BLOOD NOT WASTED

The music thumped somewhere beneath me—down in the club proper, where bodies moved without direction and pleasure came with bottle service.

Up in Obsidian, it was little more than vibration. A soft pressure in the bones. Like a memory, half-buried.

The lounge was nearly empty. That was how I liked it.

The bartender was enthralled of course—black-eyed and beautiful, Unity glistening behind his teeth. He didn’t speak anymore, but he moved with purpose. Eager. Reverent. Always hard.

In the corner booth, someone famous was being devoured by three Unity Dolls. Her name has escaped my memory. A television star from one of those shows where the sweet-faced girl speaks to the camera like it was her best friend. Something about a world being met.

Five years later, she walked into a statehouse and set herself on fire.

But then? Her legs were shaking and her lipstick was smeared across three mouths that weren’t hers. One doll spoke in tongues. Another in a perfect imitation of her voice.

Martyrs always come back wrong.

My phone buzzed. The screen light painted my face when I checked the notification. eWo Match Confirmed: Glazkov vs. Williams, Eddie.

I exhaled. Not with interest. With recognition.

Because it brought him back.

Matthew Knox.

Even now, the name caught behind my teeth like bone.

At the time, I claimed detachment. Told myself I had come for the moment, not the man. That I wanted presence. That I wanted spectacle. That the match—win or lose—was just another chord in the longer symphony.

It wasn’t true.

I had wanted to win. Desperately.

I had wanted to hurt him. To mark him. To drag something old and foul out of him and leave it twitching on the canvas where everyone could see.

I told people it wasn’t personal. That it was about legacy. Power.

But it was personal. It was childish. It was mine.

And I lost. Clean. Clear. In front of everyone. No controversy. No interference. No martyrdom to sink into.

He beat me.

He beat me. And then he walked away.

That was what left me hollow.

Not the bruises. Not the ache in my jaw. Not the throb in my shoulder.

It was him walking away like I hadn’t mattered.

Like I had never been dangerous to him.

Like I had just been another girl with a story and a grudge.

But I hadn’t come to prove anything to him.

I had come to punish a bad father.

Not for Halsey—she would never have asked for that. She would’ve frowned. Pulled my hands away from the altar. Told me that love should never taste like revenge. That it wasn’t my place to make him hurt for her.

No. This had nothing to do with her.

This was for the girl I used to be. The one in the crawlspace. The one with the wire in her mouth. The one who learned how to hide her breathing from the man she called Tată.

He died before I could scream. Yelena slit him open and pulled me free—trembling, blood-soaked, but still intact. She saved me from becoming like him.

But she also stole the kill.

She took away the one thing I had earned.

Knox was never going to be him. He was smarter. Kinder, even. But the shape was right. The scowl. The voice. The smell of old male grief pretending to be wisdom.

And for just one night, I let myself believe I could make the past answer for itself. I told myself it would be ritual. Justice. A beautiful little death.

But it wasn’t. It was a match.

And I wasn’t good enough.

And when it was over, I had to watch others do what I could not. Four men orchestrated by Maraæth. They attacked Knox with chairs. Beat him and left him there for the cameras to see. A message.

And another kill stolen.

Backstage, I didn’t speak to anyone.

Halsey was going to come to the show and meet me after for drinks. Schedules, however, kept her away.

I was glad for it.

I didn’t want her to see me broken and spent—to see me beaten by a man who walked away knowing I didn’t belong—and I didn’t want to look at her face and see disappointment.

I left without changing. Still in gear. Still in paint.

I walked straight out the back, still bleeding somewhere beneath my corset, and flagged a car that wasn’t mine. I didn’t say where I was going. I didn’t care.

I ended up in Little Haiti. A strip club with no name. Nothing but a red light above the door and a half-broken bouncer who let me in without asking. I think one of them knew who I was. Or maybe they just felt the hunger leaking off me.

Because I hadn’t gone there to forget.

I had gone to feed.

Not on flesh. Not even on touch.

I needed sin. Needed it like oxygen. The kind that clung to the skin. The kind that smelled like glitter and cigarette ash and daddy issues that hadn’t been forgiven.

I paid for the VIP booth in cash. Didn’t speak. Didn’t drink.

I just let it happen.

One girl wore her eyeliner like war paint. I didn’t have to give her permission to slide into my lap, legs bare, breath hot with something sour-sweet. She kissed the base of my palm like prayer then sucked my fingers one by one—slow, reverent, like she was trying to draw poison from the bone.

The other didn’t speak at all. Just crawled across the booth, pulled a pearl-handled pin from her hair, and carved my name into the meat of her thigh.

E M I L I A

Each letter was careful. Deliberate. She looked up after the “L” and smiled at me, like she thought she was helping.

