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3

MADDOX

W e go in turns so as not to crowd the track. Four at a time, five minutes. When eight out of all twelve skaters have tested, D-Stroy-her, myself, and Star strap our helmets on and get behind the blue line. I look back at Ira, skates on but shaking her head as if to say she’s done. Ira has been our assistant coach for the last year. When I first arrived in Slaughters, she’d been a pivot, and there was hardly anyone who could get past her unscathed. Time gets us all, though. Eventually, you either retire, or you find a way to make yourself useful.

“Vera!” MorningStar whistles. “Get your ass over here.” She looks up at Leonard to explain. “Havoc here is still the all-time highest scoring jammer per bout in the entire Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.” Pride practically drips off her tongue, as if her friend’s accomplishments are her own.

“Get behind the line.” Our new manager doesn’t need convincing. He even gives her the extra time it takes to get her skates and gear on.

Vera looks around the track awkwardly, like she’s waiting for additional permission. It comes in the form of Lady Yaga pushing her in the back, propelling her toward the track. MorningStar catches her by the wrist, whipping her in a circle until she steadies herself on her toe stops.

The two grin at each other, bumping shoulders until Star almost knocks her down. Leonard gives us a hand signal to prepare us.

I would fear my ability to make it if I didn’t have confidence in my own hard work and my body. There isn’t a day my skates aren’t on my feet, even if it’s just for a stroll around the park. I’m not some tiny little thing; speed doesn’t come to me easily. I’m five-eleven, and the velocity of my skates depend solely on the strength of my thighs.

And those bitches are toned to perfection.

He whistles us off, and the four of us move in perfect synchronicity, left knee over right, crossing over as we make our first turn around the track. By the fifth lap, D is severely behind, and I’m starting to reach her from the back. I pound my skates harder on the wooden floor, the noise enough to alert D-Stroy-her and force her to fight for her speed.

At the tenth lap, Havoc makes her way to my left, tight on the curve, passing me with ease. Quick little crossovers are all she needs to get a good distance ahead, but I know I’m still fast enough to meet the challenge. Star’s blonde low ponytail sticks to her sweaty back as she passes D on the right, an encouraging grunt from her as she hypes up our friend.

My lungs burn at twenty. At twenty-four, I can no longer feel my feet, just a wave of nausea that’s impossible to fight. I only have to hold it back three more laps. Havoc’s the only one in front of me now, and her feet move so fast that even when I’m only one pass behind her, she can somehow manage to get three ahead.

Another lap, then one more, and my shouts to D-Stroy-her to push harder are the only thing I can hear above the sound of our wheels on the track.

Havoc passes the line, a 180-degree turn on her toes marking a classic derby stop before she rolls out of the track and collapses to the ground. Venice and Lady Yaga hover over her, fanning her with a laminated flier. I cross the line, rolling out of the track and dropping to my knee pads.

Sweat drips from my forehead down to my skates, but I keep my eye on Star until she finally crosses the line. The croc blows his whistle just after, and D collapses to the ground where she is, nothing but exhausted breaths coloring the air.

D-Stroy-her is sobbing. Too many injuries and a knee surgery keeps her from pushing too hard. She rarely bouts unless the roster demands, and in the four years I’ve been here, I’ve only seen her skate the twenty-seven in five once. I understand just what those tears mean, the emotional exhaustion that sweeps over once victory has been achieved, the body’s cry of conquest.

Except there was no conquest, and she didn’t make the requirement.

Our new manager doesn’t give us the time to process.

Leonard begins to assign positions, one skater at a time, until they’ve all been given their roles. He begins with the blockers on the B-team, the ones who stay on the bench during bouts unless a substitution is made. Feral-Streep and Venice Witch are named, followed by Bae-Ruthless as pivot. K-Otic is a substitute jammer like before.

Then, the A-team is formed: the ones guaranteed to be bouting unless injured, tired, or somehow missing. Lady Yaga, DreadPool, and MorningStar for blockers—obvious, a given, our usual set up. Then he calls my name for pivot. I think I hear him wrong, but then he announces the little one’s name instead for the position of jammer.

My position.

“What? No, I’m fucking jammer.” My chest is practically touching his, sweat forcing my shirt to stick to my sports bra.

“You were jammer. She’s faster.” He says it like it’s nothing, like he isn’t changing everything I know.

