Wings of Fire High

Chapter 8

See Peril's updated character page.

I walk down the block with Sky tagging along closely behind. 

We come upon a gym who's sign reads, "Scarlet's Arena" in flowey orange lettering with flame graphics behind. A sign printed on the door says, "Wrestling matches Tuesdays & Thursdays at 6 p.m." 

The idea of mine & Sky's stepmother's business is taking in random people off of the street & having them do bracket matches. The winner of the bracket wrestles me. If you win, you get all of the money that was paid for entry, plus a pin that says, "I fought at Scarlet's Arena!", which all of the competitors get anyways, but if you actually win, you get "& won!" scribbled underneath. Not that people win very often. 

I started wrestling when I was five. I'm now seventeen. That's 12 years of wrestling. I have seen competitors faint when they hear her name. Everyone who has ever gone there either loves or fears the girl with sharp blue eyes & fiery red hair. I have body slammed grown men twice my size & head-locked women the size of tree trunks. So basically, Scarlet scams a dozen people out of 30 bucks each every Tuesday & Thursday.

Mom knows about it & tried to stop it at first, but quickly realized that there was no stopping Scarlet once she thought up a scam, so now she shows up whenever she doesn't have to do too much & cheers me on. Sky hates violence & hates that dogs are sometimes used to add to the "thrillingness"(Scarlet's words, not mine) of it. He used to not show up, but Scarlet said she'd let him take care of the dogs in the kennel. She also promised to use the fights to get people to adopt shelter dogs instead of forcing them to fight. Let's just say that my brother is very persuasive when he wants to be.

I strut into the gym & walk over to the bench press. I can lift 115 Lbs. Sky likes to try to work out, but he can only lift about 20 Lbs, barely. 

I set down my weight & spot a familiar head of curly brown hair across the gym. "Clay!" I call & run over. He spots me & waves.

His friends are there, too. Glory & Tsunami are racing on treadmills. Starflight is sitting on a stationary bike, but he has it in the lowest setting & is reading. Sunny is doing some very impressive taekwondo & humming hype songs. Apparently, Clay agreed to help her practice. Deathbringer, Fatespeaker, & Riptide are here also. Deathbringer is hitting a punching bag & trying to show off to Glory. Fatespeaker is actually trying on the stationary bike & singing very off key to some Taylor Swift playing through her ear buds. Riptide is lifting weights & trying to get Tsunami to look at him, but she's too busy trash talking Glory to notice.

Sky jogs over & collapses in a puddle of sweat. We all just stare at him (except for Fatespeaker, who apparently has her music on full volume) until he remembers how to breathe. He sits up & looks around. His eyes hover on Sunny, who was in the middle of flipping Clay over on his back when he showed up.

She walks over to my dorky brother & holds out her hand to help him up, "You okay, Sky?" Said boy's face was already red from running over here, but it quickly turns redder when the blonde offers her help. I don't think she notices. 

I trot over to Clay & say hi. We talk for a while before Tsunami taps me on the shoulder, "Hey, Peril, you wanna lift?"

Tsunami can lift the same amount as me, but we like competing to see who can lift more. I nod & we jog over to the weights section.