61
THAIS
A familiar man stepped out of the crowd onto the arena floor, the one they called “Driggs”, the red-haired man who had taken Atticus away when we’d arrived in Paducah. Driggs pointed into the crowd then and the noise died as another man stepped out onto the arena floor, stood before Driggs, between Atticus and his opponent. This man looked important, the way he carried himself: how high he held his chin, the dignified poise, the confidence in his face. And when he raised his hands into the air, the crowd went wild: the whistles were more strident in my ears, the shouts more deafening as they went from one side of the room to the other in a boisterous wave.
Driggs never introduced Lord Maxima, the leader of Paducah, by name, but a man like him needed no introduction.
I sat next to Kade with my hands folded on my lap; my teeth clamped down on the inside of my cheek. I kept my eyes on Atticus, but I prayed he would not keep his eyes on me. Not even for a moment. I wished I could turn back time and not yell his name from the bleachers so maybe he wouldn’t even know I was here.
“Sounds like the people want a gauntlet tonight!” Maxima shouted over the crowd, and in response the crowd shouted back, hooting and hollering and war-crying. He raised his arms high above him again, gestured his hands to provoke the crowd, and they shouted and whistled and stomped their feet.
Maxima pointed into the bleachers where I was seated, and I looked behind me, following the gazes of everyone else who already seemed to know what, or who, he was pointing at.
A woman, tall and lean and beautiful with a cascade of wavy blonde hair that fell past her waist, stood from the seat six rows behind me.
Kade put his hands to the sides of his mouth, his fingers steepled beneath his nose and he shouted, “Gauntlet!”
“Gauntlet! Gauntlet! Gauntlet!” the gymnasium joined in.
The woman stood, her chin raised even higher than Maxima’s, her poise more majestic, the confidence in her face stronger, more influential.
“What do you say, Ravinia!” Maxima shouted over the crowd at his wife.
A profound hush fell over the room then, like a calm before a storm. Ravinia took her time, looking out at the people, and when she slowly raised her arm out in front of her, teasing the crowd, the hush deepened and it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. Ravinia’s fisted hand turned at the wrist, and in true Roman emperor fashion, she unfolded her thumb from her fingers and pointed it skyward, and the hush over the crowd broke, and the people went wild in celebration of her decision.
“Gauntlet! Gauntlet! Gauntlet!”
Kade pumped his fist, his nose scrunched up in his face, and he looked over at me, delightedly.
My heart sank into my knees; had I been standing I would have collapsed. I looked back out over the heads of the people in front of me and focused all of my attention on the man I loved and feared I would lose on this night. A gauntlet. I knew the definitions of the word, but not what it meant in Paducah to these people. It could only mean something terrible.
People made bets:
“My case of Jim Beam on the one in the black pants,” said the man on my right to Kade. “And for the gauntlet, I’ll throw in my Harley if you throw in the girl.” His gaze slipped over me.
“What am I gonna do with a Harley?” Kade argued. “Can’t drive the damn thing without gas.”
“But it’s still a Harley!”
“A useless Harley—no deal!” Kade grabbed my waist and pulled me closer. “She’s brand new,” he told the man. “I’d like to try her out first, see what she’s worth before I bet with her. I’ll put in Drusilla, if you can come up with something better.”
The man’s smile broadened.
I sat there, disgusted by their exchange, glad that—hopefully—Drusilla was long gone by now. But Kade and the man and even Drusilla, I had no time for. I watched Atticus from afar with a heavy heart, and I witnessed him change, saw the part of him I’d only seen a couple times since we’d met, take over the part of him that made him human. He stood solidly, his eyes fixed on the floor, his hands wound tightly into fists at his sides; his bare shoulders rose and fell in a relaxed, eerie motion—if I ran through the crowd and stood in front of him, he wouldn’t know I was there. I never would have wanted to see him like this, but I accepted it, and I approved of it in my heart, and I told myself over and over in my mind that he needed to be this way if he was going to get out of this alive and so I drew hope from it. The other fighter had a knife, after all. And Atticus had nothing. Only the demons he carried on his back.
