Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
This particular illegal winning move was a headbutt. Three times, real quick. Forehead, nose, mouth. He was a bloody mess.
But again, they gave me the win. It’s not like I pile-drove him. I would’ve, but that guy had sixty pounds on me and there was no way I could lift him up to get that move.
In fight three, they were ready. My opponent had a team of people giving him pointers. By this time, they had figured out that I was probably ‘one of those kids’ several years back. Maart’s kids. Only they didn’t know it was Maart, of course.
There were rumors about the massacre in the jungle camp—death fights, children killing billionaires, little girls—and once they saw me fight, they were no longer rumors.
The third fighter played dirty. Tried to, at least. He was so much bigger than me, it was decidedly unfair. But I was small, and quick, and my flying armbar is world-class. I took down two boys in the death fights using the flying armbar.
I wasn’t trying to kill the guy in fight three—and he pulled through—but he really hit his head hard when I took him down. That fight was over in under a minute.
I lost in fight four. This guy tried to gouge my eye out. I had to resort to kicking him in the balls to make him pull back enough for me to wriggle free from his hold, but I guess he saw that coming and was wearing two cups, so I just tapped and took the loss.
I had what I needed. The equivalent of five thousand US dollars. Twenty-five hundred for the new papers, another grand to get a plane ticket to Barbados, twelve hundred more for the private boat to Puerto Rico where I boarded a cruise ship and landed in Miami five days later after touring the Caribbean.
When I got off the ship, I had two hundred and twenty dollars in my little purse, a brand-new pair of flip-flops, and I felt like the richest person in the whole world.
Those first few days in Miami were like stumbling into a fantasy. It was everything I never knew I wanted. I slept on the beach, ran from the cops, ate tacos and French fries, and didn’t stop smiling for three weeks. Then… well, then I got robbed.
It could’ve been worse. I mean, a gang of young men don’t jump a girl my age walking alone on a beach at midnight because they want her money.
Of course, they never had a chance. They weren’t fighters, they were drug dealers or something. I took out two before they even understood what was happening. Then another one. The rest ran.
But they got my purse. So I was broke and had a black eye and a split lip for my troubles.
It was the next morning that the scout found me. I had been walking the beach, trying to come up with some ideas for how to make money. It was early. The sun hadn’t even properly risen yet. You’re not supposed to be on the beach all night, but people do it, so it wasn’t empty. I wasn’t the only girl, either. Not even the only young girl. There was a group of teenagers just down the beach from where I was sitting, boys and girls who had clearly been out all night drinking.
But the scout came up to me. I was watching her as she scanned the beach. She didn’t look like she had been up all night. She was young, maybe twenty, but maybe younger. Her long, tanned legs were a nice contrast against her bright white shorts. She was a thin woman—thinner than me, even—but she didn’t look unhealthy. In other words, she was drug-addict skinny, but didn’t look at all like a drug addict. Her complexion, though she wasn’t wearing make-up, was glowing and she had just the right amount of pink on her cheeks.
She was wearing a ruffle-y white summer tank and she had on a wide-brimmed white hat and mirrored sunglasses. Her hair was long and blonde—darker than mine, but still mostly blonde—and it was pulled up in a messy ponytail. But again, not messy like mine was. Not haphazardly put together, but very deliberate.
And the jewelry she had… it was like the contents of a treasure chest. Large, gold, hoop earrings and golden bangle bracelets and a necklace. I remember the necklace because it was odd. Gold, like the rest, but it was a set of antlers. Not the head of a deer with antlers, just antlers.
I’m not any kind of jewelry expert. I had never even owned a piece of jewelry at that time. But all that gold looked real to me.
I remember looking at her, watching her as she was coming towards me, and thinking to myself that she was out of place in a very specific way. She looked like she belonged on a yacht, not the beach.