When the time came they gave Amber clothes, a pair of cut-off button fly jeans and a man's tank-top undershirt. Both were skin tight. She had to leave the top button of the shorts open. Without underwear, the shorts hugged her crotch and ass. The bottom half of the shirt had been raggedly ripped away, exposing bare midriff from the undersides of her breasts to her suggestively open shorts. Her belly muscles were tight and flat with anticipation. Her nipples jutted into the thin cotton shirt.

The two silent guards led her from her cell to the courtyard behind the house, one on either side. After days in the dim cell, her eyes were dazzled by the harsh glare of the midday sun, and the scorching heat hit her like a shock wave. A sweat broke out over her, but it turned to chill as her eyes adjusted and she saw what Ramirez had prepared in the courtyard.

It was a crude fighting ring. A ring from hell, the kind of killing arena only Ramirez would image. At the four corners thick wooden posts, hewn from the hedge trees scattered across the desert, had been sunk into the dirt. The wood was hard as iron, covered with rough, ridged bark that was just as hard. From each of these corner posts, the ring ropes ran. Amber's tongue slipped out to moisten suddenly dry lips. These ropes were shiny new barbed wire, four evenly spaced strands, the lowest a foot or so off the ground and the highest at her eye level. The barbs glinted in the sun, beckoning her.

Lupe was already in the enclosure, waiting for her. She was wearing cut-offs like Amber's, right down to the open top button, and a thin camisole top. Only a few laces at her bustline were done up, loosely, so that the camisole gaped open above at her cleavage and below at her belly. She stared out at Amber impassively, flexing her hands as she waited.

After two weeks lying naked in his little prison, Amber had struck a deal with Ramirez. All she asked was a fighting chance. He wanted her dead, fine. One of his people could have the chance. She knew she had made enough enemies in his drug organization in her time as a maverick DEA agent that there would be no shortage of candidates. And his girl Lupe had begged for the opportunity. Amber had killed her sister in a shootout the year before. Lupe would get her shot at killing Amber. But if Amber won, she went free.

Amber slipped carefully through the wire. It was stretched so tightly that it hardly moved as she pushed down on it. The ground inside the pen had been swept clean of debris, leaving hard-packed dirt that was hot against her bare feet. From outside, the ring had seemed fairly big, but once inside with Lupe it had shrunk dramatically. There would not be much room to manuever. Ramirez did not expect that kind of fight.

He spoke without preamble. “You will fight to the death.” He spread his hands slightly. “The ring is a contrivance, an entertainment for me. And – again, for my entertainment – each five minutes Jose will toss to the center of the ring a new toy that you may play with.” Amber's eyes flickered to Jose, standing behind Ramirez with a large duffel bag at his feet. This was unexpected. She was sure Jose's toys would not be fun for her in Lupe's hands. She looked back to Ramirez. “I kill her, I go free,” she reminded him. He inclined his head slightly. Lupe laughed at her. “Your soul will go free, Yanqui bitch,” she said, “when I tear it from your ruined body. You have that moment to look forward to.”

There was no signal, but they knew it was time. Lupe charged. Amber stood her ground. She uppercut Lupe hard and felt her fist smash into the Latina 's cheekbone but it did not divert her an inch. Lupe drove into her, momentum carrying them both sprawling to the ground. Amber rolled, but Lupe was quicker, landing on her back before she could escape. Lupe grapevined her legs, powerfully muscling her body out flat, and snaked one arm into a half-nelson. She twisted on top of the American, grinding Amber's breasts and hips into the dirt. Amber gasped at Lupe's strength, fighting to turn her head in the half-nelson so that her face was not also shoved down. The slender Latina rewarded her for this by pounding her free fist into the corner of Amber's eye before catching her other arm to complete the full-nelson hold. Gathering her knees under her, Lupe lifted the brunette's torso and poured her strength into the hold as she straddled Amber's ass.

Amber cried out as her neck was cruelly bent forward, pain paralyzing her shoulders. Her hands scrabbled at Lupe's fingers laced across the back of her head. With a jerk, Lupe pulled Amber to her feet. Stinging sweat was pouring into Amber's eyes. Lupe forced her forward, a shambling step at a time.

