The Gender Game 2 by Bella Forrest (audio ebook reader .TXT) 📕

of people, when they saw my size and fighting prowess, assumed I became a warden for the more violent aspect of it, but I liked solving things, and was more intrigued about understanding the why and the how, than beating down the who.

Truth be told, I only liked fighting in the ring. I liked the rules and the structure of it. Causing harm to someone was better if they knew that they had signed up for it, as twisted as that sounds. There was an expectation in cage fighting, a knowledge shared by both competitors, that someone would get hurt, and we accepted it.

Most people who committed crimes or did illegal things did it with the hope of not hurting others. In fact, they tried everything to avoid it. Most crimes were non-violent, so there was a certain expectation that their arrest, if it came, would be non-violent as well. This wasn’t always the case, but it made me uncomfortable to inflict violence upon them when they didn’t accept that as a reality of their crime. It didn’t stop me from doing my job, of course, but it did keep me from being aggressive toward criminals who hadn’t hurt anyone physically when they committed their crime.

Of course, if they met me with violence, then I had no problem showing them exactly how violent I could be…

Violet’s hand on my shoulder jerked my mind back to reality. I had been running on auto-pilot, but now I felt blood pouring from multiple bite wounds on my neck and arm—Violet had been doing her best to keep the red flies off of me, but they’d still gotten through.

I glanced over at her. She was pointing off to the left, and shouting something. I realized that I was having problems understanding her—likely the blood loss and exhaustion were messing with my senses.

She shouted something again, her lips forming words that seemed foreign to me. I blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs from my head and focus on the now.

“Viggo!” Violet said, her hand squeezing my arm tightly.

“Yeah!” I responded.

“Flashlight!”

I held out the flashlight, which she took, replacing it with an aerosol can. I immediately began spraying it over me and Ms. Dale, letting the cool mist envelop us. I could feel the sting on my skin as some of the droplets made contact with open wounds. I knew there were a lot more we couldn’t see.

Violet took off in the direction she had pointed, and I followed. It seemed like she was moving toward the densest part of the foliage. I wanted to shout at her to stop, because running through that would be dangerous. Then I realized, the density of it would help provide cover from the massive swarm that was threatening to envelop us. It would help diffuse their numbers, and if they collided with a tree or branch hard enough, they would die.

I admired her sharpness as I pushed through the leaves. Using the forest as a shield was dangerous, and we had to slow down our pace considerably, but still, it would probably help more than it hurt.

I had barely started running in the thicket, when suddenly I was out of it again, a giant white structure looming up in front of me. I pivoted, making a hard left, and I heard the soft plops as the red flies chasing me hit the wall at breakneck speeds.

A path was carved out around the structure, and I followed Violet’s bobbing flashlight beam, chasing after her. How had she known this was here? It was exactly what we needed—but it was such an odd find that it almost seemed surreal.

There were no windows, and I could tell the structure was made of concrete. The path around it had been carved out from the wilderness, but as I ran, I could see that the surrounding plant life remained. In fact, it seemed like it had been cultivated, which was smart. It was perfectly hidden, buried deep in The Green.

It wasn’t very big, either. I rounded the corner after about twenty feet, and came to another wall about forty feet long. Violet was already turning the corner to the next part, and I pounded after her, Ms. Dale flopping against my back.

The red flies were back, buzzing around me. I compressed the nozzle to the spray, keeping them off us, but it slowed me down a little. I could hear Violet shouting from ahead.

I staggered around the corner, my breathing now coming in ever shorter bursts. Violet rushed toward me, excitement lit upon her features.

“There’s a door,” she shouted. I nodded, and struggled to put one foot in front of the other. My legs were shaky. I could see the silver entrance ahead, but my vision was becoming blurred.

As Violet continued spraying me, I felt the sting from a dozen new bites. I realized that they had been on me, biting me all along. Blood was also dripping from several bites on Ms. Dale. We were slathered in the stuff.

Violet grabbed me, trying to pull me after her. I watched the excitement morph into concern, and realized I was growing dizzy. I felt like I was lying on my back, trying to watch people who were upside down.

Then I remembered Samuel. “The dog,” I rasped. “Where is he?”

Violet shook me, and said something again. I stared at her blankly. Blood was pouring from her now, and I realized that I was holding her back. Samuel would be okay—he was a resourceful dog. If he had been smart, he would have fled into the jungle away from us. Violet, however, wouldn’t abandon us to save herself.

Looking into those gray eyes, I did the only thing I could to save her life.

“Go,” I said, pulling Ms. Dale off my shoulder and thrusting her into Violet’s arms. She staggered under the other woman’s sudden weight, but I was already stumbling away from her.

I heard Violet shouting, presumably my name, as I moved out of the reach of