Prey and Mercy

XII. The Strong Punish the Weak and the Weak Punish Themselves

I'm not sure he'll make it.

And I don't know if I can save him.

He takes in breath. It shudders through him, sweet breaking in rivulets down the sides of his face. Blood blooms beneath his cheeks and he gasps.

Idris grapples for a hold on his damp pink shirt, palm pressed against the cold gymnasium floor. He squints with ever breath because his eyes won't focus. "If...if they touch you...I'll kick...I'll kick all their asses!"

He's one of the only ones still on floor, a mile worth of laps lagging behind him. It astounds me that he wasn't diagnosed as an asthmatic.

"Catch your breath." Arms folded across my chest, I wait for the coach to blow his whistle, for Idris to stop goofing around and suck in a breath or two. "Then we'll talk retribution."

In a few minutes the pairings will begin. We'll duel until someone taps, until Mr. Pates throws his arms up and the two separate in heaps of sweat and bridled aggression.

It's been a day since Prey and I left the dying mortal in the comfort of his lake house shed and I could really use this moment to get out my frustration, the growing enmity in result of sparing his life.

But I'm not entirely sure Idris will make it the blue place mats. Not that it surprises me, he was never really up to snuff in the cardio department. He's lean in all the places where there should be thick layers of muscle, having used his body for activities that revolve around lounging amorously and mastering reproduction. Exercising, if not sex, doesn't interest him.

In fact, when we were little he despised tag; kid couldn't catch a break.

"I don't want you going up against Prey." He wheezes.

A snort escapes me. "And I don't want you making out with Mathis."

"But..." he stumbles to his feet, wincing with every stretch of his tendons. "He does this...this thing with his tongue‐"

That I don't want to hear. Not now. Not ever. "Shut up."

A shrilling pitch splits the air in two in time for coach to call for everyone to circle around.

In minutes I feel Idris's presence against my back, shoulders pressed with classmates in the center of the gymnasium floor. He leans down to press his chin against my shoulder, muttering something about how terrible everyone smells.

"I've got the roster right here!" Coach licks his lips, flicks a page over his wooden clipboard. "Now, listen up."

I shouldn't be able to hear everyone such in a breath but I do.

It's all in pieces, the world falling around me, when he finally says my name. "Mercy against Marjorie!"

Like bullets Her ice blue eyes cut into me, perforating anything that makes me soft. There something wicked in the way she looks from the floor, blush pink leaps lifting to reveal an ill-boding simper.

She's going kill me. Or at least make me wish I were dead.

Idris's "good luck" does nothing to cure my nerves. I all but shrug off his fingers on my shoulders.

"Do you think you can handle me?" She taunts, a murderous glint in her eyes. "Because I wanna handle you...with this."

Her katana does loops between her fingers, a balance only someone as crazy as her could employ. Though sharp, it won't hurt me; I don't fear that.

No such weapon forged by man can harm a goddess. Only blood and bone once incarnated from the gods who lived as we do. Before the crashing. And those weapons we house in our homes, passed down from generation to generation as power flows from one blood stream to the next. Something like arrow shafts, daggers, swords, maybe even hammers.