Page 97 of Us Dark Few

Khalani impatiently patted her fingers against her side, ready to contact Hermesnow. Time was the silent torturer.

“What’s got the roach up your ass? Afraid you’ll get your patheticlife handed to you in the pit again?” Dana’s characteristic snarky tone cut through the air next to her.

“Go away, Dana.” Khalani didn’t bother giving Dana the satisfaction of her gaze.

“Or what? Gonna cry on me?”

Derek turned, noticing the commotion, and stepped in front of Khalani. “Don’t you have a petri dish to crawl back to, you uncultured piece of shit?”

Dana smirked. “Look, it’s her bodyguard. Because the baby can’t fight battles herself.”

“I’m not going to ask you to leave again,” Khalani hissed through her teeth.

“Ohhh, she’s mad.” Dana’s voice grew louder. “Maybe we’ll get a ballad this time about her stupid dead mother before she kills herself and spares everyone.”

Several prisoners choked on laughter.

Blood rushed to the surface of her skin, heating her up from the inside, like a furnace about to explode.

And that’s what she did.

Khalani stepped around Derek, wound her arm back, and punched Dana in the nose, feeling cartilage break beneath her knuckles. Dana stumbled back with a yell, her feet grating against the edge of the pit. Her nose instantly turned red, and her eyes began to water.

“You bi—”

Khalani pounced forward and pushed Dana over the crater’s edge, sending them both tumbling into the pit. Gasps surrounded her as they crashed to the ground, rolling away from each other.

Ignoring the pain searing through her back, Khalani scrambled to her feet, scraping gravel from her arms.

Dana winced, rising with a snarl. “You’re fucking dead.” Dana gnashed her teeth, wiping blood from her nostril.

Khalani readied her stance and raised her arms to shield her face like Takeshi had taught her. Dana charged, throwing a wide punch aimed at her head. Khalani ducked to the right, narrowly avoiding theblow, and quickly threw a counterpunch that collided with Dana’s ear.

Dana barely reacted as she grabbed Khalani’s shoulders and kneed her in the stomach. She gasped, hunching forward, unable to catch a breath.

Dana took advantage and rammed her fist into Khalani’s face. Her ears rang from the hit, and her body jerked to the side as pain lanced through her head, like her brain was being rattled continuously with cymbals.

Her hair was suddenly pulled back in a tight grasp, and Dana’s knee met her face. Khalani jerked backward and fell to the ground in a heap. Blood poured down her face, her vision blurring in and out.

“Finish her!” a guard roared.

“Get up!” a few prisoners yelled.

She placed weight on her hands and grunted, pushing up.

The cheers of the crowd amplified.

Dana narrowed her eyes and pulled out a thin knife from her pocket. The blade’s edge caught the light and reflected in Khalani’s wide eyes.

She didn’t stop to think how Dana came to possess such a weapon. It didn’t matter.

In Braderhelm, no one intervened in pit fights.

She was on her own, even if it meant death.

But Khalani wasn’t the weak, hopeless girl Dana destroyed months ago. She’d trained diligently and learned from the best. If there was one thing she’d gained from Takeshi, it was the ability to read her opponents and exploit every possible weakness.

Khalani’s gaze remained fixed on Dana, noting the way she favored her left leg and how her elbow dropped when she threw a punch. She licked the blood that trickled past her upper lip, and Dana’s confidence faltered, her eyes widening at the unhinged look in Khalani’s eyes.

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