Starfall (Starflight #2)(92)

A rough slap to the face interrupted him. “Pull it together,” his boss warned. “This is the last chance for both of us. I swear if you blow this for me, I’ll make you dry out again before Zhang has you killed. Are we clear?”

Kane sobered at the memory of two weeks with no inhalers. “Yes, boss.”

They continued in silence until they reached the pit doors at the far end of the arena. Kane heard the crowd long before he saw their faces, a rumble of excitement that added to the anxiety building behind his ribs. As soon as he strode through the entrance, the stands erupted in deafening cheers, and he shielded his face with one hand.

The crowd blurred into a mass of waving arms as he glanced around the pit, which had completely changed since his last competition. The locker room was gone, as was the maze. The floor stretched open now, with the battle platform situated in the middle. The distance to the ring was the same, but the crowd seemed closer somehow. Too close. All that separated him from the bottom row of seats was the exterior maze wall, nine feet high and stretching around the perimeter of the pit.

From somewhere out of sight, the master of ceremonies called over the speakers, “I present to you our champions: Brock Cutter…and the Wolf!” At the mention of Kane’s nickname, the crowd lost their minds. He’d never hated them more than during that moment, as they howled for his opponent’s blood. “Our champions are strong and rested up, and ready to battle to the death in your honor!”

Honor. What a joke. There was no honor here.

“Okay, you two,” the boss shouted when they’d reached the platform steps. “I want you to give these people a show they’ll never forget, so take these.” He handed each of them a golden inhaler. “They’re all yours.”

“The whole thing?” Cutter asked.

“As many bumps as you want.”

Even as Kane’s fingers tightened protectively around his inhaler, he wished his boss hadn’t given it to him. He didn’t know if he had the will to stop after one breath, and he didn’t want to end up drying out in the med-center again. “But what if we take too much? Won’t we build up a tolerance?”

The boss licked his lips and took a sudden interest in his shoes. “Don’t worry about that, kid. Just do what feels right, okay?”

Then he jogged away without a backward glance.

Kane shared a worried look with Cutter. He knew they’d both reached the same conclusion. If the boss didn’t care about immunity, it meant the winner of tonight’s fight wouldn’t survive long enough to compete again. Ari Zhang wasn’t a forgiving man. He only needed one of them to break the tie. Otherwise, they were expendable.

Kane scanned the arena for Zhang’s private box, hoping to read the man’s intentions. He found the box in the same spot as before, situated in the middlemost aisle, about halfway to the top of the stands. But before his eyes made it to Zhang, they stopped on a familiar woman with a heart-shaped face and a riot of red curls spilling from a bun atop her head.

Kane did a double take. Was that Arabelle?

He almost didn’t recognize her with a patch covering her left eye, but there was no mistaking the motherly curve of her face, or the intensity in her right eye, which was fixed on him and trying to convey a message he couldn’t understand. He peered through the stands for the crew but didn’t find them. Maybe the mafia had captured Arabelle. Glancing on either side of her, he noticed she sat in between her former owner, Necktie Fleece, and that bastard Nicky Malone, who wouldn’t stop leering at her.

Kane felt sick.

He couldn’t stand the idea of Belle as a lady in white—it hit too close to home. She was part of the Banshee crew, and that made her family. It might as well be his own mother sitting up there. As he watched her, he saw Nicky Malone trace an index finger along the length of her forearm, and his vision tunneled.

“Cutter?” he heard himself say.

“Yeah?”

Kane tore his gaze away from the private box and faced his opponent—who was a man, not a bag. Lifting his inhaler, he asked, “How powerful will a breath of this make you?”

“Not very,” Cutter admitted.

“How about two breaths?”

“A little stronger than usual.”

Kane nodded toward the middlemost aisle. “Strong enough to boost me over that wall?”

Cutter shifted a glance in that direction. Kane could practically see the wheels turning inside the man’s head, weighing the act of helping him against the risk of what Ari Zhang would do to them when it was done.

“Yeah,” Cutter said, grinning as he turned up his injured palm. “I’ll probably lose these fingers again, but like I told you, I didn’t get attached.”

The master of ceremonies called out over the speakers, telling them to take their places on the battle platform, but Kane ignored him. He offered his hand and Cutter shook it.

“Godspeed, kid.”

“Same to you.”

Cutter jerked his chin toward the stands. “When you’re up there, toss a few of those perverts my way. I’m not showing up alone in hell tonight.”

Kane clinked his inhaler against Cutter’s in a toast. “Here’s to going out with a bang.”

“I’ll breathe to that.”

They brought the mouthpieces to their lips. Kane pumped his tube twice and sucked in a deep breath, holding it while the layers of the mortal world peeled back and revealed a heaven of his own making. He was a god once more, his cells bursting with all the power of the cosmos, and tonight he would bring down his vengeance.