SICK HEART by Huss, JA (nice books to read TXT) 📗

as long as I win mine. Rainer came next. Then Evard. And now me.

Once I serve this last sentence and do the final training, we’re free.

It’s so fucking close I can taste it. And Udulf knows this. So now he’s asking himself, Why? Why would Cort risk all that over this girl?

I don’t know yet. I just know she’s worth something. Something more than I’ve paid for her, that’s for sure.

But if this man, this pseudo-father, this master of mine wants to believe that I want Anya to ease my craving for Maart as I serve my last sentence, then fuck it. What do I care?

Yes, I sign. I earned this.

His mouth lifts up on one side in amusement. Then he takes one last look down the stairwell where Anya is surely waiting at the gate.

She knows things. Lots of things. Or maybe just one thing—something very important. That’s why Lazar wanted her dead, but not just any kind of dead. He wanted to get something for her before he let her go.

But what? The ship? That can’t be it. That ship is worth billions. No human on this earth is worth billions. Not even Udulf is as valuable as that ship.

Even if that’s true, why did Lazar let her live this long? Why didn’t he kill her after he kicked her out of his bed?

Slave girls in our world rarely make it past age eleven. Twelve-year-old girls are practically unheard of. They use them up and throw them away. And by throw them away I mean they kill them.

They do the same with the boys. Even at the gym, even at camp—we are disposable. We fight, and we either win and live, or lose and die.

That’s how our world works.

I walk back over to him and pause. Waiting for him to make a decision.

“You didn’t earn her, Cort.” Udulf and I have the same steel-gray eyes. I’ve always hated that about him because people really think he’s my father. I don’t know if he is. I don’t know who my real father was. I don’t think I ever knew that. All I have left of the time before Udulf is the Lectra dream.

But I find myself praying at night sometimes. Praying that Udulf is not my father. Because if he is, he’s so much worse than even I understand.

But those eyes…

“Fine. Keep her until you get back to base camp. Then…” He lets out a breath. “Then I will pay you one last visit and I will collect her. But”—he points a finger in my face—“I need her alive. Do you understand me? I’ll wait you out and give you this… gift. You have been a good boy.” He places his hand alongside my cheek and a shudder of revulsion shoots through my body. Udulf mistakes it for… something else. He pats my cheek and continues. “But she had better come back to me alive, Cort. Do you understand me?”

I brush his hand away and lift my chin up in response. It’s a yes, but not a nod. He didn’t earn a nod. He didn’t earn any of this today. He’s taking from me right now. He doesn’t belong here.

“Calm down,” he says, tugging on his shirt collar as he looks off to his right where half a dozen albatrosses are gliding in circles barely ten feet away. “I’m going. I hate those fucking birds.” And he starts climbing the steps.

All of this bothers me. He can read my mind these days.

Like it or not, Udulf van Hauten knows me intimately.

I follow him up and stand on the platform with my arms crossed, flanked by my giant white guardians as Udulf’s helicopter lifts off.

I stay that way until it’s long out of sight. Then I walk back down the steps to get Anya. She’s waiting for me at the gate, her blue eyes locked with mine, filled with questions she will never ask.

Why? Why don’t you talk?

If it were something as simple as she saw too much, she’d be dead.

That’s not it. That can’t be it. It’s something else and I need to know what that something else is.

I need her secret.

I open the gate and wave her forward. Then I follow her up to the training level. She pauses there, waiting for instructions. And I’m not being mean when I think this, but Anya Bokori is weak. So fucking weak.

She cannot be something special. She simply doesn’t have it in her.

I have locked eight-year-old boys on the lowest level of this rig—barely ten feet above an angry ocean—for days at a time, just for being little dicks. They got one cup of water a day, if they were lucky. And they didn’t cave. They didn’t cry. They didn’t beg. They didn’t give up.

Anya had to skip a little rope and miss a meal and she throws a tantrum? I should’ve just let him take her. She’s going to be trouble. And I don’t want to fuck her.

I don’t need her here to ease my loneliness, because I don’t even understand the meaning of that word. I like it here. I fucking love it here. I hate it when I have to share this place with others.

I point to the bag. She doesn’t balk at all. Just walks over to it and starts punching it like a stupid girl. No, that’s not even true. I have eight girls at my camp who punch like girls. And half of them can knock out a full-grown man.

Anya’s punches are weak.

And yet she’s here, Cort. Why? None of this was in the plan. You were allowed to fuck her, you were allowed to tattoo her, and that’s all you were allowed to do.

But you brought her with you. Over everyone’s objections. Why?

I don’t know. I really don’t.

Anya whines and when I look over at her, she’s cradling her hand. Her knuckles have split open and they are stained with blood.

Fucking great. I walk over, grab her arm, and tug her into the