bitch bites dog [Safina x Jupiter, Day 6]

bitch bites dog -II

I feel the force reverberate through the weapon and down my arm as the blunt slashes across Jupiter's face. The glint of metal at my back sends me trying hard to duck out of the way of the knife aimed for its direct hit. The smirk on his face says it all. Despite freeing the beast from the trap it came bouncing back with a bite. There was no room for mercy in the Hunger Games, and now I was eye to eye with a literal backstabber.

The fresh battle laying itself out had been a help in waking up my own beast, snapping it out of the disoriented stupor of the psychedelic swirls of colour. The heat that was beating down now was back of mind as it filled with nothing but battle. Eyes scanning for weak points in the beast, where best to fell the threat. Confidence flooded through me. I had knocked the boy down before, I could do it again. This time, there would be no mercy to save him.

He calls out to me, "If I told you I killed Tide Evros, would you walk away just like yesterday?" Still smiling that sly smile, like a hyena circling a lion's bounty. Waiting its turn for a taste of the kill, mooch the spoils of the battle from under the lion's nose.

The thought had been on my mind, of course. Whether Tide's name in the sky had truly been Jupiter collecting on the debt I had asked of him. Whether the beast had just collected on his second kill and evened the playing field between us. I can see the boy now though, and the doubt increased as I soaked in the boy's image. The limp from the leg I shattered the night before, and everything else about him looking no worse than it had been when I'd left him in my dust. No scars red with a fresh scab, no new bruises. The bandages covering areas I knew the boy to be hurt already; none of the others had any of the telltale white still gleaming through the layer of dirt and sand.

No, he must not have done it, then. Otherwise there would be more sore skin and bone to tend to. More dried blood splattered over the boy's clothes, even. I know Tide. I know he wouldn't have gone down without a fight. Which means Jupiter had to have been probing with his comment, searching for a button to push that would send the beast into a blind frenzy.

Looks like the dog's got a bark to him.

"If that was the case," I snarl back at him, glaring out at the grin lingering on his face, "your usefulness just wore out." There was nobody left in here that I feared having to face in the quest for my life.

"Now you're more useful to me dead."

bitch bites dog - III

My weapon catches on the blasted chain between Jupiter's hands. He's quicker than I anticipated, the years of Career training no doubt kicking in for him. He's a real pedigree dog, bred for this very moment. Stuck battling a mutt gone savage. I envy the advantage he has now, regretting more and more my foolish decision to let the boy live when I had the window to take out such a huge threat to my own survival. The sting in my back egging the regret on more.

I back up and brace myself for his move. The rage burning hotter than the desert air. Mad at the moment of weakness brought on by that incessant voice of the girl not yet consumed by the beastly flames. It's her that's to blame for such a mistake as letting him live. And yet, despite it all, the voice still seems to be growing louder and louder, pushing back more and more. Trying to break through the fiery shackles and no doubt kill us with her humanity.

Perhaps alone I'd be able to push her back down into the depths again, but Jupiter commands my attention as he threatens my survival. At least I had managed to wipe the grin from his face. "Got me, I didn't kill your boy. But I'll make myself useful to you one last time." We stand there for a moment, sizing each other up for the slaughter. This boy isn't offering himself up for death anytime soon. Not trapped here between the tall dunes. Our only way out would be through the other. Who would get there first.

"Let me help you see him again." Jupiter lunges forward again with the knife on a chain lashing out. I'm ready for him though, ducking down as the knife passes right through where my face had been seconds before. His beast is carefully groomed; undoubtedly designed through years of exercises and statistics and repeated maneuvers. My beast was wild and new and unpredictable. It was my turn to break into a grin. The savage mutt still stood a chance against the prize hound.

"Thanks for the offer," I tease, reveling in the little victory of the greater war we battle, "But I think I'll just send you say hi for me." My eyes train on the small opening, left unprotected as if to beg for the taste of the force I could deal. I act as fast as I can, the blunt pushing through the air towards its mark.

