Featherbound

Chapter 3: Eye for an Eye

I wake up to the feeling of water rushing up my nose. Sputtering and gasping, I bolt into a sitting position, rubbing the water out of my eyes. I can feel bursts of pain all over my body. My bottom lip feels twice its usual size, and my throat feels dry and constricted.
"Mornin', Sunshine," an unfamiliar voice says from above me. My eyes not yet adjusted to the dim lighting around me merely see outlines of people sitting and standing around me. The person standing over me has a plastic cup in their hand which I can only assume they used to throw water on me.
"Good to see you awake." Though their voice is deep, it is obvious she's female.
"What..." I stutter, squinting to make out her features, "What is happening? Who are you?" The lady grabs me under my arms and hauls me to my feet.
"It's nice to finally see another woman here," she says proudly, roughly dusting the dirt off my back. Each hard slap of her hand sends me closer to collapsing. back onto the floor. My entire body hurts. My previous stab wound hurts. My face hurts. I feel like absolute shit, but the lady continues talking. "You must be quite the little fighter to be sent to the ring instead of the auction. The name is Fiona, by the way. Fiona Lovelace." With a shaky hand, I reach out and shake her strong, well-muscled one.
"I'm Elliot Rose, but call me Ellie. I..." I wince at the sharp sting of my lip when I open my mouth too wide. "What are you talking about? Ring?" As my eyes finally begin to adjust to the dark, I see Fiona's dark, mocha skin. One of her golden eyes are swollen shut, and cuts criss-cross her hardened face. She's definitely been through the works, even more so than me.
"Fighting ring, kid," she says, rolling up the sleeve of her shirt, "See the brand?" I have to look very carefully to see the raised scarring of the brand on her bicep. It's simply a circle made of thorns and some sort of eye in the center. I couldn't help but run my fingers over its raised edges. The fact that it is healed means Fiona has been here a while. My mouth goes dry and I unconsciously take a few steps back.
"There's gotta be some sort of mistake," I insist, shaking my head side to side, "I'm not a fighter. I can't fight at all." Fiona laughs a rough, unhumored laugh.
"That's not what the guys who brought you in here said. They said you put up one hell of a fight and managed to hide your backpack somewhere before they finally got you. Pretty smart, kid." I look around at the dozen or so men standing and sitting around the dark, stone room. Most are shirtless, revealing multiple bruises and lacerations all over their flesh. One man only has one arm. Another has bandages over one side of his face, blood seeping through where his eye should be.
I'm going to die here.
Suddenly, the door I hadn't even noticed yet swings open, and two new men I have yet to seen before stroll in. One is carrying rope while the other has a machine gun.
A fucking machine gun???
"You..." the gun wielding man nods to me, "Let's go." My feet feel frozen to the spot, my heartbeat in my throat.
"Are you deaf?!" the man's booming voice echoes off the stone walls, "Let's go!" Fiona gives me a gentle nudge forward and before I know it, the second man grabs me by the neck and pins me face first against the wall. I struggle as I feel him tie my arms behind my back.
"Knock it off," he grumbles sounding half bored, "Save your fighting for the ring." With one last terrified look back at Fiona, I'm led out of the frying pan and into the fire.
The two men each have a hold of one of my elbows as they lead me through the dark night. It's night time? How long was I out for? Hours? Days? My head swims with disorientation. My shoulders ache at how tightly my arms are tied behind me. Where are we going? Suddenly, I see an orange light flickering nearby. A small fire sits in the clearing, and beside the fire stands a man with a long metal pole in his hand. As we get closer, I realize it's not a pole.
Its a branding iron.
My fight or flight kicks in and I immediately start pulling against the two men that have my arms. They tighten their grips, so I begin using the only weapons I have left. My feet. I kick blindly and wildly and feel my foot connect with one of the men's meaty calves.
"Ow, you little shit!" I'm suddenly thrown face first into the dirt beside the fire, one man using his whole body to hold me down while the other holds my arms still.
"Don't move or it'll get fucked up," he says, using one hand to grind the right side of my face harder into the dirt. My face is facing away from the fire, but I can feel its heat licking at my skin.
"Please," I find myself saying between clenched teeth, "Please don't." Im ashamed of the tears that prick my eyes and the waver in my voice. "Please!" The man with the branding iron walks into my line of vision and kneels down beside me. He pries my mouth open and inserts a block of wood. The force rips my already torn lip even more, and I feel the warm blood drip down my chin.
"Bite down on that or you'll break your teeth or bite through your tongue or something." I feel one last burst of strength as I try to break free from the men holding me while simultaneously continuing my begging from around the block of wood in my mouth. The pressure on my head, arms, and legs increase, and a tear finally escapes down my cheek.
Suddenly without any warning whatsoever, I feel the heat and excruciating pain of the red hot iron against my right bicep. I unconsciously bite down on the wooden block so hard, I'm positive I've left teeth marks. I scream through my clenched teeth loud enough that I'm sure someone has heard me and will come help me. Deep down, though, I know that no one is coming. The sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh assaults my nose, and I feel the world shift around me, threatening to go black. My body no longer has the strength to fight or escape when the men stop holding me. I just lay there, eyes blurry and breathing ragged.
"Andrew, take her back to the holding area," the one who branded me says to the man with the gun, "She needs her rest for the morning." I'm only half aware of the ropes being cut off of my arms, which fall limply to my sides. No strength. I have no strength left. Everything feels like a dream, feels muted. I pass out, and the next thing I know, I'm back in the cold, stone room with my head in Fiona's lap. The man with one eye is holding a wet rag to my right bicep in attempt to cool it's constant burning. I pass out once more, trying hard to focus on the feeling of Fiona's hand stroking my hair and the sound of her humming a quiet lullaby in my ear.
