“SHIELA THE LIONESS GETS HER ROUND TWO, FOLKS!” The arena continued its applause. Somewhere in the crowd, Devlin swooned and cast a piercing whistle into the Pit. Greenblatt excused himself to investigate the giant machine that sat watching the arena. The music kicked back into overdrive and filled the air with a thunderous noise. The lights spun around the Pit, and Shiela the Lioness stared down her nose at the elevator.

  Deep underneath the arena, Lana paced. She was absent-mindedly chewing the clipboard now, and her eyes kept flicking to the door that led into the market. If her guard wasn’t back by the time this song was over, it would be her shooting up zerker and jumping into the pit. Her fingers rasped against it the clipboard, her nails clicking it loudly.

  The prisoner’s weapons were all rounded up and a group of slaves made to spread them around the arena. They mingled like overworked cows, their backs straining to rise after bending down to place the weapons. Some were left in plain sight; others were hidden well. It all seemed to depend on the slave and what they thought of the weapon. Krav was lifting himself to the grate, trying to spot his axe.

  “You know I’m going to need that back, right?” he said. He looked away from the grate and down at the pacing girl. She was murmuring some numbers to herself, adding and subtracting, then multiplying, then dividing, then she lost him entirely. “Hey! I said I’m going to need my axe back once Ulrich comes to get me. Do you mind not leaving it up there for any scab head to grab?”

  “Shh!” she hissed, but it was too late. Krav had made her lose her count. She cursed and shook her head. “Twenty in cell two, fourteen in cell three… each tin of zerker has eight doses… add that up… divide… he better get enough.”

  Her eyes darted to the door as someone began the secret knock. Lana’s pace to it was hurried, but she remained composed beneath a sheen of sweat. When she opened it, the guard she sent pinched a stack of tins in one hand. He gave all four to her. It wasn’t enough, but she could make do. She would have to spread it out by microdosing a few of the braver prisoners and only giving the full dose to the ones that were really scared. But that wouldn’t do either. Shiela had demanded a round two, which not only threw off Lana’s math, but also sent a creeping chill throughout the cells. She had already sent the bravest batch up for her to dispose of. If only she had triple checked that her guards had dosed them. With a loud smack, she clapped the clipboard to her forehead repeatedly, then she had an idea.

  "Mars,” she called one of the guards. A tall man made his way to her, his eyes flicking between her glasses and the tins in her hand. “Release seventeen on the proper dose of zerker. Put the three biggest babies from cell two into cell three… And no one outside of this room hears about this, got it?”

  The guard nodded and took the tins from her. He did as she commanded, but he still didn’t quite grasp the plan. Lana could be executed for the maneuver, but she figured that it was more important to finish tonight’s show than it would be to fear the Lioness. She was waiting for round two, which entitled her to a full twenty, but that would leave no one for the rest of the scheduled events.

  Krav watched the prisoners get their free drugs, and his mouth watered. The guards were popping open the tins and transferring the powder within to hypodermic needles by mixing it with some sort of solvent. They administered the proper doses to the prisoners and tossed them onto the lift.

  “It’ll take a minute for it to kick in,” she told one of her guards, but the song coming from above had come to a crescendo and ended with an uproar of applause. Lana froze as if caught in Shiela’s imperious gaze through the concrete that separated the holding cells from the arena. She snapped her fingers at a guard operating the lift and shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”

  The lift cranked and up the prisoners went. Some of them were already starting to get hit by waves of bloodthirst brought on by the drug pumping through their veins. A few were clawing at their own heads; some became territorial of their small space on the elevator. When the lift reached the arena, the ones who hadn’t been affected yet spread out, running from the raging berserkers. They found their weapons scattered among the floor and raised them. The Lioness was no longer prowling the stage.

  Krav watched from the grate, his fingers tightly laced into the cold metal. He still couldn’t find his axe along the scattered weaponry. A quick scan revealed nothing, and he was beginning to wonder if they hadn’t put it in the arena at all. And then he saw it. Some scab head was foaming at the mouth, his eyes wide and back hunched. A tight jaw was locked into a squared grin, and Krav could see his hot breath plume from his lips as the spotlights flickered him in and out of view.

  “Hey!” Krav screamed through the grate. “Put that down, scab head! Once I get my hands on you, you’re dead!”

