Treslam (Part 2)

My coach, Danielle, brought Prince into my changing room as I was trying to stuff one shaky hand into a glove. She looked my outfit up and down – old combat trousers and knock-off Doc Martens – made a neutral noise, then passed me a sheet of paper.

“Drug test squared away,” she said. “They do another one after, so don’t go feeding him ketamine.”

“Har har,” I said, running an absent hand over Prince’s helmeted head. My fingers caught on the wires of his ear piece – they’d fitted our mics earlier; my back was itchy with wires. “I’m the one who needs some.”

Danielle stepped closer, pulling my glove tight over my fingers. “The waiting’s worst.” She clapped me hard on the shoulder. “You’ve made it this far. Go on. I’ll be waiting for you after.”

She patted Prince on the head and left. She wasn’t one for pep talks. She was good at reworking my battle strategies; she was good at swinging matches for me; she was good at talking sponsors’ ears off until they paid for Prince’s medical care. Not so good at calming me down. She told me once that nerves were necessary. Which is an easy thing to say when you’re not two seconds away from vomiting.

I clenched my stomach and made my way towards the waiting area. They always hold the final of the Treslam Cup at the Storm Eye, which is easily the best-tended arena in Manchester – the one Dad used to bring me to, back when he still came to see us. I could see the money in the wooden flooring and the glass doors, and in the masses of technicians bustling up and down the corridors, laden with clipboards and wires and expensive coffees. None of them stopped to compliment Prince. Rare dragons were nothing new to them here.

I put my hand to the door of one of the lounges. Then stopped, my breath blurring on the window. Queen sat inside on one of the leather sofas, pointy boots propped up on the arm, chatting to Pendratis. He was slurping something from a polystyrene coffee cup. So the rumours were true. She did give him Starbucks before a match.

I stepped backwards, leaving prints on the glass. I imagined going in, speaking to her. Speaking to the Queen.

I imagined vomiting mid-word, splattering all over her lustrous fur coat.

I turned away, back into the maze of corridors and staircases, pushing ever downwards, to where the paintwork was older and the floor less polished. Eventually, I came to the crowded space below the arena – the wings, I always called them, though I knew there was another name – where everything was struts and wires and chaos, and the floodlit expanse of the arena was visible through gaping openings. A tech stopped and caught me by the arm.

“Bit early yet. Still got about twenty minutes. Earpieces all working?”

I nodded dumbly, but she checked me over anyway. I sat on a box, bouncing my knee, eyes upwards. Overhead was only a mess of struts and pipework; I was right below the stands, so the hum of audience sank down and made the air tingle. It was getting louder.

“Yep, you’re good,” she said. “On in five. Let’s go.”

She steered me towards one of those wide openings and dusted me down, tugging my bomber jacket one way and then the other. The arena was honeyed under the spotlights, the crowds a smear of colour and rippling banners. Jack was in there somewhere, recording everything on his phone, streaming it for Mum and Shelley. Probably filming it vertically. Thumb over the lens. I snickered to myself, too high-pitched.

I saw a doll-sized Queen take her position at the opposite entrance, her hand flat on Pendratis’s head.

And then the announcer was calling my name.

*

I walked. The screams pressed into my ears. Fragmented snapshots – a banner with my name on, spelt wrong; the spotlight burning on the back of my neck; the commentator reeling off my near-wins, my junior titles. I kept my eyes fixed on the sunken bit of the arena – the pit, they call it, the place the dragons actually do battle – and focused on putting one leg in front of the other.

Air whooshed at my side, and the cheer bloomed to a roar. I raised my head, watching Prince swoop into the hazy air, twisting, pirouetting, the light rippling over his armour and scales. Most domesticated dragons don’t have the wingspan to fly properly – some side effect of selective breeding. Even Pendratis could only stretch to a propelled jump.

Prince knew that.

“Show off,” I muttered into the mic.

As if in response, he turned into a spinning dive, plunging into the heart of the pit and veering up at the last second, almost skimming the concrete. He landed with a flutter, long legs stretching, flourishing his thin tail like a wand.

