She could just see Maxine turn her head to peer at her from the corner of her eye. “Do you want him towin?”
She tracked Malachi’s proxy as he left his boss’s side to enter the ring. Her stomach sank. “Yes,” she whispered. “I do.”
The opponents didn’t tap their knuckles this time. They stood in the center of the ring, their feet braced and their postures loose. Luis settled his gaze on the proxy, his smile gone.It was replaced by a look of chilling focus she hoped would never be directed at her.
The whistle blew.
She couldn’t watch. Francesca could feel his blood on her hands and his lips on hers. She pictured his face as her seat vibrated with the roar of the crowd. She didn’t care if it was cowardly or disrespectful to not watch him fight for her. Seeing him get hurt was simply beyond her capacity to endure.
He’ll be okay,she tried to assure herself. There was no reason to think he’d end up like the man whose intestines wriggled in her memory. He wouldn’t need to be carried out on a stretcher. Even if he lost, that didn’t mean he’ddie.
Except someone had already tried to stab him, and she got the feeling from Malachi’s white-hot stare that he wouldn’t mind if someone turned Luis’s bowels into party decorations.
The world she’d willingly entered didn’t think twice about that sort of thing. She didn’t remember much from the children’s home besides Billie, but the ruthlessness of desperation permeated the air of her memories. Rules didn’t matter when one was used to fighting for survival, and vampires had built an entire culture around that.
Francesca squeezed Maxine’s hand so tight her bones ached. Every time the crowd reacted to something in the ring, she jumped. In her mind, she saw his smile and repeated over and over again,“Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.”
Whatever they were, whatever they could be, she didn’t care. She just knew that he had to exist or some vital thing would disappear from the world, forever leaving it paler.
In the darkness behind her eyelids, time stretched interminably. The intervals between explosive sound and Maxine’s gentle, reassuring squeezes of her fingers went on for years. Time moved at half-speed while her anxiety rocketedahead, filling in the gaps with the terrors of her own imagination.
She was trying to remember how to breathe properly when Maxine jerked her hand out of Francesca’s white-knuckled grip. Alarmed, Francesca’s eyes popped open just in time to see her friend lurch out of her chair.
Everyone was standing. The noise was so great that in its completeness it was nearly indistinguishable from silence. With all the bodies around her, she couldn’t see anything except backs.
She wasn’t sure what she heard, since no single words were truly distinguishable in the din, but Francesca somehow came to understand that Luis had drawn first blood — a win, except for the fact that someone had apparently rushed the ring.
Terrified, she tried to stand. A cool, dry hand grabbed her elbow, directing her up and to the side away from Maxine, who was out of the box and pushing desperately through the crowd. For a split second, she actually thought the priest was helping her.
And then she was thrown out of the box.
SIXTEEN
Francesca screamedas another man she didn’t know banded his arms around her waist and began to drag her backward, toward the entrance of the basement. She howled, kicking and screaming, but no one even seemed to notice. Everyone was too wrapped up in the chaos happening in and around the ring, as well as the various fights that had begun to break out around the stands.
Fear, hot and urgent, gave her a strength she didn’t know she possessed. Francesca grasped one of the meaty fingers digging into her side and wrenched it backward until she felt something snap. A blue-black snake coiled around it, making the unnatural angle of the bone seem even more wretched.
Her kidnapper didn’t let go. He didn’t even flinch. He merely shook her hard enough to make her teeth crack together before he continued on his way, dragging her through tightly packed bodies.
Being kidnapped had never been a possibility. Of all the risks Maxine had drilled into her mind since she began to entertain Easton’s proposition, it hadn’t even made the list.
She’d always have chaperones, Maxine promised her. And there were rules for the Blood Games. That was the whole pointof the damn thing. The contestants might play dirty but in the end they had to respect the winner or else the whole violent institution collapsed.
Francesca clawed at the arms around her middle, but it didn’t do any good. She was arrant — not just human, but one without even the protection of magic. There were no claws or abilities at her disposal. She didn’t even have her damnheels.
Panic started to eclipse the fear and adrenaline. Operating on raw instinct, she screamed,“Milo!”
It didn’t do any good. The name was swallowed up by the bodies and the chaos. Her kidnapper continued to shove his way through the crowd, narrowing the distance between them and the doors.
If he gets me out, I won’t escape.
The thought came as clear as day. The mansion would be empty, since all the security and attendees were in the basement. There were dozens of vehicles parked outside. They were in the deep, wild woods full of country roads. If her kidnapper got her in a car, she’d never be found.
Her parents would be devastated. There’d be no one around to take care of them.
Billie would still be out there somewhere, dead or alive, forever separated from the sister who loved her.
And Luis…