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)
“What are you talking about?”
In that bit of conversation that just came to mind, I was telling her about the kids of these families who own fighters. Or house slaves. And I started that conversation telling her how they raise up their children to see us as things. Things to use any way they see fit. Because evil has to be bred into humans. It’s not inherent. It’s not. It’s made.
And Irina replied, I’m not following.
She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand how they got all this power. She has no idea how it works.
I stare at Irina, leaning forward now, elbows on knees, chin propped up on my fists. And I think… I should just kick her out. Pack my shit. Go somewhere. Sell everything. Kill myself. End this fuckin’ game once and for all.
But she’s looking at me weird. Like maybe I’ve been thinking too loud and she heard some of my vile whispers. Like she sees my hate. Like she smells my self-loathing.
Irina sits down in that same chair she fell asleep in last night and she pulls her legs up to her chest, hugging them, looking me right in the eyes. “Start over. OK? Just… start over and fill in all the things you left out.”
I shake my head.
“Why? I’m listening. I’m not leaving. Not like this.”
I scrub my hands down my face and look down at my feet. “You don’t want to know this shit, Irina. You don’t have any idea how bad it is.” I force myself to look up at her, to lock eyes with her. “My story will ruin you. Just like it ruined me. You will never be able to unknow what I tell you. Ten minutes. I could maybe tell it in ten minutes. And at the end of these ten minutes, you will be someone else.”
“What happened?” She gets up, crosses the space between us, sits down next to me—so close her body is pressing into mine—and takes my face in her hands, forcing me to focus. “Tell me what happened.”
“They kill it all, Irina. They kill anything you love. They look for it. They find it. And then they use it to control you.”
She takes a deep breath. “Who did they kill?”
I lean back in the cushions, making her let go of my face. “I wasn’t even worried about it. Benny said, ‘I’ll take care of it. It’s not a big deal. It means they respect you now, Eason. It means you’re big time. This is just how it works. I’ll take care of it. It’ll be fine.’ That’s what he kept saying. And I believed him. I mean, I was on a fuckin’ beach, Irina. I was thinking about fucking girls, and drinking, and how I was gonna win that next fight and just… not caring. I didn’t know. And maybe… maybe I didn’t even care. But they know how to make you care.” I pause to nod my head at her. “They found a way to make me care.”
She blows out a breath. “OK. Tell me how they made you care.”
She thinks she wants to know this shit. She doesn’t. But I’m too tired to make her leave and if she stays, she needs to know.
So I start talking.
The general population of this world has no idea the price you have to pay to rise up. I’m not talking about a little bit of success. I’m not talking about a university education, a nice house with a sports car in the driveway, and a yearly vacation to Bali.
I’m talking elite success.
If a child of an elite goes to university, they fuck off the whole time. They make friends. Connections. They start up companies and graduate with a degree or two they didn’t need, let alone earn. I’m talking about mansions with ten-car garages filled with sports cars, situated on estates with a stable of polo ponies out back, and yachts that sail you to Bali under the expert hand of a well-paid crew.
It’s a game to them. And we’re all nothing but bit players.
I had a taste of that life with Benny. He had all those things and he shared them with me. He made me train and he had expectations of me. I was expected to win. But I had expectations of winning too. It was, after all, the only way to save my life. But once you get a taste of what these people have—once you realize that life is a video game for them—it takes a much stronger man than I ever was to chuck it all away and leave with nothing.
I’m not alluding to Cort here, either. Though he probably is a much better man than I’ll ever be.
“You want in the Ring, Eason?” Benny asked me, his British accent strong, even though he wasn’t the least bit British. This was right after he had managed to schedule my next Ring of Fire fight with Sick Heart. Then he laughed. “Do you know… that there are other options?”