Destroyed(3)

Stalking forward, I called over my shoulder. “You win, Clue. Let’s go.”

Her heels clicked on the stonework of the corridor, catching up to me. “Don’t hate me for making you remember how to fight. She’s fine. You haven’t told her what’s wrong; there’s been no relapses other than—”

I held up my hand. “I don’t want to think about it.” I needed to keep the image of Clara’s seemingly harmless asthma attack out of my mind. The f*cking doctors and their misdiagnosis. Now, when I thought of them, rage came first rather than tears. It’d taken three weeks and walking into an illegal fight club to find my inner strength.

Embracing the shift, I felt calm and in control for the first time since the ambulance ride. My own life no longer mattered. It would be collateral to bargain for hers, and the freedom that gave me filled me with adrenaline.

I would no longer taunt myself with ‘what ifs’. I would focus on doing anything, absolutely anything, to extend my daughter’s life. Including selling my soul to whoever could offer redemption.

Linking her fingers with mine, she murmured, “Tonight will give you the boost that you need. You’ll see.” Adding some bounce into her step, she added, “After all, we’re going to watch men beat each other bloody. If that doesn’t inspire you to get revenge and punch the world in its f*cking face, then I don’t know what will.”

I forced a small laugh, but she was right. In so many ways.

The empty corridor went on for ages, past huge swathes of material and massive nonsensical artwork of blizzards and forests, of darkness and wolves, of a violent world. Sculptures made of bronze and iron guided us like sentinels. A mix of modern art and intricate lifelike animals. All large, imposing, and entirely too real.

The atmosphere in this place set my instincts on high alert, searching for danger.

Grunting and panting came from behind a large door as we passed.

Clue cocked an eyebrow, staring at the door as if she had x-ray vision. “I wonder what goes on in the private zones. More fighting, or do you think the victor steals a woman from the crowd and makes mad passionate love to her?” Her voice turned dreamy. “He’d be hot and sweaty and slippery with blood, but his kiss would make the girl forget. She’d let herself be consumed by the man who proved he was strong enough to protect her.”

I shook my head, smiling indulgently at my dreamer-best-friend. Clue had been the result of an illicit affair between a Chinese diplomat and a Thai prostitute. Born out of wedlock, she’d been thrown away like rubbish when she was just two weeks old.

We met three years ago when I saved her from being raped and mutilated in a rural Sydney suburb.

Clue batted her eyelashes, blowing me a kiss. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to be ravished by someone who just fought a battle to win you? I know you don’t have physical needs like the rest of us, but that has to turn you on.”

This time I laughed with my heart and not just out of requirement. “I have needs, you know. I just have more pressing responsibilities than chasing a man who isn’t interested in a mother with baggage.” I refused to dwell on urges that woke me up in the dead of night. Craving a release, begging for another’s body—too bad I never found anyone I wanted—not even Clara’s father.

“But think of it, Zelly. Muscles, gruffness, barely restrained violence—a man who kisses with possession and gentleness.” She fanned herself dramatically. “I’m turning myself on just thinking about it.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re way too much of a romantic for these times. You should’ve been born six hundred years ago if you want men who kill and women who swoon.”

She grinned, showing perfect pearly teeth. “I was born six hundred years ago. That’s why I hanker after it so much. Men these days who work in offices and eat pies for lunch need to get in touch with their sword-wielding forefathers.”

“You’re getting worse.” I smiled. Clue had two fascinations in life: men and past lives. She swore she’d lived countless times before, and as much as I liked to joke and pluck holes in her tales, I couldn’t ignore the fact that she knew things. Things she shouldn’t know for a discarded child with no education.

“You’re an old soul too, Zel. I can tell. I haven’t figured out where you’re from, but I will.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong. I acted old beyond my years, because I’d had enough bad fortune to last me forever. If I had lived before, I must’ve been a witch or a murdering psychopath to warrant the trials I’d endured.

I squeezed her hand as we turned left at the end of the corridor and promptly slammed to a halt.

“Holy mother of God, where have you brought me?”

Dropping her fingers, I moved forward, almost in a trance.

The double doors had been crafted from metal. One side depicted a fairy-tale: a young man faced away from the viewer, standing surrounded by piles of coins, sunshine, and young children. Fantastical turrets of a castle rested in the distance.

My heart hurt as I looked at the next door. If the first had been heaven, this one would definitely be hell.

The young man now faced the viewer, but his features were blank. No nose or eyes or mouth, just a smooth blank oval. Behind him wolves fought while lightning and storm clouds brewed. But what killed me was the children who’d been laughing in the other portrait were now in pieces, scattered on the ground in melting snow.