Losing Nuka (Litmus Book 1) (8 page)

The crowd parts as Brett makes his way through, flanked by two guys in black T-shirts that read “security” along the back. He makes his way into the square, stripping off his shirt, and making the screaming louder … I can definitely hear more girls hollering anyway. A shy-guy grin crosses his face, but I can see the cocky smirk he’s hiding underneath.
Ugh.

Someone else takes the path he just made, joining him on the stage. Another muscly guy, smaller than Brett, but still pretty big. His ultra-white hair glows under the lights, giving him an angelic halo effect. He makes his way over to Brett, and he too removes his shirt.

What is this? Some kind of stripping contest? Are they going to lose the jeans next?

“It’s Taser. I thought Chi was on tonight?” Cade says. “Brett hasn’t faced him for a long time.” She sounds a little bit worried.

“Don’t you worry about Brett, love. It’s only an exhibition fight. Both of them will know to take it easy. Save the real stuff for the real thing.”

Exhibition fight? Taser, Chi?

A third person joins the stage, but he refrains from taking his clothes off. He’s wearing a plain dark T-shirt, ripped skinny man jeans, and sneakers.

“Welcome to Litmus!” the man yells into his microphone, his voice booming throughout the entire venue. “We’ll have an interesting fight tonight. No one’s getting out of here unscathed, folks. In the Deakin corner, we have Brawn.” Brett steps forward and the crowd starts screaming again. “In Holt, we have Taser.” More screams bellow as the other guy steps forward. “Two of the biggest, toughest, meanest competitors go head to head in an ultimate battle of strength.”

“You’re pitting Defectives against each other?” I ask, my face screwed up in disgust.

“It’s not like that, Nuka,” Cade says. “It’s a sport. It’s entertainment.”

“It’s a gold mine is what it is,” Jonas says with a proud scoff.

“It’s disgusting,” I say. “How do you call this sport? It’s sick, it’s demeaning. You all just sit around and watch people beat the hell out of each other?”

A loud dinging sound echoes and Brett starts attacking Taser … or whatever his name is. Taser doesn’t get a chance to go on the offensive. He’s too busy trying to avoid Brett’s fists. Unsuccessfully, too. Brett lands a powerful right hook, and even from this distance, I see the blood fly from Taser’s mouth.

They’re not wearing headgear, gloves … they’ve got nothing to protect themselves. This is insane.

Brett’s already gotten a few good hits in, but Taser manages to escape Brett’s onslaught. Managing to jab Brett in his ribs, Taser drops Brett to his knees. I don’t know how Taser brought him down with a single punch, but Brett looks like he’s spasming uncontrollably. Almost like he’s being …

“They’re using their abilities on each other?” I exclaim.

“I thought you said he would take it easy?” Cade scolds Jonas, successfully ignoring me. “Brett’s never gone down that quick.”

“He’ll get back up,” Jonas assures.

Brett turns quickly on his knees, punching his opponent so hard in his hip that his entire right leg falls out from underneath him.

I suck in a loud breath and find myself torn. Surprisingly, I’m glad Brett’s gotten back on his feet, but I can’t help judging him for doing this in the first place. It’s degrading, it encourages the divide between normals and us.

As I watch over the crowd from my window, I’m the only one who seems to feel this way. Everyone else is cheering and going nuts. Chanting for Brett … well, Brawn.
Nice nickname, wanker.

“This is so wrong,” I say as Brett sends a left hook into Taser’s face, making him fall to the ground completely.

“So I take it that’s a no to going into the arena?” Jonas asks.

“You … you want
me
to go in there? Are you insane?”

“Brett told us how you almost got away from him and Drake the other night. You should’ve been a simple snatch-and-grab job. But you knocked Drake on his ass and burnt Brett’s back to a crisp. It still hasn’t healed,” Cade says, pointing down to the arena.

She’s right. He still has red hand prints etched in his back.

“We need more girls,” Jonas says.

“More women,” Cade clarifies.

Yeah, because calling us girls would be demeaning.
“I … I can’t do …
that,
” I say, pointing to the ring where Brett is still beating the hell out of Taser.

“We’ll train you, of course. But something tells me you won’t need much,” Jonas says. “Where’d you learn to fight?”

“Uh … my adoptive mother,” I say shyly, trying my best to avoid eye contact with Cade. “She made me and my siblings learn self-defence growing up.”

“How long have you been doing it?” Jonas asks.

“I trained two to three times a week for about ten years until I turned eighteen and moved out.”

Cade and Jonas look at each other, their smiles scaring the hell out of me.

“We’re not going to pressure you to do this, of course,” Cade says in a soothing voice. Jonas clears his throat, but Cade ignores him. “Just take a look around tonight, see that this is actually a good thing, and have a think about it. You could be the face of our entire brand.”

“You’re certainly better looking than Brett,” Jonas says with a laugh.

“Your brand?”

“There are five owners, each with four or five players. We’re one of the most successful teams. A lot of people would kill for what we’re offering you. You could be famous, be in the spotlight, earn more money than you ever could in the real world,” Jonas boasts.

“And get killed in the process? All in the name of ‘sport’?” I say using air quotes.

“No one’s died in years,” Jonas says.

“But it
has
happened?” I ask.

“Do accidents happen? Of course. They happen in the real world, too. No one sets out for it to happen, no one wants to lose on their investment.”

I shake my head. “You’re talking about human beings. And why do you keep referring to outside of Litmus as ‘the real world’?”

“We’re an escape in here. People come here to forget about out there, if only for a few hours. They come, make a few bets, watch some fighting, they drink, have fun, and go home happy.”

“So that’s how you make money? By betting?”