Let's see if the boy's chains can stop it this time.

bitch bites dog - IV

Jupiter continues his showboating. "Wasn't an offer. A promise." He spits out the words through heavy breaths. The rise and fall of his chest evident. I see the opportunity. I see the spot left wide open, will my weapon to make it there, hope to see the tear of flesh and blood. I make my move.

Then the boy moves. I can't tell if he's stumbled or if he's seen my move coming from a mile away. All I know is his arm is raising up, intercepting the path between weapon and weakness, with no room to change course. I feel the weight against his arm, spike tearing up leather instead of skin. Shit. The attack is ruined, and I'm not certain he'll leave me another opening like that again.

I pull the weapon back and I brace myself for retaliation from the killer before me. Only it doesn't come; he stands there, still gasping deep, trying to fill those lungs with the heavy, hot air. Chest rising and falling and rising and falling. Over and over again. For the first time I become aware that I, too, am gasping. The old wounds had been tenderly cared for and yet the soreness has lingered, made me less agile, less accurate. The fresh wound demands space in my awareness too. The sting as my sweat mingles with the blood. Amplifying the quick beats of my heart from the torn flesh as it pumps and pumps and pumps in its effort to keep the beast deadly, dangerous, alive. We're two battered wolves, mangy and mangled, circling each other in a stubborn will to live at the cost of the other's life.

Finally Jupiter finds words through the gulps of air. "Vice versa, don't think I really want Tide to be the first one to greet me at the gates." Despite his body tense in defense, struggling to stay strong and impenetrable, the Career boy seems to be letting me into some other form of vulnerability. A taste of a boy deep within the beast he has been shaped to be. As we lock eyes I see my own rage mirrored back at me, mixed in with something… more. Something else. Like he's found some sort of invisible string tying the two of us together. "Right?"

Before I can stop it, memories from the girl trapped deep beneath my fire flood past the inferno into my mind. My parents rejoicing around an old table. A young Emon, so small in the crowd and shaking with the fear of his first reaping. Dina curled up at the foot of my bed, eyes full of wonder as I pour over notes and plans and ideas. Tevin with his magnetic ability to fix anything. Nobody to greet me at the gates. People I want to greet me back home.

No!

I force the memories of a different life back out of mind. I focus on the loss dealt to me in the new life I've lived. Tide. Serelis. The ones that helped keep me alive. The ones that helped me fight.

He moves again, and I'm ready for it - but not as ready as I want to be. My mind tells me exactly where to move but my body can't act fast enough. My mind still recovering from the fresh fight of the girl trying to free herself. The knife digs into my arm. The pumping of my heart finds a new echo chamber for its rhythm to begin drumming.

There's no more room for that. No more mental slips, no room for anything but the beast and the rage and the battle before me. I cannot underestimate Jupiter Graves and the danger of the silver tongue between barren fangs. "Then meet whoever you want at the gates, Jupiter," I spit out. I breathe in. My heart throbs through my wounds. "You can list them all off for all I care." I work to steady my breathing, find a new push of strength for both the battles I'm facing.

"I'll just send you there so you can see for yourself who shows up."

I find the strength, I grip the blunt, and I push myself to take another swing.

bitch bites dog - V

The strike of my blunt on Jupiter's body is solid, square against his arm. I wait eagerly for the wave of some fresh satisfaction at the force, but this time it doesn't come. The Career has soaked up the attack like a sponge, barely even flinching under its weight. Eyes focused on holding on to the invisible string he's hooked into me. It's not enough. Th beast still hungers for more.

Jupiter opens his mouth and pours out his words like honey. "Go ahead. Tell me about them." The boy's gaze never leaving mine, my eyes not daring to be the first to break away. I know that I should; I know that he's already searching for a crack in my beastly armour he can chip into pieces. But I can't. To look away is to concede, accept a little defeat in the standoff. He's already managed to get the best on me when he bought back his life from my hands. I won't let him earn a second without putting up a fight.

"Tell me who you're fighting for, Safina."

