Caged Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  About the Author

  Also by Theresa Breslin

  Copyright

  About the Book

  THE STREETS ARE A TOUGH PLACE TO SURVIVE.

  Kai – along with other troubled teenagers – thinks he’s found the perfect sanctuary: an abandoned London Underground tunnel. Here, runaways are trained to become Cage Fighters. Each fight brings money, and a chance for Kai and his friends to start new lives.

  But danger is lurking deep underground, while a mysterious new arrival threatens their plans. And the finale is looming – the last battle between Kai and his nemesis, Leo. The Kill Fight…

  This book is for Carys Eloise

  CHAPTER ONE

  Blood.

  In his mouth and on his tongue.

  That last punch split his lip. Spinning him sideways to thud against the steel bars of the Cage. And he knew he’d taken a cut.

  Blood has a stale taste. Brings back a memory. Don’t think about that.

  Move.

  Fast.

  Kai straightens. Beyond the Cage winks the red light of the camera. The fight would be on the Internet within hours. Would Evil Eddy be watching?

  The blur of a fist. Kai dodges. Too slow. A whack to the side of his helmet leaves him dizzy.

  Now Leo will come in to finish him off.

  Gloves up.

  But there’s no one there.

  Kai swings round. The Cage is empty. He shakes his head. Sweat pours from his hair down his face. Can’t see. Pulls up his face visor to wipe his glove across his eyes.

  Leaving his forehead exposed.

  He hears the victory screech before he feels the impact. Leo drops from the roof bars onto his shoulders. Kai crashes to the floor of the Cage.

  He is down…

  …head battered onto the concrete.

  …and out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A splash of water on his face.

  Spartacus stood over him. Seeing that Kai is awake, he emptied the whole bucket onto his head.

  ‘Surprised at you,’ he said, ‘getting caught like that. And a bigger mistake was to pull up your visor.’

  Kai scrambled to his feet. ‘Won’t do it again.’

  Spartacus reached out and grabbed him by the front of his vest. ‘You certainly won’t!’ He addressed the group of teens who were clustered outside the Cage. ‘Listen up! All of you! No one, I repeat, no one, removes their face visor or helmet during a cage fight.’ He glared at Kai. ‘Got that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kai mumbled.

  ‘I can’t hear you!’

  ‘Yes,’ Kai said loudly.

  ‘It’s not just about safety. It’s to keep your identity a secret. The last thing we want is for anybody to find out who we are and where we live.’

  The watchers growled in agreement.

  Spartacus cupped his hand round Kai’s cheek and said in a quieter voice, ‘Get that cut seen to. Tech will have something suitable among his medical supplies, and let him do his concussion test routine on you.’ Then he spoke to Leo, who was removing his visor and his helmet, shaped in the form of a lion’s head. ‘Well played,’ he said.

  Leo pulled off his gloves and raised his hand. Curling his fingers into a claw he let out a roar.

  ‘Hey, Leo, turn this way and do that again.’ Tech approached with the camcorder. ‘It’s a great shot to go in at the end of the fight.’

  While Leo re-did his roaring lion act Kai climbed out of the Cage, took off his own gloves, visor and helmet and shoved them in his sports bag.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. He should have thought to look up. Where else could Leo have gone, apart from above him? What had distracted him? Kai fingered the tear in his lip. The taste of blood. That was it. Made his attention waver. Shocked a bad memory into his brain…

  Kai thrust the thought away. It wouldn’t happen again. Fool me once – shame on you. Fool me twice – shame on me. He was a quick learner. Although Leo was broader and heavier, Kai was faster and smarter – much smarter. And he’d proved it in their first fight of the tournament. Taken Leo down in two rounds, holding him to the floor until the end of the round so that Leo had to concede the match. People had thought Leo would win. He’d been tipped as favourite because of his build, screenshots of his naked muscled chest becoming an Internet hit.

