The Battle Begins Read online

  “Did I frighten you, young pup?” an old voice croaked.

  Pookie.

  Castor looked up and saw the spider-dog clinging to the wall, his tiny face crinkled with amusement. The old mutant scurried down to the floor, still chuckling.

  “No.” Castor’s body relaxed, but adrenaline was still surging through his veins. “Well, maybe a little,” he admitted. “The way you just appear out of nowhere, and sneak around and crawl all over everything is just . . . blechhh!” He shuddered.

  “Creepy?” Pookie offered, wiggling several of his legs in front of Castor’s face suggestively.

  “Kind of,” Castor admitted.

  Pookie didn’t seem offended. “It is a natural reaction.” He bobbed his head proudly. “And one that has served me well in this prison.”

  Speaking of prison . . .

  Castor looked around—all the doors were still locked. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

  “Pookie has his ways,” the mini answered vaguely. “The important thing is not how . . .” He gestured dramatically with one of his furry legs. “But why?”

  “Okay . . . ,” Castor said. He flattened his ears back and lolled his tongue out in a yawn. “Why are you in my cell in the middle of the night?” All he could think about was sleep.

  “I saw what happened in the exercise center.”

  “With the team?” Castor perked up. “You were right—I just had to show them I could be trusted.”

  “Excellent, pup. You let your spirit soar.” Pookie nodded with a small smile. “But I meant late last night, with the handlers.”

  Oh.

  “You were there?” Castor thought of the humiliation he’d endured, the pain.

  The wiry whiskers that sprouted from all over Pookie’s face twitched with concern. “Maybe you wish to discuss it?”

  Castor groaned and lay down his head. Now that he was finally done with training, he wished to get some sleep, not think about his handlers.

  But as proud as he’d felt of his peaceful protest during his first match, that beating was no joke, and Castor was going to have to figure out a plan for next time. He wanted his spirit to soar, but he didn’t want to die to make that happen.

  “It just seems like no matter what I do, I can’t win,” he sighed.

  Pookie nodded, waiting for him to continue. But Castor’s thoughts were restless and, despite the fatigue, his legs were, too. He got up and stretched, and started to walk around the perimeter of the room, venting to the old dog.

  “I follow the rules and grovel like an omega, and the Whistlers hurt me. I stand up for what I believe in and break the rules, and the Whistlers hurt me. If I do what they want, I hurt others.” He was walking faster now, huffing with agitation. “What else is there?”

  “Slow down, young pup.” Pookie sprang in front of Castor, cutting off his path. “No matter how many times you zigzag around the cell, you will keep hitting walls. You need to look in another direction for your answer.”

  Castor peered out the glass door of his cell, but the cell block was silent, the mutants were asleep, and the guard was slumped in her chair, preoccupied with the virtual screen that hovered in front of her face. He looked back at the Chihuahua blankly. “Where’s that?”

  Pookie pointed a long, hairy leg straight at the ceiling. “Up,” he whispered, his small snout stretching into a grin. “You learn to fly.”

  “Fly.” Castor didn’t share the spider-dog’s excitement. “Last time you told me I needed to remember I was a dog. Now you want me to be a bird?”

  Pookie sighed impatiently. “It is still you inside.” He tapped Castor’s chest like he’d done in the Pit, but this time, it felt more like a jab. “No matter how you look. That is most important. But this is also you.” He picked up a long, gray-and-white feather from the floor, and held it in front of the dim light. “You don’t have to lose yourself on the inside to accept yourself on the outside.”

  Castor snuck a peek at the feather Pookie was admiring. It was half white and half dark gray, and it sloped to a graceful point. It didn’t feel like a part of him, but he could admit that it had a pleasing shape.

  “And your life will be much easier and happier and perhaps much longer if you make the humans think they’re getting what they want.”

  Castor looked up at Pookie, not sure he’d heard him right. That went against everything he believed in.

  “But Horace and Slim want me to be vicious,” he protested. The thought still made his belly ache.

