Jason woke up gasping for breath. His head hurt, lungs feeling as though they were being slowly crushed. Despite having woken, his eyes were so dry they seemed swollen shut.

Or maybe that was the salt from his tears. How much had he cried? He remembered crying a lot the first time this happened.

And then, he felt it. Cool and puffy around his body with that sharp leather smell of a mask perfectly fitted over his nose and mouth. Plenty of insulation to keep out the cold. The bone-shattering, blood-freezing, organ-killing cold.

But only for so long. Thirteen hours, to be more specific, before they needed maintenance done to repair the beginning yawns of a multitude of tears. If Jason had one on, it meant….

Fuck. I hadn’t expected to be right….

The cell he was in was quiet. All gleaming steel and white tiles, the trappings of a sterile prison. Even the stale air tasted of bleach and sanitizers.

Jason had heard of these places before. In fact, he’d known for a rather long time about these illegal fighting rings amassed on the surface. How they paid people from the Cavern stacks of cash if they brought in a worthy enough fighter. How the government knew and did nothing about it. Jason hadn’t expected them to be this well-maintained. Instead, he had an image of decrepit, crumbling concrete walls and holes just big enough in the floors to think you could escape but small enough to get you stuck, caught in the act.

These rings were the reason he was an orphan in the first place. Dad died, selling his life for Jason and his mother, and then mom succumbed to drugs. Like a virus, the drugs had driven her mad. Filled her with a level of feral rage that Jason had to do his best to navigate or be swept up in its unforgiving rapids. It didn’t take long for mom to trick Jason into following her to the rings. And it had been Helix who’d been sent to retrieve Jason. It was pure fucking luck that Jason escaped capture the first time. Didn’t look like he would now.

“You capable of fightin’?”

Jason jumped at the sound of Helix’s voice coming from the shadows. Julio wasn’t anywhere to be found.

“Little bro’s back at school. He did what I asked; now he needs to be a good student,” Helix said, just as his boot scuffed the floor as he stepped forward.

“A-a-and what a-about me?” Jason silently cursed his stutter, a surprising aggravation considering his situation. “I-I-I’m a g-good stu-dent.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say ‘good’. Average, sure. Just a basic enough bitch that people won’t really miss,” Helix said with a smirk. “And, if they do, authorities won’t look for very long. A perfect little cash grab.”

Jason slid down the wall, bringing his knees up and hugging them as though the action would somehow protect him. He knew it wouldn’t. Hell, it was barely preventing the bile stuck in his throat from barreling out of his mouth and clogging his mask. He couldn’t afford to lose any of the moisture in his body, and he definitely couldn’t afford ruining the filter in his mask.

“Y-you’re s-s-sick,” Jason stammered weakly.

“I’m rich,” Helix sneered. “And I provide for my family. Nothin’ wrong with that.”

Then, the door to Jason’s prison swung open. The woman was a petite brunette with baggy pants held tight with only a thin rope tied over her hips. An oversized jacket lay unzipped over her torso, revealing nothing more than a slew of tattoos against bare skin. Tragic that Jason couldn’t appreciate the sight more, given the circumstances.

“He doesn’t look like a fighter,” the woman drawled, stepping into the cell. “Too skinny, too scared. He won’t last more than a few seconds.”

“Against your top guy, no. But he’s perfect training material for your up-and-comers, and you know it.”

The woman tilted her head in thought, all while Jason’s was spinning out of control. Dying in the ring would’ve been one thing. Being beaten to the edge of death over and over and over again was a whole other nightmare.

“Fine. But I’m cutting a quarter out of the usual,” she finally decided.

“What!? The dude was still hard to get!” Helix snapped.

“He won’t make me money right away. He’s a tool that I have to use to fashion my own fighter, not one that’s already ready to make us money,” she reasoned, all while maggots crawled around in Jason’s gut at every spoken word. “It will more than compensate for both of our time.”

Helix let out a low growl and a huff of aggravation. “Fine,” he hissed, holding out a hand. “Gimme my money so I can go find you your fucking fighter.”

“Easy there, Helix. I could just not pay you at all and wait for someone else to bring me what I want instead,” she replied, though she did hand over a small bag packed with cash.

Helix grumbled something in response, but Jason couldn’t hear him over the blood pounding in his ears. He’d just been sold. What a strange, horrid feeling.

“Come on, kid,” the woman said, gesturing to a slim hallway. It was only when she jerked him to his feet that he realized his hands were zip-tied. “Don’t try nothin’ funny. You do your job, maybe you can buy back your freedom.”

Jason swallowed hard. He didn’t know they got paid.

“I seen that look before,” she said, eyes narrowed. “We pay you to be here, even though you’re still ours. Currency is good to buy you food, water, filters. Pay your rent. And, if you make enough, you can put it toward your debt.”

Jason’s heart plummeted. Food and water were one thing. But filters? Filters were incredibly rare. Not even the Caverns had a vast supply. It’s why they were so careful whenever they patrolled the border.

“Oh, don’t disparage, kid,” the woman quipped. “I’ve seen it done.”

“Really?” Jason hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and he definitely hadn’t intended for it to sound so desperately enthusiastic.

“Once or twice.”

And Jason’s heart plummeted all over again. Fell through flesh and blood and skin before landing on the floor. Splat like a bug on the wall. He felt nothing but sickness weighing him down as he trudged after his new jail keeper. He couldn’t believe this was his life now. Wondered how long he’d actually make it. What would his family think? Would Mikaela blame herself? Would Huey take the fall? What about their foster parents?

Oh, God. Jason’s foster parents.

They’d always been a household just barely scraping by. Christmases were very small, birthdays even smaller. New clothes were never actually new, scavenged off neighbors’ kids having outgrown them. None of them carried trolley passes, walking wherever they needed to be. But the closeness of everyone made all the difference in the world. The security, the love, the comfort. Everything that a kid actually needed in their life.

Now, it was gone. Completely absent in this dark tunnel that would be Jason’s new life.

“In here,” the woman said, shoving Jason into another room.

This one had a prison-style bed and toilet. Nothing more.

“We know your suit won’t last long outside, and you have no access to filters, so you have free reign of the facility. Feel free to attempt an escape. We’ll either catch you in the act and skin you alive piece by piece, or we’ll let you leave and deal with the shit’s that even worse outside those walls. Brenden will probably be pissed because of the wasted money and might send his dogs to tear you apart, too.” She smirked. “Just some things to keep in mind.”

Jason would. He absorbed all of her information like a sponge because he was absolutely going to attempt an escape. Getting torn apart by dogs? Over being kept barely alive?

Hell. Yes.