  Leo was beaming triumphantly as he was being filmed. Basking in the attention of the others, especially Boudicca, one of the three girl Cage Fighters. Clawing the air. Roaring to order.

  ‘Don’t do a close-up on the face,’ Spartacus warned Tech as Leo stepped from the Cage.

  ‘As if!’ Tech gave him a withering look. ‘It’s his fingers I’m filming.’ He laughed. ‘Those nails will be a big attraction.’

  Leo’s admirers joined in the laughter. Leo had let his nails grow and filed them to look like claws. He now painted them a vivid orange colour for each fight.

  Kai thought they looked ridiculous and took every opportunity to say so. He went forward and opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Shake hands.’ Spartacus stepped between them.

  ‘Of course.’ Leo smiled. ‘No hard feelings?’ he said to Kai, holding out his hand.

  ‘Course not.’ Kai brought his fingers close to Leo’s, avoiding actual contact with the orange talons.

  Leo took his hand. ‘Still mates?’

  ‘Uh,’ Kai muttered. They weren’t mates, yet this was the way Leo behaved. Smooth and smiling when others were around – with the smile never reaching his eyes.

  ‘You OK?’ Raven asked anxiously as she came up.

  ‘Fine,’ both boys replied together.

  Raven smiled at them.

  ‘Catch you later.’ Leo touched Raven lightly on the arm and moved away.

  ‘You meant me?’ Kai asked her. ‘Right?’

  ‘Of course I meant you,’ said Raven. ‘But I was concerned about Leo too. You landed some heavy punches on him.’

  Kai glanced over his shoulder. Leo was staring after them. Raven turned and gave him a little wave. Leo waved back and grinned. But Kai had seen the look that was directed at him.

  One of pure hatred.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kai walked with Raven to Tech’s den to watch him edit the film. She was as fast as Kai in the Cage and the favourite to win the girls’ tournament. By the time they arrived there was an argument going on. Kai hung back at the door, not wanting to get involved.

  ‘Leo cheated!’ It was Sarema who was speaking.

  Gita, her twin, nodded vigorously. Normally they were very quiet,
but in an argument they always took Kai’s side because he’d rescued them from an old skip down by the canal. Hiding there, Sarema had said, from relatives trying to arrange a forced marriage for them.

  ‘Climbing up the bars to the roof of the Cage is cheating,’ said Sarema. ‘It was not a fair fight.’

  She came and stood beside Kai. He glanced over at Raven, but she’d gone off to help Tech. They were hunting through his database and selecting more images to highlight the plight of street kids as a prelude to the movie of the actual fight. A slice of disappointment went through Kai. He’d half hoped Raven might be jealous of the attention he was getting from another girl.

  There was a clamour of voices as people took sides.

  ‘Cage fighting is a combo of boxing, wrestling and martial arts.’ Boudicca was quick to defend Leo. ‘So anything goes.’

  ‘No way,’ said Medusa, the third girl fighter. ‘When Spartacus brought us together to be the Cage Fighters for Freedom we agreed there’d be no spitting or swearing, or biting, or gouging people’s eyes.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re not in any official organization,’ said Beowulf. ‘So Boudicca is right – we can do what we like.’

  Boudicca nodded at Beowulf and he smiled, glad to have her approval.

  ‘We’re a completely independent group of fighters,’ Boudicca went on. ‘We make our own rules.’

  ‘Which we did at our first evening Meet,’ said Magog, a tall gentle-natured boy. ‘As well as the things Medusa listed, there’s no throat grabbing, and the referee’s word is final.’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ said Beowulf. ‘Spartacus acts as referee and judge. He awards the points for each round and decides what’s allowed and he didn’t call Leo out for cheating.’

  Magog laughed. ‘Spartacus would let anything go if he thought it would gain us Internet hits.’

  ‘That’s just what I said!’ Boudicca made a face at Medusa. ‘Anything goes!’