“Why does that man have a knife?” I asked Kade, concerned.
Driggs and Maxima walked off the arena floor together, leaving Atticus and his opponent alone.
“Probably because he asked for it,” Kade answered. “Or demanded it.”
Demanded it? My eyebrows drew closer together. I needed more information, but the fight was to start any second now and it was difficult dividing my time between it and Kade’s half-answers.
“How can a prisoner demand anything?” I asked, but it came out more as a statement.
“Shut up and watch the fight,” Kade said without looking at me.
Just then all heads turned in the same direction again—behind me—and seconds later, Ravinia strode down the bleacher steps in her tall back boots, past me, and made her way onto the arena floor; the thick crowd that blocked it parted like the Red Sea so she could pass.
“Gauntlet! Gauntlet! Gauntlet!”
Ravinia raised her hands above her and silence fell over the room like a heavy blanket.
The fighter with the knife bounced shortly on the front pads of his bare feet, unable to stand still. The baleful grin he wore gave me chills—he was more than ready to kill Atticus. But seeing Atticus, how he looked at no one, how still his body and how lost he was in his own savage mind, further filled my heart with hope. And sadness.
Ravinia dropped her arms.
“Your Main Event tonight,” she began, her voice carrying over the room, “is another fight to the death! But a special fight to the death!”
The crowd shouted and whistled and then fell silent again.
“In the event,” she went on, “the winner of the fight refuses to put his opponent out of his misery, he forfeits his win, and his opponent will have one opportunity to do what he would not do, or they both die. So none of that taking-a-stand-against-death bullshit! You kill or be killed!”
Whistles splintered my ears; shouts deafened me; the stomping of feet shook me.
“Gauntlet! Gauntlet!”
“Yes! There will be a gauntlet!” she shouted over the chanting. “So bet well, and bet big, boys and girls and boy-girls, because one of these two men”—she pointed at Atticus and then his opponent—“if he survives, will make you very rich tonight! Or very poor!” She laughed, and the crowd laughed with her.
“Why is a gauntlet so special?” I asked Kade, expecting him to practically ignore me again.
“Because it only happens about once a month,” he told me, still looking out ahead at the arena. “And the rule is that everyone here has to bet half of what they own. Or leave.”
“Go big, or go home,” the man to my left put in.
I looked into the crowd then and saw only about a quarter of those in attendance shuffling through the four exits.
“They’re the smart ones,” the man to my left said. “They know when to quit gambling—is that Mr. Royce leaving?”
“Yeah”—Kade laughed—“He’s the richest man in Paducah for a reason!”
“True! True!” the man agreed, clapping his big hands together as Ravinia made her way off the arena floor. “But I’d rather be broke than bored.”
“Agreed, my friend!” Kade said.
“Then what are you betting?” the woman in front of me asked Kade.
“My girl, Drusilla,” Kade answered.
“That’s it?” The woman’s expression hardened with criticism. “That’s not half of what you own.”
“You forget,” Kade smugly reminded her, “my girl has many talents—she’s worth more than half of what I own.”
“Then why are you gambling with her?” the man to my left asked.
Kade’s eyes skirted me, and my throat closed, and my stomach tensed.
“Go big, or go home, right?” Kade echoed. “Isn’t that the point? Besides, I have a replacement if I lose.”
My interlocked fingers tightened against one another; I looked away.
“And if you win,” the man said, “you’ll be stuck with two—better hope she’s not like Drusilla, or you’re gonna have your hands full.” He bounced with laughter next to me.
“Yeah, but if I lose,” Kade told him, grinning, “you’ll be stuck with Drusilla—sure you can handle her?” There was a playful gleam in his eyes.
The man laughed and shook his head. “I know I can handle her,” he said with confidence. “And I won’t need to lower myself to the level you had to, that’s for damn sure.”
Kade’s smile retreated, offended by the remark, but he sucked it up.
“So then, I accept the whiskey,” he told the man, “and the Harley only if you throw in your entire wardrobe—including the snakeskin boots.”