“She’s not even a Murder Doll!” I counter, absolute disbelief being the only thing I can feel while this guy fucks with the entire dynamic of our team.

It feels like the whole world is spinning—maybe from dehydration, maybe from exhaustion, or maybe from these two assholes fucking up my entire life in a matter of seconds.

“You can block, or you can get benched as a sub. Last I read, only one jammer per team goes out on the track. Your call.” The look on his face is of pure satisfaction, like he can’t be more fulfilled at giving me the news. “You.” He points at the girl my siblings-in-wheels call a friend.

Havoc turns slowly, an apprehensive look on her face. “Yes?” The word is barely audible.

“You a Murder Doll?” he asks her.

Dead silence surrounds the rink, anticipation growing, like standing on a precipice, as she decides her answer. She looks between the skaters I’ve called my family for the last four years. Aspiration glimmers in their eyes, and they nod their heads in unison, MorningStar clasping her hands to her chest like the perfect vision of hope.

“Yes,” Vera Havik says, a little more courage behind her voice this time as she bites back a smile, her eyes darting over to me just long enough for me to catch.

They all scream, and the lizard man laughs a cold sound.

Clenching my molars together, I grind my teeth as every feeling between loathing and outrage courses through my veins.

“Fine. You want a blocker? I’ll fucking block.” I slip my mouthguard in and move to the pivot line for scrimmage.

The whistle goes off again, this asshole far too trigger happy with the thing, and it makes me wonder if he ever actually coached a basketball team or simply owned them. The two are not the same. “Practices are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from now on,” he belts out. “See you all tomorrow, bright and early. Those who didn’t pass will have three more chances. After that, you gotta find yourself a new league.”

Ass wipe.

He knows we practice Tuesdays and Thursdays, because here we stand, on a fucking Tuesday, with our skates on. These are all power moves, shows of dominance, pissing on Skatium as if he fucking owns it.

Well, he doesn’t . He might own the name of the Murder Dolls, but he doesn’t own us, and he certainly doesn’t own the rink.

“That’s it?” I ask, forcing him to freeze in place.

He turns around slowly, raising a single eyebrow in question.

“Not gonna assess our footwork, our individual strengths and weaknesses?” I snort.

“I’ve seen what I needed to see.” Turning to Ira, he adds, “I’ll hold open auditions to fill the final spots once the last of the grandfathered skaters get their chance to finish their speed tests.” He walks out without another word.

My anger consumes me. I worked my ass off for nearly half a decade, and now it has all been taken from me in less than five minutes. I spin toward Ira for some sort of support, finding nothing but a vacant stare, as if she too is still recovering from the whiplash of the last hour.

Enough is enough. I need answers.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” The words come out of my mouth before I even get a chance to stop in front of our new teammate .

Every blocker on our team will crush her in scrimmages. Sure, she’s fast, but fast means nothing if she can’t take a hit without breaking. By the looks of her, one check of my hip will send her flying. This is the girl who got selected from Asha’s team to go pro? She looks nothing like the skater I worshiped on TV, but then again, it has been more than a year since she left her fancy team too.

The thought crosses my mind that she’s here to pick up where she left off.

“W-what?” she stutters out, clearly uncomfortable with confrontation. “I’m Vera.”

“I know your name, Mayhem. What are you doing here? Messing with all of my shit?”

She shrinks from me using the wrong name.

“Maddox,” Star chastises.

“What? I’m supposed to be bursting with joy because the ex-derby star rolls out of nowhere to save our team? What grand timing she has.” I glare at Star, hoping she sees I’m implying she’s the one who told the chick to drop by. I turn back to face Havoc. “ Why are you back here?” Arms crossed over my chest, I wait for an answer.

“I came back to Slaughters to skate.” Her voice is still meek, quiet, like she isn’t sure she really wants me to hear her.

I say nothing.

“I came back because this is my home, and because my contract ended.” Her eyebrows scrunch in the middle, her frustration showing while still trying to appeal to me.

My expression is a stone mask.

She lets out a heavy exhale. “I came to see Asha.”

Bae-Ruthless gasps.

“Asha’s not here, and you don’t belong anymore,” I warn her. “Go back to wherever you came from before you disrupt any more of our lives.”

She looks around, confused, but she doesn’t miss the somber expression on all of her friends’ faces. “Where’s Asha?”

“If this was your home, you’d know Asha Fields is dead.”