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Disgusting asshole. I glare at him and snatch the data pad, moving away to sit on one of the empty cots.
"Happy," the scientist barks again. "Remember that!"
I stare at the data pad, not turning it on until he leaves. Once he finally does, I feel like I can breathe, just a little. I turn on the data pad…and instantly fight nausea the moment Crulden's cruel face fills the screen. Despite my promise to watch the fight, I raise a hand over the screen, hiding the worst parts while I watch Crulden's face instead. I can't shake the feeling that he's had some sort of personality transplant.
This isn't my Crulden, and it feels weird and strange to say that, and yet I can't shake it. Last night should have been a shitshow. I expected him to laugh in my face that I'd figured him out, hold me down, and then rape me or kill me. He did none of those things. Instead, he was visibly distressed that I was upset. He covered me with a blanket.
My unhappiness made him so miserable and distracted that he's fighting like shit today.
And even in his worst moments, when he attacked the guards that first day, he never had that dangerous, cobra-like look on his face. The one that the vid is zooming in on right now, the one that sends chills down my spine. It's a gleeful sort of evil, as if he knows he's causing misery and loves it. I wince as the Crulden on screen moves and a splash of blood hits his face. God. This is just awful. I keep glancing away, waiting for the fight to end, and wish desperately for a fast-forward button.
It's somewhere in the middle of the next fight that things click.
This time, Crulden's fighting a trio of champion gladiators, a nasty looking set of triplets—or clones—that are all dressed in similar armor. They have red skin, but they also have some terrifyingly bizarre features, like serrated teeth and oversized mouths. Crulden is his usual self, but the three attack him fearlessly and one latches onto his hand while the other two distract him, and it's the first time I've seen anyone come close to even injuring him.
It's a messy fight, and by the time it becomes obvious that Crulden's going to win, all four of them are covered in blood from numerous wounds. One of the shark-face brothers lunges in at Crulden again, latching onto his shoulder and clamping down while another goes for his hand once more. This time, Crulden lets out a horrific cry, and rips the head off of the brother on his shoulder and slams it into the one on his hand, who doesn't let go.
The camera zooms in, and I watch in disgust as the shark-face bites off Crulden's smallest finger. Blood goes everywhere again, and I can't get over how much blood is in these damn vids. By the time it's all over, the three brothers are in pieces on the ground, and Crulden stares down at his hand with a feral snarl. He stares at his missing finger, then grabs the severed head of the brother that took it, fishes it out of the mouth, and flings the finger down on the ground and storms towards the gates.
In a way, I'm relieved. There's no “prize” this time.
The next fight must happen some time after the last, I realize, because when Crulden appears, he holds up one scarred hand as he enters the pit, and I see he's still missing a finger. The bite's still there on his shoulder, too, and the announcers burble in their alien languages about Crulden's battle scars.
Battle scars.
Oh my god.
I turn the vid off, clutching the data pad to my chest as a flood of realizations hit me.
Crulden—the one out there in the practice arena right now—has all his fingers. How many times have we touched? How many times have we carefully linked fingers, mindful of his claws? I would have noticed a missing finger. I'd have noticed scarring on his hand.
But Crulden isn't really scarred anywhere. His skin is smooth and unbroken. There's no trace of the nasty bite on his shoulder.
It's not him.
Hot relief floods through me at the realization and I choke back a sob. Of course it's not him. They move differently. They act different. I grab the data pad again and turn the vid on, just so I can stare at the other Crulden with sheer relief. It's not him.
Mine must be a clone.
It makes sense. All of it makes sense. Crulden—my Crulden—has no memories of anything before waking up in stasis, something that's frustrated him endlessly. He's charmingly unaware of my body, which doesn't make sense given the other Crulden and his antics. More than anything, he's not openly cruel. He deliberately avoids using his claws and spikes on the other gladiators in training. I've seen the trainers try to goad him into anger, and he ignores them every time.