The crowd was a block of noise. When I reached the edge of the pit, he looked up at me, blue eyes on mine.

Everything else melted away.

I didn’t pay attention to the Queen’s entrance display. I didn’t need to. I’d seen it before, on crappy YouTube links, on television, in every stadium in Manchester. I kept my eyes on Prince, even when Pendratis hulked down into the opposite side of the pit, scraping his claws against the floor, braying and calling. God, Prince looked small. He looked so small.

“Here we are, ladies and gentlemen!” the commentator boomed, his voice everywhere. “The first match of the Treslam Finals. Newcomer junior champ Yasmin Montoya – give her a cheer, ladies and gents – pitted against our very own reigning Treslam queen, Lola Herringbone. The first dragon to put their foe at Mercy five times takes the first match of three. Are – we – ready?”

I looked down at Pendratis and Prince. Pendratis’s back legs moved, his chest sinking.

“He’s going to jump at you,” I muttered into the mic. “Get into the air straightaway. Use his weight against him.”

Prince’s wings twitched. Across the gulf of the pit, the Queen’s eyes were on me. Unblinking. Sharp with eyeliner, her lashes spidery.

“Countdown!” called the commentator. “Three!”

I balled my fists.

“Two!”

I thought of Mum and Shelley, hunched around Shelley’s iPhone.

“One!”

Pendratis sprang. Prince sprang. Two molten blurs, wings raised, movement personified. Prince’s form was beautiful, streamlined, his legs delicate and strong.

He wasn’t quick enough.

Halfway into the air, Pendratis’s jaws closed over Prince’s bony foot and wrenched at it – like tug-of-war, my first thought was. Prince hit the floor with a thud – no yelping, no screaming, just the sound of him scuffling to get free, writhing like a salmon out of water. My mouth moved soundlessly against the mic, the fuzzy material bumping against my lips; say something to him, anything-

Pendratis pounced on him. In a second, his jaws were at his neck.

The bell dinged. I blinked, dizzy with shock.

“And how about that!” the commentator yelled. “The Queen takes first Mercy, not one minute into the battle! Can Yasmin turn it around?”

My heart thudded in my throat. How? How could it have happened that fast? I stared as Prince slithered free of Pendratis’s grip and skittered to the edge of the pit, gripping the hem of my jacket. No blood. Only the tiniest limp.

“You’re fine,” I said shakily. “You’re fine. We know what he’s about now. You’re fine.”

Prince shrugged the dirt from his wings, still elegant, still beautiful. But there was a tremor in his leg now. I made myself look at his face, biting at the inside of my cheek. The commentator counted down.

This time, Prince dived out of Pendratis’s way and spat venom into his splayed wing – the stinging scent made my eyes water, and I smelt it working and steaming on the unprotected flesh. Prince flashed around the ring, spitting and spitting, venom splashing against the ground, hissing through the air, glancing against Pendratis’s dark scales.

“Other wing!” I hissed to him. “Then fly up. Go for his neck-”

He darted behind him. Pendratis swung his tail like a whip, lashing it against Prince’s open mouth. Blood splattered the concrete.

“Move!” I shouted. “Get in the air!”

He staggered, off-balance, and tried to leap. Pendratis tore him down like a cobweb. Teeth. Neck.

The bell dinged.

My breathing was ragged. I thought of Jack filming with his finger over the lens. I thought of Shelley and Mum watching.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on, please. Please, Prince.”

Countdown. Prince ran, jumped, beat his wings hard. Venom rained down, hissing on the floor, streaming between the rivets in Pendratis’s scales. His howls changed in pitch. Something in my chest lifted.

Then came a blast of fire, hot and searing. Prince didn’t swerve fast enough.

Teeth. Neck. The bell dinged.

Countdown. Venom, spat into Pendratis’s face, and a howl like a dying engine. Prince lunged for his throat. A paw swung up blindly to meet him, battering him into the ground.

Teeth. Neck. The bell dinged.

