Chapter 4 Chapter 4

CLEO’S POV;

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​[PROXIMITY WARNING: SUBJECT 02 AT 4.2 FEET]

[DESTINATION: SECTOR 9 - COMBAT ARENA 4]

[TIME REMAINING: 03:12]

​I walked with my eyes scanning every doorframe, every seam in the wall, every shadow cast by the blinding overhead strips.

​New faces filtered out of the iron doors around us, a sea of white tracksuits, white sneakers, and matching iron collars glinting under the lights.

I kept my chin tucked, my ears straining against the heavy hum of the air scrubbers.

​Kenji walked half a step ahead of me, his eyes glued to his own tablet, his hair still damp from earlier. He had changed into another pair of white tracksuits.

​"Keep up, weirdo," he muttered, not turning his head, though his eyes darted continuously sideways to monitor my distance so the collars wouldn't discharge.

"If we get zapped before we even reach the arena, I'm telling the guards you pushed me."

​I didn't answer him, my gaze locking onto a group of five subjects stepping through a heavy reinforced archway ahead.

​Among them was the girl from the photo.

​She moved with grace. Around her, three male subjects were laughing but she ignored them entirely, stepping up to a taller guy near the weapon racks.

​"Phoebe," the tall guy acknowledged, his voice echoing off the high ceilings.

"Rank Three."

​"Rank Two," Phoebe corrected softly, her tone crisp, cold, and entirely unbothered as she swiped her tablet against the wall scanner.

"Don't get comfortable, Marcus."

​Kenji froze the moment her name echoed through the air, his tablet slipping an inch in his fingers, his jaw dropping as if he had just witnessed a divine revelation.

​"Phoebe..." he breathed, his voice dropping into a dazed, pathetic whisper.

"Her name is Phoebe. It's like a song. A literal angel's choir."

​"It sound…like a cough," I rasped, my eyes scanning the room's perimeter, my body instinctively dropping two inches lower into a combat-ready stance.

​The arena was massive, a sunken amphitheater made of reinforced white concrete, bounded by bulletproof glass observation decks where figures in white lab coats stood with clipboards.

Thirty subjects stood in the center, pairs linked by the same glowing proximity meters on their wrists, the air thick with the smell of sweat, copper, and ozone.

​A loud, piercing tone chimed from the overhead speakers, cutting through the low murmur of the crowd like a razor.

​"Attention, Tier-One Assets," a digitized voice boomed from the ceiling. "You have been selected for the Elite Combat Evaluation. At the end of each thirty-day cycle, a mandatory culling protocol will be executed. Assets falling below the twentieth percentile will be rendered for neurological harvest and cellular reconstruction. You will either adapt into viable biological weapons, or your tissues will be repurposed to create them."

​Beside me, a massive male subject with a jagged scar across his lip let out a low chuckle, turning to his female partner whose wrist was chained to his.

​"Hear that, sweetheart?" he sneered, grabbing her waist roughly and pulling her bare back against his chest.

"You better pull your weight, or I'll let them chop you up first. Though I can think of a few fun things we can do with that body before they take it."

​The girl didn't fight him; she just laughed nervously, leaning into his touch, her eyes dull

​I stared at them, my brows pulling together, my mind twisting over the image.

Why is he grabbing her? Why is she letting him? Is he going to hit her now? Is that how it starts?

​"Alright, eyes on me, alien," Kenji snapped under his breath, stepping directly into my line of sight to block the couple from my view, his hands hovering frantically near my face without touching me.

"Do not look at them. Do not absorb that. That is peak trash behavior."

​"He's going to break her arm," I said flatly, pointing a bruised finger toward the couple.

"His weight is on his back leg. If he pulls her shoulder, the bone will pop."

​"He's not breaking her arm, he's being a disgusting creep," Kenji hissed, grabbing his own hair in frustration. "Why is your brain like this? Why is every single thought in your head a bloody crime scene?"

​A horn blasted across the arena, signaling the start of the warm-up regimen.

​"Station One: Core and Flexibility," a guard barked from the elevated walkway, pointing his shock-baton toward a row of white leather mats.

"Paired forced-resistance exercise. Execute immediately."

​Kenji looked at the mat, then at me, letting out a long, dramatic groan that sounded like a dying animal.

​"I wanted Phoebe," he whined to the ceiling, reluctantly dropping to his knees on the leather surface.

"I was supposed to be stretching with a goddess. Instead, I am locked in a five-foot radius with a feral street cat."

​"Sit," I commanded, dropping onto the mat, my legs extending straight out.

​"Don't command me," he grumbled, but he positioned himself opposite me anyway, reaching out to anchor my ankles with his hands.

​The forced sit-up station was designed for extreme incline resistance—the mat was pitched at a thirty-degree angle, forcing the upper body to fight gravity on every single repetition.

To keep the lower body from sliding, the partner had to lean their chest directly over the other person's lap, locking their forearms over their partner's thighs to anchor them down.

​Kenji leaned forward, his face coming within inches of mine, his eyes wide as he braced my legs.

​"If you throw up on me, I will drown myself in the toilets," he muttered, his breath warm against my cheek.

​I didn't answer. I engaged my core and drove my upper body upward.

​The incline was steep, the resistance brutal, but as my torso snapped up, my face stopped less than an inch from his. My lips almost brushed his jaw; the heat radiating from his skin felt like a furnace against my cold face.

​One.

​I dropped back down, my head hitting the mat, my lungs burning.

