Lincoln hadn’t had time to heal me, as it had taken the entire break time just to re-adhere Shea’s ear. I was exhausted after healing myself, but Shea’s energy spell lozenge was akin to chugging three energy drinks. After taking them, I’d felt zippy and ready to throw down for the next two fights.

They went well. And by well, I mean I’d broken my pinky, probably needed some stiches in my left eyebrow, and was missing some hair from my ponytail, but we’d won. These kids were freaking badass scrappy hood kids. They knew how to survive, but so did we.

When we exited the cage of our third fight, Chloe and Luke were there, but no Lincoln.

“What’s wrong?” I limped over to Chloe, whose face was giving away that something bad had happened.

She immediately lost the ‘something’s wrong’ face and smiled. “Oh, no big deal. Lincoln just… fainted, so my dad’s guys took him back over the border.”

“He fainted!” Oh God. Maybe we overestimated how long the Celestials could be in Demon City. How many hours had passed? I didn’t know, but I was freaking exhausted.

Shea reached out a shaky hand and gave me one of those energy lozenges.

“Thanks.” I popped it on my tongue and my heart jackknifed in my chest as the adrenaline shot through my body.

Limping to the corner that was now our healing space, I struggled to get to my chair. It was basically two chairs and a sleeping bag that had been set up for us. We were fighting every fight in the main cage, whereas other smaller fights were going on outside in the field. It was totally to exploit us. I’d also learned that freaking gray-haired Abrus demon was in charge of the night, and was the one donating the million dollars to the winner. He was front and center for every fight, watching me like a monster watches prey. My leg was killing me, my pinky hurt way more than you’d think a pinky could hurt, and there was no way I could see myself doing four more fights.

“Lincoln’s calling,” Luke said, then thrust his cell phone in my face.

I collapsed into the shitty picnic chair and grabbed the phone. “You okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Are you okay?” His voice sounded groggy.

No. I needed a five-hour nap, chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and a million dollars.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I lied.

“Listen, I sent another healer. She’s going to cover the next two fights, and then Noah and I will come back for your big finish. You got this. We’re bringing your mom home.”

He sent a new healer? Who is it?

His pep talk totally made me cry, tears streaming down my cheeks as I fought to keep my emotions in check. “Everything hurts,” I admitted.

He sighed. “I know. You need to reach that point where you’re fighting with something other than your body. Your mind needs to take over. The hurt will heal, you just need to power through.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded legit.

“Okay.”

“Brielle, I love you and I’m so proud of you.” He sounded tired and defeated. I knew it was killing him not to be there with me every second. It would kill me to not be with him too.

“I love you too,” I told him and hung up.

After taking a deep chug of water, I checked in with my best friend.

“How you doing? Lincoln said he’s sending another healer for the next few fights, and he and Noah will come for the last two and fully patch us up.”

She looked awful, bruised and bloody, probably how I’d look if I checked the mirror, but her spirit wasn’t broken, that I could see. She hated this school, these asshole kids. They’d made their mark on her in her short time here, and she hadn’t forgotten.

“I’m ready for a three-week vacation in Hawaii, but I’m good.” She grinned and her healed lip cracked, dripping blood onto her teeth.

“Looks like you girls are in need of a healer,” a familiar female voice trilled.

I spun in my seat to see Mrs. Greely standing there, clutching her tan purse and looking like a poodle in a pit bull shop.

“Mrs. Greely! You came.” I stood and pulled her in for a hug even though it hurt. When she moved back, she smoothed my hair.

“Of course, dear. Raphael had to bribe the border guards a bit, but I’m here.”

Raphael took part in bribing Demon City border guards? Now, that I would have paid to see.

Mrs. Greely made quick work of resetting and healing my pinky, then moved on to Shea’s elbow. It was hit with some type of damaging spell. A ton of these students were Dark Mages, and they’d clearly been throwing premade spells their advanced teachers had crafted.

During my most recent fight, I’d squared off with a Centaur, hence the split eyebrow. He’d kicked me right in the face! We were lucky each competitor had submitted and we’d yet to have to kill anyone, but I doubted the entire night would go that way.

Shea leaned into me. “The others are getting tired too. We need to be explosive, go big right off the bat, and end these next few quickly.”

