Dedicated to AdsIsHere

A/N
So this chapter is dedicated to the loveliest human being I've gotten to know here on wattpad. Thank you so much Ads, you literally have no idea how great you are, as a friend and a reader. Thank you for inspiring me to continue writing this story even when I don't feel like it. Thank you, for because of your nice words and motivation, because you've stuck with me up until now, I'm through with the first quarter of this book!!!! Wooohoooo!
If I could I would dedicate this whole book to you! Stay amazing! And I love you so much❤❤ AdsIsHere

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Dripping, soaking wet, she swats a palm across her forehead, rubbing away only a little bit of the gallons of sweat coating her body. Her legs are wobbly, and the whole of her body aches with remnants of being overworked, though she remembers not what exactly got her to feel this way.

Begrudgingly, she sits up off the prickling coldness of the linoleum floor that she's found herself on--- something baffling considering she's sweating. Again, she knows not how she got here, or where she was before she did. Her hands reach down to her knees, her fingertips massaging some life into her numb limbs as her eyes accustom to the darkness filling the room. After a while, she staggers to her feet, just before noticing a small candle-like light in a far corner from where she is and instinctively walking over to where it is. Darkness and her have never really seen eye to eye.
She doesn't make it to the little light though. Something,---wait, someone seems more fitting---yeah, someone punches her hard across the right jaw, sending her neck snapping to the opposite side. Except the movement of the neck, she doesn't flinch, or cry out in pain, much to her own bewilderment. In fact, she smirks, raises a fisted hand and throws one of her own somewhere into the darkness, hitting said someone back. He makes a non committal sound, and then everything comes into place, like throwing that punch was the dose of reminder she needed.

How she got here...

Why she is here...

Where she was before she got here...

And, what she needs to do to get out of here...

Which is to Kill.

Kill someone.

Kill a human being.

Kill or be killed.

Suddenly the light in the room grows. She's faintly aware of the way she's vigorously shaking her head, not crying, after everything, that instinct has long been extinct from her whole being. But even after everything, she still bleeds red. For the life of her, she does not see herself murdering a person in cold blood. She continues to shake her head as her opponent comes into view.

He's a man, evidently strong. She isn't sure whether he is muscular by choice, or has been forced by circumstances. In this kind of world, you never really know but he is. He's wearing nothing but a pair of black NGWDO sweatpants like her own that are hanging low on his hips, he's barefoot, and falls into motion like a clothing line model. Under different circumstances, one would even call him a hot piece of work. But not here, not now. He has big biceps and a toned stomach with a skin that talks of a thousand years of winter. And that's as far as her eyes can travel. She can't bring herself to look at his face, to look into those still-innocent eyes that have been forced to act like killing another is just another day to day activity that it isn't.
Because just like her, he's an innocent, at least, still an innocent. They've both been forced into this. And he's been forced to act like he's killed someone before.

But he hasn't.

She wishes he could see this too, they could walk away from this as nothing but victims of the world's cruelty. They could choose to walk out, before they become villains, before killing each other, before they too, become Members of The World's Cruelty. Maybe it wouldn't be easy, but they could work their way out of this if they got together.

There's only one thing holding them back though, Mr Black Sweatpants over here doesn't look like he wants out.

Oh no.

In fact, he starts taking determined, practiced footsteps in her direction as she continues to shake her head, telling him to back away, telling him to stop but he doesn't listen. She finds herself subconsciously backing away with every step forward he takes, not from fear---that emotion too, along with the tears was lost a long time ago---she just doesn't want this.

She doesn't want to kill anyone. She doesn't want to die.

Inevitably, her eyes wander up to his face. She sucks in a hard breath.

Oh God! She thinks.

When she was told about this, when she was dragged here, no one told her that she'd be facing off with a fifteen year old boy. She'd pictured a thousand scenarios that included fighting a humongous man with a turban on his head and loomed over her like the tower of Babel. A man that would have made her piss her pants just at a glance. A man that would have made her shrink and recoil. One to awaken her fears. A man she wouldn't have had a choice with, because he wouldn't even flinch if she decided to throw a punch. That's the kind of man she'd thought of, not this. Because judging by his face, this boy couldn't be older than fifteen. For a second, she catches a flash of vulnerability in his dark as night eyes, but it disappears as though it never was there. Or was it?

