Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) Read online

  “I’m not thinking anything,” I say.

  “You want to practice?”

  I shake my head, which seems stupid really. We should be taking every opportunity we can get to suss one another out. Look for weaknesses. But I already know his weaknesses, and he knows mine. The part of me that is always logical, always reasonable, seems to be missing right now. Falin Asha’s breath comes out heavy, and I look up at him. His face is so familiar―delicate cheekbones and dark brows that arch a little too high for him not to look permanently surprised. His nose is slightly crooked where I broke it five years ago. He pulls his mouth into a smile but it doesn’t seem to reach his eyes. He shrugs me half-heartedly off his shoulder and yanks his shoes and socks off. Rolling his socks together into a ball, he stuffs them into one of his shoes so they won’t roll down the embankment and into the water. I slowly follow suit.

  Shimmying forward on our backsides, our feet kiss the water. We plunge them in at the same time, knowing it will be cold. Knowing it will be shocking, but doing it all the same. He laces his fingers through mine out of habit.

  “This is our place,” he says, his voice low.

  “I know.”

  He tilts his head back and stares up at the bare bones of the sky, the faint rippled clouds stretching across the bright blueness of it. “Just don’t do this with anyone else.”

  I feel something bob in my throat, and I realise I’m trying to swallow. Trying and failing. “Of course I won’t.” Why he thinks I ever would is a mystery to me. Most of the time I can’t figure out why we do it.

  A fleeting shadow passes over Falin Asha’s face. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his last red ribbon, which he then ties gently around my wrist. We stop staring at each other and gaze at our feet, magnified two sizes too big by the water as they turn blue. He’s too kind to say anything, but we can both hear it: my halo clicks like crazy.

  COLOSSEUM

  There are crowds the likes of which I have never seen before, swelling outside the Colosseum. There is an indistinguishable roar in the air, but it is not from shouting or raised voices. The people of the Sanctuary are orderly and peaceable. The roar is because there are simply so many of them. It isn’t mandatory to attend the amphi-matches, but it feels like everyone is here tonight. Usually, there are families that don’t come, especially the poorer families who aren’t betting heavily on their Falin. Or, occasionally, as the richer Houses will do, betting heavily against their own, weaker Falin―the ones they suspect are getting too old to be of any use in the Colosseum. They call it the Death Bet, because your House will always find a way to pitch you against someone much stronger, much faster than you.

  This match between Falin Asha and me is no Death Bet. It’s the culmination of some other kind of bet between our True fathers, made sixteen years ago when we were born. It’s no wonder Lowrence is so happy this evening, an emotion tempered, of course, with just enough disapproval to let me know he suspects I won’t win. His emotional indecision is cataclysmically confusing. Both he and Miranda remain with me as I warm up in the waiting chamber, Miranda eating butter biscuits and drinking tea, and I can’t help but stare at their naked necks. The open collar of my father’s shirt, displaying his bare skin, seems a little obscene.

  “You know what you’re doing, don’t you, child?” he asks me again. He’s already asked me four times, and I keep telling him the same thing: I know precisely what I have to do. I have to kill Falin Asha.

  He freaks out every time he hears my halo hum into life, and it’s uncustomary the way he keeps running his hands across it to make sure it’s still adhered to my skin the way it should be. No one, no one, should touch another person’s halo. Not even if that person is your father. He drags his hands back through his steel grey hair, looking stressed.

  “Stop doing that, Low. You’re going to lose even more hair,” Miranda snaps. Hair is a prized commodity to my father’s wife, it seems. Whenever she is sitting, she plays with her own soft, golden curls. It was the first habit of hers that I observed when she appeared ten years ago, ushered into our lives out of the blue. I don’t listen to her telling off my father; it’s better for all parties involved if I pretend they don’t exist, and so I go back to my routine, trying to calculate how much money Lowrence has put on me this evening to warrant this level of worry. It must be a lot.

