The Only Way (16 page)

Hart went to Clark's plant, a small one on the outskirts of the district, and slipped inside. No one called out to her as she made her way in. It was too small an operation to even need security. Clark's office was at the back, and Hart took a deep breath before knocking. He always liked her father, she reminded herself; he would want to help.

Clark looked up in surprise at her knock. He squinted at her before recognition dawned.

"What the hell are you doing here, kid?"

Hart steeled herself, squaring her shoulders, hoping she looked fit and capable. "I'm looking for work."

"How'd you even get into the Alley?"

Hart shrugged evasively.

Suspicion crossed his face. "Look, kid. I've got a small operation here. I don't want to get mixed up in any funny business."

"It's nothing like that! I just need work."

"Well, I don't got any."

"I promise I'm a good worker. I'm strong—stronger than I look. I'll do anything."

Clark sighed, standing. "Kid, I really got nothing. We're tight, just like we always are. Gotta pay the workers on the floor, don't I?"

Hart took a deep breath. "Please?"

His face softened as he came around the desk, laying a meaty hand on her shoulder. "I know it's tough. I'd like to help you and a million like you. But I can't."

Hart nodded numbly. "I understand," she mumbled.

"Now get out of here before you get me into some kind of trouble," he said lightly, giving her a little push towards the door.

Hart went, gazing longingly at the women and men stooped over machines, earning a living.  Dirt streaked their faces and all of them were too thin by far, but at least they had money coming in.

She wandered desolately from plant to plant, knocking on doors. Sometimes she got no answer, sometimes a guard shooed her away, pointing a baton or rifle at her until she backed off. No one had any work for her.

She had wasted the morning when she could, at least, have been helping Finn on the heap or fixing up some of the broken junk he had brought home the night before. She slunk back to the checkpoint, her head hung low.

She didn't even glance in the direction of the arenas where she knew there was good money to be made. Money destined for
her
pocket until she had ruined everything.

When she neared the checkpoint, Hart's steps slowed. A man with long tangled blond hair and a goatee leaned up against the fence, muscled arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't doing anything, just standing, but the sight of him made Hart nervous. He looked like a thug, like a fighter. A tattered vest hung open over his t-shirt, some logo obscured in the folds, and a cigarette hung from his lips. The guard stood nearby on the other side of the chainlink, but they didn't speak.

Hart bit her lip but took her pass from her pocket and headed for the checkpoint.

The guard ignored her as she approached the small grate that separated them. The blond man tipped his head towards her.

"Hey there, sweetheart."

She turned her face away, hoping the guard would come to her rescue and process her pass before she had to deal with the man. But he didn't move as the man sauntered closer.

He towered over her, a smirk on his lips. "So you're the famous girl-fighter," he drawled. "Hart."

Hart's heart dropped and she froze. "I—I don't know what you're talking about."

"Course you do," the man laughed. "Jack here let me know that you came through this morning," he tipped his thumb towards the stony guard. "Been waiting all morning."

"Why?" Hart snarled. He didn't look like a policeman, that was for sure.

"Got a proposition for you." He leaned his shoulder up against the fence, crossing his ankles casually. "Name's Jackal."

"So?" Hart shoved her pass back in her pocket, hunching in on herself. Her mother had been right; this was a terrible idea. The latest in a long line, it seemed.

"Got an arena not too far from here. But it's not doing too hot. Too many people in the business. Too much of the same thing—same guys fighting the same fights. No one's interested anymore."

"Gee, that's so sad," Hart sneered. "What do you want with me?"

"You?" He raised an eyebrow. "
You're
interesting. You got people talking, people screaming and ranting and writing stories. People said they were shocked at the idea of a girl in the ring. Well, that's exactly what I want. Something
shocking
."

"Girls aren't allowed to fight," Hart said hollowly. Wasn't this what Leo had warned her about? People trying to get her into the ring with the biggest and best fighters, letting her get torn apart as punishment for overstepping her bounds.

"Girls aren't allowed to fight
men
," Jackal agreed. "Nothin' on the books about girls fighting other girls."

Hart frowned. "What other girls?" As far as she knew, she was the only girl who had braved the ring.