Then he punches her. Again. This time in the stomach, she gasps and hunches over, trying to catch her breath. It was a hard one, considering he caught her off guard. She feels her vision become blurry and the cords in her neck strain and bulge before going back to normal.

"Fight!" the boy orders.

Tilting her head to the side, she smirks. "I think not," she refuses cooly.

"Why not?" he demands.

She continues smirking while examining her fingernails. They really are too short, she should consider letting them grow an inch or so longer.
"I'm guessing daddy dearest didn't teach you not to hit women then?" she says, finally glancing up from them.

"Ah!" The boy mock gasps. "That's a phenomenal observation if you ask me! Excuse my insolence if I don't see any women here though," he grins, but she can see through it. It's written all over his visibly veined hands that are fisted by his sides and red as a beetroot face how ticked off he is right now.

"You don't?" She sighs dramatically. "You're probably right, I don't see any men either. Only boys with two little peas somewhere in the pants instead of balls." She chuckles, waving him off.

The boy's jaw clenches in poorly hidden anger, he makes an irritable sound before yanking her by the hair in a nanosecond. Dragging her to the opposite wall, he slams her head onto it, but she puts her palms up in time for leverage, saving her skull. She feels the anger, it's there, it's trying to develop but she won't let it.
He lets go of her hair and raises his hand, slapping her hard across the cheek she almost sees stars but again, she doesn't even blink. The boy stops for a moment and looks at her in what seems like awe.

"Please fight me," he begs desperately, yet his tone is anything but.

"You don't have to do this you know," she regards him cooly, crossing her arms across her chest she says, "you're just a little boy, you must have a mother waiting somewhere out there for you. Or does she think you're dead already?"

"Shut up!" The boy growls. "Shut up! Just shut up and fight!" And with that he wraps his hand around her throat, hard, he holds her against the wall and starts lifting her by the neck until her toes are barely grazing the floor. Her throat tightens but that's about as much as his hold affects her, and he knows this, he should know this because it's part of the training. She casts a glance down at him, smirking boredly while simultaneously raising her eyebrows.
She could fight back, God, how much she wants to fight back! The adrenaline is that hard to resist, but fighting back would lead to the one line she isn't ready to cross, or ever will be. Fighting back would lead to Kill or be killed.

The boy seems relentless though, he jerks back his knee and hits her in the gut, hard. She clutches at her stomach as she feels her anger rise ten fold, clawing at her skin, begging to be released. It is so much that she's unable to hold it in anymore.
This boy does know how to throw a punch, she will give him that. That, and what he's been asking for all along.

They're going to fight all right.

Jerking his hand back, he throws another punch, directed at her...wait... goddamn breast!

What the actual fuck?!

It doesn't make it. She grabs his fist midway,"that would have been groping you know?" she says,
twists and turns his hand into an awkward angle that has even her want to throw up but she just doesn't care at this point. She's too angry to care. She spins him around and twists it harder so that it's at the top of his back. "I could have sued you," she says, softly wrapping her free arm around his neck from behind.

The boy groans in pain.

Bending down a little since she towers over him by almost two heads---yeah she's that tall---she places her chin on his shoulder and tilts her head so that her lips graze his ear. She smirks.

"Still want me to fight handsome?" she asks amusedly, her breath fanning his neck and ear. The poor thing has the decency to shudder! Well well, seems she is a woman after all.

"Yes," he croaks, his voice barely audible. He closes his eyes, she can practically see him telling his hormones to chill and concentrate. After a while, he jerks the elbow of his free hand, hitting her in the abdomen once more.

Gah! He really likes her stomach. Her poor stomach! She scrambles back against the wall, unaware of the fact that she's letting go of him. He swings a punch at her but she ducks just in time for it to hit the wall behind her instead.

"Fuck!" he yells, shaking his now bruising fist. She uses the opportunity and kicks him in the balls. The boy falls to the ground with a very disturbing sound in his knees.

That was a low blow, fighter! Her conscience chides. She wishes she could ask her if the pun was intended. She smirks, making her way over to her dear dear opponent. She yanks him by his hair, the same way he did her. Only she isn't planning on throwing his head to the wall. Oh no! She has much better plans. Plans that consist of ropes, whips and poles.

Yeah, get your head out of the gutter.

