Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines Read Free Book Online Page A

everyone’s looking at the scoreboards. Officials have raised a flag.
    —Look. A penalty! I shout, as if this will bring Tommy back to life.
    —What? Allison says, clearly disoriented. Her lashes are soaked through and her teeth have cut into her lower lip.
    —You have to go down there, I say, pulling at her arm.
    She shakes her head. I want her to do something with that bead of blood on her lips. But she’s paralyzed.
    —Not Tommy, she says.
    If I were Allison, I’d be halfway down the stairs by now, trying to breathe life back into him, into his guts, his heart. But Allison sits there like the ambulance on the other side of the gates with its motor running, lights on. Waiting for the officials. Waiting for nothing. What do you wait for after death? Sixty thousand expressions of waiting all around us.
    I look at the series of cuts up and down Uber’s legs, across his chest, and over his shoulders. The coagulated blood looks like wax dripping down a candle. Each cut made by Tommy, so I know they smart extra hard.
    If Uber’s weapon is illegally balanced, he’ll be dismissed from the league. I’ve heard that Glads who cheat are sent to live on abandoned ocean platforms, the ones out near the Caymans, where they have no companions or toilet paper—only get limited food drops—and the televisions are primitive and often receptionless. But that could be an urban legend.
    The media talk about the ugly relief map of Uber’s face as he removes his tight helmet. They became chatty and informational about how to eliminate those marks from the forehead and cheeks. How to get the best fit in a helmet. And one sportscaster talks about which tattoo needles to use if you want to make a permanent tracing on your face: to have that tight-helmet look all the time.
    I try again.
    —You have to go down there, I say.
    But Allison’s lost. She’ll be better when the cameras are on her and she has to pull herself together. But right now, all she can do is sit in her seat and shake while Thad tries to lean against her. I look for a friend, even Sam or Callie, anyone we know in the crowd who might help out, but I can’t spot a soul.
    The officials are looking at Uber’s helmet now. Tommy once told me that Helmet Wearers spend more time scrounging material for their gear than they do killing. They can’t cover all the vulnerable parts of a face—the eyes are left bare by tradition and for visibility’s sake—but Tommy believed that real Glads went for exposure, that you shouldn’t be anything less than exposed when you fight.
    The woman behind us has started to gripe about the penalty flag, shouting, —What the hell are they doing?
    She must have taken hours to paint this red gash that starts on her forehead and goes down the length of her nose and splices her lip. She has mock bone and cartilage sticking out.
    Thad pulls on my jacket.  TOMMY G.  is stitched in gold letters across the back. He pulls so hard I feel the seams rip. Even though he’s on elevator drugs he doesn’t have any real control. It’s hard to know if he’s even registered Tommy’s death.
    —I have to tell you something, he says.
    When he gets going, Thad can have something to tell me every five minutes.
    He cups his hands around my ears. —Mom’s going to lose the house, he says.
    That’s the randomness of Thad. And you can’t say:  That’s nuts, Thad.  You have to play along like you’re going to lose the house. Otherwise, he goes into a worse state. And then I feel upset seeing him get upset. And the truth is, now that Tommy’s dead, we can live in our house forever, well, at least until Allison dies, because Tommy always fought a clean fight. And that’s in the rules.  Fight clean and a gladiator’s family enjoys ongoing and generous subsidies.
    —Things will be okay. There are other houses, I say to comfort him.
    I straighten his hair so it’s out of his eyes. Then I sit down next to Allison and put an arm around her