It was a good plan, but harder when reality didn’t pan out that way.

“What do you have in mind?” I mused, thinking she may have some plan to use our weapons. The announcer had stopped asking us to put them in the center of the room after it became obvious Sera was loyal to only me.

“Remember that black whip thing you did on the Succubus demon?” Shea recalled.

I shivered. I hated that I was using my dark magic to win these fights. It was also depleting my energy quickly.

“Yeah, assuming I can just do that again,” I retorted.

“Next few fights, the second the buzzer sounds, just lash out with that whip. I’ll create a magical shield of sorts to keep any spells from hitting us.”

It was a good plan that hinged on me being able to just conjure up the whip like I did it all the time.

‘You don’t need the whip. Let me at them and I’ll cut them to pieces!’ Sera screamed.

I snickered to myself. I didn’t like to admit it, but my dark magic was extremely easy to call forth now, so I was betting I could do it. Sera was amazing, but using her required me to get very close to my opponent to cause serious damage. I needed to save Sera’s power for our final fight. She was susceptible to fatigue the same as me, and she wasn’t getting power boost lozenges.

“Worth a try,” I told Shea.

“Shall we bring our pretty angels back in the ring!” the announcer boomed.

He’d nicknamed us “angels,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

It hit me then, how messed up the world had become. We were participating in a televised fight to the death to win money that could buy a human being’s slave contract back. As if a human should even be kept a slave in the first place.

“Good luck, girls. I’ll try to stay as long as I can,” Mrs. Greely stated, though already she looked positively green. No doubt this was her first time in Demon City.

What was so wrong with me that I could stand to live in Demon City without being affected? Shit, I’d even walked through Hell without much discomfort—what did that say about me as a person?

‘It says your Lucifer powers allow it. That’s all. Do you overthink everything?’ Sera asked.

I groaned. ‘Do you listen to all of my deeply personal thoughts or just some of them?’ I snapped back.

‘Pretty much all of them. It’s my only form of entertainment,’ she retorted.

A chuckle escaped me, I couldn’t help it.

“Come on, crazy lady.” Shea dragged me up.

Whoops. I’d forgotten the task at hand. If I was ever stranded on a desert island and could only take one item, it would definitely have to be Sera. She’d amuse me until we both died of thirst.

‘I don’t drink water,’ she interjected.

‘Hush. It’s go time,’ I told my infinity weapon.

As we entered the ring, I relaxed a little. We were up against Steph and Ben. They looked beat, Steph holding a hastily wrapped hand to her chest and Ben limping. I guessed they weren’t able to afford a healing demon.

They’d said they wouldn’t fight us, not for real. But trust was a fickle thing. I didn’t want to put my guard down too much, and then have them come out swinging full throttle.

As with the other times, the gate slammed, the fence electrified, and the buzzer sounded all within seconds. Just like that, the fight had begun.

Shea and I shared a look, and I decided to trust. Maybe it was because I wanted to embrace my lighter side and have faith. I didn’t let the black whip come shooting out like I’d promised Shea. Instead I held Sera up and she shot a concentrated beam of light into Steph’s thigh, making her drop to the ground screaming.

Ben burst forward and loosed an arrow at Shea’s head, but it went over, missing her by mere inches.

Was that miss intentional?

I knew it would need to look real in order for them to save face after we left, but I didn’t want to seriously injure them.

‘Don’t hurt her too badly,’ I told Sera, and then my wings burst from my back and I launched into the air. The tips of my wings hit the edges of the cage, and a slight shock zipped through my shoulders.

Argh, freaking electrified fence!

I tucked my wings in a bit and sailed over Steph’s crumpled form, landing behind her. Gripping her hair in my hand, I held Sera to her neck.

‘Just enough to draw blood,’ I instructed.

I felt Sera pull forward and nick Steph’s throat, a single drop of blood falling.

“I submit!” Stephanie screamed.

The crowd booed. It was a short and easy fight, but I was grateful. I wanted to thank her, hug her, tell her my mom and I were so grateful.

Instead, I just lowered my knife, letting Ben scoop her up and walk away without even glancing in my direction.

A part of my childhood died then, watching my two old school friends walk out of a ring where I’d just tried to kill them. After the night was over, I’d never be coming back, and I’d probably never see Steph or Ben again.

