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The barest lift of her eyebrows was my only answer. Otherwise, she remained intent on her work, her hands working deftly over mine, taping up my wrists and knuckles.
I went on, beating the dead horse, even though it was too late to change anything. “We could’ve figured out a way to look like we were fighting, but both get out of there alive. ”
“Yeah,” Yasuo chimed in. “You’d take a few hits for Emma, wouldn’t you, D?”
I nodded enthusiastically. If anyone knew how to take a few hits, it was me.
“They’d know,” Emma said simply. “It’s better this way. ”
I gave it up, knowing she was probably right. It would’ve been a big red flag if we’d both walked away from our fight when pretty much every other bout ended with a couple of Tracers toting away the loser.
And Emma wasn’t the only one who’d backed out, either. Only about thirty Acari had stepped up to begin with, and then some dropped out once they saw just how serious the combat was. As far as I was concerned, those girls weren’t thinking about the big picture. They didn’t want to get off the island as badly as I did.
I needed to escape. When I contemplated my future, killing teenage girls didn’t strike me as the most sustainable thing for me to be doing in the long term.
“Just be careful. ” Emma calmly ripped the tape and smoothed down the edges. “Girls are dying, Drew. ”
“Thirteen girls dead in twenty-one fights,” I agreed quietly.
“Not exactly stellar numbers,” Yasuo said.
“And those are the ones we saw die. ” Emma’s eyes met mine and we grew still. She pinned me with that stoic stare. “Who knows where the others we
re taken, or if we’ll ever see them again?”
“Ambassadors, my ass,” I muttered, spotting Master Alcántara in the crowd. “They’re training us to be killers. ”
Which meant there was no room for error. Unlike the sparring we did in class, the tournament had no point system, no time limits. There was only one rule: The last girl standing won.
Emma sighed, turning my hand over in hers. “How does it feel?”
Holding my breath, I carefully wriggled the fingers on my left hand. The pinkie and ring finger were bound together, but the rest were mobile, if not sore.
And sore was an understatement. I was battered and bruised, and didn’t know how much longer I could go on. “Feels good,” I said, lying.
“It’s not too late. You can pull out. ”
“Didn’t we just have this conversation?” I’d spoken to her, but my gaze had drifted to the stage, where Alcántara was looking at the day’s fight bracket. I shivered, feeling a wave of that nervous-morbid-excited fascination. “Because you know I can’t. ”
Finding fresh resolve, I glanced from Emma to Yasuo. “Look, guys. I need your support. I’ve made my decision. I’m going all the way. ”
“That’s it. Hand it over. ” Yas grabbed the tape. We both shot him a look, and he said, “You’ll see. ”
He took Emma’s hand and looped the roll on her finger. “Hold that,” he told her, and pulled down a long strip. He twisted the stretch of tape into a tight coil, ripped it free, then began to wind it around the knuckles of my good hand. He flashed us a smile. “A little Muay Thai technique. Now you just tape over this, and you’ve got some extra power. ”
I flexed my right hand into a fist. It did feel extra strong somehow, like a medical-tape version of brass knuckles. “Nice. ”
He gave Emma a broad smile. “We’re gonna make D here a fighting machine. ”
I laughed. “Not exactly the words I’d use. ”
“Come on. You creamed Stefinne. She was beating you to a pulp, then suddenly . . . BAM. ” He punched fist into hand. “Using the hilt of your sword on her temple—genius, D. Knockout. Acari Drew advances to the semifinals. ”
“Luck, I guess. ” My smile went weak. Knockout was a kind word for it. One could also use phrases like bump off, take out, do in, or perhaps choose one of the more formal -ates, like eliminate, assassinate, annihilate.
But even more unsettling than adding another kill notch to my belt was the fact that I didn’t think it was luck so much as it was something weird happening.
First, I’d earned a first-round bye, which was a fancy way of saying there’d been an odd number of girls, so I got to sit out the first set of matches. To win the bye, I’d answered a trivia question, and it was like it’d been catered just to me.