Countdown. Prince leapt, tripped, fell, no longer elegant, barely beautiful. Teeth snapped at his neck, but he writhed and slashed and kicked, twisting like polecat, still fighting, still not giving up. When he finally stilled, the strength left my legs as well.

The bell dinged.

*

Jack was waiting for me outside the stadium. I was crying before he even got his arms round me, though I knew journalists would be lurking. I pictured my snivelling face on page four of the Manchester Reporter. Junior Champ Cracks Under Crippling Defeat.

Like an idiot, I cried harder.

Jack had to manoeuvre me to the car with my snotty face glued to his shoulder, peeling me away like a toddler and fastening me into the passenger seat. When he sat down in front of the wheel, he rummaged around in his jacket and dropped a fistful of chocolate bars into my lap.

“That’s as good as I get at emotional support,” he said, his smile lopsided. “It’s impossible to be sad with a face full of Mars Bars.”

I snorted – a sob or a laugh. As he steered us out of the car park, I peeled open a Galaxy and took a bite. The chocolate turned to warm mud in my mouth. I churned it around with my tongue, unable to swallow.

“Prince okay?” Jack asked.

I forced the chocolate down. “Few burns. Bumps. Nasty cut on his mouth, but they’re sorting that. I can, uh…take him home tomorrow.” I swallowed. “Second match is on the 28th, so he’ll be…should be okay for it.”

Jack nodded. As we hummed down the road, flashes of lamppost light rippled against the windows, throwing everything into intermittent whiteness. I looked down at the chocolate bar.

“I don’t want him to get hurt again,” I mumbled. “Maybe I should just…it was so horrible, just watching, and she-” my voice cracked. “It was stupid to think I could…”

“Yas,” Jack said. “It isn’t over yet. You can still win.”

My tears were hot. I stuffed down chocolate until I felt sick, then leaned my head against the window and fell asleep to the thrum of the glass against my temple.

*

I avoided Shelley. Once I had Prince home, I spent every spare hour at the training arena, battling against Danielle and her seasoned Scandinavian mountain dragon, Skyla, with whom she’d taken the Treslam cup about ten years before. Skyla was the same breed as Pendratis, but wheat-coloured and slightly bigger, as female dragons tend to be. Prince had bested her a few times in the past, but now he couldn’t even get close.

“He’s still injured,” Danielle said, wiping her forehead. “You’re pushing him too hard.”

She was making excuses for me, which was how I knew she’d given up hope. I plugged my mouth with my water bottle and slumped against the rough wall around the arena, staring up through the open roof. Navy sky, spangled stars. The moon was a sharp, savage curve, smirking at me.

“Enough for today, kid,” Danielle said. “Tomorrow we’ll try get his reaction times up. Afternoon session. If I see you here before twelve, I’ll kick your ass.”

I shrugged one shoulder. Danielle muttered to Skyla as they walked to the exit. Once her voice faded, there was only the hiss of Prince’s breath at my side, and the calling of some kind of night bird beyond the stadium.

And the creak of plastic, way up the stands. My eyes adjusted.

A figure sat in the top row, drenched in shadow. A thrill of shock pulsed through me. How long had they been there?

They shifted when I spotted them, standing up and making their way down to the arena. As they stepped onto the stairs, the floodlights scythed across them. I saw red hair.

My stomach sank.

“I didn’t realise you were here,” I croaked out.

“Didn’t look,” Shelley called, her voice cold and clear. Her boots clapped against the stairs, then crunched on the gravel as she climbed into the arena. She crossed the pitch and stopped in front of me, arms tightly crossed. I couldn’t read her face.

“You know you’re going to lose, don’t you?” she said.

I couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “It isn’t over yet.”

“This isn’t a shitting movie,” Shelley said. “She wrecked you. You’re going to lose.”

I didn’t say anything. I never could, not when she was looking at me like that. She dug into her jacket and tossed something into my lap.

It was a tiny packet of grey powder.

“What is-?” I said. “What?”

“Don’t be dumb,” she said.