  The walkways for the crowds entering the Colosseum are directly overhead, and the thunder of the noise is crushing. I imagine it’s akin to what a train would have sounded like long ago when they used to run on the skeletons of the old iron tracks that run through parts of the city. Lowrence and Miranda seem more affected by the noise than I would have thought, but then again they’ve never been down here with me before. Not once. They probably thought I’d be reading a book in tranquil silence or something. Definitely not practicing at slicing up a rubber dummy with a knife in each hand, trying to reach that warm point when my muscles are loose and I can move quicker than lightning.

  At some stage I must have nicked myself because there’s blood on the floor, and Lowrence keeps staring at it as though it’s his and I’ve somehow managed to cut him. He checks his bare arms three or four times, and when he doesn’t find anything he laces his fingers behind his neck and stares upward. The noise of all the stomping people seems to fall into unison, like they’re actually part of some vast machine, churning and surging above us. I ignore him and keep slicing.

  “You’re sure you’re not feeling conflicted?” he says.

  I stop thrashing at the dummy and stab the tip of my blade lightly into the material covering my thigh. It doesn’t hurt, but I can tell if I push a little harder it will cut through. “No, I’m not conflicted.”

  “You should tell us if you are, child,” he declares, and for a moment I think I see concern in his eye. This is a ridiculous thought because I have no basis to go off what concern might really look like, or any other emotion really, except for the obvious ones. Happiness and anger are easy to work out. Everything else is just messy and confusing. Lowrence’s mouth tics at the corner. His face reddens a little, which tells me he’s getting annoyed that I haven’t answered him.

  “I’m not conflicted.”

  “Good.” He blows out a deep breath. “Miranda and I have put a lot on the line for you, child. I hope you understand that.”

  Miranda turns icy blue eyes on me and nods, like she has had some hand in raising me over the past ten years. As a rule, she barely speaks to my brother and me. I am usually not permitted to stand in her presence as I am taller than her these days, and she believes a True should never have to look up to a Falin. However, since today is a fight day, I am allowed to train, and she sits, observing the whole thing with distaste. I will never be a match for her own children, my half-brothers and sister, all of whom have names and emotions, and love trying to torture the rest of us at House Kitsch into submission.

  I know the children understand torture isn’t necessary. It is our duty to be submissive to them, and we have no desire to disobey that duty. Being without emotions like jealousy and greed, there is nothing that might tempt us to strive for positions beyond our stations. But my siblings don’t care about things like that. They care about things I can’t comprehend.

  “Remember to smile when my children lead you out tonight,” Miranda snaps. She doesn’t look at me; I only know she is speaking to me because of her tone of voice—hard and sharp. “I have friends in the boxes. If you embarrass me…”

  She doesn’t finish her threat. A flicker of curiosity sparks inside me that I immediately suppress, although not before I have chance to wonder how she will punish me if I don’t perform to her liking. Will she take away my technology like she does her own children (I have none), or has she a more macabre plan in mind? Without fear or pain as a motivator, she would really need to get creative with me. She knows this, too—I see it in her face when she casts a displeased look in my general direction. “Just make sure you smile, girl.”

/>   I test out a smile on my face and it feels like a grimace. Lowrence sees it and growls. He goes pacing again, and for a moment his footsteps fall into time with the crowds above us. There is a knock at the door, and an adjudicator pokes a bald head into the room.

  “Five minutes,” he says. Lowrence blows out a shaky breath, leans back against the wall. He is wearing a black shirt that probably cost a small fortune, and there are lines pressed down the sleeves where my birth mother has ironed it for him. I’m in my combat gear as usual, the jacket unzipped, and I have Kevlar stretch bandages wound around my wrists. This is allowed during the amphi-matches, but generally fighters don’t use them. It’s considered a sign of weakness, but the wrists are vulnerable when knife fighting, and I know Falin Asha too well. If he spots any weakness in me, he will use it to his advantage. We’re too equally matched in our fighting skills, and I will be doing exactly the same thing.

  I have extra knives in my belt tonight. I favour small daggers and throwing knives, but I’ve added a Karambit, a wicked claw-shaped blade, and a Balisong. The Balisong is a last resort, a foldable butterfly knife that can only lead to dirty, skirmish-style fighting. I don’t want to get that close to Falin Asha. I’m hopeful that my throwing knives will remove any need for that, but I can’t be too careful.

