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

booty, even though she knows the rules. She’s displaying those books proudly. Like they are her trophies.

I predict she will go far.

Nine-year-old Rasha, on the other hand, is waiting on the edge of Paulo’s container, her eyes begging for him to let her in. They are real-life brother and sister. I can tell he’s pissed about it, but after about twenty minutes he starts flashing angry hands and fingers at her, and she bounces up and down in delight, clapping, then proceeds to drag her bed out of her container all the way across the platform and into his.

Rasha is not going to make it. She’s not a terrible fighter, obviously. She’s nine and still alive. But she’s not ruthless. She is never going to be ruthless. She kills her opponents with tears in her eyes every single time and then she is depressed for weeks afterward.

It sucks. It really does. It sucks that her compassion will get her killed. It shouldn’t be this way. But it is. And that’s all there is to it.

Maeko and Peng room together. They’ve always roomed together. They are a lot like Maart and me. Or, well, how we used to be when we were that age. We would stay up late and choose our names for the Ring of Fire. I wasn’t called Sick Heart back then. That was Udulf’s name for me and it came much later, when I got in to the Ring of Fire. I called myself the Stray. Just thinking back on those days makes me smile. And Maart called himself the Badger, because even though he was super skinny, he just kept going in for the kill. He never quit. He would’ve gone all the way on his own. He never needed me. I needed him.

We made so many plans. We used to make up diagrams of our training camps. How many huts we would have. How many training rings. How many kids we’d train. And then we’d fantasize about what we’d do afterward once we won our freedom.

Buy a private island. Private jet. Private everything. Condos all over the world. Women everywhere hanging all over us.

We made a pact, too, to never let those girls come between us. I’d forgotten about that. Maybe because Rainer came along soon after and he brought Cintia, Sissy, and Ling with him. And we messed around with them when we got older, but girls, man. We didn’t have time for girls. And the girls didn’t have time for us.

The only thing we thought about was living.

I sigh. Because this is why Maart is mad at me tonight.

After he knocked Anya out, we had a pretty good argument in front of everyone. He was screaming at me, telling me I was blind.

But it wasn’t just about Anya. It was Rainer, I think, who set him off. Maybe Maart felt like Rainer chose Cintia, Sissy, and Ling instead of us.

But Rainer... well, if he really does stay behind, we’d accept it. He’s one of my dearest friends, but he’s not Maart. It’s always been me and Maart. And then along came this girl.

It’s not even Anya he’s pissed about. She’s part of it, but that’s not why Maart is so angry. It’s Ainsey.

Ainsey. I shake my head as I watch her. She’s dragging her bed across the platform. The steel frame the thin mattress sits on doesn’t weigh a lot, but it’s bulky. And every time she pulls, she scrapes the bed across the concrete about two inches. I don’t know where she’s planning on taking that bed, but she’s gonna be here until morning at this rate.

I look around and find Rainer watching too. He’s got one hand cupped against his mouth. Like he really wants to say something to her, but he’s holding it back.

Then my eyes track over to Maart, who is also watching Ainsey from another end of the platform. He looks like he wants to say something too, but it’s vastly different than what Rainer is thinking.

He blames Ainsey. For Rainer leaving, for me being distracted, for Anya being here.

And none of that really makes sense. I think he knows that, but we’re so close and we have so much to lose. I sigh. It sucks when you have so much to lose. It’s a terrible feeling. And it makes me want to go back to a simpler time. When we owned nothing, so we had nothing to lose.

Maart pushes off the wall he’s been leaning on and walks over to Ainsey. I catch Rainer’s look from across the platform, but I shake my head at him. Leave it alone. Let’s see what he does.

Maart bends down, kneeling so he can look Ainsey in the eyes. I can see his lips moving, but he’s talking too low for me to hear anything. Then he looks over at me, stands up, shakes his head, and starts walking my way. “Do you know where she’s taking that bed?”

“No,” I say.

“Upstairs.” He points to the ceiling. “So she can sleep next to you out on the helipad.”

I picture Ainsey trying to get that bed up the stairs and let out a soft chuckle.

“It’s not funny,” Maart snaps. “None of this is funny. It’s bad enough you’ve got yourself all distracted by Anya, but this kid, Cort?” He points to Ainsey as the sound of another two-inch scrape fills the air. “She’s gonna get you killed.”

“You’re being fucking dramatic.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You’re not gonna leave, are you?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Of course I’m leaving. We’ve spent the last two decades working for this. I’m not giving it up.”

“I don’t believe you. Nothing about this last camp is right. It’s all wrong.”

I stare at him for a moment, acknowledge his fear—because that’s what it is—and then say, “You know you always come first.”

“Is that right?” He scoffs. Then he looks me dead in the eyes and says, “You should reconsider that.”

“Reconsider what?”

“Putting me first.”

“And why’s that, Maart?”

He hesitates.