Chapter 26 · Trophy on the Cage Floor

Chapter 26: Trophy on the Cage Floor

"Don't move." Kane's voice cracked over the dead mic feedback, raw and way too loud, while Silas slid down the chain mesh in one long red smear.

I didn't move. My boot stayed planted on his broken rib. The whole cage wall still sang from where his body had hit it.

"Rhee." Silas spat blood onto the floor plate. His eyes found mine, glassy, almost amused. "You always did fight dirty."

"You benched me for two years," I said. "Dirty's generous."

Above us the roll-call mic popped once, feedback screaming up the stairwell, then boots. Not two or three. A wall of them, pack after pack, drawn down into the pit by a King crashing through a cage floor on an open channel.

Silas laughed wet and broken against the mesh. "Fated. Of course it's her." He coughed blood this time, not spit. "Finish it, boy. Make it mean something before I'm gone."

Kane pulled me off his chest and set me on the shattered dais —