Pain was a cunt of a thing, it wrapped around Cut like a thorn coated blanket and squeezed. She couldn’t fight it, couldn't dodge or block, there were no tactics to help her, no plays. Cut was utterly defenceless.

She’d considered taking ether, and she would again, but today Cut would decide against it. She’d seen far too many fighters turn slaves to the stuff, dull-eyed and left unable to function without it.

No, I have enough fucking problems as is. Today wasn’t the first time she laid on the dirty changing room floor, and it wouldn’t be the last. Toothpick had come in a while ago, back when her head was still fresh in its ache, and said something like ‘Good Job’, ‘Well done’ or some other fucking variant. And then he’d set her nose.That was hours ago. It was night now and she reckoned she was the only one in the building, Toothpick would be out drinking with friends, the old fuck never bet against his fighters in a proper match. Probably it was why he was always broke. Well, that and the boozing.As much as she wanted to lay there forever, Cut had to get going, she had Leech to feed and her landlord would probably be at her door screeching for rent soon. That’d be most of her pay for the month gone but she’d still have enough to eat if she spent wisely, wasn’t afraid to starve a little until prices went down, didn’t get too squeamish about eating half stale bread and made sure not to get robbed.Cut would do well for herself. At least until she stopped winning, as all champions tended to do with time. Cut didn’t like thinking about that, no use obsessing over what she couldn’t change, so she didn’t.

She set her mind to more pressing tasks. Home.

Someone let out a cry as she rolled to her feet. It was her. It was a conglomeration of all sorts of pain, burning, tearing, cutting and dull, all working in synergy to make her life that much more of a living nightmare.

She got to her feet with the grace of a toddler and made her way to the door.

***

Udrebam’s cold air plunged into her like a knife, and Cut shivered as she bled heat. There were barely any lamps to light her way in this part of the city, but fortunately for Cut, the homeless enjoyed seeing as much as anyone. Their improvised fires gave her a nicely visible walkway.It wasn’t enough to stop her from stepping in something soggy. She cursed, having learnt long ago not to look at it. She made it down an alleyway, made a corner and then the world was white and blinding.Cut cried out as pain flared up across her face, blunt pain, someone had hit her and with something hard. She tried to blink the world back into existence and when she did it was a pool of swirling colours. “GET HER LEGS!” Someone yelled, and Cut felt something slam into the back of her knee. She was kneeling in a moment, arms wrenched painfully behind her back.She saw clean boots among the dirt-crusted and looked up to see Dany Eksha wearing them. On his lips was a grin, a triumphant one, in his hand was the weapon he’d hit her with, a pistol. Long and sleekly made, with a thick wooden stock treated with oils and one of those fancy new Taikan mechanisms at the back. Heavy, too, but that wasn’t something she learned by just looking. Fuck, she could still feel the bruise growing.“Cutter, Cutter, Cutter,” Danny hummed, her eyes weren’t on him though, they focused on the people behind him. Two, each carrying a weapon, one blunt, one edged. She’d counted five of them when they were in the changing room which meant that there were three behind her too.

Cut struggled, and her knees were slammed back into the ground with a painful force. She couldn’t win this, not on her best day, and certainly not on this one.

“You lost me a lot of money earlier.”

“Fuck you,” She growled, and Danny Eksha slapped her across the face. He hit like a child, with barely enough force to let her know she’d been struck at all, but he kept hitting, over and over for what felt like minutes. By the time he finally stopped, sweat was beading across his face, and Cut’s ears were screaming anew.Her face felt like a seared steak. She wouldn’t let Danny know that, no… she wouldn’t dare. Cut grinned through bloody teeth. “Maybe you should have fought Two-Fists then.”

The anger that flared across his eyes made it worth it, the kick between her ribs did not, Cut coughed and sputtered and her insides churned, suddenly fearful. A cracked rib would mean a missed fight, that might see her starved.She looked up as the pain subsided, and her fear was eaten alive by a new terror. The gun was levelled at her head, cold barrel pressed against the skin. Danny Eksha was a tantruming child, but children often broke things that couldn’t be fixed.

“I’m sorry,” Cut said, the softness of her voice sounded alien to her, like a squealing mouse. I don’t want to die, not here, not like this. “I… I can pay you back, I will pay you back.”Danny crouched down so their gaze was level, his eyes were alight with a cruel shine. He was enjoying himself.

