The roar of the crowd was deafening, but my mind was silent.
The girls were worried. I could feel it in the way Sienna clung to my arm, her fingers digging into my sleeve. In the way Camille's usual smirk was absent, her lips pressed into a thin line. In the way Alexis, normally so clinical, so methodical, had her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her nails biting into her palms.
"Kane is brutal," Sienna whispered. "Rey, please be careful."
Camille swallowed hard, her eyes darting between me and the pit. "Stryker was a veteran. A monster in his own right. Kane crushed him like an insect. He—" she stopped, unable to say it.
Alexis inhaled sharply. "He killed him."
I closed my eyes for a moment. I had seen it. Kane's ruthless efficiency. The way he dismantled Stryker, piece by piece, without hesitation or remorse. The blood, the broken body, discarded like garbage.
A sigh escaped my lips. My girls—my team—were right to worry. But I wasn't. I wasn't afraid.
I was angry.