  But he didn’t have to wait long. A blur of blonde hair rushed through him. The prisoner with Krav’s axe was completely surrendered to the zerker, and his reflexes were better because of it. He seemed to track the Lioness as she crashed into him. One claw crashed into the axe and looked like it broke the prisoner’s wrist as his hand went limp, and the axe fell out of view. The other claw disarmed him more literally, hacking his arm off at the elbow.

  The prisoner jabbed with his stump, spraying blood on Shiela as she back peddled. She looked like she was studying the madman, allowing him swing after swing which she dodged with expert fluidity. The spotlight tracked over the two of them, and before it could fully cross the two, she split his stomach open and vanished.

  She moved onto another victim, appearing before him and allowing him the first move. He was armed with a spear and sent it jutting straight for her throat. Shiela folded into a back handspring and caught the weapon with her knees, wrenching it away from her opponent and launching it into a prisoner who was charging her from behind. When she stood back at her full height, the prisoner rushed her with fists alone. She slashed him at the neck and blood spurted down his chest onto the sand. He took a few more steps, his eyes mad with rage. The prisoner didn’t even try to close his wound. He just came at her until he collapsed at Shiela’s feet.

  They were all coming at her now, a much better display than she had been given in the first round. A coy smile was working on her lips, and if Lana could see it, it might lift the weight from her shoulders. She stood in one place, only moving to dodge an oncoming attack or split another prisoner. They charged her, screaming like trench soldiers charging a machine gun entrenchment, and they died just as quickly.

  Krav watched her through the gate as the area around her became a fountain of blood. He couldn’t make out what she was doing from where he was, but he could see sheets of human essence splash away from her position as arms and heads twirled like dancers among the gore. When she came back into view, there were only two remaining. Both charged her, and she found the spear in the sand by her feet. A quick kick sent it upward and impaled both prisoners. They slumped to the sands, the first dying instantly. The second had a pierced liver and would surely die in the Pit, but Shiela was looking around, not ready to finish the job.

  She looked over her shoulders as if she expected more, then she dropped her guard. One claw dragged along the protesting prisoner’s cheek like a lover, pulling fresh trickles of blood from his skin. The prisoner snapped at her, his pale face biting with the last bit of life he had. He soon bled out, and Shiela left the arena without any showmanship. She simply walked off, her hips swaying under the roaring crowd.

  “Crazy bitch,” Krav observed. “Can I have my axe back now?”

  Lana peered at him over her clipboard. He would have a chance to reunite with the weapon soon enough.

  Ulrich stood by Douglas and watched Shiela walk off through the gates of dread. The sound of music and cheers was thrumming in the VIP section, but it was Douglas Grave’s repeated headbutts that were pounding against the glass view the loudest. Ulrich snuck a glance his way. The man didn’t look very good. When Ulrich had left on his mission, Douglas was still strange, but something was off about him now. He didn’t want to eat or chat with the other Pit Lords. For some reason, he was completely transfixed with the arena.

  The slaves cleaned the arena, this time collecting the body parts in buckets like heaping piles of chum. Once they had filled several, they retreated through the gates, and they closed, leaving the arena in anticipation. During the interlude, Shiela had made her way up to the VIP office. She came in, complaining about something.

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  “Two rounds and only thirty-seven kills. Did anyone else count thirty-seven?” She grabbed a towel from near the table and dragged it over her face. Blood stained it pink, and as her eyes flitted open, they locked onto Ulrich. “Oh my… this is a surprise.”

  “Shiela,” he nodded.

  “Ulrich. I was just about to shower; would you care to join me?”

  “Not tonight, no. I have a fan that wants to meet you and then I have to go.

  “That’s too bad,” she said. Her shoes clicked along the floor as she searched the table for something quick to eat before retiring. She bumped into Mac and the two women stared at each other. Mac slurped a steamed leak into her mouth. Shiela’s eye twitched. “Who is this?”

  “Ulrich’s escort for the evening,” Loken teased. Shiela shot him with a glare, and he stuck his tongue out at her. “Looks like someone beat you to the jump.”