  “No. Look deeper, pup. This is not about you; it is about pack order. Men have to listen to an alpha just like anyone else. Look, here is your handler, Slime, the omega.”

  Pookie sprang sideways and landed low on the wall, gripping the cement just a foot or two off the floor. He looked at Castor sideways.

  “What he wants is to keep his supervisor, Horror, happy.”

  He jumped again, and Castor’s eyes followed his arc through the air until he landed halfway up the opposite wall.

  “And Horror, he wants to make the mad mayor woman happy.”

  Again, Pookie leapt to the other side of the room, higher still.

  “And what the big boss wants, most of all, is to keep the fans happy.”

  Now, Pookie soared all the way up near the ceiling and landed on the wooden perch that held the water dish.

  “And how do we make sure the fans are happy, young pup?”

  “Um.” Castor was half paying attention. He was thinking about the water he was still unable to reach and licking his parched lips. He only got his fluids from the gloppy gruel at slop these days.

  “We give them a show!” Pookie announced, and Castor’s attention snapped back as the old dog leapt from the bar, somersaulted twice, and shot his spider legs out to the sides, gripping opposite walls with his sticky feet so that he was suspended between the ceiling and the floor. Then he pulled all eight legs in close to his body, free-falling in a tight ball.

  “Watch out!” Castor gasped, sure Pookie was about to splat on the cement.

  But at the last second, the spider-dog uncurled on a thread, landing gracefully in front of him with hardly a whisper.

  “And then we survive.” Pookie grinned. “And everybody’s happy.”

  “Wow.” Castor blinked at the old acrobat. “That was . . . uh . . . something.”

  “Thank you.” Pookie bowed graciously.

  “But what about me?” Castor didn’t get how some somersaults were going to help him with the handlers—or in the arena for that matter. “I don’t have skills like that. I can’t even fly.” He strained to lift the foreign, feathered appendages off his back, then let the wings fall back down.

  “You will. For now, you fake it for the fans. That’s half the battle.”

  24

  CASTOR DIDN’T SEE HOW HE COULD PRETEND TO FLY—that seemed like a disaster waiting to happen—but Pookie’s advice about faking it for the audience got the wheels in his brain turning. For instance, what if it wasn’t just the tricks that he was exaggerating? What if it went beyond that?

  What if, rather than pretending to fly, he pretended to fight?

  At slop the next morning, Jazlyn and Samken worried about having to battle each other in an upcoming match.

  “I won’t do it,” Samken was saying tearfully. “I won’t hurt my best friend.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Jazlyn reassured the big guy with a few pats on the back, but she sounded nervous herself; Samken could crush her with one blow.

  Listening to them, Castor’s tiny thought turned into a Big Idea: What if all of them decided to fake it?

  “Maybe there’s a way you don’t have to fight,” Castor said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Enza said with heavy sarcasm. “Maybe we can all just walk out of here.”

  But Jazlyn blinked up at Castor hopefully. “How?” she asked with a twitch of her nose.

  “You act like you’re fighting, make it really convincing, but you don’t actually fight, a
nd you make sure not to hurt each other.”

  “Like a game?” Samken asked excitedly. “I love games!”

  “Exactly,” Castor said, but some of the others were skeptical.

  “I don’t understand,” Rainner said. “Why would you want to just pretend to win?”

  “Or lose?” Enza frowned. “Where’s the glory in that?”

  “You preferred the glory of losing for real?” Deja asked with a flick of her forked tongue. “You didn’t seem so fearless-s-s to me.”

  Enza was still sore that Deja was declared the winner of their matchup. Her massive paws were clenched and Deja’s head was swaying tauntingly, but Castor stepped between them.

  “It’s not about glory,” he said. “It’s about survival. It’s about beating the Whistlers.”

  That got their attention, and now the rest of the mutants were starting to lean in toward Castor. Even those who looked forward to fights, like Rainner and Enza, would rather beat the Whistlers.