I just hoped they knew how grateful I was.

* * *

The next two fights were hell on my body and my mind. When the freaking psycho Necromancer and Beast Shifter we’d been fighting finally submitted, I burst into tears. The adrenaline surges and exhaustion were getting to me, and I could feel my sanity waxing and waning.

“We have a submission!” the announcer roared rather dully, like he wanted more blood.

The door to the cage burst open and the Necromancer and Beast Shifter scurried out, looking back at my black whip hand and me like I was the devil.

Shea’s whimper in the corner drew my gaze to find her holding her chest. I glared at the Necro’s back and went to help my friend.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, tears streaming down my face.

“I think he chipped my collarbone,” she gritted out.

I wanted to give up. I wanted to pick up my best friend, fly her out of there, and never speak of the day we’d entered this stupid fight again. I wanted to die.

“All right, fighters! One last fight left, between our sweet angel girls and two of the most powerful students we have at this school—Nadia and Gor!”

The color drained from Shea’s face.

“What?” I breathed.

“It’s the Dark Mage who beat up your brother and her Beast Shifter boyfriend. He’s a panther,” Shea replied.

I probably needed therapy, because at her words, I got excited. The girl who beat up my brother? The chick from the day we signed up for the fight? Oh, I was going to wipe the floor with her. I didn’t care how bad I felt.

A blur of blonde hair passed in front of me and then Noah’s glowing golden hands were there, pulling Shea into his arms.

“Hey, baby.” He winked at her.

She totally swooned, broken collarbone or not, and we left the cage.

“Where’s Lincoln?” I asked excitedly. After Mrs. Greely surprised us by being able to stick it out and heal us for two fights, we’d agreed Lincoln and Noah should only come for the last round. They’d heal us up big-time right before, and then they would have enough energy to get us out of there when it was over. There was no way I could drive in the shape I was in at the moment.

Noah was pushing through the crowd to where Chloe and Luke were keeping our little ghetto healing spot free. Some of Chloe’s dad’s Nightbloods were manning our corner like security guards manned the door of her dad’s bar.

Noah didn’t say anything. Did he not hear me?

“Noah, Lincoln said he would be here for the last fight. Is he okay?” Maybe the time he’d spent over here earlier had wiped him out too much.

“He’s fine. He’ll come when he can.” Noah wasn’t meeting my eyes. Something was wrong. Lincoln would never miss my final fight. Ever.

“Noah, whatever your last name is, you tell me everything right this instant.” I grabbed his arm. Hard.

‘I’m very good at extracting information from people,’ Sera informed me.

Noah set Shea onto the sleeping bag and held his glowing hands over her collarbone. Then he looked behind me at the lingering demons and other general bad people and widened his eyes.

“Can you step into my office?” he said through clenched teeth.

Oh. It was a secret.

Every single muscle in my body, including the ones I didn’t know I’d had before that day, screamed as I knelt next to him and leaned in to get as close as I could.

“What is it? I’m freaking out,” I whispered.

Noah held my gaze for a moment, and I couldn’t help but remark at how beautiful his green eyes were. “Someone… attacked your mom. Tried to kill her. He—”

A strangled cry left my throat and Shea gasped.

“Is she okay?” I managed. The room swam as I threatened to pass out. I’d been running on adrenaline since that morning, and it was finally catching up with me.

Noah reached out and grasped my hand. “She’s shaken up but totally okay. She called Mikey, who called Lincoln. He’s there now, and killed the demon that tried to hurt her. We just need you girls to win this fight as quickly as possible, so we can get your mom, and get the hell out of here.”

My blood was boiling. The first thing that came to my mind was Grim. That motherfucker put a hit out on my mom so even if I won and transferred him the money, I wouldn’t walk away happy. I felt it in my bones. It was him.

I’d been angry before at times in my life, but never had I been so livid. My wings snapped out of my back against my will, sending Chloe scurrying against the far wall.

“I’m going to kill him,” I rumbled.

Noah looked at my wings, horrified. “Calm down. You’re….”

“Smoking,” Shea finished, pointing at my wings.

I glanced down at the tips of my wings to see black smoke curling off the ends.

Good.

Standing, I looked down at Shea. “Let’s finish this.”

You mess with my family, then you’re going to get my full wrath.