Page 89 of Silver Elite

I sit on my bed to do up my laces. The black boots look good with the jeans and the top.

“Did you bring any makeup?” Lyddie asks Betima. “Wren’s skin tone is probably closer to yours than mine.” Lyddie’s skin is whiter than our sheets.

Betima grabs her toiletry case. “Let’s hit the mirrors.”

She and Lyddie race off ahead of me toward the lavatories, and I have to jog to keep up. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt…young. Carefree. Like when Tana and I were just starting upper school and discovering how much we liked looking pretty and flirting with cute boys. Or cute girls, in Tana’s case. For a second, I forget where I am, and I’m forced to rebuke myself.You’re not in Hamlett. You’re a Command prisoner.

But sometimes it’s nice to forget.

—

This pit everyone keeps talking about is located inside a warehouse in the north sector of the base. As the three of us walk there together, I feel an aggravating sense of camaraderie with Lyddie and Betima that I wish I could ignore. There’s a sense of community, too, as soldiers arrive in groups, pouring into the warehouse.

When we walk in, all I can make out is concrete pillars and shadows. Voices travel in the darkness, waves of laughter echoing off the concrete walls. My gaze tracks the bodies disappearing down a dark corridor.

“Come on, I think it’s this way,” Lyddie urges, her eyes twinkling in the shadows. She tugs on my hand, and we follow the crowd.

As we round a corner, the sound of raucous laughter grows louder, and now I hear the beat of a fast dance track and feel the bass line vibrating beneath my boots. A moment later, we emerge into a vast open space, a makeshift arena illuminated by flickering light fixtures dangling from black cords on the scaffolding along the ceiling.

I immediately see the pit. It’s not deep, maybe five feet below us, ringed by a concrete ledge. There’s no seating in the huge room, so soldiers are using the ledge. The bright lights cast shadows on the sand in the pit. It’s a beige-brown color with patches of black. It isn’t until we get closer that I realize those patches are bloodstains in the sand.

“Whoa, this is intense,” Betima says, focusing on the spectacle in the pit.

A throng of eager onlookers are cheering for two male fighters whose bodies move in a blur of motion as they exchange blows. The crowd roars with every punch and kick, the atmosphere thick with excitement. There’s no referee. There don’t seem to be any rules at all, I note, as I watch one of the men elbow his opponent in the throat.

Betima passes me a whiskey bottle. She used her credits at the commissary for it, and I take a cautious sip before passing it to Lyddie.

I’m no stranger to drinking, but I need to keep a clear head every second I’m here. I can never lower my guard, especially after my encounter with Anson. I’m currently armed with the knife Cross allowed me to keep. I grabbed it from my locker when Lyddie and Betima were applying their mascara, and it’s safely tucked inside my right boot. All I have to do is bend over and it’s in my hand. I refuse to let Anson or anyone else on this base catch me off guard again.

A loud burst of laughter from across the pit catches my attention. I raise a brow when I spot Xavier Ford among the group. He’s sitting on the ledge…with Tyler Struck in his lap.

I turn to my friends. “Did you know they were together?”

“I had no clue,” Lyddie says. “They barely even look at each other in the training center.”

They’re doing a lot more than looking now. Ford’s hand slidesdown the bumps of the woman’s spine before slipping beneath her shirt. I glimpse him stroking bare skin, while his lips travel along her neck. She laughs and whispers something in his ear. Whatever she says has him lifting his head to grin at her.

One of the men in their group turns toward Ford, and my breath hitches when I realize it’s Cross. Clad in dark pants and a white T-shirt, he holds a bottle between his long fingers, dangling it by the neck. I recognize the clear glass bottle. Vodka cider. I’ve noticed the alcohol selection on this base is very limited. All I’ve seen at the commissary is whiskey and vodka cider.

Lyddie and Betima drift closer to the edge of the pit, finding a spot by a pillar with so many cracks in the stone that it looks like it’s going to crumble any second.

My gaze flits back to Cross. Drawn there as if by a magnet. Suddenly his head moves, and those blue eyes find mine. His expression is unreadable. But I don’t miss the way his gaze travels from my face down to my bare midriff, then back up. It leaves hot shivers in its wake.

“The captain is staring at you,” Betima says. She’s smirking.

“Maybe he’s staring at you,” I counter.

“Definitely not. It’s you.”

I blanch, even as a teeny jolt of pleasure sparks in my belly. I’m embarrassed by the response. Resentful of it. I shouldn’t be susceptible to this man, just because he happens to be attractive.

I don’t want to be attracted to him. I don’t want anything to do with him.

“All right, children! Who’s next!”

A booming voice thunders through the din, drawing our attention back to the sand. The voice belongs to a burly man with a shaved head, who struts into the center of the pit, grinning broadly.

“Who’s got a vendetta they want to pound out in the sand? Or who just feels like getting bloody?”

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