Vanquished Page 3

  “An A!” I grin over at her. “That’s awesome.”

  She shrugs that indifferent shoulder again and tries to hide a proud smile. God, she reminds me so much of myself.

  “You want it bald?” an old lady asks, and I blink from my memory.

  I’m now sitting just outside the women’s bathing area. There’s an old lady here and she’s cutting our hair. She just did the other women who were bought today, and now she’s doing mine.

  “Bald?” she impatiently prompts.

  I shrug as I glance down at all my dark hair on the floor. I didn’t think I had a choice.

  She pats my head that now has inch long choppy hair. “This is the longest Dominus allows. We’ll leave it. If you decide you want bald, just let me know.”

  The old lady gives me a shove, and I get up off the wood bench and walk into the bathing area.

  Sera is here along with the other women warriors. Camille, too, and those who came in on our cart. Ten of us females in all. I assume the men are in their own bathing area.

  Some of the women are in the large stone bath cleaning themselves. Others sit on wood benches, meticulously shaving their legs, underarms, and pubes.

  Dominus wasn’t kidding when he said he doesn’t like hair.

  I watch those who are shaving as they scrape the arched blades over their skin. I’m going to kill myself with that medieval looking thing. Or use it to escape…

  One of the warriors looks up at me, catches me staring, and barks, “You like to watch? I’ll give you something to watch.”

  Gritting my teeth so I don’t bark back, I turn to the bath. Camille’s already in there, shooting me a warning look. Her blond hair is cut just like mine instead of bald.

  I return her warning look with one of my own that I hope conveys I’ll be good. Hers softens then to a sad relieved smile and she ducks her head to give me privacy.

  I strip and walk right in the hot water. I’ve never minded being naked. I’m not self-conscious. I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and just soak the heat into my exhausted body.

  Without a word, I grab a bar of soap, lather a rag, and viciously scrub my skin. I want the filth of this place off of me.

  Naked, Sera proudly strolls across the bathing room straight toward the woman who had to go first on the auctioning block. The one whose breasts were too large for the white band they gave us all to wear.

  “What’s your name?” Sera demands.

  “F-F-Felicia. That’s what they named me.” She grips the towel in front of her naked body, much like she had her tunic when she was up on the block.

  “F-F-Felicia,” Sera parrots and the warrior women all laugh.

  I clench my jaw.

  “Don’t get involved,” Camille cautions me.

  Sera yanks away Felicia’s towel and throws it across the room.

  “Leave me alone,” Felicia whimpers.

  Sera rakes her intimidating gaze down the length of Felicia’s shaking, naked body. “You’re fat.”

  There was a big girl back home in our neighborhood who used to bully and terrorize some of the kids. I caught her picking on my sister once and punched her in the eye. “Leave her alone,” I grit out.

  With one hand, Sera shoves Felicia and she stumbles back.

  I shoot up out of the water, fueled by everything. Sera’s harassment. My meeting with Dominus. My sister. This whole place. “I said leave her alone.”

  Slowly, Sera pivots and pins me with her dark gaze. “You are nothing.” She stretches out one long muscular leg. “This is bigger than your whole body. You think just because Dominus paid some stupid money for you that you’re special?”

  She points to a large S shaped scar on the back of her shoulder. “This is the mark of a true champion. Only those who win in the fights get to bare it.”

  “I could care less about some stupid branded S on your shoulder.”

  Sera comes right at me, and I step completely out of the bath to meet her. I don’t care that she’s enormous. I’ve had enough.

  She towers above me, her eyes too wide, her lips curled back like a snarling dog. Logic tells me I can’t beat her, but I sure will give it my best if that’s what this comes to.

  She opens her mouth, like she’s going to take a bite out of me, and instead unrolls her unnaturally long tongue. She waggles it at me and makes some weird satanic sound.

  “Is that why you’re called ‘Sera the serpent?’”

  Alexior steps into the bath room. “Stop.” He looks straight in Sera’s face, then into mine, not even glancing down at our naked bodies. “You’ll settle this on the training ground, not in here. Now be done. Dinner’s out and ready.”

  Sera and I glare at each other. This is one score far from settled.

  ~6~

  Feeling clean and near-human again, I take my place in the dinner line at the back and wait for all the men and women warriors to load their bowls with chunks of meat and rice and stalks of broccoli. Despite this entire horrible day, my stomach audibly growls at the spicy scent.

  Sera goes right before we newcomers, and when we finally step up, there’s only a couple scoops of rice and some broccoli left. They did it on purpose.

  Camille’s eyes water. “I can’t do this,” she whispers.

  “Yes, you can,” I assure her.

  Behind the long table stands a small old man I assume cooked everything. He grabs a spoon and slings a wad of rice into Camille’s bowl, but nearly half of it falls to the ground.

  The cook scoffs. “Recruits eat whatever is deemed left.” He nods to the rice on the dirt beneath our feet. “And off of wherever.”

  I glance over to Alexior who has been silently standing along the wall. He doesn’t do anything. Just stares straight ahead. Isn’t he in charge? Shouldn’t he do something?