I stared at it. A name floated into my mind. Stim.

“No,” I said. “No- no. I’m not giving him that.”

“How else do you think you’re going to get that prize money?”

I stared at her. “Are you mad? There’s- they do loads and loads of drug tests, before and after-”

“They don’t always catch it. Not in ones like him,” Shelley said, pointing at Prince. “It’s some shit to do with genes and the tests they do. Impunity genes – can’t convert stim into a dissolvable form or some shit. Like half of Fishcatchers have them.”

“So half of them don’t,” I cried, getting to my feet. “And even if- I’m not cheating, Shelley!”

“Get off your fucking high horse,” Shelley snapped. “You think I’m asking this for kicks? You might still shitting well lose, even with him doped to hell and back, but it’s the only way you’re going to get anywhere near that money.”

“You get off your high horse!” I shouted, shaking. “I wouldn’t have to get the stupid money if you’d just call Dad!”

She slapped me hard across the face, knuckles bumping against my teeth. Prince leapt at her, hissing, wings splayed, but she didn’t even flinch.

“You really think I haven’t called him?” Shelley said, her voice low and dangerous. “You think I’m that stupid? I’ve been trying to get to him for fucking weeks. He doesn’t want shit to do with any of us. He doesn’t care.”

My cheek stung. She’d knocked the words from me.

“You need to get that money,” she said. “You said you were entering it for Mum. Act like it.”

She left.

*

I lay awake that night, squinting against the glare of my phone, halfway down a webpage about stim. I’d seen dragons on it before, in dodgy amateur matches I’d gone to when I couldn’t afford tickets for anything better. It keyed up their response times and alertness – made them liquid calm, mayfly fast, and gave them this distant look in their eyes like they could see hidden things in the air. I’d seen a stimmed dragon dodge a fireball before it had even left the opponent’s mouth before.

It wasn’t a popular drug, because prolonged use would shred the brain to bits – seizures, confusion, amnesia, that sort of thing – and the comedown period was full of nausea and fever. When top trainers were caught out, it was usually for steroids.

I scrolled down the webpage, past the symptoms and the side effects, my tired fingers clumsy on the screen. The effects of stim were most potent when it was injected or snorted, but it could be ingested too. It was sweet, apparently, which meant dragons couldn’t really taste it.

“Yasmin?”

I looked up. Mum was standing in the doorway, little more than an outline and a shimmer of satiny nightie.

“Can’t sleep either?” she said. I nodded, because it was true enough, and she picked her way towards the bed. “Come on, shift up.”

I exited out of the webpage and shuffled to the side. The mattress dipped as Mum sank down next to me, and I felt her warm arm press against mine. It was a cold night, but she was sweating, her breath coming too fast.

“Have you and Shelley had another tiff?” Mum murmured.

I half-shrugged. Mum fiddled with a lock of my hair.

“She’s working too hard,” Mum said. “I’ve told her to take less on, but you know what she’s like.”

I nodded. Mum moved her hand to my cheek. It was still tender from the slap.

“You’ll look after each other, won’t you?” she whispered. “If…you have to?”

“Mum,” I said.

In the silence, I heard her swallow. Then laugh breezily. “Sorry. Listen to me, getting all maudlin.”

She shuffled around, pressing her head back against the pillows, and in a few minutes she was asleep. I stayed awake for endless hours longer, listening to the rasp of her breath, imagining her ruined heart skipping away in her chest.

In the morning, I took the packet and pushed it beneath the peeling insole in my boot.

*

The 28th came. I sat in the lounge, my legs rigid against the leather of the sofa, with Prince at my feet. The wires of my mic and earpiece crawled all over me, biting into my skin. Every time I bounced my foot, the packet pressed against my heel.

The click of the door made me start. Lola Herringbone sashayed in, fluttering her fingers at me. She wasn’t quite the Queen without her shimmering fur coat, even with her piled-up hair and fishnets – she was smaller, younger. When she sprawled on the sofa opposite and let Pendratis drape himself across her lap, he made her look smaller still.

