Deathmatch

Part 1.4

EVERETT

I shoved my shaking hands in my pockets as I walked down a cobblestone path.

Now I had a reason to hate Marina. He was a punkass bitch. Euthanize me? For having a fucking moral compass?

I sighed, wishing the pent-up in violence inside me would stop making me quake.

Marina thought I was a hothead. Thought I just liked to start fights to throw my weight around. He didn't understand that there were things worth fighting for, and real men knew what they were - they felt it rise up in their chests on instinct.

There was some truth to the stereotype about angry gingers, but no one ever considered that it might not have been innate. With these beacons on our heads, we made easy targets as kids. We were picked on and bullied and backed into corners so many times, we learned to fight our way out. There was no other way to stop a bully than to blow him back, violently, and show him you were ten times as crazy as he was.

And Marina was a garden-variety bully. A manipulative punk who convinced bigger, stronger, more impressionable boys to do his bidding. And despite what I said to Marina, Ramsey was often just that. He looked every bit of twenty-nine, but deep down, when he wasn't slaughtering our enemies or torturing his trainees, he was almost childlike. He had a strange innocence that did not match the rest of him.

I disagreed with his decision to take Marina's side about the situation in the cellar under the mansion. But I wouldn't disobey Ramsey. He was the First. He cared for us, for all of us at the compound, truly cared, unlike Marina, who acted like he was too good to even associate with us. Ramsey had earned my respect, enough that I swore obedience to him, and I'd never been a follower. I trusted Ramsey, trusted in his good heart, if not always his good sense. But maybe his heart was too good to see that Marina was just using him to gain power. And what would a slimy little snake like Marina do with power once Ramsey gave it to him? He seemed to care about the people of our compound, but not nearly as much as Ramsey. While Marina made plans for infrastructure and commerce, Ramsey made plans for an orphanage and a NICU because he hoped the compound would one day be overrun with children. Ramsey was the sort of man that could be trusted with anything, even immense power, but Marina?

I went for a walk through the village to clear my head.

On the surface, Stone Circle was such a quaint farming settlement. Today, vendors had set up booths to sell their wares along the main road. I window-shopped furs, leathers, baked goods, pumpkins, and some friendly, gap-toothed merchant gifted me a caramel apple dipped in nuts since I still had no local currency.

"Is your giant ready for the fight tonight?" the vendor asked me.

"Mhm," I said, my mouth too full of caramel to say more.

"Well, all the foot traffic is great for business," he said, smiling. "Leo opened the gates. Pickers got the whole day off. It's the most excitement we've had in a while. Things get pretty sleepy around here. Can't complain, though. Heard there was a change of venue too."

"What do you mean?"

"I heard they were gonna do it in the cellar, but now they're doing it outdoors, in the circle, and everyone's welcome to come. Apparently, David announced a change of plan last night."

Interesting. They had wanted to keep the fight out of the public eye before, but now they were encouraging everyone to come watch. Was it supposed to be some kind of retaliation? Were they that sure their man would win? And what about last night had made them so sure? Seems like it should've been the opposite. Ramsey and I seized their guns in the cellar and sent them all fleeing.