Belligerent (Vicara) (24 page)

Suddenly, Eva having him run laps regularly made sense.

The chase continued on for longer than anyone liked, including the audience. Though they did cheer each time the anchor nearly grazed him – likely hoping to see some of his blood on the sand.

Though he was panting, a plan formed in his mind. He slowed to a more comfortable pace and decided to see how long it would take for Terra to tire herself out. Ryan supposed that even with daily practice, running and throwing an anchor at the same time would get tiring if one did it enough times in a row. Luckily, he was right, and after a while Terra's pace slowed as well. The moment he saw her lag, he sprinted forward and attacked. He slammed a nunchaku into her throwing arm and winced as Terra let out a choked noise. He didn't like hurting people, but he had no choice.

Terra flashed a grin at him. “Did that sound convincing?” she asked cheekily before bringing a fist up to impact with his nose.

Ryan didn't jump back though. Instead he kicked out and hit Terra directly in the knee. That time he was certain the pained noise erupting from Terra's lips was the real thing. She recovered quickly though and launched herself backwards trying to put some distance between them, but he attacked again with a blow to her stomach. She returned his attack with a kick to his chest that gave her the opportunity she needed to put some space between them once more.

“Ryan!” A familiar voice screeched, and Ryan glanced up into the crowd.

His eyes defocused, as if they didn’t trust the visual information. Despite all reason and comprehension, there sat Alex in the box reserved for Owners and their guests.

She wore a Belligerent Band on her left wrist.

“Alex!” he screamed.

“Ryan, look out!” She pointed behind him, and he twirled around to see Terra lassoing her anchor above her head to throw it once more.

Still recovering from the shock of seeing Alex, he jumped too late. The throw hooked him over the shoulder digging into his back. His armor seemed useless as the metal of the anchor pierced through. A quick tug on Terra's part forced the anchor further in until Ryan could do nothing more than gasp as the air fled from his lungs. When someone is stabbed in the back, they can't scream for the lack of air. Ryan remembered Eva saying that, and now he was experiencing it firsthand.

His vision wavered as the agony lanced throughout his back.

“
When all else fails against a backstabber,”
Eva’s voice rang through his mind,
“just front them.”

He knew he couldn’t fall – that would be the end of it and Shifter would certainly call a halt. He also didn’t want to disappoint his team, especially Mackenzie.

With Eva’s simple advice on his mind, he dropped one of his nunchaku and grabbed hold of the chain, jerking it towards him. It was enough of a surprise that Terra stumbled forward, and Ryan took that small window to leap forward and bash his nunchaku into Terra's head. She fell immediately, unconscious before she ever hit the ground. Ryan stared in momentary horror at what he had done before a “Halt!” sounded over the arena.

He couldn't take the three steps back as he found himself falling to the ground as well. The anchor had pierced completely through during his attack, and Ryan knew he was about to lose consciousness as well. The last thing he heard before the darkness overtook him was the announcer's voice.

“Victor is Ryan. Allotment is 29.”

Chapter 13

Ryan woke in a healing pod which he quickly discovered was a frightening experience no matter how much medication was being pumped into your bloodstream. He was trapped inside a tube with a gel-like substance surrounding him, medicine coursing through a tube attached to his band and a mask encompassing his mouth and nose which was feeding him oxygen while also preventing him from swallowing any of the gel.

“Calm down. I'm about to get you out of there,” a voice assured him through a buzzing speaker.

Daylan!

“We just have to let this stuff drain out first,” the medic said through the speaker in the tube.

The gel drained in only a few minutes and then the door to the pod slid open.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Ryan reached up to remove the mask, but his arm felt like it weighed as much as a
Zeus
. Daylan noticed his predicament and removed the mask for him.

“Yeah, you're going to feel a little weak for a while, but at least there's not a gaping hole in your back any longer. Feeling any pain?”

“No,” Ryan croaked. “No pain. How long have I been in here?”

“About a day. You didn't miss much.”

Daylan offered Ryan his hand and helped him to climb out of the pod. “I heard you won. Congratulations. You're not useless after all.” He produced a folded stack of clean clothes. “Here. Most people want to get out of their gel covered underwear as quickly as possible. There's a shower in that room there. Think you can manage?”

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Take your time. There's no rush.”

Ryan wondered how many times Daylan had done the same routine with the others. How many times had he helped someone out of a pod? Had he ever visited in the pod? The shower seemed to take forever. Each movement left Ryan feeling like he had run a marathon. He eventually decided to just stand under the spray until he could no longer feel gel running off his body. When he redressed, he had to pause and lean against a wall halfway through pulling his pants up. It was frustrating. When he returned to the room with the healing pods, he found all of his teammates waiting for him.

