Page 36 of Fighting Gravity
Finally, something came through the gates that Norm couldn’t cut down with the flick of his arm. Spike tossed me to the side once he saw that Norm wasn’t watching anymore, thank God, and I pressed myself against the back wall, trying to be inconspicuous.
Down below, Norm was standing face to face with what appeared to be another gek dressed in similar clothing to mine. Gek females didn’t seem to look much different from the males in any very obvious way. There were differences in their build, but they were subtle. In fact, Sour Face was even bigger than Norm by a couple of inches and this gek appeared to have similar features to her so I deduced it was a woman. What really drove the point home was the tiny teal-colored child huddled in the passage behind her.
My heart stopped. I wasn’t a fan of the gek in general after all the ones I’d met so far gave “asshole” a whole new meaning, but a woman and a child? The games were sick to begin with, but that was the moment I got emotionally invested. I was going to lose my mind if Norm drove a rod through the woman. I was going to go straight savage and charge in to try and kill him myself, no matter the cost.
Only he didn’t rush her. Instead, he raised his hands in surrender when she jabbed a pipe toward him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other, but by their body language, he was talking her down. There wasn’t much time to have a conversation, though. Spike waved at his men across the arena and another gate opened up, letting a swarm of what looked like giant, fleshy spiders out. They looked hungry. My whole body shivered with disgust at the sparse hairs that spread over their bony bodies as he searched through the maze of pillars for something to tear into. My heart jumped when one of them found Norm and leapt through the air like a fucking facehugger straight out of the egg. He spun, grabbed the thing by the skinny legs, and ripped it in two like it was made of paper.
Purple and blue guts spilled out around his feet before he turned back to the woman and said something that made her back up toward her young child. Spike threw his fists down on the arms of his big chair with a whine as Norm rushed back into the arena to keep fighting. Only now he seemed to be fighting to keep the woman and her child from harm. His movements had become defensive and more calculated. Before, he almost seemed playful, but he’d shifted gears.
Confusion hit me like a punch to the face. Norm was a killer, an abuser, and a brute… who was now ruthlessly protecting what I thought was a total stranger. She was gek, yes, but a stranger nonetheless. At least, I assumed so.
While Norm was swarmed by the creepy facehugger creatures, another animal was released to tip the odds against him even more. Spike guffawed as the last monster lurched out of its passage and into the light, making the already hollering crowd cheer with a ferocity I’d never heard. It was deafening.
The beast was bigger than a horse with four long limbs and a spine littered with sharp spikes that lay flat. I watched Norm wrestle the spiders off of him, but they were jabbing and slashing at his limbs all at once, distracting him from the giant animal lumbering his way.
But not enough. When he noticed it, he picked up a pointed, rusty rod and threw it like a spear at the creature’s long, alligator-like head, impaling it through one eye. A loud, shrill roar burst out of it and filled the air with a foul stench.
That jerk was my only way off that godforsaken port and Spike was making damn sure there was no way he was leaving. I really didn’t like the options being presented to me. Let those crazy monsters kill Norm and say hello to the rest of my shitty, whoring, slave life, or do something and try to help the shithead that was my best chance at escaping.
I growled audibly at my horrible position, watching the big beast scratch at the ground in frustration. Eventually, it would get that damn metal rod out of its eye and it would be on Norm again. Or worse, it would go after the woman and her child while he was occupied by a seemingly multiplying swarm of spidery creatures. The big scary one snapped its long jaws, its teeth sliding together like serrated scissors.
My collar bounced against my chest as I gasped, watching the frenzied crowds undulate with excitement. I needed the thing off me. My wrists had been cuffed, but the chain between them was a foot long, allowing me limited movement. The collar was more important.
Looking at Spike sitting in his comfy seat with all his food and drink spilling over the edge of the wall, I wanted to vomit. Scum like that deserved to be in the arena. Not a woman and her baby.
Norm, maybe. He looked right at home.
On a food platter in front of me was a metal utensil that I assumed was some alien version of a butterknife. I reached for it, praying Spike was entirely focused on Norm and the three remaining spidery animals jabbing and biting at him on the other side of the pit. I grabbed the utensil and slid it under my collar, prying at the device.
No good.
It cut into my skin sooner than the collar gave at all. But I needed to keep trying. I slid it around to the side, testing for weak spots. When I felt a little groove inside where the lock mechanism snapped into place, I drove the edge of the utensil into it and bit back the pain as I pried at the collar.
Spike was still distracted.
Looking at Norm, I saw him rip off a spindly spider leg and use it to jam through the bug’s own body. The big alligator thing had finally succeeded in getting the rod out of its eye, though, and it was finding its bearings. I spotted the woman and her child huddled behind a pillar and my heart stopped. Why the hell I cared about a couple of gek strangers, I didn’t know, but I was concerned. Mostly for the young child.
I’d have given anything to feel so protected by my mother.
Or anyone, for that matter.
Luckily, Norm’s commotion drew the beast’s attention and it scraped at the ground in his direction in an attempt to lunge forward at full speed.
The green bastard was still my only option. At least if I went with him, I’d be on a ship and ships I could steal. So, I kept working on my damn collar until finally, after my skin had been rubbed raw and I was sure I’d cut myself more than once, I heard the damn collar pop off.
I was just lucky that prying it off didn’t set it off.
Probably should have thought of that sooner, but it was better to be sorry than safe.
I tossed it far away and quickly leapt off the dais, snatching a shock stick out of one of the guard’s hands.
There was nothing going through my head. Literally, nothing. My body was acting and I had no means to stop it. I was running on pure adrenaline. I took that stick and jabbed it at the guard, watching him convulse, then spun it around and jabbed another guard. The concubines screamed and ran off in a panic. That finally got Spike’s attention. He turned toward me and I slammed the stick right across his head, knocking him off his throne. He rolled to the ground where I stabbed the sparking end of the rod right into his side. I took a couple of seconds of pleasure from the sight of him convulsing on the ground, but a couple of seconds was all I could spare. Oh, how I wanted to stay there and jab him a few more times, but there was no time to lose. I ran for the ledge on his platform and without thinking, I swung my legs over the short wall and leaped down into the sandy arena.
I knew how to drop and roll and break my fall, but even that was a bit high for me.
I hit the ground running, ignoring the throb in my right ankle where I’d taken the brunt of the impact. The bloody rod from the alligator’s eye socket was on the sand ahead of me and I swiped it as I sped by. Norm was wrestling the last of the spider creatures and had just gotten a hold of its pincers when he noticed the giant spike monster speeding toward him.
I sprinted at the creature just as Norm pried the spider’s pincers apart in one, violent tug, tossing pieces of it to the sides. The legs were still flailing and caught him on his bicep, cutting him deep. There was no time.