  But Moss’s brow was deeply furrowed, and his nostrils flared. “I told you, no one wins against the Whistlers,” he insisted. “We’re just pieces in their little game. Even Laringo. Even you, Castor. You saw what happens when you break the rules.”

  “I’m not talking about breaking the rules.” The Whistlers could just decide to change them, anyway, as Horace had shown the other night. “I’m talking about something bigger. I’m talking about changing how the game is played.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  “Give the fans a show,” Castor said, thinking of Pookie. He jumped into the air and ran in circles a couple of times to demonstrate. “If we control the crowd, we control the Whistlers.”

  “I want to decide the routines,” Enza demanded.

  “Would I get to improvise?” Samken asked, waving his tentacles dramatically.

  “Sure.” Castor wagged his tail. “We can do whatever we want.”

  “As long as no one gets hurt,” Jazlyn said.

  “Why should we trust you?” Deja asked, slithering forward. “Why trus-s-st us-s-s?”

  “Because like Moss said, the teams don’t matter. Because we’re all Unnaturals,” Jazlyn answered.

  “That’s not quite what I said,” Moss protested.

  Trust was hard in a place like this, Castor knew—especially when that giant picture of scorpion-tailed Laringo still haunted the back wall, reminding Castor that play fighting was only a temporary solution that wouldn’t work when they finally had to face the Invincible. But he’d made the leap with his teammates, and he certainly trusted Team Klaw more than he trusted the Whistlers. At least this would help them all survive a little longer. At that thought, he spread his wings above his head and pawed the ground, determined.

  “Because if we decide we’re really all in this together,” Castor said, “then we don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  25

  You wake without a whistle to jar you from sleep or a whip to snap you to attention. Instead, you stir as if from a long nap on a lazy afternoon, stretching your paws out languidly and blinking away the dew.

  You are in the place you know but have never been. The place you’ve missed so much but can never remember. You’re in the free place.

  The green place.

  The green is different this time, though. You don’t see the dusky green of moss-speckled tree trunks around you, or the leafy green of a canopy above. No jungly green vines hang nearby, either. All you can see is a flat field of grass stretching in all directions.

  The field is a green so bright it makes your eyes water. It smells like the sun. Your fur is warm, the ground is cool, the bed of grass is soft, and your breathing becomes shallow. You think you might like to go back to sleep.

  You start to doze again, but your senses snap to attention when a flock of birds startles out of the grass. They are plump birds with white collars and green heads. You see their webbed feet outlined against the clearest sky, and you feel a strange kinship with them, though you don’t understand why.

  Your claws press into the dry earth, and they are the hard, blunt nails of the German shepherd. When you arch your back to stretch, the thick, buff coat of the Mexican wolf bristles. You are all dog, and the ducks remind you that you should find water and maybe something to eat.

  You stand, shaking the dust from your hide. You can smell the pollen in the air and the earthworms underfoot. A sound rustles through the grass, and your ears stand at attention. It’s like a whisper of wind—shhhhhh—but instinctively, you know it is the sound of prey, calling you.

  As you start to trot through the field, your tail is a proud flag waving behind you. You are a hunter now. Confident, carefree, canine.

  The grass parts up ahead as something slithers through.

  Shhhh.

  You give chase. Your heart quickens. Saliva drips from your jaws. Your body is a coiled spring, ready to pounce at first sight.

  But the grass is growing taller and thicker around you, and the wind whips it into waves. You’ve lost sight of the path.

  The sun beats down. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth. It might be time to give up the hunt.

  You pad to a stop, listening for that hissing sound. There is only the wind.

  The wind and, faintly, the varied calls of insects. They chirp and buzz, but as you listen, the sound gets louder, growing into a singular, urgent hum. It starts to sound like a warning, and your adrenaline spikes.

  The grass is over your head now—too high to see which way is out. You push forward with your chest, anyway, but the dense weeds push back. You turn in circles, and burrs snag in your fur.

  You wish you had a view from above. You wish you could see what’s coming. But all you can see is the green pressing in.

