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Prologue
“Hit him.”
It’s not a suggestion. It’s a command. One delivered with such venom it scorches the shell of my ear.
My jaw clenches. So do my fists.
And for a moment, I drag my eyes away from the kid standing across from me and up to the sky. The clouds hang low, their bellies pregnant with the incoming storm.
Oh, how I wish I could sprout wings and fly. I’d rise up and up and up, past the clouds and into the warmth of the sun. I’d leave the muddy courtyard and the pustosh’ and all of the poison within it. The children with dirty faces and empty stomachs. The nuns with their spindly fingers and leather whips. The men who visit the dorms way past bedtime.
But the only thing sprouting from my back is pain from where Dima prods me between my shoulder blades again. “I said hit. Him.”
I breathe in the dusty, damp air, then search the circle of malnourished kids for a face. The only face I care about. We lock eyes—his bluer than the ocean and mine on the verge of being just as wet. His chin lowers a fraction. A nod so slight that if I was brave enough to blink right now, I’d miss it.
It’s all the encouragement I need.
Arm raised, I draw back my elbow, ready to—
Crack.
White-hot pain. It starts on the bridge of my nose and spreads outward like an inkblot across my face. A blow so hard it knocks me into the dirt. Before I can raise my arms again, this time to protect myself, the boy is looming above me, his shadow darker than the clouds behind him. Another blow, another strike. Raining down on me like my own personal storm. Kicks to the stomach, an uppercut to the chin. All delivered frantically and relentlessly to the backdrop of cheering children.
“Die before you die!”
Another command, but this one isn’t from Dima. And it’s the only voice speaking English in the sea of Slavic jeers and chants.
Die before you die.
Yes.
I squeeze my eyes shut and force my body to go limp. Force my brain to go above the clouds and pretend the searing pain is nothing but the warm rays of sun on my skin. My breathing shallows. My head rolls on my neck, and my cheek sinks into the mud. I stop flinching under every blow.
“Stoy!” Stop.
Finally.
Dima’s command cuts through the noise, stopping the blows raining down on my body. A few clap. A few circle me. Their bare feet slosh in the mud, their toes nudging my limp thighs and arms.
“Another body. Whose turn to dig?” Somebody cackles.
When the attention turns away from me, I crack a lid, scanning the sea of ankles from under my lashes.
I spot him almost immediately. His shins, peeking out from underneath his ratty cutoffs, are splattered in blood.
My blood.
Now or never.
I clamber to my feet, ribs aching, head pounding. Seeing the color red in both my blood and my fury. He’s too wrapped up in his victory to hear the collective gasp, to see the other kids nudging each other and pointing at me.
“Feniks!”someone yells. Phoenix.
I rise from the ashes and stumble toward him. His shoulders hitch up, and he spins around, but this time, I’m quicker than him. It’s me who strikes first. I grab a fistful of his black hair and drag him down to the mud. The first punch is tentative; I cringe when my knuckles buckle against his cheekbone. The second is stronger, striking his jaw, and by the third, I am the storm. I rain down on him with all of my strength, my fists striking like lightning, my roars clapping like thunder.
Only when strong hands snake around my waist and my feet leave the ground do I stop. “Enough,” Mak growls in my ear. “You did enough.”
The crowd isn’t jeering and chanting now. Not like when I was the one on the floor, lifeless. They are in shock. Quiet murmurs ripple like a shock wave through the courtyard.