“Each of the owners takes a share of the profit on everything. Entry fees, alcohol, sponsorships, and yes, betting. We all have individual bookies working for us.”

“And that’s why everything’s so secretive. Betting on something like this is bound to be illegal.”

“That’s not the only reason. The secrecy gives the club an element of exclusivity. It’s exciting, it’s glamorous.”

I just shake my head, still disgusted by what I’m seeing.

“You’ll find we’re not much different to when they used to have professional boxing. Did you find that appalling, too?”

“They weren’t being exploited for their abilities,” I mumble.

“Just their talent to fight. How is that different here?”

“Then why only Defective people? Why can’t normals fight?”

“Well, that would just be unfair. Hell, Brett wouldn’t even be in there if he didn’t have those damn muscles and his surprisingly strong threshold for pain.”

“He’s out,” Cade says.

While Jonas and I have been debating, we didn’t notice Brett going down for the count.

“He’s out cold,” Cade says.

“What the hell is Taser playing at?” Jonas mumbles. “It’s exhibition.”

“What’s the difference between exhibition and actual fighting?”

“This is all for show. To bring in new sponsors, entice new owners to invest, make people want to become a fighter. It’s not real … it’s not meant to be real,” Jonas says.

“Taser’s probably trying to get back at you for rejecting him from our team,” Cade says.

“Why did you reject him?” I ask. “Clearly he’s the type of fighter you’re looking for.”

“He wanted a higher cut. Yes, he’s a good fighter, but he’s greedy. He wanted more than twenty percent.”

“They only get twenty percent? They’re the ones putting their lives on the line and you give them
twenty percent
? Are you kidding me?”

“To them, twenty percent is still more than what they could earn on the outside.”

“
Them
? As in people like
us.
” I shake my head. “I can’t hear anymore.” People start walking towards the stage with a stretcher and a medical bag. “Take me to Brett. I want to make sure he’s okay.” My words surprise even myself.
Why do I even care?

Under Jonas’s permission, Cade takes me down to the main floor and the amount of people down here is frightening. The music is deafening—it was loud upstairs, but now it feels like the bass is giving me heart palpitations. For a supposedly exclusive club, it’s certainly a packed house. I almost lose Cade numerous times on the way to the bar until she ends up grabbing my hand to lead me.

Drake is standing by the bar, seemingly not paying attention to the commotion on the floor where Brett is now in the stretcher and being taken off stage. I follow Drake’s gaze and notice he’s not taking his eyes off Sasha who’s serving behind the bar.

“Can you take Nuka to the infirmary?” Cade yells at Drake over the noise. “I’ll take Sasha back upstairs.” She motions for Sasha to join her.

Drake nods and takes my arm, leading me into a side door, entering another backstage corridor.

“How was this place built without anyone’s knowledge?” I ask.

“Signed the contract, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah.”

Drake sighs. “Please tell me you read it first?”

“They didn’t exactly give me time.”

Drake shakes his head. “I thought you were going to be one of the smart ones. Make sure you read it.”

“What do—”

“So, answering your question, we’re currently in the very first subway station this country ever had. They’ve modified it, obviously, but it was originally going to become a big thing—the underground rail. There was going to be a station in every suburb, this one being central, it was going to be the biggest and best. It ended up being the
only
one. Ever since they perfected solar energy, the idea of a subway line was scrapped. Too expensive and not able to take advantage of the solar. So it was left here to rot.”

“Well, thanks for the history lesson.”

“You asked.”

“It still would’ve been hard to restore a place like this—turn it into what it is.”

“Not if the construction company hired to make the place structurally sound was on the Litmus payroll,” Drake says with a smile.

“How long has this been here?”

“The building has been here for a long time, but the actual competition has only been going for three. It took a few years to get everything organised and up to standard, to get enough investors, then there was recruiting.”

“How long have you worked for Jonas and Cade?”

“Almost two years. I was hired not long after this place caught on and started operating to its fullest. I don’t think they were expecting it to be so successful so quickly.”

“You don’t find it …”

“Morally wrong?” he asks, as if he could read my mind.

“Exactly.”

“I’m more leaning towards it being a grey area. Do I think the concept of Immunes fighting for entertainment is wrong? Maybe. But it’s kind of true that they get paid more and live better lives than most I’ve seen.”

“But—”

“We’re here,” he says, putting a code into another keypad on the wall. A double door in front of us clicks and he opens the left side, leading me into a room that looks like a treatment room of a doctor’s clinic. “He’s over there,” he says, pointing to Brett, who’s being treated by doctors, across the room. “I have to get back to Sasha. Don’t leave here without Brett or myself. Got it?”

“Got it.” Drake leaves as I start making my way over to Brett. As I walk past Taser sitting on the edge of a bed with someone checking over him, his hand reaches out, grabbing my butt. I stop in my tracks and turn slowly to face Taser who has a cocky grin on his swollen face.

He waves off his doctor and stands up, taking a step closer to me. “You couldn’t possibly be going to see Brawn, now could you?” His voice is weaselly and not at all deep like I was expecting.

“Why not?”

“Because he didn’t win. He’s not allowed a prize,” he says, taking another step forward, almost closing the small gap between us.

“Back off, Brayden,” Brett says groggily.

“Ooh, possessive much? I was just having a little fun.” His eyes lock with mine. “You must be pretty special if he won’t even let me talk to you.”

“Nuka, what are you doing down here?” Brett asks, while attempting to sit up in bed. The doctors assist him but then take a step back at Brett’s orders.

“Nuka? Your name’s Nuka?” Taser’s eyes narrow.

“Uh … yeah, why?”