  Camille kneels down, like a dog, and scoops the rice into her bowl.

  I unclench my fist so I don’t punch the cook who merely raises an eyebrow in challenge.

  The veteran warriors have left no room for us at the wooden tables, so we recruits, as I now know we’re called, find a spot over in the corner on the floor. None of us speak as we inhale the meager dinner and shamelessly lick the bowls.

  With a sigh, Felicia puts her empty bowl down on the ground. “I miss my boyfriend.”

  Her comment makes me think of the conversation I had with Camille in the cart. “Do you have any family?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Just my boyfriend. We’ve only been dating a month.”

  “How’d you end up here?” Camille asks.

  “My boyfriend and I were camping in Canada, and when I woke up, I was here. Wherever here is.” She straightens, like an idea just hit her. “Do you think they took him, too?”

  None of us respond. Who knows? Maybe. Or maybe he’s the reason why she is here. Like Mr. Vasquez is for me.

  I look at the other three women sitting in our circle. “Any of you? Family?” I ask, and they all shake their heads. Just what I thought. No one knows we’re missing. No one knows to come looking for us.

  “I have a daughter,” the woman sitting directly across from me quietly says. She looks older than the rest of us. Maybe late twenties. She has features like she’s an Asian-Caucasian mix. “My name’s Gem by the way.”

  Up to this point she’s been the most silent of us all. I think about her in the original holding cell in the marketplace and then up on that auctioning block. She hadn’t seemed terrified like the rest of us. More like she was going through the motions. None of that had occurred to me until just now.

  She runs her eyes over all of us sitting around her. “I… I was in prison. Ten years for something I promise you I did not do. I signed a one year contract to come here.”

  Her words curl through my brain, confusing me. “What do you mean you signed a contract?”

  “Some man came to visit me. Told me I could come here for a year, my ten would be wiped, and then I could return to my daughter. I took it. She’s only
eight. She’ll be nine when I get home versus eighteen if I would’ve stayed in prison.”

  “Who has your daughter?” I ask.

  “She was placed in foster care.”

  “So then, do you know where we’re at?” Camille asks.

  “No.” Gem shakes her head. “I knew I would be sedated and transported to an island where I would become a house slave in a role play environment.”

  “But you’re not a house slave,” I point out the obvious.

  “I know,” she sighs and the meaning really hits home. They get us here and then they can do whatever they want with us.

  “No other family?” Camille asks, and as expected, Gem shakes her head.

  United States, Denmark, Australia, Canada… Saligia seems to have their fingers everywhere.

  Alexior crosses the outdoor eating area to tower over us. “Enough talking. Get up. You will rest when you prove yourself.”

  ~7~

  It’s dark out now. I don’t know exactly how much time has passed. Hours for sure. The warriors have long gone to bed. Me and the other recruits are in the training area, pacing in a circle with each of us gripping ropes attached to small boulders.

  Though it’s cooler out now that the sun has dropped, sweat drips off my bowed head.

  Each boulder can’t weigh more than ten pounds, but with the hours that have passed, the continuous pacing, and the rough rope wrapped around our hands and wrists, it feels more like a hundred pounds.

  In front of me Felicia crumbles to her knees. I clench my jaw so I won’t yell at her. That’s the fourth time she’s done it. If I can do this, so can she.

  “Get up,” Alexior demands. “Every time you fall, the others suffer. That’s one more hour everyone will pace.”

  I close my eyes. I knew that was coming.

  Alexior hauls Felicia up by her arm. “I can do nothing with you as long as you’re showing such weakness. In the fights you will be a team. You have to have each other’s back. Right now no one can depend on you. You’re making that clear.”

  The first couple of chastisements, I wanted to defend her. Now I want to kick her myself. Another hour. Jesus.

  Grunting and moaning, Felicia stumbles forward and rejoins our pacing circle. I shoot her a death glare that I hope she really gets. She must because the next hour goes by, and she manages to stay upright.

  “Halt,” Alexior speaks into the night. “Sit.” We all fall over instead. He walks around and unstraps the ropes from our wrists. “You may sleep right here in the dirt.”

  I don’t think twice about arguing. I curl up in a ball and close my eyes. A million to get my sister back and earn our freedom. Would they really let us go? It’s the last thought that goes through my brain before I am gone.

  ~*~

  A splash of water wakes me, and I jerk upright. Sera stands over me, laughing, the sun beaming down behind her. I hate her.

  “Valoria,” Alexior calls. “Someone’s here to see you. Come with me.”

  I drag my weary body up and am immediately aware of my blistered hands. I try to flex them and wince. I don’t bother looking at them. I don’t need the visual reminder of the pain. I can only imagine the bruising and burns from the ropes.

  As I drudge across the training area and under the overhang where the warriors sit eating, I gaze longingly at the fruit and bread and cheese on their plates. Hungry acid burns through my stomach like its eating my lining from the inside out.

  I step through the archway where Alexior waits and he opens an iron gate. I glance into the tiny holding cell and to the shackles attached to the wall and immediately back away.

  “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “I’ll release you as soon as she’s done speaking to you.”

  I hesitate. “She?”