He shrugged. "Don't got them yet. But I could find some. You think you're the only one desperate enough to give fighting a shot? Bet I could get a hundred girls lined up tonight to give it a go in the ring." He leaned closer. "More importantly, I bet I could fill every seat in the house if I had the famous crossdressing bruiser Hart in my ring."

"No one wants to see girls fight," Hart said dubiously. "It's not
ladylike
."

Jackal nodded. "They might come once, just to see. But you're right—they don't want to see girls brawlin' just like the men. But if you put on cute little outfits, cleaned yourself up a bit? I bet plenty of people would pay to see you wrassle with another young thing."

Hart balked, physically stepping away from him in her disgust.

"Hey, now," Jackal said, his hands coming up, placating. "No one's asking you to do anything but what you was doin' before. Just in different clothes."

"That's disgusting." Hart rattled the grate separating her from the guard, demanding his attention.

"So you don't need the money?" Jackal asked, all false innocence. "You weren't in here, desperate for work?"

"Everyone's desperate for work," Hart spat. "Doesn't mean they go selling themselves."

"Everyone's selling themselves, darlin'. Whether it's in a factory, in the ring or on the streets. It's still just a dollar for a pound of flesh. All you got to ask yourself is:  do you want to be the one to decide
how
you get sold? Or you want to let everyone else do it for you?"

That was bullshit, and Hart knew it. She wouldn't be the one deciding. She had decided for herself when she got into Leo's ring. But this time it would be all Jackal's doing.

And yet, her pockets were empty. Her savings were gone. And there seemed to be no other way of making money. "How much would it pay?"

Jackal grinned. "A girl after my own heart. There'd be a purse just like any other fight."

"Yeah? And how much?"

"Well, I don't got everything figured out yet, but I think with you and me? We could aim for the big time."

Hart narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, people of all sorts are interested in your little scandal. Not just the toughs who come through my arena. Fancy City people are readin' all about you in the papers. If I get you to sign on, I could get one night in a City arena."

Hart's eyes widened. She had heard the City people had their own arenas for all the people who refused to slum it in the Alley. But it seemed so unbelievable. Fights in the smooth, glistening palaces she had glimpsed over the wall? Blood spattered on those shining floors?

"How much?" she repeated.

"First night's purse? I think it could be fifty. After that, if people keep coming?" Jackal grinned toothily. "Sky's the limit, darlin'."

Fifty dollars. For one fight. Against a girl who couldn't possibly have the experience and training Hart did.

That was more than putting food on the table. Roe could go to school. Hell, if she won more than one fight,
Penny
could go to school. Everything could be different.

Hart straightened, squaring her shoulders with steely resolve. "I'm in."

Chapter Eleven

Hart stared blankly at the mirror.  She didn't even recognize herself. Her hair, grown out slightly from her first cut all those weeks ago, was slicked into something resembling a style, according to Kella, the girl Jackal had deposited her in front of an hour earlier. Her eyes were lined in black, harsh against her pale skin, and her lips were a waxy red, a garish shade she normally only saw on the girls crowded around the fence after dark.

In fact, most of what she saw in the mirror in front of her was more suited to those girls. She wore the outfit Jackal had thrust at her:  tiny black shorts that barely covered enough to be decent, and a top that ended just under her breasts. Which, instead of being strapped down and out of the way, were pushed up as far as the top could get them, a weirdly distracting swell at the bottom of her vision.

"You look hot," Kella said, cracking her gum approvingly. Hart tore her eyes from the mirror to give the girl a skeptical look.

"I look like a prostitute."

Kella shrugged. "A hot one."

Closing her eyes, Hart forced her breath to steady. The leg of the shorts dug uncomfortably into her thighs, and the feel of the air on her midriff was distracting. Her hair was full of gunk that Kella had shoveled out of an unmarked jar, and her eyelids felt heavy with makeup.

It was all horribly, horribly wrong.

"How am I supposed to fight in this?"

"It's spandex. It'll move with your body." Kella smiled. "Besides, the other girl will be wearing the same thing."

