Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 129: The Darkness

Chapter 129: The Darkness

My statement must have amused Rip because I could feel his back vibrating under my hand.

"What else would you call a man that only targeted those that were weaker than him? If he were an actual man, he would have targeted those who would have offered a challenge, not poor women only trying to make a living in the slums."

I nodded my head as I tried to grasp what he was trying to say. And he was right. Huh.

Jack the Ripper only killed women. He slit their throats before they could fight back, and only after they were dead did he start carving them up.

The man was a pussy.

"Well, now I feel bad that I associated him with you in my head," I groaned. Here was me feeling better that I made friends with a modern day killer and he thought the original one was nothing but a pussy.

"It’s fine. I will kill for you. I will rip people apart for you... and I have no problem taking their heads for upsetting you," answered Rip, and a part of me went all gooey at his words. I was never like that before, but right here, right now, I loved the idea of someone killing for me.

Maybe that darkness was taking me over a bit faster than I initially thought if I believe that Rip’s words were more romantic than the time Bai Long Qiang took me to the hot springs for a vacation.

"Now, I have to leave for a few minutes to get you food and water, but I will be back," muttered Rip, not moving an inch after letting me know his plans.

Slowly, I unclenched my hand from his shirt and nodded my head. "Go," I whispered, knowing that I wouldn’t have the guts to let him go a second time.

----

I was sitting in Rip’s lap in the same section of the stands meant for the lower-paying members of the public.

It had been a week and a half since everyone had returned from the hunt, and things had gone back to normal at Camp Hell. Well, as normal as it ever was. But now the paying customers were back, the seats behind us packed full of men and a few women yelling and screaming for blood.

Rip had been correct when he said that Alpha wanted to make a big production of the fighter’s death. Everyone that had survived the two weeks was there, sitting around me.

I didn’t know how many women and fighters were here before they left, but I knew that the majority of us died in those two weeks.

Out of the hundreds of prisoners, there were only 50 or so fighters left, and I was the only woman to survive.

I was also the only one no longer able to move on my own due to the inability to move around in my cage for the whole time. Rip, in addition to being my ’bodyguard,’ was now assigned to be my wheelchair as well, carrying me around to wherever the Alpha wanted me to be.

He told me that he didn’t mind it at all, that he loved the feeling of me in his arms, but I wondered how long it would take for me to become too much for him.

Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I turned my attention to the spectacle in front of me.

This was the first time I had ever been in the fighting area, and it looked like a recreation of a Roman Colosseum where gladiators fought to the death for the entertainment of the wealthy...

Who said history didn’t come full circle?

In front of me was a giant pit that was covered in a thin layer of sand with a gated entrance and splatters of blood on the retaining walls keeping the fighters from escaping.

Speaking of... the man who set this whole thing in motion sauntered into the ring as he was king shit.

I don’t know what was going through his head; maybe it was the fact that Alpha had made me heal him a few hours after everyone had arrived at the camp, but he really thought he was here for yet another fight.

Rip was asked to torture the man, but he turned it down in favor of staying beside me. I was more vulnerable now that I couldn’t move, and I guess Healers were quite the big deal out in the real world.

Rip didn’t want anyone to take me away from him.

I rested my head on his chest and let out a soft sigh. I was more than happy to have him touching me at all times. He was the only one who could ground me when my brain took flight.

And it seemed to be happening more and more.

But that was fine. I already planned to kill myself after Rip had tired of dealing with me.

Rip tightened his arms around me, once again making me wonder just how easy I was to read.

"You don’t have to stay here," I assured him, even though I had seen more than a few fighters giving me the side eye. They all think I am living it up with the Reavers. "If you want to go and get your pound of flesh, then don’t let me hold you back."

"The only reason why I would want a pound of flesh from that man is to give to you. No, I’m perfectly happy and content watching this with you," assured Rip as he repositioned me so that I was seated on his lap and he was holding me like an infant.

Or a princess. There really wasn’t much of a difference between the two as far as I could see.

I wrapped my arm around his neck and settled in for what ended up being a good six hours of torture.

I knew people had a lot more blood in them than most would think, but to see it dripping slowly from his sliced Achilles tendons made me appreciate the amount of liquid five liters was.

"They sliced the tendons first so he could not only bleed out slowly, but even if he managed to get down, he couldn’t run anywhere," explained Rip as if I was unaware of the significance of cutting the Achilles tendon. I nodded my head while I continued to stare at the man in the middle of the arena.

He was put on display, hanging from the hook of a construction crane, while ten Reavers circled around him like sharks in the water.

I thought I would feel bad, or upset having to watch this blood bath, but I was fascinated with just how much pain the body could take without giving up.

Yeah, that darkness was taking over my soul more and more the longer I stayed here. And like everything else, I couldn’t bring myself to care.