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

around me, just counting all the times that Ainsey’s chest rises and falls against my own. Wondering where all this will finally lead.

Nowhere good.

I know I’ve been selling myself the lie for as long as I can remember, but that’s all it’s been. Just a lie.

There is no happy ending here. Even if we get out—even if Rainer does come with us—there is no happy ending. Because I will be leaving all these kids behind.

And what else can I do? Forfeit my life, my one and only life, to run interference for them?

If I thought that would save them, I’d at least consider it. But it won’t save them. In six months five of these kids will be dead. In one year, at least ten. In two years maybe three make it. In five—none. Maybe not even Paulo.

There is no way to stop the fights. And they can call this Cort van Breda’s camp all they want in that rag of a magazine. But this isn’t my camp. This is Udulf’s camp. I’m just a fucking employee.

No, that’s not even right.

I’m lower than an employee.

I am a slave.

Eventually, I get up and when I take our dishes into the kitchen, I find Anya helping Irina clean up.

Part of me is surprised that Anya can forgive and forget so easily. But then again, she made it pretty clear that she was raised in violence when she pointed to her swollen and bruised eye and asked me if I thought that was her first.

Yeah. This whole world is sick.

And maybe it’s better out there. In that alternative reality where the normal people live. But I don’t think so. Because those normies are just living another kind of lie. They live in ignorance. They have no idea we’re even here. And they don’t want to know. They want us to stay the world’s sick, dirty secret. Because if they had to admit that we’re real, then they’d have to do something about it.

Or not do something about it, which is what I suspect would really happen. Ignorance is bliss.

I leave the kitchen and take Ainsey up to the helipad. Some of the kids already have their sleeping mats out. They are allowed to sign now, so some of them are busy having silent conversations. But most of them are playing hand-slapping games, a more elaborate version of patty cake that’s popular back in the village where we live. They’re allowed to laugh out loud now too, so plenty of them are doing that.

And their meals have changed. No more rehydrated meat. It’s still frozen and not even close to high quality, but it’s a helluva lot better than those dried-up chicken cubes. They get vegetables too. Not just oranges. Frozen peas and carrots. Berries too. They get protein shakes for breakfast now. That’s what Irina fed Anya tonight as dinner.

Funny though, Irina brought me chicken and rice.

She’s judging me, I think.

These rules I’ve had in place for nearly a decade suddenly seem very stupid. Why not let them talk? Why not let them laugh? Why not let them cry?

It’s only one month a year where all those rules are strictly enforced, but still. A month of life is a month of life when you only get so many.

Why do I deprive them? Maybe I should’ve spent my time making them happy instead? Feeding them the best food, taking them nice places, letting them enjoy themselves.

But then Udulf would’ve closed my camp and they’d all just end up with someone else. With someone like Pavo.

I sit down on the concrete and lean my bare back against the hot cinder brick wall of the old machine building, closing my eyes and enjoying the last rays of sunshine before the darkness comes. Four albatrosses immediately start crowding me. This is kind of an evening ritual with the older ones, the ones who have been around a while, the ones who think of me as family.

Just thinking that word hurts a little.

Ainsey wriggles around until she’s facing forward, at first reaching for the birds, who tolerate her and don’t bite. But she knows they aren’t pets and her attention soon turns to watching all the kids playing their games and talking with their hands.

She doesn’t get up and join them. She doesn’t belong here.

Why did I bring her in the first place?

It’s a stupid question. In two months, I will abandon her to Udulf. And even though I keep telling myself I can live with that, I can’t live with that.

God, Cort. You need to pull yourself together.

There is no way to save her. I can’t risk another fight. I can’t wait six or eight months to get it scheduled and train for it.

I can’t do it.

Ainsey snuggles into my chest. She has no idea she is my daughter. No one has ever told her and no one ever will. She just loves me for some reason.

I hate that.

I hate that she loves me without knowing why when I will be the one to sentence her to death after I walk away.

A little while later Anya and Irina come up and lay their mats down over near the corner where Maart likes to sleep. Neither of them looks at me as they chat in sign language. They are not that far apart in age. Irina is only thirteen, and I still don’t know how old Anya is. She could be sixteen for all I know. But I think it’s more likely she is eighteen or nineteen. She’s just kinda small, not that much taller than Irina, so I do see the logic behind Maart’s decision to pair them up for that fight. But size has almost nothing to do with the kind of fighting we do. Anya could train for the rest of her life and she would still never be as dangerous as Irina.

Because every time Irina walks out onto the mat she is fighting for her life.

I’m sure Anya has