Hudson starts to agree, but I talk over him again. The vampire has absolutely no sense of self-preservation. “You do not have a deal.”

“Keep it up and you’re going in the dungeon!” he snaps.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I snap back.

“That’s it! You want the fight to be more fair? Fine, you can fight with him.”

“What?” Hudson roars. “No!”

“You just lost your chance to vote,” Charon sneers. “You want your freedom? You two can fight my giants for it. If you don’t, you can feel free to leave the money and head back to your cells right now. But this discussion is over.”

He starts to stand, but Remy holds up a hand to stop him. “Give us a second, please.”

Remy pulls us aside, and Hudson and I both round on him, fire in our eyes. “No way is she going in an arena with Frick and Frack,” Hudson snarls at him.

“Yeah, well, neither are you,” I snarl back. “They’ll kill you in two minutes flat.”

“Thanks for the faith, mate.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, but have you looked in a mirror since you got your everything bashed in?”

“It’s the only way,” Remy tells us. “We won’t get another chance like this one again. He’ll make sure of it.”

“I’ve got this,” Hudson tells him…and me. “The day two giants can take me out is the day I let them remove my fangs.”

“This is a bad idea,” I tell them.

“A very bad idea,” Flint chimes in for the first time.

“Yeah, well, at this point, there’s no good ideas, so…” Remy moves back to Charon. “Give me your word, and we’ll agree on this.”

To which Charon replies, “My bond is my word.”

The two of them shake, and I blow out a long breath as I close my eyes. I just need a minute to regroup, to try to get my head together, and then Hudson and I can figure out what to do.

Except now I can hear people yelling and shouting, can smell meat roasting and popcorn popping.

And then someone yanks on the back of my prison uniform. When I open my eyes, I’m dropping down, down, down into the center of a giant arena.

139

There’s Never a

Slingshot Around

When You Need It

I’ve never wanted to be able to shift into a gargoyle so much in my entire life.

Not only because of all the cool things I could do right now to help get me out of this mess, but because wings are pretty much a necessity at this exact moment in time…considering I’m about to break every bone in my freaking body.

Every. Single. Bone.

And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it—except close my eyes and wait to die.

I remember reading once that it’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the bounce. If your parachute ever fails and you end up slamming into the ground, you’re supposed to try to dig in. You’ll break everything, but if you don’t bounce, you just might live.

I can’t believe I’m going to die by bounce—at the hands of a snotty immortal ten-year-old, no less. Not quite the way I’d hoped to end this little seven-day soiree to prison, but it is what it is.

I start to close my eyes and pray that it’s fast…

Except Hudson fades over faster than he’s ever faded and, before I’m about to hit the ground, he’s there to catch me.

“Parachutes are overrated,” he says with a cocky grin. But the words are a little slurred, and he’s shaking as he sets me on the ground.

The fade took a lot out of him, but he’s rallying fast.

“I think you tore your spleen on that Superman move.” I slide an arm around his waist to help support his body weight while he catches his breath. I know I should say thank you, but I’m too busy trembling with fear that he might have wasted too much energy catching me.

“Spleens are overrated, too.” He winks at me.

“What are we going to do now?” I ask.

But before he can answer, the two giants—Mazur and Ephes—vault over the fence. When they hit the ground, the whole arena shakes.

And I…I kind of wish Hudson had let me fall. It would have been a painful death, but at least it would have been a quick one. At this point, I think that’s all either of us can hope for. Because this? This is going to be bad.

“Should we go for the quick death or the slow, agonizing one?” I ask Hudson, and it’s clear by his we-got-this-grin that he thinks I was kidding. I was not.

“We need to tire them out,” he says, and okay, that could be a plan. If Hudson hadn’t just beat the entire prison population and I weren’t a short human.

I glance around the arena, looking for somewhere to hide until we can figure out a better plan, and realize that there is no such place. Everything is wide open.

I also realize that we’re not in a real arena—yes, there are spectators watching the show from bleachers roped off on either side of the room, popcorn and beer at the ready, but that’s where the resemblance ends. This room is pure ballroom—from the ornate drapes to the baroque carpet to the fancy white chandeliers tied back to keep the center of the room clear for the giant fights.

I don’t understand what’s happening—how did these people know to be here? How did Charon know to have this ballroom set up for a fight he had no idea was even going to happen?

Unless he did?

Maybe he knew this was going to happen all along. But if he did, how?

Before I can work out the answer to that question, Charon’s voice booms overhead, welcoming the audience to today’s installment of the Colossus Clash.

The giants stand in the middle of the room, flexing for the crowd and waving their arms around as Charon reads off their stats. Apparently, Mazur is twenty-two feet tall and a little over a thousand pounds while Ephes is twenty feet tall and a trim seven hundred and fifty pounds.

“It’s like we’re at a boxing match,” Hudson says to me out of the corner of his mouth.

“This isn’t a boxing match,” I shoot back as the truth finally dawns on me. “This is the Colosseum, and we’re the gladiators being fed to the lions.”

“No way this is a one-shot thing,” he grits out, and I can see a kernel of rage burning deep in his eyes.

It’s a perfect match for the fury kindling inside me as I realize this is all just a racket. That no one actually goes free. All those people Remy thought atoned and bought their freedom really ended up here, in the arena. The newest victims of the Colossus Clash.

“This is bullshit,” Hudson growls as the truth occurs to him, too. That everything the prisoners have been promised, everything they torture themselves to obtain, is just another lie so that Charon can get richer.

The bastard.

I want to think about this more, to figure out how abuse of power of this magnitude manages to go on right under the noses of the entire paranormal community. But that’s not going to happen right now. Not when the crowd has grown tired of the parading giants and is obviously ready for some action—action that involves Hudson and me being torn limb from limb, most likely.

“You ready?” Hudson asks.

I shoot him an are you kidding look. “Not even close.”

“Yeah, me neither.” And then he looks me straight in the eye, and his poor, lopsided grin has gotten even worse as the swelling has set in. “Let’s do it anyway.”

“You act like it’s a choice,” I tell him as Charon goes through a quick list of match rules—all of which seem to favor the giants. Big surprise.

I’m leaning forward a little, weight balanced on my toes as I get ready to run.

“Deciding on a vacation house in Tahiti or Bora Bora is a choice,” he tells me. “This—”

“Is what we have to get through to be able to make that choice,” I finish for him.

“Okay, then,” he answers with a laugh. “You take Tahiti”—he nods toward Ephes—“and I’ll take Bora Bora.” Another nod, this time toward Mazur. “Sound good?”

“No,” I tell him.

But when the whistle blows, I do the only thing I can do. I take off running and send a prayer out to the universe that Tahiti doesn’t catch me.

140

The Bigger They Are,

the Harder I Bawl

Who knew? The universe is a fickle, fickle bitch.

Or she just flat-out hates me, which I’m beginning to think is a more reasonable explanation for this current nightmare.

I dart toward Ephes, like Hudson and I decided, and it only takes about three seconds for me to figure out that his reach is longer than I thought. Of course, by the time I realize that, I’m airborne, soaring across the ballroom and crashing against the side wall, shoulder first.

Pain radiates through me, but I stumble to my feet—just in time to watch Hudson go flying in the other direction. But he does a flip in midair and lands in a crouch, his gaze immediately sizing up the giant’s location as well as mine.

I tear my gaze away from Hudson as Ephes bears down on me again, murder in his mismatched eyes. I stay where I am, though not by choice. I’m frozen. Fear is a living, breathing thing inside me, and that bitch has taken control of my legs.

Ephes is completely focused on me, and he reaches back with a giant fist—and swings like a batter in a cage and I’m the poor ball.