time if you wanna do it.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet a hundred dollars on each.”
Sasha whistled. “You’ve got some money to spend it seems!”
To be honest, no, Sasha didn’t. This was the last of her savings. She’d had to go straight from school to work full time because her parents were too desperately poor. They were good, kind people, but they never had any money, working minimum-wage jobs because they knew of nothing else and had no time to reach for better. She’d moved out because there just wasn’t enough space in their little apartment with her two siblings and a newborn son. It meant living in a crappy trailer park with a group of other trailers on the edge of town by the desert, but the people there also had no money, and what little they did have, they spent on things they shouldn’t have.
Now, with being fired from her latest job because they needed to downsize and decided Sasha’s job would be one of the ones they’d cut, a cloud of desperation hung over her, following her every move.
Today, she’d decided to gamble her way out of that cloud, or make it even worse.
“Okay, cash or card?”
“Card.”
Sasha paid and saw that Amara had registered her bets on two fae fighters, a werewolf, and a necromancer. She still had a little more cash she wanted to spend, although it would mean she’d have to bet blind on someone and having absolutely no idea of their actual skill or chances of winning.
“Can you recommend someone for me to bet on? I’m new here, and I really wanna splash some more cash.”
Amara chuckled, and her eyes glowed a little brighter. “Well, I do have some recommendations, but you know, it’s never a complete guarantee who wins and who loses.” She beckoned Sasha to look at her screen and clicked on the dragon fighters. “Here,” she said, pointing out three of the dragon fighters. “The Black Death, Red Fang, and Sun Eater are all solid fighters who have won their fair share. I recommend one of these three. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
Sasha stared at all the impressive yet bizarre nicknames the fighters gave themselves. At this point, she could throw a dart and pick anything. “Sure, Sun Eater sounds badass, let’s go for him.” Her eyes continued to scroll until pausing at a particular name.
The Lonely.Not Loner or Lone Wolf or whatever impressive names they had. JustThe Lonely.“This one too.” Sasha pointed at the name.
“That’s a new one,” Amara informed her. “So, they’re set at fifty-to-one odds.”
New and unknown. Like me.She considered the name, pursing her lips. “Two hundred.” The last of Sasha’s money. She paid for it on her card, trying not to feel ill at the fact that she’d just splurged every last cent on something she once told herself she’d never do.
With the bets registered, Amara printed out the check, and winked at Sasha. “Good luck. Maybe I’ll see you back over here later for some winnings.” She pointed to a door. “Through there is the dragon fight pit since you said you wanted to watch them.”
Sasha thanked Amara, trying to avoid eye contact because she suspected Amara was trying hard to exert her succubus magic–and pushed through the door. A werewolf snapped at her as she passed, and she meandered her way to a huge underground arena that could seat hundreds and boxes for the rich perched high above the center stage.
She peered up at the box seats, but it was hard to see who was in them, as they were curtained off, obscuring her view. The crowd in the arena roared, and her attention turned to two massive green dragons that bit, ripped, and clawed, duking it out center stage. Neither had wings, and as she observed the two titans clashing she felt pretty small and insignificant.
Humans couldn’t do these things. They couldn’t turn into these huge beasts and fight with this ferocity. She imagined herself in that scenario, facing one of the green dragons alone, all five-foot-five inches of her, against something that towered ten feet over her.
Part of the reason she wanted to watch the dragons was because they were the biggest, most feared of the supernaturals. Some could fly, some could breathe fire, some housed monstrous strength and scales that could repel bullets. Some were savage and lived high in the mountains, and you knew if those territories belonged to dragons because they were burnt-out areas littered with the bones of animals and the occasional hiker who thought they could brave the territory of the wild dragons.
The darker green dragon out of the two crashed to the ground, thrown by a brutal body slam from a lighter green one. The dark green dragon writhed in pain before going still when the other one clamped his jaws around their neck. They thumped their tail viciously, and a referee from the stands yelled through a loudspeaker, “The Leaf Knight wins the duel! The Emerald Baron has conceded!”
The crowd roared, some booed, and Sasha paid a little more attention.
Three more fights went ahead, and she learned a little of the rules by general observation. Slapping their tail against the ground three times was how they tapped out for defeat. No fire breathing. No attacking each other before the referee announced it. No murder… but accidents could happen.
The fourth fight featured Sun Eater versus Red Fang, and her interest intensified. Sun Eater walked into the arena, first as a bare-chested human, waving at the crowd and beaming, before morphing into a huge, golden-colored dragon. Red Fang was, well, red. Sun Eater, Sasha was pleased to see, happened to be much bigger than Red Fang.
Sasha was less pleased, however, when five minutes later, Sun Eater tapped out, and Red Fang won the fight by simply anticipating Sun Eater’s ponderous movements. She could practically hear the warble of one hundred dollars going down the drain as the one she bet on failed miserably. Of course, she brooded about her decision to pick the wrong dragon. She should have chosen Red Fang.Goddamn idiot,she hissed at herself, even though she knew there was just no real way for her to predict such a thing. She was relying on the recommendations of others. What the hell did she know about all the technicalities? She needed money. She had no job. She didn’t want to gamble it away at a casino because the casinos in Las Vegas bled you dry and reveled in it.
She’d seen her father lose his winnings in the casinos. Her mother had persuaded him to give up the slots before it had a chance to ruin him beyond repair, and they lived instead with dedication to their jobs and families. If Sasha ever became rich, she’d make sure her parents had a big house and never had to worry about money again.
For now, though, she could barely even keep herself afloat. And the last thing she wanted to do was move back in with her parents and be a part of that mad scramble.
There were a few more matches, and she started trying to predict who would win from how they moved and reacted. She didn’t quite have the nuance of it down yet, though. Occasionally, she glanced up at the high boxes, wondering what sort of supernaturals lingered behind the curtains. Obviously, the wealthier ones. Wealthy criminals, she supposed, running their underground syndicates in Nevada. She imagined men and women in sleek, expensive clothes, watching the fights below. She knew some people would bet thousands, throwing away the kind of money she’d only ever dreamed of seeing.
Maybe Sasha was slightly insane, choosing this option to try and secure funds. Maybe there were other, better ways. Maybe she could try sleeping rough until a job opportunity occurred, but so many jobs actually wanted her to have a place of residence first. Still, there were options that didn’t involve going deep into the underbelly of a supernatural club that was most likely the heart of underground crime in Las Vegas.