“You… pay me back?” He laughed, “We both know you can’t, Cut.” He placed the barrel right underneath her chin, where her neck met her jaw. Cut stopped breathing, fearing that even an inhalation might jar his trigger finger.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“The only thing you have that could even come close to paying me back is your life, Cutter.”

She felt something hot running down her face, felt her cheeks burn. It was her tears oozing wet salt into the open wounds of her face. Cut was crying. “Please,” she whispered.

He shook his head, laughing now, like this was all some sort of joke. His friends echoed it. “Don’t beg Cut, I’m doing you a favour, you won’t be missed. In fact, I bet we’d all be better off not having to see your face, because frankly…” He leaned in, breath hot against her ear. “You’re disgusting.”Cut had heard it all before, sometimes more wittily, sometimes less. She’d never thought- never dared to fear- that it might be the last words she ever received. Her eyes widened with disbelief and clouded with panicked tears as Eksha began to steady his gun.

“WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!”

A voice came, slurred and wobbly but loud enough to draw their attention.

It was a girl, mere yards away, approach evidently hidden by the rainfall. She walked as fluidly as she spoke, tilting and swaying like her feet were stilts. The cause, Cut presumed, was in the leather skin she gripped tightly in one hand.

A drunk, I get a fucking drunk. She would have laughed if she wasn’t crying.

“They’re trying to kill me, get help!” Cut screamed. Before she could say more her mouth was full with cloth and her face shoved against the ground. She should have said their names, made sure everyone knew Danny Eksha killed Cut, but that would just guarantee the drunk’s death as the only witness.

Even if it didn’t, even if she survived, it wasn’t like anything was going to happen to him. People like Danny lived and people like Cut died, that was simply the way of things.

Danny stood up, the distance that created between her and the pistol had Cut venting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. He turned to face the woman, shielding his gun from sight. “Nothing’s going on bitch, now go black out somewhere else.”

The girl took a step forwards, she stopped, wobbled, hunched over and puked on the ground.

She met his eyes. “No,” she croaked, drunken words defiant. Fuck. Just her luck, she was going to get some poor sod killed with her.

“Your choice,” Daniel closed the distance, raised his pistol and then the girl’s body glowed crimson, like a blood red sun. The girl moved as a viper might, about to strike. Cut heard Daniel fire, saw the burning powder and heard the scream of outpaced sound, and then the drunk’s fists caught Danny Eksha in the face.

What Cut saw next would stay with her forever. Danny reeled around, blood exploding from his face like a burst bag. It fountained out, pouring down his clothes, pooling at his feet as he gurgled and flailed helplessly to stop it. She soon saw why. The drunk’s fist had caught Danny’s jaw, and it hadn’t stopped on impact. His chin was gone, mandibles turned to splinters that now jutted out of the skin, tongue nowhere to be seen. The exposed mechanisms of his throat moved grotesquely where they were now visible just above his voicebox.

A cannonball to the face might have done less, and Cut’s spark certainly would have. This was more than death, it was crystalised destruction.

“Oh shit!” One of his friends yelled.

“It’s a Mystic- a fucking Bug!” They had let go of Cut , running now, she could hear their hurried footsteps against the street as they abandoned their friend.

Cut didn’t move, she couldn’t move, she just couldn’t. Daniel fell to his knees, a silent terror in his eyes. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like this. Tough.

Danny Eksha’s life slopped out to mix with the blood clotting against the grimey floor, he slumped to join it, convulsing as he choked on his own ichor. He was dead, Cut knew, long before the spasms stopped moving his limbs. Men always were.“Are you okay?” Someone asked from far away. It was the girl, she was right next to her, crimson aura now done away with, drunkenness nowhere to be seen. Up close Cut could see her strange features more clearly, red hair, slightly reddish skin and eyes that looked narrow and slanted as a scythe blade.

“Are you okay?” she repeated, sounding closer now.Cut didn’t know how to answer that. She looked at Daniel’s corpse, he had tried to kill her and now he was dead, did that make her feel okay?

He was an Eksha child and he’d just died while trying to kill Cut in front of five witnesses, witnesses who would have no problem embellishing the story. The Eksha family wouldn’t care for the details, they’d only want blood, Ekshas only knew blood, they’d come for her and then they’d come for the girl too. There wouldn’t be a place in Udrebam she could hide.

“No,” Cut croaked. “I don’t think I am… we’re fucked… everything’s fucked.”

Everything, was indeed, fucked.