“Raring to go?” she said to me. That lolling voice, five feet away from me. The Queen, five feet away from me. I tried to find excitement, fear, giddiness. Anything at all.

“Yeah,” I said. “You?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “Most looking forwards to seeing what your little one does. He’s a real spitfire.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“I mean it, I truly do. Yes, he’s not quite spitty or fiery enough that my Pen can’t handle him, but he puts up a mighty, mighty fight,” she said. “He’s going to be a huge star. I always thought fishcatchers were ugly, gangly little things, but he’s helped me see the beauty of them. His flying! What a display. I might get one for myself.” She laughed when Pendratis’s flicked a suspicious eye towards her. “Joking, darling. Don’t sulk.”

She tried to pat the side of his head, but he jerked away from her. Her chunky bracelet snagged on the wire of his earpiece and it snapped like a thread.

“Oh, look what you’ve done!” she said, pushing him off her. “Now we’ve got to back to that pervy tech, you silly thing.” She cast an exasperated eye towards me. “Back in a moment, Yazzy.”

I watched her leave, feeling like I was two inches outside of myself. A month ago, I’d have asked her autograph. I’d have been happy to lose to her if it meant I got to stand beside her on the field.

Not quite spitty or fiery enough that my Pen can’t handle him.

I pressed my heel against the packet.

I took it off again. No.

The door bumped open, and I looked up expecting to see Lola. Instead, there was a spotty man with a plastic tray. On it sat three Starbucks coffees.

“Oh,” he said. “Ms Herringbone wanted these delivering up to her. She about?”

“She’s just sorting something,” I said. “She’ll be back soon, she said.”

“Ah, right. Can I leave them with you, then?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

He placed the tray down on the coffee table and backed out of the room. I looked at the steam trailing through the lids, forming small whorls in the air. I remembered Pendratis lapping the dark liquid with his delicate tongue.

I remembered the webpage from that endless night.

Can be ingested.

Tasteless.

For a second, the world was caught between breathing in and breathing out. Prince’s eyes were on me.

I unlaced my boot.

*

After, Jack waited for me again, but I didn’t cry this time. He had another fistful of chocolate bars for me. I barely felt them as they pattered into my lap.

“It was worth a shot,” he said quietly, one hand on the wheel. “Still one of my better ideas.”

I smiled wanly. “One of your better ideas.”

“Pendratis was wild. I don’t think anyone could’ve gone against that.”

“No, probably not.”

I peeled a Mars and ate it slowly, my teeth sticking together, stinging with the sugar. When he dropped me home, Mum folded me to her chest and said I’d done my best. When Shelley got back from work, she said nothing at all.

I hope you’re happy. That’s what her eyes told me.

I went to bed and stayed there.

***

Three days later, I woke to the buzz of my phone on the bedside table. Jack. I pushed the phone to my ear.

“Yas?” he said breathlessly. “Yas, have you heard?”

My stomach twisted a little. I kept it out of my voice. “Heard what?”

“It’s all over Twitter, it’s- have you looked on Treslam’s site? Pendratis’ drug test flagged up and they’re saying- it was stim, I think he was on, which is why he was so wild in that last match. I knew something wasn’t right.” His voice was wavering, high then low, full of bubbling excitement. “They’re literally disqualifying her. They’re disqualifying the Queen. It’s going to be official, any day now. You won Treslam.”

I swallowed. They were the three words I’d been grasping for, ever since Dad had walked into the house with that crate, ever since I'd laid a hand on Prince's tiny head. I’d imagined them blasted through a loudspeaker, booming around an arena, reverberating through my ribs. I’d heard them in my dreams.

If I was Shelley, I’d have felt relieved. Maybe even triumphant.

I wasn’t Shelley.

A/N: It's still a messy draft and I've only done late-night editing, but I wanted to get feedback sooner rather than later. I know the pacing gets much too quick towards the end, but I'm really struggling against word count restraints. I don't want to make this any longer than it already is, so please keep that in mind when you critique. If there's anything you think I can take out, that would be really useful to know.