Hart tugged fruitlessly at the bottom of the shorts, hoping to stretch them down to cover more of her. After a moment, she forced herself to leave the clothing alone and start stretching. She had been 'getting ready' for the fight for over an hour and hadn't done a single warm up. Instead, Kella fussed with her clothes, her make-up and her hair. She'd be damned if she didn't go into the ring limber and ready to fight, however; that's why she was here. That's what she was:  a fighter. Never mind what Jackal was selling the audience; she was going to give them a good, clean fight.

Jackal stuck his head in the door a few minutes later, grinning wolfishly at Hart's appearance, his eyes raking over her body. "Lookin' good, sweetheart. Knew you'd clean up okay."

Hart frowned, crossing her arms over her bare midriff. "Is it time?"

"Yep. Get in the ring and show the world what they've been missing by keeping girls outta the fights."

What they'd been missing was apparently another chance to ogle Gutter girls, to humiliate and degrade them. The whistles and jeers started the second Hart emerged into the main arena. The crowd was well-dressed, better than Hart had ever seen, but that didn't change the way they looked at her. Hart had heard that City fights drew women, decked out in gowns, who sat and drank next to their bloodthirsty husbands. But this crowd was mostly male, their eyes glued to her body as she approached the ring.

Hart fought the urge to hunch in on herself, to cover what skin she could. She threw her shoulders back and stared out into the crowd defiantly.

There wasn't much more they could do to strip her of her dignity after all.

The trip into the city had been far from what had she imagined. Jackal packed her into a car at the checkpoint between the Gutter and the Alley, driving her straight through the familiar Alley streets to the imposing wall that guarded the City. The checkpoint that led to the City was swarming with guards, a far cry from the single man who lounged disinterestedly at every point between the Gutter and the Alley. The City guards were clean and crisp, efficient and well-armed. Hart shuddered at the sight of their weapons, rifles in hand and guns strapped to their waists and backs.

She had thought the car would just drive through, but the guard came and knocked on her window with the butt of his gun, a sharp authoritative tap that had her scrambling to open the door.

He had barked at her to get out of the car, and then, with all the other guards watching, had patted her down, feeling up and down her arms and legs and torso, running his palms over her bottom and in between her thighs. Hart had flushed a horrible, burning red, shame pressing in on her as the search seemed to go on and on.

Finally, they let her slide back into the car, feeling as exposed as if they had stripped her bare. The large wrought-iron gate swung open, and Jackal maneuvered the car through.

Hart had only the slightest idea of what lay behind the imposing stones of the Wall, but she was too horrified to even raise her head and look out the window. She curled up in the backseat, thinking of the expression on the guard's face as he searched her.

Even though she had never had a man—or woman, her brain supplied traitorously—touch her so intimately before, there had been no enjoyment on the man's face. Not even a prurient sneer.

Instead, he had treated her like a piece of meat, inspecting it before throwing it to his dogs. He wasn't interested in her sexually; hell, he didn't even seem to think she was human. She was just a piece of trash to him and to the rest of them. To everyone in the City, it seemed.

So Hart stood before the crowd in the arena now with her shoulders thrown back and her head held high. They might think she was beneath them, but she wouldn't act like she was.

Across the ring another door opened and Hart's opponent strolled out. Hart narrowed her eyes as the girl waved jauntily to the crowd. She was dressed identically to Hart except that her outfit was pink. The similarities ended there. It was obvious what the girl had been selected for, and it wasn't her fighting skills.

Her body was tanned and tight beneath the skimpy spandex. Her tiny waist emphasized the voluptuous swell of her breasts, barely contained by the top she wore. Her round hips and ass filled out the shorts in a way Hart's never would. This was the costume as it was supposed to look:  highlighting every feminine curve of the girl's body. Displaying her for the men in the audience.

She wore her hair down, long blonde chunks of it hanging to her waist. The memory of Ruby flashed in Hart's mind, the sight of her pulling her wild curls back before every bout, away from her face and out of her opponent's reach. Ruby was feminine and beautiful, but she wasn't an idiot, and she wasn't in the ring just to look good. She knew what could be used against her. Hart took note of her opponent's hair, already wondering what it would feel like when she wound it through her fingers and tugged
hard
, dragging the girl down by its foolish length.