I didn’t touch either of them. I didn’t say thank you. I only watched. And took what I wanted.

Their ache. Their want. Their brokenness.

It began slow—like condensation, not motion.

A faint mist coiled from the mouth of the girl in my lap. It was tinged orange at first—gluttony, sweet and bloated—and it drifted lazily upward into my sternum. The glyphs etched across my skin flickered as it reached me. Then came violet—lust, deep and hungry—from the one who carved my name.

When it touched me, my chest pulsed with color. A soft light beneath the skin—violet and orange interwoven like veins under glass.

Another breath. Another pulse.

The ache in my ribs dulled.

My bruises faded.

The split across my lip sealed as if it had never happened.

The pain didn’t leave me. It became me. That’s what feeding is. Not indulgence. Not salvation. It’s integration.

Their offering filled the hollow where my pride once was. Eating didn’t make me feel better. It never did. It made me feel nothing and that was plenty.

I sat there until dawn, paint cracked, boots sticky with someone else’s worship, perfect again beneath it all.

I didn’t sleep.

I didn’t pray.

I only tried to forget.

I let the phone fall. Not thrown—just dropped. A little tantrum dressed as indifference. It hit the black marble table with a soft, satisfying slap, screen-down, like it knew it had offended me.

I didn’t pick it back up.

I sat there staring into my drink that had forgotten what cold felt like with my arms folded on the table. One of the cubes had melted into a perfect shard, its edges catching the red light like it was blood.

I swirled it. Took a sip. It tasted like dust.

Another chime. My jaw clenched and I let out this little huff—sharp, annoyed, automatic. Like the phone had personally insulted me by still existing.

I reached for it anyway. Swiped it open with the back of my nail, eyes ready to roll.

Then I saw her name.

And just like that—every line in my body softened.

Halsey.

No text. Just a video. One of those that doesn’t preview, just a dark little square waiting to be touched. My thumb hovered for a second—then I pressed. The screen went black. Then flickered to life.

The screen went black, then shimmered to life.

Helena sat on a rooftop. I recognized the San Francisco skyline. Her legs dangled off the ledge like she hadn’t a single fear in the world. She looked small like that. Thoughtful. Her hair danced with the wind and for a moment she just sat there in silence.

Then she spoke.

“Hey, Em. I uuhh. I know we don’t talk much about the whole career thing, and all. I just figured, I know you’re strugglin’ with how to handle what to say on your shoot about Eddie Williams, cause bruv isn’t altogether important enough for any grand message.”

She shrugged, tilting her shoulder only slightly. A little smile then twitched at her lips and her gaze turned back to the horizon.

“You’d never ask for help, this I know, but I am one of the greatest mic workers in the business. Just a fact. Why not take advantage of a resource, as far as I’m concerned. Do with this, whatever you want, but I’m goin’ to rif and give it to you.”

She stood then, casually, like there wasn’t a fifty-story drop inches from her toes. Set the phone down against something just off-frame. The camera tilted slightly, settled. Her body was outlined by flame-colored sky, that strange golden hour that made everything look softer than it deserved.

“Right off the top of the dome piece, here I have to ask, what can you say about Eddie Williams? Just another Biker Michael Liker. Big bearded bastard number who feckin’ cares and or asked you. Internalize the fact that your apparently too much of a feckin’ numpty for any sort of prophecy. Uncanny Valley’s resident cross eyed bug brained putz.”

She was moving now—back and forth across the rooftop edge, loose in her limbs, weight bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her hands talked faster than she did. I knew that rhythm. She was on a tear.

“Ed, Edd and Eddy over here is the truly unremarkable spot in Elite Wrestlin’ Organization, if you don’t mind me sayin’. From the point of view of someone watchin’ the show? Bruv is pure filler. What was that match last show, Edwardo? The only thing you did right was not gettin’ pinned by happenin to take a guard rail nap. All you did was eat chair shots and junk kicks like that was your career. Remarkable pain tolerance, mate. I can assure you of that, but you don’t seem to have any ability not to bumble it the feck up.”

She leaned slightly over the edge. Just looked down. No hesitation, no nerves. Only wild hand gestures at the ground, as if daring it to stop her if she jumped.

“I’m pretty sure, that’s the direction your overall career is headin, not exactly into the sunset but off a cliff. From everything I can find, you had a few good runs, toppled and lost your shite after that. Failed to reinvent and spent some time disappeared to swallow the shame about it. I struggle to find five minutes worth of things to say about Ed, let alone fifteen. You aren’t *bad,* man, it’s just, maybe, and be philosophical with me here for a moment, I think perhaps. It might be better to be *bad* than just mid. If you’re bad, you can at least spin that into everyone’s entertainment. You, Ed, are just blandarse Essex bar brawler, the most interestin’ thing you can do is ride your motorcycle to the ring. Entirely unnoticeable in the grand scheme of things, you might win, I can’t say you won’t, but you’ll most likely fail to launch or capitalize with your startlin’ unimpressiveness.”