The destination was not in doubt. It didn't matter which direction Lupe chose, the gleaming wire was only a few feet away. She worked the American into it, controlling her like a difficult puppet. Amber twisted her head just enough so that the barbs missed her eyes, but the razor edges still ripped across the bridge of her nose and one cheekbone. She hardly noticed, because the second wire sliced like scapels across the hyper-sensitive flesh of her rock hard nipples as Lupe raked her sideways. An agonized scream burst from Amber. She smelled her blood, felt it streaming down her cheek and from her breasts. Lupe pushed her deeper into the wire, twisted her down. The top wire was now gashing her forehead. The second wire scored the tops of her breasts, shredding her thin shirt. She screamed again. The dark-skinned girl was cutting her to ribbons.

Desperately, Amber attacked the only way she could, stomping her heel down across the top of Lupe's bare foot. The power of raw fear and pure luck saved her. She hit dead center. She heard a bone crack. Lupe screamed, her lips only inches from Amber's ear, and jerked loose. Amber fell forward into the wire, as she caught her balance. She felt her face, instinctively. The cuts there were bleeding freely but weren't dangerously deep. She looked down at her chest. Her once-white shirt was ripped and dirty, wet through with sweat and blood. She winced at the sight of the slashes across her breasts, deep enough to scar.

Amber felt dark rage bubbling up in her. She didn't have a coherent thought, just a primitive urge to kill. She launched herself off the wire at Lupe. Her first punch caught the Latina girl across the mouth. Lupe rode it out, her head swinging back to grin at Amber with bloody lips, but the second punch wiped the grin away. It was a beautiful swing, with all of Amber's weight perfectly balanced behind it. Ramirez appreciated it as a thing of savage beauty. It snapped Lupe's head around like a roped steer, lashing a spray of blood from her mouth ten feet across the enclosure. Lupe went down, soundlessly, her body bouncing limply on the hardpan.

Amber landed on Lupe's back with both knees. She dragged back the Latina 's head and smashed her face into the ground, again and again. Finally, Lupe was able to brace her arms to stop the onslaught, spitting a mass of blood and dirt from her battered mouth. Amber jumped to her feet and stomped Lupe in the small of her back. The dark girl groaned in pain, clutching at her spine. Amber stomped her again. Lupe tried to roll, and the American kicked her hard in the belly.

Ramirez's men had cheered Lupe at first, but had now gone silent. The only sounds were the women's harsh breathing. Amber bent for handfuls of Lupe's dark curls, pulling her to her knees. That was as far as she got. Lupe rammed a fist low in her belly, right in the v left by the open button of her shorts. A cramp rippled through the American, paralyzing her. Lupe hit her again, same spot. Amber's legs buckled. The two women were now face-to-face on their knees in the dust. Lupe gripped Amber's shoulders and brutally head-butted her in the face. Amber felt her nose break, blood flooding down over her mouth. Her vision swam, but she could still see Lupe's brown-black eyes, bright with hatred, only inches away.

Then Lupe was gone, and Amber heard a shout go up from the men around the enclosure. She realized with a sick lurch in her stomach what it was. The first five minutes was up. She struggled up, already turning toward the center of the ring. But Lupe was way ahead of her. Jose had tossed in a set of brass knuckles. Lupe was already sliding them over her fingers. Amber knew her chances had just dropped dramatically.

She dodged or blocked the first three punches Lupe threw. The fourth caught her in the side. She screamed as her ribs cracked under the brass knuckles. The fifth broke her nose in a second place. The sixth landed in the same spot in her side and she could not even scream. The pain that knifed through her was so intense that the world tilted, and went dark.

Lupe dragged the limp American to one corner of the enclosure. Propping her upright, she flipped Amber's arms over the top wire and threaded them down and inside the second, shoving her back hard up against the heavy wooden cornerpost. Blood ran down Amber's sides as the wire dug into her armpits. She came to slowly, as Lupe ripped her shirt open, exposing her bloodied breasts. Several of Ramirez's men were urging Lupe on again. The Latina leaned into Amber. “This is how you will die,” she said into Amber's ear. “I will rupture your insides. You will bleed to death, inside your belly, for what you did to my sister.”

