As the serum was injected into her neck, Eliana's eyes suddenly widened, and her heart began to race in her chest. She didn't like the feeling, it made the anxiety even worse. She couldn't stop thinking about how Keith's eye had hung from its socket, her boot still impaled in it. She looked down and saw that she was still wearing one boot. With shaky hands, she quickly took off the other and threw it away. After today, she would probably never be able to wear boots again.
Suddenly, two strong hands gripped her shoulders.
"Eliana? Eliana, are you okay? You don't have any time anymore. The tournament is about to continue, and we need to go," Dane said as he looked down at her.
She stared up at him, wide-eyed, and then vomited. Whatever they gave her made everything worse. Her hands trembled violently, and she couldn't stand still. She shook her head as more vomit followed. There was no way she could fight again. The image of Keith's ruined face was permanently burned into her mind. She was so traumatized that she just wanted to hide and cry.
Suddenly, Isaak stepped forward and slapped her, hard.
"Hey! Don't do that!" Dane shouted, stepping forward to stop him, but Cobra held him back.
Eliana touched her stinging cheek in shock as Isaak grabbed her jaw.
"You don't have time to wallow in self-pity and trauma. This is your new reality. And the man responsible for all of this is out there. Show him what revenge looks like."
His voice was calm but firm, commanding. Eliana shook her head, but with the adrenaline coursing through her, there was no escape. Isaak grabbed her shoulder and pulled her along, guiding her back to the training hall.
The others were filing back in after the fire alarm distraction. Before she realized what was happening, Eliana was standing in front of a new opponent—a lanky guy she'd barely interacted with before.
She couldn't think straight. Her brain was foggy with trauma and chemicals. It felt like she was high while being mentally shattered. The voice that signaled the start of the next fight boomed through the hall, though she didn't register whose it was.
Time warped. Everything moved in slow motion. Her body reacted more than acted. She took hit after hit, stumbling from one opponent to the next, her movements mechanical and desperate. By the end of the tournament, she was a bloody mess, collapsing onto the mat.
Surprisingly, despite the drugs and the trauma, she hadn't come in last. She was still ranked low but would not be eliminated. She believed that it was only thanks to the drug-induced adrenaline numbing her pain that she managed to win a few fights. That, and perhaps something else she hadn't yet realized.
As she lay on the mat, she turned her head at the sound of commotion. She watched as the six lowest-ranked recruits were lined up. Then, one after another, Belial casually shot them in the head.
At the first gunshot, she flinched. By the last, she merely stared at the corpses, numb. She realized she had been just one place above them. That could have been her.
Six recruits died today. Ten more had died over the past three months. She didn't know if Keith was still alive, but without him, only thirty-three recruits remained out of the original fifty of their cohort.
How many more would die?
Would she be one of them?
She would. She knew it. She would have to pay one day for what she had done—killing Keith (or trying to), surviving the fights, and even feeling relieved that others had died instead of her.
"So how does it feel to have so many deaths on your own hands?"
Belial's voice came from above her as he stared down.
"I didn't kill them… it's not my fault that I won because I'm better," she whispered, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"It is your fault. You should have been one of those corpses. But I couldn't let you die yet. I don't know what those idiots planned for you, but I want to see how you evolve."
He gestured toward the mentors. Once again like always she didn't know what was meant.
"I don't understand…" she whispered again, eyes moving to meet his mismatched ones—one black, one stark white.
Belial smiled unsettlingly.
"I helped you out a little during a few fights. But that'll be our secret, okay kitten?" he said with a smirk, patting her head again like she was a pet.
Her life was officially a nightmare. She passed out right then and there while Belial continued to stroke her hair.
---
Later that evening, the five mentors sat gathered in Isaak's office.
"Good thing Lucifer and Belial didn't stick around," Dane muttered, taking a long drink of whiskey.
"I was this close to ripping that fucker's throat out," Damon growled, throwing his knife into the wall.
"Hey, what did you even tell Eliana during the opening speech?" Theo asked, casually leaning against the doorframe.
"Nothing much… just that it's Lucifer's and Belial's fault that she's here," Damon said innocently with a smirk.
"I maybe told her that too…" Isaak muttered out with a heavy sigh.
Cobra shook his head as he listened to them and downed his whiskey in one go. "Then we better hope she never finds out that we're the ones behind her kidnapping."