  The Lioness turned her gaze on Mac. There was still murder in her eyes from the show, but it was twisted with emotion. A wild tinge of jealousy swirled as she tightened her brow and stooped to level herself with her competition. “An escort? A whore that eats from our table?” Shiela smacked the plate of cooked meat and vegetables out of Mac’s hand. The raider girl twisted and kicked the Lioness in the hamstring. It was a move that debilitated most, but here it seemed to bounce off her muscular thigh. Shiela jabbed her in the chest and sent her skidding across the floor.

  “Imagine if I still had my claws out,” she said. She drew her tongue across her knuckle as if she could taste the strike she had just dealt. “You’re picking a dangerous fight, girl. Ulrich, dear, why don’t you show your girlfriend where the medical tent is? She doesn’t look very strong, and that might leave a mark.”

  “Enough, Shiela!” Ulrich said. He was crossing the room, leaving the view of the arena behind as they readied for the next act. On her heels, she was almost his height. He looked like he was going to strike her, or at least stick a finger in her face and give her a piece of his mind, but instead, he huffed and shook his head at her. “She’s just a girl.”

  Ulrich bent to help Mac up, and Shiela looked like she was going to boil over. “Just a girl that you hired as an escort.”

  “She’s a friend. I had to label her as something, for Karma’s sake! Someone’s been putting in new rules at the box office on who we can bring into our own home!” His gaze turned to Jerod, and the impromptu warlord or the Pit Lords shrugged one shoulder. Ulrich helped Mac off the floor and dusted her new clothes off. “Are you alright?”

  The girl wasn’t looking at him. She was watching Shiela, her brow sloped to hood her eyes. Judging by the sounds of heels on the concrete behind him, Ulrich knew Shiela was going to keep the fight up. It was far from the mind of Pit Lords to back down from a fight, a trait Ulrich found himself despising the longer he was away from them.

  One heel jabbed between Ulrich’s shoulder blades, and he winced with pain. It wasn’t like getting cut open or beaten. Shiela’s heels were surgical needles that stabbed at pressure points and locked up muscles. He could feel his neck and shoulders lock up, and if he moved them he believed he might come apart. “Just a friend… the friend who wanted to meet me? Are you a fan of the Lioness, girl?”

  “I’ve never even heard of you.”

  Shiela’s eye twitched. Her stalwart lips curved downward, and it mask of an unfeeling, imperious queen of the jungle slipped again. Then her smile turned, and she removed her heel from Ulrich’s back. “If you’re escort wouldn’t mind, I’d like to catch up with you.” She rubbed the area where she had pinned him with the heel of her hand, and his muscles began to relax. “Join me in private, will you?”

  “I told you, Shiela. I have a friend who wants to meet you and then I have to leave. We can talk while we head to the bleachers.”

  “And I told you I’m going to have a shower. I’m covered in filth. Join me or don’t, but I won’t go anywhere with a man who leaves me waiting.”

  She turned and left the VIP room. Loken made a comment, trying to ease the tension in the air, but his joke fell on uninterested ears and he turned back to the arena. The next event’s clock was being displayed.

  Ulrich watched Shiela go, and with a huff, he excused himself. “Boris, will you keep an eye on her while I go see what Shiela wants.”

  “She wants to make sweet love to you and keep you here forever,” he laughed and crumbs fell from his mustache. “Your lady friend is more than welcome to sit with me, brother bear! Grab a new plate girl, the next event is about to begin!”

  With a nod to Mac, Ulrich left her behind. She didn’t protest. Instead, she took to Boris’s advice and made a new plate of food. She joined him on the couch, fully expecting him to be like any man desperately vying for female company. To her surprise, he put himself between her and Mateo the Reaper. As they ate and watched the clock descend, he was a complete gentleman, offering her a polite conversation and asking how her evening was. She decided she liked Boris.

  Ulrich wandered out of VIP and down a tunnel that linked the lounge area to a locker room. In ages past, it was meant to provide quick access for players as they left the field and prepared for interviews. A yellow strip of paint along the wall was faded into an ugly grey, and murals that once depicted mascots and championship teams were soured with it. From the tunnel, he could hear the bassy noise of the band as they continued their rampaging music for the crowd. The smell of stale, underground air was pungent here, and the cold that came with it was expected. As he approached the locker room, however, the steam from the showers wafted a comforting warmth towards him.