Lupe drove her brass-covered fist into Amber's stomach. Backed against the post, her body had nowhere to go. Hard-muscled as Amber's belly was, she was no match for this. Like a battering ram against a door, Lupe slammed her fists into the brunette's gut. Amber hung helplessly on the wires., her head down, her hair over her face. Each time Lupe hit her, a shiver would ripple through her. The sounds alone were agonizing: Lupe's grunts of exertion as she put all she had into every blow; Amber's involuntary, tortured sobs; and the thick, sodden sound of heavy fists ripping deep into meat.

Lupe finally stopped, her shoulders and arms aching. Amber was barely conscious, her eyes rolling back, her mouth slack and dry. Lupe flicked her arms loose and Amber crashed bonelessly to the dirt. She retched, dry-heaving as she curled around her ruined belly. Lupe bent and ripped off the rest of Amber's ragged shirt. She grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her to a half-sitting position as she slipped behind her and twisted the cloth around her neck. “I will not wait for you to drown in your own blood,” she hissed. Amber was strangling. She twisted, trying to drag in even a thin gasp of oxygen, but it was useless.

Then the second five minute interval ended. Jose, ever dutiful, tossed a fireplace poker into the center of the ring, even though it was clear to everyone there than Amber had only moments to live. Distracted, Lupe looked up. Amber, on nothing but raw instinct, saved herself in that split-second. She squirmed sideway and jammed her thumb up and back into Lupe's eye. The dark girl whipped back, shrieking, her hands flying to her face. Amber could breathe again. And with the tiny bit of strength she had left, she pitched forward onto the poker.

For the first few minutes, they crouched in opposite corners as each tried to regain control of the pain screaming through her. Amber feared that Lupe might have made good on her promise of internal damage; every panting breath she took stabbed like a knife in her gut. But the sight of Lupe's ruined eye, swollen shut, gave her hope. She was still alive. It took her two tries to get to her feet, but she made it. Then she went to work. Brass knuckles were no match for a steel poker. Methodically, she broke Lupe's collarbone, then pinned the screaming girl down and took the brass knucks away from her. She still owed her some time on the wire.

Amber tore away Lupe's camisole, making sure to twist her injured shoulder as she did. She locked the poker across Lupe's throat from behind and dragged her backwards across the ring, twisting her at the last step and shoving her front-first into the wire. Lupe screamed wildly as the barbs raked her breasts. Amber bored in even harder, until Lupe's blood was a river running down her belly.

Then she pushed the dark girl back to the center of the enclosure, sending her spinning to her knees. The effort was almost too much for Amber. The pain in her ribs and stomach was nearly unbearable, dropping her to one knee as well. She knew another five minutes must have passed, and she saw Jose reaching into his bag a third time.

“No more,” she croaked, and Jose stopped at Ramirez's gesture. Amber saw the brass knuckles in the dirt before her. She picked them up, and flung them and her poker well out beyond the wire. “No more,” she said again, and now her gaze was locked with Lupe's. “We finish this hand to hand.”

Lupe had only one good eye and couldn't lift one arm. Amber's nose and ribs were broken and, as she suspected, she was bleeding internally. Both were bleeding heavily from being shredded on the wire. The fight was more or less even. And no toys from Jose were needed for continued brutality. The two women tore at each other. Amber battered Lupe with her fists, knocking the dark girl down time after time. Lupe attacked Amber's already-gashed breasts, ripping at them with her fingernails and even, for a hellish minute, her teeth. They grappled wildly, spinning into the wire until their entire bodies were striped with red.

It ended at last as Amber rode Lupe to the ground and straddled her hips, pinning the Latina under her. She didn't think – thinking had long since gone by. She simply punched, hammering Lupe's face, her neck, her breasts, every inch of her that was in reach. She was still hitting her when Jose climbed carefully through the wire and pulled her off of the dark girl's body.

Ramirez kept his word. Amber went free.