“Okay, you two,” the boss shouted when they’d reached the platform steps. “I want you to give these people a show they’ll never forget, so take these.” He handed each of them a golden inhaler. “They’re all yours.”
“The whole thing?” Cutter asked.
“As many bumps as you want.”
Even as Kane’s fingers tightened protectively around his inhaler, he wished his boss hadn’t given it to him. He didn’t know if he had the will to stop after one breath, and he didn’t want to end up drying out in the med-center again. “But what if we take too much? Won’t we build up a tolerance?”
The boss licked his lips and took a sudden interest in his shoes. “Don’t worry about that, kid. Just do what feels right, okay?”
Then he jogged away without a backward glance.
Kane shared a worried look with Cutter. He knew they’d both reached the same conclusion. If the boss didn’t care about immunity, it meant the winner of tonight’s fight wouldn’t survive long enough to compete again. Ari Zhang wasn’t a forgiving man. He only needed one of them to break the tie. Otherwise, they were expendable.
Kane scanned the arena for Zhang’s private box, hoping to read the man’s intentions. He found the box in the same spot as before, situated in the middlemost aisle, about halfway to the top of the stands. But before his eyes made it to Zhang, they stopped on a familiar woman with a heart-shaped face and a riot of red curls spilling from a bun atop her head.
Kane did a double take. Was that Arabelle?
He almost didn’t recognize her with a patch covering her left eye, but there was no mistaking the motherly curve of her face, or the intensity in her right eye, which was fixed on him and trying to convey a message he couldn’t understand. He peered through the stands for the crew but didn’t find them. Maybe the mafia had captured Arabelle. Glancing on either side of her, he noticed she sat in between her former owner, Necktie Fleece, and that bastard Nicky Malone, who wouldn’t stop leering at her.
Kane felt sick.
He couldn’t stand the idea of Belle as a lady in white—it hit too close to home. She was part of the Banshee crew, and that made her family. It might as well be his own mother sitting up there. As he watched her, he saw Nicky Malone trace an index finger along the length of her forearm, and his vision tunneled.
“Cutter?” he heard himself say.
“Yeah?”
Kane tore his gaze away from the private box and faced his opponent—who was a man, not a bag. Lifting his inhaler, he asked, “How powerful will a breath of this make you?”
“Not very,” Cutter admitted.
“How about two breaths?”
“A little stronger than usual.”
Kane nodded toward the middlemost aisle. “Strong enough to boost me over that wall?”
Cutter shifted a glance in that direction. Kane could practically see the wheels turning inside the man’s head, weighing the act of helping him against the risk of what Ari Zhang would do to them when it was done.
“Yeah,” Cutter said, grinning as he turned up his injured palm. “I’ll probably lose these fingers again, but like I told you, I didn’t get attached.”
The master of ceremonies called out over the speakers, telling them to take their places on the battle platform, but Kane ignored him. He offered his hand and Cutter shook it.
“Godspeed, kid.”
“Same to you.”
Cutter jerked his chin toward the stands. “When you’re up there, toss a few of those perverts my way. I’m not showing up alone in hell tonight.”
Kane clinked his inhaler against Cutter’s in a toast. “Here’s to going out with a bang.”
“I’ll breathe to that.”
They brought the mouthpieces to their lips. Kane pumped his tube twice and sucked in a deep breath, holding it while the layers of the mortal world peeled back and revealed a heaven of his own making. He was a god once more, his cells bursting with all the power of the cosmos, and tonight he would bring down his vengeance.
If the crowd wanted blood, they would have it.
Once his vision returned, he signaled to Cutter, who ran ahead to the wall and then bent low, lacing his fingers together in a stirrup. Kane sprinted toward the man and stepped onto his linked hands. In flawless unison, Kane jumped and Cutter heaved, launching his body to the top of the wall, where he grabbed on and climbed over the top into the stands.
Shouts broke out as the spectators in his path tried to run, but there was nowhere for them to go. As he scaled the rows with supernatural speed, he grabbed an occasional collar and gave its owner a headfirst journey into the pit. His eyes locked on his targets in the luxury box, and he growled in delight. His boss had told him Do what feels right, and nothing in his life had ever felt more natural than this.