The man’s chin reared back. “Half my wardrobe,” he countered. “And my bird. But nobody’s gettin’ my boots.”
“I don’t want your fuckin’ bird,” Kade shot back. “Damn thing shits everywhere—three quarters of your wardrobe, and the boots.”
The man inhaled a deep, concentrated breath, mulling it over.
“Deal,” he finally agreed.
The two shook hands, sealing their bets.
I raised my eyes so I could see Atticus, but the woman in front of me snagged my attention midway.
“It’s amazing to think I used to be where you are,” she said, her plum-colored lips pulling into a smirk.
“And how did you get out of it?” I asked.
The woman shrugged and said, matter-of-factly, “I fought my way out. I proved I was worth more than what they wanted me to believe I was worth.” She turned her back and left me feeling more useless than I already felt.
I shook it off and turned back to Kade. “What is a gauntlet?” I tried to ask again, but when the sound of gunfire bounced off the walls of the arena, signaling the start of the fight, hundreds of people in the bleachers shot into a stand at once, drowning my voice in their excitement.
The man with the knife practically flew toward Atticus, swinging it wildly at him, swiping it left to right, right to left, and Atticus just barely kept a safe distance from the blade. Confident that he had a weapon and Atticus did not, the man continued to follow him, forcing Atticus to walk backward and in a circular motion. The man swiped the blade at him again—(the crowd shouted)—and again—(the crowd whistled and screamed obscenities)—a third time, and Atticus whirled around the man, narrowly missing the slice of the blade, and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling it behind his back.
The crowd went wilder, pumping their fists, spit spewing from vulgar mouths.
“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” they chanted.
The knife dropped from the man’s hand, and his head pulled back and his mouth opened wide, emitting such a cry of agony as his arm was dislocated from his shoulder.
Atticus shoved the man to the floor on his chest, pressed his knee into the center of his back.
“Kill him!” the crowd roared, demanded.
And in one swift motion, before I could get a grasp on what was happening, the knife was in Atticus’ hand and the blade was slicing across the front of the man’s throat.
“Holy shit!” Kade shouted, dollar signs dancing in his wide-set eyes. “Under a minute!”
“Twenty-two seconds!” the man to my left specified.
“That’s a record!” Kade added. He took his eyes off the arena floor long enough to glance smugly at the man. “You’re gonna lose—those boots will look so much better on me anyway, asshole!”
“Bah!” the man said, and waved him off.
“He won!” I screamed, turning on the seat to face Kade fully. “He won!” My heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings inside my chest.
“Yeah, the first fight,” Kade said, and my hummingbird heart stopped before he even finished. “But this is gauntlet night, sweet cakes!”
The first fight? Gauntlet? Finally, I understood what I’d already known deep down to be true. And as another man, much larger than the first, stepped out from the crowd and went toward Atticus with an axe, the miniscule fraction of hope I’d found earlier left my body in one sharp gasp.
“No…” I breathed the word, my hand pressed to my chest. “No, this isn’t right…”—I turned swiftly to Kade—“this isn’t right!”
The axe went above the man’s head, gripped with both hands, and lingered there in slow-motion—Atticus veered right, almost too late, and the heavy blade struck the gymnasium floor with tremendous force. In faster succession, the man raised the axe and brought it down, two, three, four times, but always narrowly missing its target. Atticus dodged left and right, backward and sideward until his opponent became frustrated and enraged and his face twisted with ferocity and he growled and roared like a grizzly bear, the axe raised high above his head.
Atticus used the man’s angry moment against him, jumped into the air in a sideward motion, and one long, powerful leg sprang outward like a whip, his bare foot planting in the center of the man’s chest, forcing his feet from the floor and his body soaring backward. The axe fell from his grasp as his backside hit the floor.
The crowd cheered and cursed; Kade to my right and the man to my left nearly crushed me between them as they shot to their feet again with bloodthirsty excitement. I stood like a fawn between them with my brittle, skinny legs, and my skittish movements, trying to stay out of their way.
I drew a little hope again from the fact Atticus was still winning. But it was too soon, I realized, when a second man stepped from the crowd, shoeless and shirtless, and joined the other man as he picked himself up from the floor.
