Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Eason shrugs. “I don’t think I do, Irina. I wasn’t… I didn’t… it was just different for me.”
“Right. Sorry for interrupting. Keep going.”
“I thought ya said ya didn’t wanna hear it?”
“Well, Eason…” I sigh out a long, tired breath. Mostly just to buy myself time so I can figure out how to put this, but also because I’m tired and it’s not even lunchtime yet. “You’re the only person in this whole city—maybe this whole country—who has any idea of what I’ve been through. So… I can’t just toss you aside like trash, can I? Like it or not, I need you.” I wince at this last part. Even though that’s truly how I feel, admitting it wasn’t in the plan.
But it does make Eason smile. “That’s good to know.”
“So keep going. I’m listening.”
“Well, it’s complicated. But not really. My da was a fighter. My brothers were fighters. I was a fighter. I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t in the gym training. Brothers there. Father there. It was my life. Of course, I was too young to fight for real. But my da, he wasn’t too concerned about the rules. Declan, who was eight years older than me, he was all legitimate. But he was never gonna be professional. He was never gonna make it. And my da, well, his dreams were big, I suppose. He found out about the training camps.”
“Wait. Like Ring of Fire?”
“Definitely not, but something like it. He found out that there was a group of men training children to be fighters. All over the world they were training these kids. I think he probably tried to get in on it as an owner, but it was never gonna happen. You don’t ‘get in’ on things like that. You’re born into it.”
I nod. Because yeah, that’s how it goes. You’re born into this shit.
“Anyway, he did it different with Conor. Started putting him in some underground fights when he was seven. Bare-knuckle stuff, not boxing. Conor did well. By the time I was…” Eason pauses to swallow and then suck in a breath before continuing. “By the time I was sold, he was fifteen. I guess good ol’ Da thought that was his chance. He was never gonna get in the big underground fights, not yet. But he could buy his way up, little by little.”
Yep. I knew it. My stomach churns at this revelation. But I knew it was coming. How else does a kid from a random Irish family in Dublin get here? “He sold you to get in.”
Eason nods. “He sold me. My brothers were standing right there. I was taken, kicking and screamin’, and put on a boat. The next thing I knew, I was somewhere hot and stifling. It was Morocco, but I didn’t know that then. Actually took me a couple weeks to figure out where I was, because once I arrived my new owner—”
“Benny?”
He scoffs. “No. Not Benny. I don’t know what the man’s name was. Maybe they told me, but I don’t remember it. I wasn’t there long enough to give a fuck.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“I’m not sure, really. I was in some kind of basement. But not a real basement. Like a lower level built into the ground, but no windows or anything.”
“A dungeon.”
He laughs. “As good a word as any. A dungeon. It wasn’t dark like that, though. The walls were made of rock, or sand, or something. And there were tapestries and tables. And cages.”
“Tables? For like… customers?”
“Dunno. I guess. Again, wasn’t there very long. The power went out—which it often did—but this time there was screaming upstairs. Gunshots. Some kind of raid, or just some attack by a rival gang. Someone came, opened up the cages—there was just me and two other boys, plus a girl. All younger than me, though. I was nine. They were… four? Maybe five, but I doubt it. They were small. And they were drugged with hands taped together and gags in their mouths. Anyway, whoever these men were, they took the little kids and left me there. And just before the last guy retreated up the stairs holding the little girl, I asked, ‘What about me?’ In English, of course. Which he didn’t speak, I don’t think. But maybe he understood, because he gave me the finger to fuck off.”
“Well, that’s weird.”
“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?” His mood has lightened with the telling of his story. This must not be the bad part then. The bad part must be coming up later. “I never did figure it out. It took me weeks to learn any words at all in Arabic, and even then, I was only worried about food and water. After all the fighting stopped upstairs, I went up there—dead people everywhere, blood spattered everywhere—and I just… walked out the door. It was night-time. There were even people in the street, walking by like nothing happened. So I walked away like nothing happened too.”