  Another knock at the door reveals the Kitsch Elin; all three of them are dressed in the same royal blue―Andre and Michael in matching suits, and Lexa in a velveteen dress and white socks pulled up to her knobbly knees. I give them each a small smile that none of them return. They roll their eyes at me and hurl themselves at Lowrence, wrapping their arms around his legs and waist. The boys are seven and eight, and Lexa is only five. They all seem to have adopted Miranda’s distaste for fraternizing with the lower classes. Michael has a slight pug nose, which he turns up when he glances at me.

  “Do we have to do this, Father?” he whines.

  Lowrence pats his hand on Michael’s head and ruffles his hair. “It’s only this once and then you’ll never have to step foot on that floor again, okay? Now, you’ve got to have big smiles this evening. You want to please your mother, don’t you?”

  All three of them nod, although none of them seem too happy. Andre’s blue eyes are cold when he turns to me and says, “You might die tonight. Then we’ll never have to see you again.”

  I don’t know what it is I’ve done to make a seven year old hate me so much, but I can tell that’s what he feels―hate. I run my fingers absently across the hilts of the daggers pressing against my hipbones and pull my mouth into a respectful smile. “That’s true,” I agree.

  He scowls, annoyed that I am not crushed by his comment. Surprising, because I’m sure Andre knows I’m not capable of being wounded by anything he has to say to me. The halo would take care of that if I did feel anything, but it’s not even necessary. It doesn’t click into life around my neck as I stand there rubbing my thumbs slowly over the weapons in my belt. I’m just focusing on what I have to do.

  Kill Falin Asha. I have to kill Falin Asha.

  When the adjudicator comes for me, the children lead out like they’re supposed to, and suddenly they’re all smiles and laughter. They leave their mother and father without a backward glance and start walking down the tunnel towards the lit arena beyond. There are flashes of cameras going off up there, and the children seem excited by the prospect of so many thousands of people all looking down on them. Lowrence grabs my arm as I go to follow, and he says in his sternest voice, “Remember, do what you have to do.”

  I don’t get chance to reassure him yet again, because the adjudicator rushes me up the tunnel—dust, echoing chants, adrenalin—and then I am standing in the arena. The first thing I do is check the two massive screens looming at either end of the match floor. On them the twelve most influential Houses are displayed, showing their fighters’ names, number of wins, and how much has been bet on them tonight. Kitsch sits at the top of the board, right next to the name Asha, glowing in brilliant red. Beside our House statistics, an obscene amount of money continues to grow and grow as the late bets roll in. I don’t focus on the numbers. I’m concentrating on my surroundings.

  It always smells the same down here—musky dirt and blood and sweat. The ground is littered with hundreds of swatches of ruby-coloured cloth, and the air is thick with fluttering red tickertape that the crowds throw down on us in handfuls. Lexa seems thrilled when it drifts down to land in her hair. She smiles at me, open-mouthed, before she realises who I am and turns back to her brothers.

  When the music kicks in, a loud, brassy fanfare of trumpets underscored by rumbling drums, the children form a line and start walking towards the triangular court lines where the amphi-match will be held. Miranda must have had them practice, because they walk at the same speed and hold each other’s hands, waving with their free ones at the people in the stands. On the other side of the arena, Falin Asha appears from the opposing combatants’ entrance. Not to be outdone, his mother and father have sent their one and only Elin, Penny, a tall, red-headed girl, to lead Falin Asha out. She isn’t smiling, though, and she looks thoroughly miserable. She’s older than Falin Asha by three years, and by rights she should have nothing to do with the fights. She’s not a child anymore and it’s surprising that she’s here.

  Falin Asha looks a little pale following behind Penny. Confusingly, he’s wearing his knife belt slung low on his waist. Like that, it’s only going to impede his movement, and oddly enough he isn’t wearing the Kevlar stretch bandages like I assumed he would be. This makes me feel strange, and I touch my halo self-consciously. I don’t know if it’s working right now because the noise of the conversations going on in the stands overwhelms everything else.