  It was a wonder to anyone how the Pit managed to have running water. It was a miracle unheard of to the rest of the wasteland. The toilets didn’t flush, that seemed to be on a different system, it appeared. But the sinks ran and the showers flowed, and that was akin to bread falling from the sky. In truth, it had been built upon a large reserve of water deep within the earth, the likes of which would rival Agua Fria if ever discovered.

  Ulrich’s heavy footsteps slowed as he approached the showers. The locker room was a large space that acted as a cache for the Pit Lords. Each row was claimed by one of the executioners who performed in the Pit. They were stuffed full of treasures and tributes, gifts from adoring fans and tokens of appreciation from the surrounding towns that sent their criminals to the Pit Lords for execution. Ulrich stood behind one, its contents belonging to Douglas Grave. The man had messily shoved all of his loot into the lockers so that they spilled over, glittering and gleaming in the lights above. Steam poured above the locker, and he listened to Shiela as she hummed along to the music in the arena.

  “What do you want to talk about Shiela?”

  “I can’t hear you all the way over there. Come join me.”

  He half obeyed. Ulrich came around the locked and averted his eyes from her naked form. The discarded leotard and heeled boots were left in a pile outside the shower, and the water pooling around her feet was turned pink as globs of blood and tissue fell from her. It was like watching a goddess bathe herself free of sin, and Ulrich knew if he watched it would stir long dead emotions within him. “What do you want?”

  “We haven’t seen each other in months. Is it too much to ask you to enjoy a conversation with me?”

  He shook his head. She had always been like this; a woman long used to having her way. Their relationship was no secret to the other executioners, but to Ulrich it wasn’t a relationship at all. It was a constant back and forth between telling her no and finding himself in situations just like this. The longer he stayed in her private vicinity, the more effective her temptations became. In the past, it was difficult to overcome. He barely considered them moments of weakness, just regretful encounters and decisions made out of the excitement of being with what amounted to a superstar in the valley.

  Now he had something he cared about. Even if he didn’t show it as much as he wanted, the three friends he made were closer to him than any of the executioners in his own clan. He could withstand her attraction for as long as he had to if it meant getting his friends that map.

  “You aren’t the conversational type.”

  “You’re right, I much prefer to drag you in here by the hair. But my words got you this far. Tell me about your friend. What’s the urgency with his little meet and greet?”

  “He has something I need.”

  “Then he has something the clan needs. I’ll join you as soon as I’m done. But it would be much faster if I had someone to help me.” Ulrich saw her body turn out of the corner of his eye and he hid from her gaze.

  “Please, Shiela. I don’t want this to take any longer than it has to. My friends and I are in a hurry.”

  “Then undress yourself and get in here.”

  Ulrich sighed and removed his vest.

  “There’s only seventeen in there…” one of the guards told Lana. She knew that very well already. It was her math that had made it seventeen. What really worried her was that the guard was able to count them. They mostly mingled about, pacing back and forth in their cell. Lana had hoped that between the uniforms and pluralities of faceless prisoners, she might be able to trick everyone into thinking she was sending a full stock into the arena. The Executioners were a different breed of killing machine, however, and if the guard could count how many there were that easily, they could notice as soon as the round began.

  She hadn’t counted on Shiela requesting a second round. That had thrown her entire count off whack, and now she had to make her stock stretch. She lined them up at the gate, her taser prod crackling in one hand, her clipboard in the other. Guards marched them to the lift, and they lined up for their injections of zerker.

  “What’s that?” Krav said. He was the only one who seemed not to understand what was going on.

  “It’s called zerker. It’s a stimulant we use to encourage the prisoners to go all out while they’re fighting in the arena.”

  “Neat. Does it get you high?”

  “In so many words. It activates the fight or flight response, sans the flight.”

  Krav nodded and waited his turn patiently. The others were almost sobbing as they approached the lift. The swinging spotlights were occasionally breaking through the grates and crashing over them.

  “You do know what you’re getting into, don’t you? Lord Ulrich hasn’t returned yet, and I need a second act.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Is the high pretty good at least?”

  “You’ll be going against the menagerie, a light combat interaction. After, you’ll encounter the horde. Whoever survives that will have to fight Douglas Grave in a one on one until he clears the prisoners or someone defeats him. If Lord Ulrich still hasn’t pulled you out of there, you’ll die.”

  "I feel like we're talking about two different things here. Is it my turn to take a hit or what?"