It's a shame there are no poles really, but her eyes had earlier spotted the long bathrobe-belt-like-thing that looks like it was left on the floor intentionally, it and the chair should suffice. She drags him over to an armchair in the room, which looks to be an empty living room by the way. She's having none of this, she's not killing anyone, yet for some reason, tugging at his hair, dragging him, causing him pain gives her a strange sense of satisfaction. She realises how sick that is but maybe he deserves all this. He did want to punch her breasts.
She won't kill though, she will tie him up until she can make him see sense. Only they don't make it. Mr Sweatpants starts struggling out of her grip, but he's not fighting to get out, it's as if he's struggling to make her go faster in the direction she is heading; to the armchair. To be tied up. She chuckles.

Wow! Talk about submissives.

That thought lasts as long as it takes her to spot what his eyes are trained on.

Guns.

There, on a long barstool, are two very shiny silver pistols, with a goddamn spotlight shining down on them from somewhere in the ceiling. That shouldn't surprise her, considering the person who set them up for this is one for the theatrics. She can almost see a clear mind picture of him sitting somewhere behind a monitor watching them and smiling down at it, smiling down at them, smiling down at how only one of two perfectly healthy kids is going to make it out of here alive.

Because that's what they're.

Just two kids.

Yet somehow, some sick bastard takes pleasure in watching them rip each other's heads off, on the verge of killing each other. Suddenly, her throat tightens as a lump grows in it. Like a heavy sack of gravel settling at the deep bottom of the sea, the lump settles in her chest and she finds herself unable to breathe.

Suddenly, the little fifteen year old girl isn't as afraid of killing anymore, in fact, she feels a sudden need to kill. To wrap her hands around that monster's throat and watch as the life is drained out of his windpipes and not feel an ounce of remorse, but she's snapped out of it as a gunshot goes off. Somewhere in the middle of her thoughts, the girl let go of her more than willing to kill opponent and she hadn't realised it, the only thing that is finally tipping her off is the ear splitting sound of gunshot and an indescribably painful tearing somewhere in the flesh and bones that make up her thigh muscles.

He couldn't have shot her.

Oh but he did...her subconscious provides, she agrees with her as her leg starts to give out, the white letters on her sweatpants gradually become crimson as blood drenches them. She feels like curling up on the floor, crying. The pain is too much passing out would be a gift right now.
But she can't, she can't just go down like a fucking cow, she's got to put up a fight if it's the last thing she'll do. Only her opponent isn't giving her the time.

He shoots again, this time amiss, the bullet brushes past a decorative bolder beside her in the room, hitting the wall behind it, and next to the metallic door. She sees him preparing for another shot, and she knows he will not miss. He's too near to miss twice. The girl closes her eyes.

Everyone of your senses Scarlet. Victor's voice says somewhere in her mind. Each one except sight. Use them. You can.

Gritting her teeth, she keeps her eyes closed as she hears the sound of a gun cocking, feels the small whooshes of air blowing past her face to the front strands of her hair. The tremendous throbbing in her thigh, the warm trail left behind by the trickling of blood down her leg. And the droplets of water from somewhere in the kitchen, from a leaking pipe, or faucet. Falling one by one, mocking her, counting down the seconds until she drops dead. But she ignores all of it, the pain too, and in a move as fast as a lightning bolt, Scarlet makes two somersaults to the spotlight space where the second gun fell off the stool down, and stupidly left there by her opponent.

Still, she's followed by a couple of bullets as her hands go for the gun. As the boy blindly shoots a third time in the direction she was seconds ago, Scarlet whips onto her feet again and realises she has only a second to make a decision that either changes her life or has her six feet under. Because she's right there, the boy is a mere three steps away, her gun is aimed right in line with the side of his head. And when he turns around, his cocked gun staring her right in the face, she does choose.

As her face drowns, drowns in heavy amount of crimson. The amount of blood just enough to cover a head, yet she's certain that no amount of water will ever be able to wash it away, she knows. She knows that in that second she's made a choice and she chose herself.

She chose to live. And she chose to pull the trigger, to end a fifteen or so year old's life. To deprive him of everything, of growth, of finishing school, of going to college, of falling in love, of realising his dreams.

Of life.

And the most sick part of all this? She doesn't think she'd change her choice if given chance. She'd still choose herself. Over and over again.

Well then, she thinks. I guess the boss has gotten what he really wanted out of me: a cold blooded monster.