against the wall, forcing her to her knees with his arm around her neck.
“As you can see, children,” he said, spitting blood from his split lip. “When given equal doses of elixir, the strongest fighter will usually win.”
I stood up, about to charge into the rink, but Camina winked at me before dropping all of her weight down and breaking the chokehold. She jabbed a pressure point in Steve’s thigh, cramping his whole leg, then swept him off his feet with a scissor kick. He banged his knee hard and let out a groan of pain. Camina kicked off the short wall and did a flying roundhouse that connected with Steve’s chin and sent him sprawling across the floor.
“Unless,” Camina said, dusting her hands, “you’re smarter and better-looking than your opponent. Then you can use his weight and overconfidence against him.”
The kids clapped their hands as Steve staggered to his feet, glaring at her with murderous rage.
“Good match,” Camina said, offering her hand. “Let’s call it a draw.”
Steve hesitated for a moment, glancing at the kids. Camina was offering him a way to save face, and he knew it.
“Guess you got more training than I expected,” he said, shaking her hand.
“You should see what I can do with a spear,” she said. “To be fair, you picked the wrong opponent. Some of the girls really are just a pretty face, with a few months of combat training. But I’m from Iklebot. I’ve been fighting monsters my whole life. It’s in our blood.”
I was relieved the fight was over. We’d been trained to protect the elite, not fight them. Using elixir for sport and practice, training kids how to kill elite, felt wrong somehow. But something else was bothering me.
“Where are you getting the blood from?” I asked suddenly, eyeing the red stain on Camina hand. Trevor blanched and curate Marcus looked guilty. I could tell they were keeping something from me. Something big.
“I mean it’s not straight elixir, it’s elite blood, right? How did you get so much of it? You couldn’t have stolen it.”
“Tell her,” Marcus said finally, not meeting my eye.
“We caught one,” Trevor said, rubbing the back of his neck. “One of the elite. We keep it locked up.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The idea that there was an elite somewhere in this building made the hair on my arm stand up. What if it was someone I knew, someone I recognized?
“Show me,” I said. Marcus sighed and I trailed after him. We went deeper into the complex, past several checkpoints with guards, before emerging in some kind of underground parking lot.
“She’s in there,” Marcus said, pointing at a large truck. He shrugged when I raised my eyebrows.
“It was a freezer truck for transporting meat,” he explained. “Thick walls, no handle on the inside.” He hefted the handle, raising the wide door to the back of the truck. The cell wasn’t what I expected. Large chains had been bolted into the walls, attached to a thin figure lying on a soiled mattress, covered in filth and grime, her face nearly black from dirt.
Anxious thoughts rattled nervously in the back of my mind, and my skin crawled. Something about this was all wrong. The elite had long dark hair and was smaller than I’d expected. A woman. She raised her head, catching my scent, then pulled weakly against the chains. She hissed, raising her lips to display her sharp teeth. Despite her red eyes, matted hair and prominent fangs, I recognized her instantly.
It was Penelope. Back from the dead.
4
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Penelope was still alive. Somehow, she’d survived the king’s forced execution. She was still wearing the yellow gown from her execution, though it was torn and stained a deep reddish brown, from blood, dirt or worse.
I stepped towards her but Trevor grabbed my arm and held me back.
“When we found her,” Marcus said quietly, “she was barely alive, more animal than human. She tore through three armed men before we took her down.”
“But how is it even possible?”
“We think Tobias must have slipped her elixir somehow, as he killed her, or before.”
“I saw it,” I realized, sucking in a quick breath. “He stabbed her, but then he kissed her – there was blood on her mouth.”
“He must have passed it to her then, a lot of it. Stop the heart, then flood the body with elixir. That’s the way to make an elite.”