  He doesn’t answer and instead nods me inside. He shackles my ankles and wrists to the wall. Instinctually, I give my chains a tug and discover I can only come out about a foot.

  He stands on the other side of the cell, and we both fall silent. I glance around at the murky stone interior, at another door on the other side, and at a dark stain in one corner. As the moments pass, I get more and more anxious. What are we waiting for?

  Alexior rotates his neck ever so slightly, like it’s tense, and I wonder if he wishes he could reach up and rub it. Somehow I don’t see him doing such a natural act.

  The door on the other side of the cell opens. My muscles tense in expectation.

  The red-haired woman from the marketplace steps in. Today she has her bright hair down in long curls and wears a gold gown instead of the silver one. Her makeup is immaculate and she smells like a peculiar mixture of pot and jasmine.

  It only serves to remind me I was up sweating through the night and my mouth is dry and dirty.

  She stands a careful distance in front of me, like she knows the exact reach of my restraints.

  Casually, she takes in my choppy black hair, my filthy tunic from sleeping in the dirt, and my equally filthy skin. Her lip curls, like I stink so powerfully she can barely stand being in here with me.

  Her disgust washes over me and makes me angry. How dare she be offended by me! I hike my chin and proudly return her stare.

  “My name is Bareket, and I am the richest person in Saligia.”

  I want to give into my tendency toward sarcasm and snide, How good for you, but I refrain.

  “You are the very first person who has ever defied me in the marketplace.” Her red brows climb up her forehead. “That displeases me.”

  Well, what does she want to do about it? Beat me? Is that why I’m shackled?

  “I understand from your Dominus that you wanted to come to this ludus because of your sister.”

  A lump slowly begins to thicken in my throat.

  She tilts her head. “Is this true?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “Then you’ll be disappointed to know that you didn’t come with me. Because I bought your sister the day before I was going to buy you.”

  The lump in my throat tightens to near pain, but I manage to ask, “Is she okay?”

  Bareket’s red brows drift back down and then she half smiles. “I wouldn’t know. You see, there were a couple of men who took a liking to her. They had quite the time with her.”

  My chest constricts. No…

  “Indeed they enjoyed her so much,” her voice lowers to coldness, “they offered a fair price to take her with them.”

  I yank at my shackles. “NO!”

  Bareket laughs. “If only you would’ve come with me instead of defy me.”

  “NO!” I jerk against my chains as hot tears burn trails down my cheeks. “Where did they take her?” I scream.

  Bareket backs away. “I wouldn’t know.” She opens her hand and tosses my sister’s bracelet toward me, and it lands at my feet. “That’s all she left behind. You can have it.” With that she walks out.

  I scream and wildly pull at my restraints. Scorching terror surges through me, blistering my veins. “Unlock me,” I sob to Alexior. “Unlock me.”

  Anguish buckles every muscle inward, gutting me of any last hope. I sag against the chains, crying, the clanking metal the only thing holding me up. I peer at Alexior through blurry eyes.

  He doesn’t react to my grief and instead crosses the cell to where I sag. He leans in close and unlocks my now bloody wrists.

  “I hate you,” I tell him. “I hate all of you.”

  He releases my ankles next. “Use the pain to take you to the next level. That’s what will turn you into a warrior. Hate will keep you alive. It will make you a champion.”

  “I don’t care if I’m alive anymore,” I speak so quietly I barely hear my own self.

  “Yes you do. Bareket didn’t say your sister’s dead. You stay alive for her.”

  Crawling forward, I grab Lena’s bracelet. I gave it to her for her tenth birthday. I run my finger over the alternating leather and silver and turn it inside out to read the inscription. Sisters forever and ev
er.

  Through my tears, I stare down at the fuzzy words. Alexior is right. Bareket didn’t say Lena is dead. “Dominus will still find her, right?”

  Alexior nods. “If he said he would, he will.”

  I fasten her bracelet around my wrist and cradle it to my chest. For you, Lena. I will stay alive for you.

  ~8~

  Alexior leaves me alone in the cell, and hours later I finally drag myself up and out. He’s right. I need to stay alive for Lena. She is not dead. She is not.

  Everyone is out training in the courtyard with wooden swords and shields. Over to the left sits a large wooden box filled with more practice swords and shields. In front of the box lay a pile of spears.

  Dad throws his arm around my neck and knuckle rubs my head. “Thata girl. Way to take first place. The other team never expects you for a javelin thrower.”

  Laughing, I poke my dad in the ribs and repeat his own words, “I’m short and scrappy, but deadly.”

  My dad was a cop. From the time I could throw a punch, he worked with me on techniques and skills. He wanted me strong and able to defend myself. Lena never got into it, but I loved training with him. He was also very skilled in gymnastics and taught me a lot of those moves, too. He was the one who encouraged me to join the heptathlon team in high school. And though I was the shortest javelin thrower, I held my own. Actually took first in a lot of competitions.

  My father’s laughter floats through my mind. It’s been two years since he died of pancreatic cancer. I miss him more and more every day. It doesn’t seem to get any better. If he were alive right now, I wouldn’t be here and Lena would be safe.