The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(68)

If I thought he would go down easily, I was sadly mistaken. What happened next would have played beautifully in slow motion. Dan was a skateboard dude who could McTwist and flip with the best of them on the quarterpipe ramps in Minneapolis, so he flipped-kicked—without the board—off the pillar, landing securely on his feet. He laughed. ‘Is that all you got, shitty-pants?’

He was using verbal tactics to throw me off my game, and it was working. Using an effective fake, he grabbed the heel of my foot, throwing me to the ground. During my fall, I reached out and grabbed his arm, attempting an arm-bar, a jujitsu technique. Cat-calling me, he evaded my skillful but futile attempt.

Moving in for the kill, he wrapped his legs around my waist from behind, squeezing me until my diaphragm almost split in two. His forearm was wrenching my face like an old pair of ski goggles three sizes too small. I lowered my chin to slide away from the choke attempt, then hoisting his one hundred and seventy-five pound body, staggered up.

Now he was riding high on my back—like a jockey on crack. Grunting, I extended my arms back with every ounce of my remaining strength, grabbed his arm from behind, and flung him over my head to the ground beneath me.

The fans whooped and cheered, thundering out deafening roars that sent our adrenalin pumping. Voting frantically with glee on their remotes, these spectators made their collective choice for the next obstacle of our battle. Immediately, from the rafters, hurricane-strength straight-line winds and pouring rain blasted into our scrimmage. Now this was getting personal. The fans were trying to mock us, to test our resolve. We shrugged it off, and continued our skirmish. We were acclimatized to wind chill, but this was ridiculous.

Squirming on the ground in pain, Dan tried to escape, but I firmly grasped his arm as securely as I would hold a baseball bat. Feeling a rush of savagery, I placed him in a Kimura—a destructive arm-bar technique of jujitsu. I pushed and pulled at the same time. I heard a bit of a pop in his arm, and I felt Dietons nudging me to stop.

Sensing no resistance from Dan, I concluded the match was over, and let him go. What a mistake. Once up, he swiftly advanced toward me with a leg kick, and followed up with a head kick. Sidestepping the merciless barrage, I leapt up high in the air and delivered a flying knee kick, ready to knock his head off. Before my knee was about to smash Dan’s head—the Dietons intervened. I froze in place, unable to move. Panting, both Dan and I fell to the ground, excitedly eyeing each other.

Dietons always butted in before a devastating blow was about to be inflicted in the arena. They didn’t want us injuring each other. After all, they were invested in us as their strategic allies for the eventual war to come. Heck, Zane was invested in us.

‘Holy crap! That was awesome, dude! I think that was one of our best matches. You ripped it up, man. That knee would have knocked my head clean off!’ Dan exclaimed.

‘Well, there was no way of telling whether it would have landed or not. It was definitely a good match,’ I said modestly, after bowing and rewarding my comrade with a hug. Dan and I became much closer through our training. You never really know someone until you fight.

‘Let’s do it again sometime,’ he said, and gave me a high five. Everyone applauded us, and a few Bromels that were standing by on the sidelines, witnessing the battle, thanked us for a good show.

Back in my room, resting my weary bones after the fight, I thought over how the Dietons had stopped me from delivering a heavy blow to Dan. I could understand the rationale; after all, they wanted us to not get hurt. But—and it was a big but—did that mean I no longer had control over my own destiny?

For the first time ever since I landed on the ship, I started having my doubts about the whole mission. This mission of serving Zane. I was done kneeling down for that demigod and his infinite sea of Dietons. I was crippled with disdain for the conformity that surrounded us. I kept wondering, are these actually my thoughts?

I thought back to the beginning, when I was a twelve-year-old scared kid, nursing my bruises from my abusive father. Alone in the room, under the cover of darkness, I had seen that necklace with the glowing amulet, hovering in my room. Since then, I had been alerted to the presence of Zane, although I did not know it at the time. Zane had been watching over me back then—or even longer before that. I did not know.


Yet Zane did not prevent Jason’s death.

Zane did not prevent the deaths of Marvin and Laverene, my beloved grandparents.

Zane could prevent a baseball from bopping Lincoln on the head in the back of a sports store, but he could not prevent the deaths of those closest to me in my life.

And Zane had been careless enough to allow not only the evil despot Odion, but also his embittered servant, Travis, to invade what was supposedly ground zero for Zane on Earth—my grandparents’ house.

And I had not questioned any of that with him. Perhaps I should have.

Now, four of my dearest friends, and myself, were on his ship, to where? He had stolen our childhood, and was training us to become hardened battle-scarred veterans.

I thrashed about on my bed, disturbed in my thoughts. I recalled vividly that the nanocom was deciphering every thought that passed through my head. Searing pain slashed at my head. Moaning, I grabbed at my hair. ‘Get this thing out! Get it out!’ I screamed.

A cold wash of reality set in. Nezatron had said there was a traitor on the Uriel, but didn’t say who.

I mumbled to myself in shock, ‘Maybe the traitor is me.’ In my confused state, I had forgotten the fact that this traitor was detected before I even had set foot on this ship with my team.