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“Will you let Kren go? If you end this Challenge, I’ll do whatever you want, I swear. Just let him go and there won’t be any problems.”
“There won’t be any problems anyway. And if I leave him alive, there will be plenty more problems later.”
The crowd outside hissed as if something very painful had happened to one of the fighters in the pit.
Please, please, please, don’t let it be Kren.
“Please,” I said. “Let Kren go. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“None of us deserve this. But this is life. And life is a struggle for us all.”
I doubted any truer word had ever been said. And I doubted it was any truer than for Kren right now.
22
KREN
I fell and my chin bit the dirt. The pain sent a shock down my neck and through my body.
I couldn’t afford to keep taking these blows. Not when I was in a Survivor Challenge. Each blow wouldn’t just injure me now, but into the future. It sapped my energy and made me slower and weaker against future opponents.
Even worse—my opponents knew that and came out swinging. The more they could weaken me, the easier it was to defeat me.
I rolled to one side as my opponent swung a blade at me on his long arms. The sword slammed into the dry dirt of the pit floor, missing me by inches.
I got to my feet and raised the cracked shield in both arms as the elastrax thrust his arms at me. They extended, far beyond the ability of a regular alien.
This alien species was called an elastrax. They had the ability to dislocate their joints and take advantage of their rubbery skin. It made fighting them difficult because they always held the reach advantage.
But it also meant they could get themselves entangled, which was a fact I was about to exploit right now.
The elastrax was the second opponent I’d faced today and I wasn’t about to lose. I felt good, and although I was still a little tired from the earlier shock rifle treatment, I knew I could hold my own against this creature.
Are you enjoying this, Supervisor? I thought, glancing up at the observation window.
I was taken aback by the sight of not the Supervisor peering down at me but Ivy. She sat in the chair and two guards stood to attention beside her. The Supervisor whispered in her ear.
I knew the kind of things he would be telling her, the kind of promises he would make her. They were the same words he whispered to me when I was a small child.
A new resolve imbued me with determination. I stood a little taller and arched my back. I extended the shield and weakened my grip on it.
Ivy was what I was fighting for. Not for survival, not for glory, but to reach her and claim her as my Prize—not for a single day but for every day.
She was who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
And the bendy creature was standing in my way.
I needed to go through him to get to her.
I narrowed my eyes.
So be it.
The elastrax thrust his arms at me. I let his arms smash into my shield and grip it. I let him get a good hold before I twisted it and slammed it onto the ground, pinning one of his arms to the dirt.
He yanked to free it but couldn’t. His other arm swung his blade at me, but I ducked, grabbed his wrist, and snapped it.
My opponent howled with pain.