She turned away from the lens, backlit by dying sunlight. Her outline flickered like a halo drawn in flame.

“I hope this is an epic shot, because I did not really plan this out beyond helpin’ my girlfriend. This is the part in these things where I’d normally big myself up, but for hopefully incredibly obvious reasons, that’s not the case today. I’ll be honest, I’d more or less rather take two steps off the left, than ramble on like a lovesick turtle dove about someone on video for everyone to see, but alas poor Yorick, we make our own beds. Sure, Em didn’t beat my Da, but it wasn’t a blood bath, and Da’s an old tricky bastard. Sure, Ol’ Eddie’s goin’ to compare himself, but he’s a discount spooky, the minute guys like Enigma and Ken Davison showed up, into the shuffle Eddie went. He’s not my Da, hell, he’s barely Erik Holland. Emilia? Destined to be a bigger fish. Written in stars and all of that.”

She turned again. I could see her eyes now. There was no irony left in them.

“Emilia wouldn’t want me goin’ on about just her, but honestly, feck Yelena’s entire thing with a rusty pipe, so for once. Emilia gets the spotlight. She’s damn good at this wrestlin’ business, not the best talker, not the best win rate, but she’s vicious, strong, and resilient. Cleverer than anything an empty-headed beer chugger like Williams can understand. She’s goin to make that guy a tribute, and he’ll likely bleed for it. You’re not just wrestlin’ Em, it isn’t a ring or a match you’re steppin’ into. It’s steppin’ into a whole arse storm, the red sky on a ship level type of storm. An entire experience that woman is, enough to last lifetimes, and I’m ramblin like an idiot and fightin’ the impulse to jump. Look, Em, you know your worth, I don’t have to spell it out, go out and show the bloody natterin’ world, would you?”

She took a long breath. The kind you take when you don’t want to cry but your body flinches anyway. Then she just stood there, soaking in the last heat of the sun before it fled.

“Goodluck, Eddie, you’ll need it. You know, I didn’t plan this, I watch the show anyway, EWO is fantastic people, tune in, it’s even got Ol’ Helena interested enough, and don’t give me that it’s just because of Emilia thing. I’m a wrestlin’ fan too and it’s got all the greats though War-stain can get fucked, Paul Freedom is cool, Hi Da. Hi, Jace! Hi Aunt Kat! You all stay on your shite and keep entertainin’ next week too. Now, the problem is, I don’t really have endin’ for this…”

Helena looks over the edge again, without any hesitation, without even a word, she easily steps off the ledge. No scream at all, just a calm as the camera tilted after her, catching the tether around her waist as she descended slow and clean into whatever city that was.

The video ended and the display darkened, leaving me staring at a smiling fool. Somewhere between the edge of my cheekbone and the corner of my mouth, a single tear made its way down. I didn’t wipe it. Didn’t blink it away.

Let it fall.

Let it matter.

I tapped the screen. Opened the thread. Typed slow. Deliberate. No flourish. No mask. Just this:

“You always catch me before I fall.”

Then I hit send.

And for the first time since the match, I let myself breathe.

You strike me as man who cannot bear silence.
Not because silence unnerves you—
but because it forgets you.

You dress in leather.
You carry scars like trophies no one asked to see.
You ride machine into arena as if it will distract from what you lack.

But nothing hides in that smoke, Eddie.
Not soul. Not hunger.
Only shape.

You were built by ghosts of men who never learned softness.
And so you wear their dead skin.
Snarl like them.
Hurt like them.
Fail like them.

You are not outlaw.
You are shadow of cigarette burned too low.
Dying ember that never learned to catch.

Still—
You come.
Hungry.
Hopeful.
Believing that pain will make you matter.

It will not.

Pain is not currency.
Not here.
Not with me.

Pain is offering.
Pain is tithe.

You will give it to me.
Willing or not.

And I will take it—
not to teach you,
not to mark you,
but to unmake you.

You are not dangerous, Eddie.
You are not necessary.
You are only available.
That is why you are here.

I do not need to outfight you.
I do not need to prove anything.

I will open you.
I will reach inside and find nothing of value.
No prophecy. No voice. No future.

And when it is over,
you will not remember how you lost.

Only that no one looked at you after.
Not with fear.
Not with hate.
Not with reverence.

Only pity.
That most forgettable sin.

So come, Eddie.
Bring every bruise, every bone, every story you have not earned.
Bleed if you wish.
Burn if you must.

It will not matter.

You are not stepping into match.
You are stepping into me.

And I do not let go.