  ‘It didn’t in the first round, when I fought Raven,’ said Medusa.

  ‘Proper little lady, you were,’ Boudicca said scornfully. ‘Maybe that’s why you lost!’

  ‘But the boys did the same in their first round when they all fought each other,’ said Medusa. ‘They kept to what was agreed.’

  ‘Well, I say we ramp it up for the final fights,’ declared Boudicca. ‘More excitement means more pay-per-views and our money goes up.’

  ‘Dunno if we should change things,’ Magog said doubtfully.

  ‘Spartacus has already changed things,’ said Beowulf. ‘Leo and Kai came out with equal top points when we all fought each other, so he decided that they would have another two fights to see who’d be overall champion.’

  ‘That was to do with how the tournament is organ­ized,’ said Medusa, ‘not the actual fighting.’

  ‘We can discuss it at the Meet later,’ said Boudicca. ‘But when it’s our fight tonight you’d better watch out!’ She made a pretend punch at Medusa. ‘I’m going to put some new moves on you. Like what Leo did to Kai – which is why Kai lost, because he never realized what was going on. He didn’t work out that Leo must have climbed the bars above him. Kai wasn’t thinking fast enough. Where else could Leo be?’

  ‘Maybe Kai thought Leo had left the Cage,’ Magog suggested. ‘The door isn’t locked.’

  ‘That’s just daft,’ Boudicca said firmly. ‘Kai was too slow. Look! We can check it out on the film.’

  Kai saw the big wall screen shimmer into life. The banner headline Cage Fighters for Freedom spiralled across it with a drum-roll announcement. Following this came genuine, un-staged footage of young people rummaging in waste bins behind fast-food outlets, an angled view of row upon row of spikes – mini-pyramids placed on a London underpass to deter homeless people making beds there – and a whole series of black-and-white photographs of teenagers and younger children living rough in the city. The voice-overs kicked in – street kids telling how they struggled to eat during the day and find a place to sleep at night. The Cage Fighters for Freedom banner returned along the top with screenshots of the seven fighters ranged below: masked, helmeted, and dressed in complete character costume.

  The girls’ photos zoomed to the front. Raven was in a full-length black dress with great glossy wings tremoring in hidden hues of lilac and purple. Snakes with flickering tongues coiled around Medusa’s green silvered limbs, while Boudicca stood proudly in regal robes, crowned as the ancient warrior queen.

  ‘We fight so the homeless will be heard,’ Raven, Medusa and Boudicca chanted.

  Then the boys’ photos filled the screen. Leo, draped in faux lionskin with claws extended. Magog, staff in hand and laurel leaves around his gladiator-style helmet. Beowulf wearing a plaid cloak, with metal bracelets cuffed on his wrists and upper arms. And Kai, in his trademark fiery red vest, poised for action within an ever-widening circle of flames.

  ‘We fight for street kids to stay safe,’ Kai, Leo, Beowulf and Magog chanted.

  The screen dissolved and the seven photographs reassembled. Cage bars came crashing down to imprison them. A jagged bolt of lightning – and the bars burst asunder. Together, the seven fighters yelled their last statement.

  ‘We are the Cage Fighters for Freedom!’

  Their profile photos shifted to form a circle with the fight tournament information in the centre. After the first round of fights Kai and Leo were sitting equal at the top of the boys’ table. Spartacus had awarded Leo more points than Kai for better performance and skill during the matches when they’d beaten Beowulf and Magog individually. But then, when they’d fought each other in the Cage, Kai had forced Leo into a submission which gave him a Technical Knock Out and brought their points level. They’d agreed to fight twice more for the championship.

  On the girls’ side, only one fight had taken place: Raven beating Medusa. Tonight Boudicca would fight Medusa, with the winner fighting Raven the following evening to decide who would be the girls’ overall champion.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ Spartacus’s voice, disguised by the megaphone he used, announced the midday game. The screen pixelled to another banner proclaiming Kai and Leo’s second match. The letters slid vertically to halve the screen. On one side Kai’s helmeted figure had a backdrop of flames ascending from an erupting volcano. On the other side Leo stood against film of a lion stalking its prey. Then Tech’s edited version of the Cage Fighters for Freedom’s most recent fight was on the screen.