"Sunshine, you need to wake up." The voice comes to me through the dreamless black hole my mind has been in.
Mom? Is that you?
When I open my eyes expecting to see the loving gray eyes of my mother, I'm brought harshly back to reality as I stare into the swollen golden eyes of Fiona. Her face is set, all sharp angles and hard lines as she looks down at me.
"It's Fighting Day, Sunshine," she half whispers, nodding to the open door where three large men were ushering all the fighters out.
I'm still barely with it as Fiona pulls me to my feet and pulls me along with her.
"Keep your angel feather tucked away, baby," she whispers, still looking straight ahead, "They'll take it from you if they see it, it being rare and all." Fiona smiles at the flustered look on my face. "I saw it while you were sleeping. You gotta be a good fighter to pry a feather away from one of those winged bastards." With a shaky hand, I felt Gabriel's feather hanging around my neck through my shirt.
Suddenly, loud jeering and screams brought my attention to where we were being led. Through the scarce trees, I can see dozens of people, mostly men, cheering on two men in a makeshift ring of wood and rope. The fighters look bruised and bloody as they continue to beat each other into pulp. A man outside the ring seems to be taking bets against the fighters as people wave goods at him to bet with.
"Like dog fighting," I say quietly to myself.
"Yeah, and we are the dogs," Fiona replies, watching the crowd intently, "Im good at this, Kid. I was a boxer in the real world. I can handle my own against these men. You, though, if they throw you in there in the condition you're in now, you won't last three seconds." I gulp at the seriousness in Fiona's eyes. "I had a baby girl a little younger than you. Lost her when this all first happened. You remind me a lot of my little Angelica. Feisty, small. I don't wanna see you get hurt so listen here." She suddenly pulls me in close, so close, I can only see her fierce golden eyes. "You see Edward over there?" She nods her head to the man with one eye who had been tending to my wounds the night before. I nod. "Good. Go over to him. He and his buddy are gonna try to keep you out of sight for today. Tomorrow, I can't promise anything, but at least you'd be a bit better off fighting tomorrow rather than today. Go now. Go slowly and quietly. Don't draw attention to yourself." Without another word, she nudges me behind her and stands trying to keep me out of view of the crowd.
My arm still feels as if I'm getting branded all over again. For the first time, I brave a look at it. I swallow down vomit as I see the angry red circle of scabs and blisters. I pry my eyes away and head towards Edward. He still has gauze taped over his eye, but other than that, he seems like a normal man, perhaps in his late thirties, early forties. When he sees me coming, his face relaxes and he holds a hand out to me.
"Its alright, sweetheart, come on over here." I look at his rough exterior, the bruises and blood, his brown hair cut close around his ears and left a bit longer on top. He is very tall, very broad. I immediately feel safer.
Right when I reach for his hand, though, I feel two hands grasp my shoulders.
"Ah, there's our newest and smallest fighter." I recognize the voice as the man who branded me the night before. I watch the color drain from Edward's face as he looks at the man looming behind me.
"Griffin, she's not ready to fight," Edward says bravely to the bear of a man behind me, "It wouldn't be a very entertaining fight. I'm healed up enough, I could..."
"Enough," Griffin says, spinning me around to face him, "I've told the crowd of a fierce underdog. They've all placed bets she will win so when she does in fact lose, I will make a gorgeous profit." There's a sudden uproar behind him, and Fiona throws herself on Griffin's back.
"Run, baby, run!" she yells, holding on to Griffin's neck as he screams and tries to buck her off. With pearly white teeth, Fiona latches on to Griffin's ear and rips off a large chunk of flesh. That's all I see before Edward grabs my wrist and starts pulling me away to the back of the crowd.
"Is Fiona going to be alright?" I shout to Edward over the loud screams of the patrons. Edward looks back, and I'm not sure what he sees at first, but his face goes white.
And that's when I hear the gunshot.
My chest feels as if it's being turned inside out and I fight back the primal scream threatening to escape from between my lips. That woman, that woman who treated me as if I were her own even though she had just met me... She was dead now. She was dead all because of me.
Edward and I almost escape the last of the crowd when something suddenly strikes me across my back with a loud crack. The pain slices down my back, over where I had already been stabbed once. I can't help but let out a scream of pain as I feel myself let go of Edward's hand and fall face first into the dirt. I hear a couple more cracks before Edward is suddenly laying there with me, his eyes screwed shut and his teeth clenched. I see what's making the loud cracking sound. Its Griffin with a whip. He lashes Edward four more times before turning his eyes back to me. Blood is pouring down Griffin's face from where his ear used to be. His eyes are wide with fury.
"You've cost me one of my fighters already," he spits at me, raising the whip high, ready to strike Edward again, "I have no problem getting rid of another one if you don't get your ass in that ring right now."
Though my body protests any movement as it shoots bolts of pain through every fiber of my being, I put my hands up in surrender and slowly get to my feet.
"I'll go, just please don't hurt him anymore," I hear myself say. My voice sounds much stronger than I feel. Griffin smiles victoriously and nods toward the ring. I look down at Edward whose eyes are half shut. I want to thank him. I want to apologize for all the trouble I've caused him and Fiona in the one day I've known them, but I say nothing. I simply turn around, straighten my back as much as I can, and limp towards the ring.