“Ryan!” Logan and Clarisse greeted eagerly. Both ran over to give him hugs. Kenichi followed behind Clarisse as usual and gave Ryan an awkward attempt at a half hug. Aria congratulated him on his victory then asked him how he was feeling.

“Tired, but no pain. So that's good at least,” he replied.

“I should have trained you better,” Eva said softly from her spot in the corner.

“They put me against an eighth year!” he said. “Not your fault.”

She gave him a little smile. “Still, we'll focus more on training as soon as you're feeling better.”

Mackenzie was the last to approach him, and she immediately glared at him. “I told you not to die and not to lose!”

“And I did neither!” Ryan said.

“But you almost did! You lost your concentration! What happened? I couldn't hear what was going on.”

“Alex!” Ryan said, suddenly remembering what it was that had almost cost him the match. “She was in the stands.”

“Alex was here?” Clarisse asked, suddenly more interested.

“Yeah, she was in the Owners' box and had a band on her left wrist,” Ryan said as the images assaulted his heart. “She's been taken too! I have to… I have to find her. She'll never make it as a Belligerent. She's not a fighter!”

It was his worst fear. He always thought he could handle labor or an academy, but if he was given the choice, he would prefer for himself to be made a Belligerent over Alex. The band on her wrist had looked wrong. Alex was a free-spirited person who shouldn’t be chained.

“Are you sure it was Alex? What if it was just someone who looked like her?” Mackenzie asked.

“I think I know what Alex looks like.”

He found himself trying to recall the glance of her he had gotten during his match. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe it was just a girl who had looked like her, and really Alex was still safe with Paul. There was no way he could convince himself of that though. Her hair, her eyes, her voice: Ryan knew those details as well as he knew his own.

“I have to help her.”

“Ryan, there's no way to free someone without Vicara,” Mackenzie reminded him.

“I'll find a way.”

“You'll get yourself killed!” Logan exclaimed.

“Her freedom is worth risking my life.”

Mackenzie sighed. “Looks like I have another thing on my to-do list,” she muttered.

“What?”

“You seriously don't think we'd let you do this alone, do you?” Clarisse asked with a smirk.

“I'm the best strategist at the academy, I think I have a better chance of figuring something out than you do,” Mackenzie added, poking him in the chest to emphasize her words.

Logan slung an arm over Ryan's shoulders. “We'll all do our best to help you. It's going to take all our skills to accomplish something like this.”

“You're all going to help me?” Everyone nodded. “But why?”

“We're your team, moron. It's what we do,” Kenichi replied with an exaggerated eye roll.

“You're going to have to be patient though. Plans like this aren't made overnight,” Aria reminded him.

“And in the meantime, you're going to have to still do your best at school and training,” Eva added.

“Of course!” Ryan quickly agreed.

“Then I say that we head home and get to planning!” Logan suggested.

“What do you think, Ryan?” Mackenzie asked. “Does that sound like a good idea?”

Everyone waited on him, and Ryan realized for the first time that he wanted to go back. He wanted to sleep in his ridiculously comfortable bed and have brunch with the seven strangest people he’d ever met. He wanted to go to classes and learn how to improve his skills and go to training and learn how to protect himself and others. He wanted to have movie night while piled onto the couch with everyone listening as they insulted the movie or argued over which actor was better. He wanted to help them achieve their dream, and maybe he wouldn’t have to make a choice. Maybe he could have them and Alex. He could have the family he always wanted.

“Yeah,” Ryan said, “Let's go home.”

* * *

Continue the Vicara story in Resilient – available
now
worldwide on Amazon.com:

Follow Ryan and the rest of Shifter's team as their mettle is tested to see if they can survive what is expected of them and as they learn the darker aspects of those expectations. Will they break or will they be resilient?

* * *

Writing since she was “old enough to hold a crayon,”
Brandi Mauldin
resides in Lexington, North Carolina with her two cats. Her parents, Bill, Bobby, Shirley and Mary have always been great sources of encouragement, as well as her two younger brothers, Matthew and Donovan, whose imaginations inspire her writing. A vital element of Mauldin’s mentality involves looking at something ordinary while contemplating what else it could be.

A tea addict and “Slytherin” at heart, Mauldin also gets a spark of creativity through considerable reading of “some of the greatest works ever written.”

For all the latest, visit her blog:
http://ofinksandteas.tumblr.com

Or at Fable Press:
FablePress.com