In Heat - Jenlisa

Chapter 94 - Vengeance

Lisa never fully grasped the gravity of feeling of despair until now, watching her own intended fight in the pits. Hearing words weaved into warning is one thing, but seeing it in flesh—seeing and smelling and tasting this armageddon that Jennie has brought down upon them all—is an entirely different matter.

"Your intended is vicious," Jason comments, his gaze burning into Lisa's neck. Her collar, always warm to the touch, might as well be scalding against her throat.

Lisa can't bring herself to respond to him, heart too full of foreboding to risk opening her mouth.

Jennie doesn't seem to be losing, per se, but she isn't gaining on Hugo either, and in some ways, Hugo is larger than life—a woeful reality that Lisa knows well. This is the phantom that has hounded her since she was a child, a monster only surpassed by the harshness of her mother's affection. Watching Jennie go up against Hugo is treacherous in every sense of the word.

"Toby's got a knack for making friends in high places," Cody mutters.

Jennie's next strike at Hugo's chest is almost balletic in its grace and just as jagged in ferocity, and for the first time, Lisa nearly regrets watching. Jennie fights with an expression that's going to put Lisa in the ground if she's not careful.

The violent polarity between Lisa's fear for Jennie's safety and the sick little part of her that takes pride in having such a merciless dominant has her stomach climbing into her throat.

Jennie throws a punch that rattles Hugo's teeth, but he holds his form, dogged to the last. The longer the fight goes on, the more prophetic Lisa feels. Something is coming, she thinks. Of all the wolves clustered around her, Lisa alone does not flinch when the first drop of rain splatters her shoulder.

"I knew it'd turn into a mudbath," Jake crows.

Cody scoffs under his breath. "You didn't know shit."

For a split second, as Jennie glances up at the sky, Lisa could swear her expression turns calculating.

The night changes between one breath and the next, clouds blocking even the stars until only a weak moon casts the sky in shades of grey. It's as if the heavens have opened up and dropped down upon them all, water sluicing over them in great splitting wraiths that plaster Lisa's hair to the back of her neck.

"What does low visibility do to the odds?" Jake asks.

"Low visibility," Cody contemplates aloud, "Makes for an interesting match, at least."

"Maybe for the witch. Wolves aren't bothered by a little rain," Tzuyu snaps.

"A fish could get lost in this much rain," Cody sagely replies.

Jason makes a noise of agreement. "Kim doesn't look like she's struggling," he points out, and outrageously, he's right.

Jennie doesn't seem to have any trouble at all finding her footing in the sudden downpour. One would think she's fought in plenty of hurricanes, given how easily she adjusts to the new, decidedly more harrowing circumstances. Her boots remain solid even as the sand grows muddied and loose beneath her feet.

Her ponytail will be a nightmare to unknot, Lisa absently thinks.

She's so busy fretting over the state of Jennie's hair that she nearly misses it. If not for the moon catching on a deceptively shiny patch in the ground—a puddle, Lisa realizes, one that Hugo clearly didn't see—she wouldn't have noticed his stumble. She wouldn't have seen Hugo's foot sliding, catching in a skid that Lisa imagines she can hear as he tries and fails to correct his momentum.