“I’ll get the carrying case.”
The cage trembled as he unlatched the door. My pulse raced as Jonathan’s long fingers closed about my body. I wiggled to life, my teeth bearing down on his finger.
“You little canicula!” Jonathan swore, yanking his hand out and pulling me with him. I loosened my hold, hitting the floor with a bone-shaking thump. Nothing hurt. Everything was numb. I leapt for the door, sprawling as my legs wouldn’t work.
“Jon!” Trent exclaimed. “Get the door!”
The floor trembled, quickly followed by the slamming of the door. I hesitated, unable to think. I had to run. Where the hell was the door?
The shadow of Jonathan came close. I bared my teeth, and he hesitated, cowed by my tiny incisors. The sharp stink of fear was on him. He was afraid, the bully. Darting forward, he grasped the scruff of my neck. I twisted, sinking my teeth in the fatty part of his thumb.
He grunted in pain and let go. I hit the floor. “Damn witch!” he shouted. I staggered, unable to run. Jonathan’s blood was thick on my tongue, tasting of cinnamon and wine.
“Touch me again,” I panted, “and I’ll take off your entire thumb.”
Jonathan drew back, afraid. It was Trent who scooped me up. Deep under the drug, I could do nothing. His fingers were blessedly cold as he cradled me in his hands. He set me gently into the carrier and latched the door. It clicked shut, shaking the entire cage.
My mouth was fuzzy and my stomach was twisting. The carrier was lifted, swinging in a smooth arc until it landed on the desk. “We have a few minutes until we have to leave. Let’s see if Sara Jane has any antibiotic cream in her desk for those bites of yours.”
Trent’s mellow voice grew as fuzzy as my thoughts. The darkness became overwhelming, and I lost my grip on consciousness, cursing myself for my stupidity.
Someone was talking. I understood that. Actually, there were two voices, and now that I was regaining the ability to think, I realized they’d been alternating with each other for some time. One was Trent, and his wonderfully liquid voice lured me back to consciousness. Beyond him was the high-pitched squeaking of rats.
“Aw, hell,” I whispered, having it come out as a thin moan of a squeak. My eyes were open, and I forced them closed. They felt as dry as sandpaper. A few more painful blinks and the tears started to flow again. Slowly the gray wall of my carrier swam into focus.
“Mr. Kalamack!” called a welcoming voice, and the world spun as the carrier turned. “The upstairs told me you were here. I’m so pleased.” The voice got closer. “And with an entry! Wait and see, wait and see,” the man nearly gushed as he pumped Trent’s offered hand up and down. “Having an entry makes the games vastly more entertaining.”
“Good evening, Jim,” Trent said warmly. “Sorry for just dropping in on you.”
The mellow cadence of Trent’s voice was a balm, soothing my headache away. I both loved and hated it. How could something so beautiful belong to someone so foul?
“You’re always welcome here, Mr. Kalamack.” The man smelled like wood chips, and I scrunched back, bracing myself in the corner. “Have you checked in, then? Do you have your placing for the first round?”
“There will be more than one fight?” Jonathan interrupted.
“Indeed sir,” Jim said brightly as he gently turned the grate of the carrier to face him. “You play your rat until it’s dead or you pull it. Oh!” he said as he saw me. “A mink. How very—continental of you. This will change your odds, but no worry. We’ve fought badgers and snakes before. We thrive on individuality, and everyone loves it when an entrant is eaten.”
My pulse quickened. I had to get out of there.
“Are you sure your animal will fight?” Jim asked. “The rats here have been bred for aggression, though we have a street rat making a surprising showing the last three months.”
“I had to sedate her to get her in the carrier,” Trent said, his voice tight.
“Oooh, a feisty one. Here,” Jim offered solicitously as he snagged a notebook from a passing official. “Let me change your first round to one of the later matches so she has a chance to fully shake her sedation. No one wants those slots anyway. There’s not much time for your animal to recover before the next bout.”
I inched to the front of the carrier in helplessness. Jim was a nice-looking man with round cheeks and an ample belly. It would only take a small charm to make him into the mall Santa Claus. What was he doing in Cincinnati’s underground?
The jovial man’s gaze went over Trent’s unseen shoulder and he gave someone a merry wave. “Please keep your animal with you at all times,” he said, his eyes on the new arrival. “You have five minutes to place your entrant in the pit after you’re called or you forfeit.”
Pit, I thought. Swell.
“All I need to know now,” Jim said, “is what you call your animal.”
“Angel.” Trent said it with a mocking sincerity, but Jim wrote it down without a moment of hesitation.
“Angel,” he repeated. “Owned and trained by Trent Kalamack.”
“You don’t own me!” I squeaked, and Jonathan thunked my carrier.
“Back upstairs, Jon,” Trent said as Jim shook his hand and left. “The noise of these rats is going right through my head.”
I dropped to all fours to steady myself as the carrier swung. “I’m not going to fight, Trent,” I squeaked loudly. “You can just forget it.”
“Oh, do be still, Ms. Morgan,” Trent said softly as we rose. “It’s not as if you haven’t been trained for this. Every runner knows how to kill. Working for me, working for them … There’s no difference. It’s only a rat.”
“I’ve never killed anyone in my life!” I shouted, rattling the gate. “And I’m not going to start for you.” But I didn’t think I had a choice. I couldn’t reason with a rat, tell it there’d been a big mistake and why couldn’t we all just get along?
The noise of the rats dulled under loud conversations as we found the top of the stairs. Trent paused, taking it in. “Look there,” he murmured. “There’s Randolph.”
“Randolph Mirick? Jonathan said. “Haven’t you been trying to arrange a meeting with him about increasing your water rights?”
“Yes.” Trent almost seemed to breathe the word. “For the last seven weeks. He’s apparently a very busy man. And look there. That woman holding that vile little dog? She’s the CEO of the glass factory we’re contracted with. I’d very much like to speak with her about the possibility of getting a volume discount. I had no idea this would be an opportunity to network.”
We drifted into motion, moving through the crowd. Trent kept his conversation light and friendly, showing me off as if I was a prize mule. I huddled in the back of my cage and tried to ignore the sounds the women made at me. My mouth felt like the inside of a hair dryer, and I could smell old blood and urine. And rats.
I could hear them, too, squeaking in voices higher than most people’s hearing. The battles were beginning already, though anyone on two legs couldn’t know it. Bars and plastic might separate the participants, but threats of violence were already being promised.
Trent found a seat next to the freaking mayor of the city, and after tucking me between his feet, he talked to the woman in a sideways fashion about the overall benefits of rezoning his property as industry rather than commercial, seeing as a good portion of his land was used for industrial gain in some way or other. She wasn’t listening until Trent commented he might have to