Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(82)
A fine line to walk, especially with her sister’s life hanging in the balance. Push back too much, and Falcone might ask questions, start wondering who meant the most to her. Where to strike hardest. She’d never allow it to get to that point. Never risk Maggie’s safety like that—even if these fights were all for her. Every one of them.
It had been three years since Selina had joined the Leopards, and nearly two and a half since she’d proved herself against the other girl gangs well enough that Mika, her Alpha, had introduced her to Falcone. Selina hadn’t dared miss that meeting.
Order in the girl gangs was simple: The Alpha of each gang ruled and protected, laid down punishment and reward. The Alphas’ commands were law. And the enforcers of those commands were their Seconds and Thirds. From there, the pecking order turned murkier. Fighting offered a way to rise in the ranks—or you could fall, depending on how badly a match went. Even an Alpha might be challenged if you were stupid or brave enough to do so.
But the thought of ascending the ranks had been far from Selina’s mind when Mika had brought Falcone over to watch her take on the Second of the Wolf Pack and leave the girl leaking blood onto the concrete of the alley. Before that fight, only four leopard spots had been inked onto Selina’s left arm, each a trophy of a fight won.
Selina adjusted the hem of her white tank. At seventeen, she now had twenty-seven spots inked across both arms.
Undefeated.
That’s what the match emcee was declaring down the hall. Selina could just make out the croon of words: The undefeated champion, the fiercest of Leopards…
A thump on the metal door was her signal to go. Selina checked her shirt, her black spandex pants, the green sneakers that matched her eyes—though no one had ever commented on it. She flexed her fingers within their wrappings. All good.
Or as good as could be.
The rusty door groaned as she opened it. Mika was tending to the new girl in the hall beyond, the flickering fluorescent lights draining the Alpha’s golden-brown skin of its usual glow.
Mika threw Selina an assessing look over her narrow shoulder, her tight braid shifting with the movement. The new girl sniffling in front of her gingerly wiped away the blood streaming from her swollen nose. One of the kitten’s eyes was already puffy and red, the other swimming with unshed tears.
No wonder the crowd was riled. If a Leopard had taken that bad a beating, it must have been one hell of a fight. Brutal enough that Mika put a hand on the girl’s pale arm to keep her from swaying.
Down the shadowy hall that led into the arena, one of Falcone’s bouncers beckoned. Selina shut the door behind her. She’d left no valuables behind. She had nothing worth stealing, anyway.
“Be careful,” Mika said as she passed, her voice low and soft. “He’s got a worse batch than usual tonight.” The kitten hissed, yanking her head away as Mika dabbed her split lip with a disinfectant wipe. Mika snarled a warning at her, and the kitten wisely fell still, trembling a bit as the Alpha cleaned out the cut. Mika added without glancing back, “He saved the best for you. Sorry.”
“He always does,” Selina said coolly, even as her stomach roiled. “I can handle it.”
She didn’t have any other choice. Losing would leave Maggie with no one to look after her. And refusing to fight? Not an option, either.
In the three years that Selina had known Mika, the Alpha had never suggested ending their arrangement with Carmine Falcone. Not when having Falcone back the Leopards made the other East End gangs think twice about pushing in on their territory. Even if it meant doing these fights and offering up Leopards for the crowd’s enjoyment.
Falcone turned it into a weekly spectacle—a veritable Roman circus to make the underbelly of Gotham City love and fear him. It certainly helped that many of the other notorious lowlifes had been imprisoned thanks to a certain do-gooder running around the city in a cape.
Mika eased the kitten to the prep room, giving Selina a jerk of the chin—an order to go.
But Selina paused to scan the hall, the exits. Even down here, in the heart of Falcone’s territory, it was a death wish to be defenseless in the open. Especially if you were an Alpha with as many enemies as Mika had.
Three figures slipped in from a door at the opposite end of the hall, and Selina’s shoulders loosened a bit. Ani, Mika’s Second, with two other Leopards flanking her.
Good. They’d guard the exit while their Alpha tended to their own.
The crowd’s cheering rumbled through the concrete floor, rattling the loose ceramic tiles on the walls, echoing along Selina’s bones and breath as she neared the dented metal door to the arena. The bouncer gestured for her to hurry the hell up, but she kept her strides even. Stalking.
The Leopards, these fights…they were her job. And it paid well. With her mother gone and her sister sick, no legit job could pay as much or as quickly.
The bouncer opened the door, the unfiltered roar of the crowd bursting down the hall like a pack of rabid wolves.
Selina Kyle blew out a long breath as she lifted her chin and stepped into the sound and the light and the wrath.
Let the bloodying begin.
You do not enter a race to lose.
Diana bounced lightly on her toes at the starting line, her calves taut as bowstrings, her mother’s words reverberating in her ears. A noisy crowd had gathered for the wrestling matches and javelin throws that would mark the start of the Nemeseian Games, but the real event was the footrace, and now the stands were buzzing with word that the queen’s daughter had entered the competition.