[​Two thousand, five hundred and twelve.]

​The count started in my head automatically, a shield against the proximity, against the smell of his dark hair, against the terrifying sensation of his weight hovering right over my legs which made me want to rip off his arms. I don't want anyone touching me.

​I snapped up again.

​Two.

​Our noses almost touched. I could see the tiny gold flecks in his dark irises, the slight tremble of his lips as he held his breath, desperately trying to lean his chin back without loosening his grip on my thighs.

​"You're... really strong," Kenji rasped, his voice tight, his eyes darting down to my mouth before snapping back up to my eyes.

"Most people... can't do... three of these... without their legs flying up."

​"I did this...in– dark," I said between reps, my face coming so close to his on the fourth rise that my hair brushed against his cheek.

"Wit thirty-pound m…MeTal.. rings... on my shins."

​Five.

​On the sixth rep, a loud crash echoed from the mat next to us.

​A burly guy with shaved hair had grabbed his female partner's wrist during a forced shoulder stretch, twisting her arm behind her back with a cruel grin while whispering something into her ear that made her wince.

​"Come on, move it, bitch," he grunted, shoving his weight onto her shoulder blade.

"You're soft."

​My eyes snapped sideways. My body reacted before my mind could weigh the consequences—I aborted my sit-up mid-rise, kicked my legs free from Kenji's grip, and lunged sideways across the two-foot gap between our mats.

​"Cleo, NO!" Kenji screamed.

​I grabbed the shaved-head guy's thumb, driving it backward until the joint popped out of its socket with a loud CRUNCH.

He let out a blood-curdling shriek, dropping his partner, but before I could drive my heel into his throat to finish the job, my metal collar hummed.

​CRACK-THACK!

​Thirty thousand volts slammed into my neck, shooting down my spine like liquid fire. I collapsed onto the mat, my body seizing, sparks flying from the iron band.

​Across the mat, Kenji went down too, his body curling into a tight ball as the shared feedback shock ripped through his system.

​"AHHH! YOU PSYCHOPATH!" Kenji howled from the floor, clutching his neck as the current finally cut off, his eyes watering from the pain.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"

​"He touched her," I rasped from the floor, my muscles twitching, my vision swimming with white spots. "He was... hurting her."

​"SHE CAN FIGHT HER OWN BATTLES!" Kenji yelled, scrambling over to me on his hands and knees, grabbing my shoulder to pull me up—then flinching and instantly pulling his hand back as if he had burned himself.

"You almost got us both executed! You can't just go around snapping people's limbs because they look at someone wrong!"

​"H-Hee toUched her," I repeated, my voice small, confused, staring at my own bruised knuckles. "When men touch... they break things. You have–tTo b-break them first. Me break him first"

​Kenji went completely still. The anger on his face drained away as he sat back on his heels, staring down at my face.

​Around us, two guards approached with shock-batons drawn, but the instructor waved them off, pointing toward the sparring rings.

​"Resuming combat drills!" the instructor bellowed.

"Section Three, clear the mats!"

​Kenji stood up slowly, offering me his hand—then as if remembering something, pulled it back and stepping two feet away so I could push myself up.

​"That's not... that's not how it works, Cleo," Kenji said softly as we walked toward the perimeter.

His voice was lower now, devoid of his usual dramatic edge. "People don't just touch to break things. That's... that's not normal."

​"What is normal?" I asked, my voice flat, my hand reaching up to touch the cold metal of my collar.

​Before he could answer, a group of three male subjects pushed past us, one of them slapping his partner's backside with a loud chuckle, making the girl laugh loudly and push him back playfully.

​"See that?" Kenji pointed with a tense finger, his face flushing with frustration.

"That... okay, that's still trashy, but it's consensual. They like each other. They're... doing sexual stuff."

​I tilted my head, looking at him with genuine, unblinking confusion. "What is sexual stuff?"

​Kenji froze mid-step and slowly turned his head to look at me, his mouth opening, closing, and opening again like a fish out of water.

​"Are you... are you serious?" he whispered, looking around as if searching for a hidden camera.

"You don't know what that means?"

​"No," I said. "Is it a weapon?"

​"No! It's—it's—" Kenji clutched his forehead, letting out a strangled sound.

"Jesus Christ, how old are you really?! Did you live under a literal rock?!"

​"In a basement," I corrected him. "There were no weapons called 'sexual' down there. Just pipes. And chains…darkness"

​Kenji stared at me for five full seconds, his eyes wide.

He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing, before he shook his head violently.

​"We are not talking about this," he said hurriedly, turning his back and walking fast toward the exit bay as the training bell chimed.

"I am not explaining this to you. I am not a health class teacher so find someone else to have sex education with!"

​The hall was a vast, cavernous room filled with stainless steel tables and long lines of subjects waiting for gray plastic trays.

​The smell of warm food—steamed rice, broth, and cooked meat—hit my nose, and my stomach let out a hollow growl that echoed off the metal walls.

​Kenji led the way, grabbing two trays and filling them with rice, boiled meat, and vegetables before leading me to a quiet corner table, far away from the noisy groups of the other higher-ranked subjects.

​The moment the tray hit the table, I dropped to my knees on the bench, grabbed a thick chunk of meat with my bare fingers, and shoved it into my mouth, chewing ravenously, the meat juices dripping down my chin.

​Kenji stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth as he looked at me, then at the meat in my hands, his face twisting.