  RUNNNNN, the bugs drone.

  Then, abruptly, they stop, and your heart almost explodes with the silence. You no longer feel like a hunter; you feel completely exposed. Hunted.

  The buzzing starts up again just as suddenly, loud as ever. Only it’s not an insect buzz this time, you realize.

  It’s a rattle.

  You crouch down low. Crawl on your belly through the weeds. You wait in silence for a few minutes. Then you hear it.

  Closer, closer.

  An endless, ominous ssssss.

  26

  A RUSH OF WATER HIT CASTOR FULL IN THE FACE, YANKING him from sleep.

  He sputtered, trying to figure out if he was dreaming or drowning or hallucinating. There was no dirt under his taloned feet, only concrete. Wet concrete. Was there a flood?

  Castor glanced around him in the dark, but other than his sopping muzzle and a small pool on the floor, everything else looked dry. Then he spotted a red plastic dish lying overturned on the floor—his water dish.

  Castor looked up toward the perch at the top of his cell where the dish had sat and, in its place, there was Pookie, hanging gymnastically from the perch by one of his many legs.

  Castor shook the sleep from his head and sighed. “Was that really necessary?”

  “You were howling and panting in your sleep,” the old dog said. “I had to find some way to wake you, and you don’t seem to like when I crawl on you.”

  Castor shivered at the thought of those tiny little hairs tickling him. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

  Pookie was staring at his pillow, which was now a mess of shredded blue foam. “Bad dream?” he asked.

  Even now, Castor could almost feel the hot sun beating down on him, and he was panting as he tried to cool off. His fear lingered, too—he could smell it on himself—but he batted a paw dismissively. “It was nothing.”

  “Good, then. Are you ready?”

  “To . . . go back to sleep?” Castor asked.

  “To begin our training!” Pookie squeaked with excitement. He hurried down the wall until he was standing in front of Castor, bobbing giddily.

  Castor groaned. The last thing he wanted to do was train in the middle of the night—especially when he wasn’t being f
orced at whistle-point by Horace and Slim—or Horror and Slime, as Pookie called them. But his next match was tomorrow, and Castor knew he needed the extra practice. And Pookie’s little flipping routine had been pretty impressive. If a veteran of the arena wanted to offer Castor his help, he’d take it.

  “There is just one thing, young pup.” The old dog’s tone was solemn, and Castor looked up expectantly. “You must make me a promise that you will not speak of me to anyone.”

  “Sure,” Castor answered. If he could sneak out of his own cell, he’d be trying to find the nearest exit, but if Pookie would rather creep around, visit other cells, and spend his nights giving advice to newbies, that was his business.

  “Excellent.” Pookie rubbed his front two legs together. The spider-dog scurried around the cell, quickly clearing the mat and straw out of the way, and then he directed Castor to stand in the center of the room. Castor stretched his front paws forward and arched his back. He flexed his talons to loosen up his ankle joints. He rolled his shoulder muscles, shook out his wings.

  “What you need is focus,” Pookie told him. “Let’s begin by meditating on a mantra.”

  “A what-sa?”

  Pookie grinned, exposing his pointy canine teeth. “A mantra is a word that motivates you. A word that has power. It’s from a practice called Tai Chi.”

  Castor assumed that was short for Chihuahua. He thought for a moment. A word that had power . . . “Like alpha?”

  Pookie shook his head. “Something stronger. Something that will give you courage in the arena.” He rose higher on his spider legs, as if puffing himself up. “Something that will remind you of who you are and who you need to be.”

  Brave, Castor thought. “I have it,” he told Pookie.

  “Good. Now focus on this mantra. Breathe in . . .”

  Castor closed his eyes, picturing the word and the warrior that went with it.

  “Breathe outttttt.”

  Castor took a deep, cleansing breath.

  “Now look up,” Pookie instructed. “And start flapping your wings.”

  Castor set his sights on the perch above him. It looks so far away, he thought, letting out a heavy sigh. Then he started to flap.