Deathmatch

Part 1.4

I looked around. "What circle are you talking about?"

He smiled. "The stone circle. Haven't you seen it?"

"No. Where?"

The vendor pointed to the east. "A beautiful place to watch the sunrise this fine mornin'. Go check it out."

"Thanks."

I walked for about a mile due east before I began to wonder if I'd missed some obvious landmark, or maybe the vendor's vague directions were lacking.

The dwellings abruptly gave way to a green, grassy expanse of land. In my mind, I was expecting something like Stonehenge, but it was just a low, crumbling, circular rock wall, sunk into the soft earth as if it was ancient. It was vast in circumference, and the area of it filled the borders, creating a knee-high platform of sorts, carpeted in purple, flowering weeds, with moss spilling down the sides.

It was a fine place for the fight.

Apprehension filled me as I pictured Ramsey fighting to the death later. His opponent was an Old World heavyweight MMA champion. Ramsey was a hell of a fighter, but he didn't usually fight seasoned pros in his weight class. And let's be real, Tokar was a heavyweight Krav Maga black belt, and he used to beat the shit out of Ramsey on the regular. I really hoped he knew what he was doing.

"Hey, man."

I turned, surprised to see a teen coming up to me, waving. It was the musician, the blond kid. He put his hands in the pocket of his frayed brown hoodie, then offered me one when he reached me.

He gave me a firm handshake. "How's it going? Name's John Collins. I saw you the other night, at The Peach Tree."

"Yeah, I remember. I'm Corporal Everett."

He smiled. I didn't think this kid was even old enough to need a shave yet, face as smooth as butter, but he acted like he was my peer. Kids were different when they had grown up in the New World. "It's nice to meet you, Corporal."

He glanced around furtively, the unmistakable look of man checking for witnesses, and I stepped back, eyes narrowing.

"I heard a rumor that you might be a Bleeding Heart," John said in a low voice.

"Huh?"

"Bleeding Heart. You don't know the term?"

I shook my head.

"It means you're a normal man who doesn't think girls belong in cages. It's s'posta be derogatory, I guess." He shrugged. "That's what they're calling us."

"Us?"

John frowned. "Look, word of advice? Making a scene? That's a great way to find yourself swinging from a rope. This might look like a farming settlement, and I guess it is, but it's also the largest human trafficking hub this side of the country. Girls are routed through here and shipped out all over the Northwest. It's a big business, and it's not smart to get in the way of powerful men making a lot of money."

"You mean to tell me what's going on in the cellar is part of some larger operation?"

John snorted. "You been living under a rock? The Trade's spreading like wildfire. There aren't enough women, ever since the Famine." It was something we didn't often acknowledge aloud, but the sad and simple fact was that during the Famine, men proved once and for all who the weaker sex was. Which was a polite way of saying a lot of women became dinner. "It's made them a commodity. Unless they got somebody...unfuckwithable...for a daddy or a husband...they're shit outta luck, man."

"It's not like that at our compound."

"The mysterious Marina Compound?" He chuckled, yellow brows raising. "Well, I know you're not shipping them out anywhere, but they go in, and they don't come back out, do they?"