  And the long and the short of it was that Kai had been too slow. It was clear where he’d faltered – exactly when he’d tasted blood from his cut lip, jolting him to recall the previous occasion he’d had blood in his mouth.

  ‘What happened?’ Raven spoke softly in his ear. She’d slipped through the group to be at his side.

  Kai shrugged. One day he’d tell her, but not here, not now.

  ‘What do you say, Kai?’ Boudicca nudged his elbow. ‘Was it a fair fight?’

  ‘Yeah, do tell us what you think, Kai,’ a voice spoke out. It was Leo asking the question. ‘Isn’t it true that you’d have done the exact same…if only you’d thought of it first?’

  Kai gave a start. He hadn’t noticed Leo come into Tech’s den – but there he was, lounging against the far wall, his smile of triumph even wider than before.

  All their eyes were now on him: Leo, Tech, the twins, and the other five Cage Fighters standing about in the disused Underground station they called home.

  ‘What’s true,’ Kai replied, ‘is that that I beat you in our first fight. You only won this second bout by playing a trick.’

  ‘Not so much a trick, more like a neat move that you weren’t expecting,’ said Leo. ‘You were too slow-witted to catch on.’

  Kai, opening his mouth to reply, saw Sarema give a tiny shake of her head. She was right. He shouldn’t rise to this bait. Leo was taunting him to make him say something he’d regret. He’d already lost to Leo in the Cage. He mustn’t lose this battle of words too.

  ‘It’s a g
ood get-out…’ Kai paused so that his next sentence would have maximum effect. ‘If you’re scared of being beaten and want to run away from a fight.’

  Leo flushed, an angry red stain spreading over his face and neck. He levered himself off the wall and strode across the room. ‘I wasn’t running away! Ever since I got here I’ve been told how clever you are, but this time I outsmarted you, you…Brainbox Boy!’

  Kai drew in a breath as someone sniggered. The last thing he wanted was to have a babyish nickname like that stick. None of the street kids living underground used their real names. Either they thought of a new name for themselves or were given one by the group. He’d already chosen Kai, which meant ‘fire’. He really didn’t want to be labelled ‘Brainbox Boy’.

  ‘OK. OK.’ Kai held up his hand. ‘It was a neat move, Leo. And you won.’ He spread his fingers. ‘Peace?’

  Leo ground his teeth, but with everyone there he’d no option but to acknowledge the gesture.

  Their eyes locked in mutual dislike. Leo’s gaze flitted to Raven. He forced his mouth into a strained smile. Then he bent his head and spoke to Kai as he pushed past him out of the door.

  ‘Don’t start what you can’t finish.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After Tech had done the post-match medical check-ups, Kai went to his own den to get changed.

  Despite having his helmet on during the fight, his head was now beginning to ache from the impact with the floor of the Cage. He massaged the back of his neck, then soaked a cloth in his wash-water barrel, wrung it out and pressed it to his forehead. A few deep breaths in and out and he felt better. He’d been close to losing his temper with Leo just then, but…better to wait until their final bout in the Cage. When he had that smarmy face in front of him he could smash it with his fist – make it a real Knock Out blow so there’d be no doubt about who was champion.

  Kai looked down at his hands hanging loose by his sides. Spreading his fingers he examined his knuckles. Evil Eddy was always ready to use his knuckles…

  Kai frowned. Abruptly he stripped off, slopped the cloth across his body and towelled himself dry. He pulled on some clothes: bog-standard jeans, grey hoodie, black trainers. It was almost a uniform for the Cage Fighters. They didn’t wear any bright clothing – as directed in the List of Rules.