My resolve holds as best as it could, but the faces refuse to be held back. Riyaad. Sadiya. Mother. Father. Their smiles pull on the bars that hold the girl at bay, putting cracks in their strength. This is bad. I need them to go, get out, let me stay in control. Let me fight! Let me beat the beast!

I'm trapped in this internal fight as Jupiter strikes in the one outside my body. His knife rips across my cheek, the rusty taste starts to seep into my mouth, mix with the sweat. Reflexively I move back, raise the weapon, brace myself for a retaliation as the rage boils up fresh. The boy was tearing me apart inside and out.

I'm about to launch into a strike when the cannon sounds. I stop in my tracks, breaths heaving, looking at the boy much alive in front of me. Realizing what it means. Artemis or Sera gone. Four has become three. Two deaths stand in my way. This is it. This is where I need to give it all before the wolf with the sharp bite sinks his teeth into my jugular. The bars holding the girl in the demon crack a bit deeper, a bit of her soul coming up for air.

"We all had family," I start. "In some capacity. I plan on returning to mine." The one sliver of humanity pushes out of me. I don't know whether my statement is true; but if not, at least, maybe I can find a nerve in the boy to play with myself. Maybe having the girl here now can help the beast do the job it needs to do. "But don't get confused. In here, I'm fighting for me."

It's time to try and sever the cord binding us together.

bitch bites dog - VI

I watch as the spikes bury themselves in Jupiter's abdomen, digging into flesh and drawing a trickle of fresh blood. The wounded beast stumbles backwards, weighed down by the new pain added to what seems to me to be an already long list of wounds. "Oh" he blurts out. For a moment he seems to have shed his own beast, or perhaps it has turned tail and left the boy beneath to fend for himself. I don't like it; with the war raging on inside me, it's much easier to war with beast than boy. To forget that there's a life beneath fur and fang. That there's a person on the other end of that invisible thread.

Then the words of honey begin to pour from his mouth, seeping deep in between the gears of the machine driving me forward and grinding me to a halt. "And what do you think they'll think of you now?" His words so light with the truth of them, but sharper than any knife could be as it cuts right down through the rage and coldness that traps - no, protects - the girl within.

In truth it was something I hadn't had the luxury to think about at all. I had refused to think much about my return to my family since the Reaping tore me away from them. I had feared the weakness it could expose in me; how homesickness could blind me from danger, how hope could leave me to play it safe at times where risk was all that would keep me alive. I had left them in another life as I had shed my humanity and embraced my demons. Turned into a killer, a hunter stalking its prey. Now, there's very few prey left to be hunted, and the reality that I could actually come out of this desert alive was too hard to ignore anymore. His honey words had dripped onto an already fragile lock and loosened its grip, and the flow of the memories had come dripping, then trickling, and now escaping in a tiny stream that would be hard to stop up again.

"Your family won't want a killer, Safina."

He deals a final blow to the lock on this part of my humanity, family pouring out in a tsunami of guilt and fear. What if he's right? What if I have fought my way through all of this, sacrificed so much of the person I am, transformed into something now too grotesque and deformed to be worthy of their love? I imagine each of their faces looking out at me, contorted into fear and disgust and cold. I imagine them turning their backs on the monstrosity that once was their daughter.

What if he's right? What if I'm fighting to keep a life I've already ruined?

I'm lost beneath these waves as the knife slips into my back. I hadn't even noticed the boy moving into position, readying himself for the blow. The beast reflexively moves before his blade can dig in too deep, cause more damage than it already has.

Rage begins to paint the waters a deep crimson, pulling me out from its depths until I'm riding once again on the waves. I look at the wretched Career, furious at the damage he's done. He's ruining me from the inside while he carves me away on the outside. The volcano of it bubbles to the surface. "NO!" I am screaming now, a banshee in the sandy sea. "YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME, JUPITER GRAVES! NOTHING!"

He needs to pay. He needs to die. He needs to break before I'm torn apart.