The severity of what was happening became overwhelmingly evident when I noticed another shirtless man standing in wait at the front of the floor crowd. And another. And another. The people surrounding the fighters—men and women—were to be part of this fight, this gauntlet against Atticus.
My head dizzied; a glaze fell over my eyes; my breathing labored and I felt the desperate need to sit down but I fought to stay upright. I need to do something. I have to help him—I need to do something! But nothing had changed from before, and I could do nothing.
The two men working together to fight Atticus went toward him, their faces twisted with brutal intent; the second man swiped up the axe from the floor on his way. All Atticus had was the knife he’d taken from the first fighter—he shot toward them instead of away from them, and midway he drew back his hand and threw the knife; it soared through the air out ahead of him. The man with the axe crumpled to the floor on his knees, dropping the axe; blood poured down his chest, and his hands went up instinctively to feel for the knife buried there, but he fell face forward, dead before he hit the floor.
Atticus snagged the axe, leapt over the dead man toward the second fighter, and swung the weapon in a wide circle, screaming like a madman. A sharp gasp shared by the crowd went around the room, followed by one second of nerve-wracking silence as they watched the blade glide closer to the fighter’s beefy arm, followed by a collective awe and then the room erupted in cheer when it struck flesh.
The fighter dropped to the floor holding his wounded arm; an excruciating wail resonated around the room.
Atticus stood over him long enough to pull the heavy blade free from the muscle.
The crowd cheered again as he raised the axe above him, dripping blood onto his shoulder. “AHH!” His face, twisted with rage, looked out at the crowd, turning a full three-sixty to see them all. “AHH!” His teeth were bared and gnashing; his eyes churned with everything dark. “AHH!”
My hand cupped my mouth; tears burned my eyes; I needed to sit, to catch my breath and steady my heartbeat, but I could not sit—I could not move.
Three more fighters stepped onto the arena floor—two men and one woman—and the only thing that gave me any hope in Atticus being outnumbered was this time he seemed to be the only one with a weapon.
The fighters circled him like a pride of lions corralling their prey, their backs hunched over, their feet moving in a sideward motion, their battle-ready stances locked solidly, ready to pounce on him. Atticus turned round and round, keeping them away from his back, the axe locked firmly in his right hand, prepared to strike.
The woman lunged first from Atticus’ left, while the fighter with black, curly hair lunged at him from the right. Atticus swung the axe at the woman, but missed as she jumped to the side; he swung the axe at the black-haired man, and again he missed, but before he could turn one-eighty to gauge their new positions, the third fighter ambushed him from behind.
No…
Atticus bucked like a bull, trying to throw the man from his back, simultaneously he swung the axe wildly above him, but struck only air.
God please no…
The woman dropped to the floor and swiped her leg outward, knocking Atticus from his feet. The black-haired man ran around in front of him, kicking the axe away from Atticus’ hand. Atticus cried out, and for a moment I thought it was when the man’s foot made contact with his wrist, until I saw the spray of blood near the waistline of his pants.
Kade’s hands were around my waist, pulling me back again before I even knew what I was doing.
“Let me go!” I swung my arms wildly at him, turned around and shoved my knee hard into his groin, dug my fingernails into something fleshy.
I felt gravity betray me, and my body tumbled downward, my arms trying to brace my fall; the back of my head struck something soft, but it still hurt, and when I looked up I saw the woman who’d been seated in front of me, looking down into my face.
The woman smiled, of all things, and did not attempt to restrain me for Kade, who was shouting: “Give her to me!” and leaning over, trying to grab me with short, furious arms.
I rolled off the woman’s lap and hit the bleacher floor—almost fell through the gap that separated the seats—and I grappled for anything to help pull me up: a man’s leg, another man’s neck, a woman’s hair—“Watch it, bitch!”
“Grab her, Madera!” Kade barked.
“Get her yourself, asshole!” I heard the woman say.
Before Kade could get past the people sitting near the aisle, I found the aisle first and ran down the steps toward the arena floor.