  Miranda’s potent gaze burns into my back from the Kitsch’s box, and I remember I’m supposed to be smiling. I flash my teeth at the crowd but it feels forced and weird. Andre, Michael and Lexa do a few three-sixties when we reach the thick white, painted lines of the match court, etched into a large triangle, and wave enthusiastically at the crowd. Trues and their Elin in the other boxes whoop and cheer at their show, but everyone else in the crowd claps politely, just as custom dictates.

  Eventually, the children are ushered away by adjudicators and shown to the box where Miranda and Lowrence wait, but Penny moves off to hover over by the court line. I don’t know why, but I had assumed she would join Falin Asha’s Trues in their box, strategically placed right next to the Kitsch’s. I guess I was wrong. Falin Asha and I pause on the outskirts of the court lines, waiting for the music to stop so that we can enter. He is too far away for me to make out his expression right now, but his shoulders are sloped oddly, and his fingers tap impatiently at the dagger strapped to his thigh, like he is desperate to jump into the arena and finish me off. Maybe he’s confident that he can beat me.

  Honestly, I have no idea what will happen once we step onto that court. Huge amounts of money will be lost either way, because there have been no other fighters like us. We are both undefeated, and everyone will have a favourite.

  The music ends abruptly, which is our cue to step into the triangle. We aren’t permitted to draw our weapons until the alarm sounds, but Falin Asha is tapping his dagger again. I frown at him, wondering what he’s thinking. The stony set of his face doesn’t betray much.

  Red paper falls down to rest on the back of my hand and I glance down at it, catching sight of the ribbon Falin Asha tied around my wrist earlier. I tug at it absently until it pokes out above my bandages, and I see him freeze.

  The alarm sounds quicker than I was expecting, and for a moment all I can hear are the raucous cries of the people in the boxes around the perimeter of the Colosseum floor going up and up and up. Their wild emotion is almost enough to make up for the fact that no one else in the crowd is experiencing any.

  After a moment, I do what is expected of me.

  I step forward.

  Falin Asha responds.

  FIGHT

  Falin Asha reaches
for a weapon first, and it’s not even the dagger he’s been tapping at for the past few minutes. This surprises me, and I’m almost too late when he snatches a throwing knife from his belt and darts it at me. I dive forward and roll the way I have a hundred times before, ending up a safe distance from the knife as it spins end over end through the air. It will lose momentum and fall to the dirt long before there’s any chance of it hitting someone in the crowd, so I don’t stop to check where it’s gone.

  I grab my own throwing knives and stack all three of them in my hand, ready to flick them out. Crouching low, I stalk closer to the centre of the match court, never taking my eyes off Falin Asha. He’s staring at me, too, and I have to remember to watch his hands. He’s always excelled at misdirection, and if I’m caught making eye contact with him for too long, he’ll have grabbed another knife and thrown it without me even noticing. My index finger on my right hand strokes the length of the sharp knife waiting in my palm. It feels as though the cold steel is humming against my skin, begging to be let loose.

  I give in and lunge forward swiftly, raising my hand back towards my chest before flicking my wrist out and letting go. The knife sings as it cuts through the air, making the hairs on my arms stand up. I put a slight curve on the throw, but Falin Asha sees it coming. He ducks back out of its trajectory and drops to the floor. The throwing knife spins past him and buries itself blade-first in the dirt. The crowd hisses, as though they thought it might have all been over by the time we’d both thrown our first blades. Right on cue, the stacks of numbers on the Colosseum screens start spiralling away; the profit and loss cycles of the big Houses have begun.

  Falin Asha’s hair is pulled back out of his face into a small ponytail, but a few strands have fallen loose. He bats them out of his eyes and smiles at me softly. The hard edge to his face, there only a moment ago, is suddenly gone, and I instantly feel like we’re just training. He straightens up and purposefully draws his dagger slow enough that I can see what he’s doing. He tosses it over in his hand in a showy fashion, catching it easily by the hilt. “You enjoying yourself, Kit?” he calls to me.