I take the bag, staring at the familiar photo of green peas before gingerly pressing it to my tender jaw. The fact that they have the power to keep food frozen impresses me more than the rest of the camp combined. There’s something awe-inspiring about the ability to maintain some aspects of civilization when the rest of the world is sinking into a dark age.

Obi cleans the blood and dirt off my scrapes. They’re mostly that, scrapes.

“Your camp sucks,” I say. The peas are numbing my jaw and my words come out slurred.

“Sorry about that.” He rubs antibiotic ointment onto the scrapes on my hands. “There’s so much tension and jittery energy that we’ve had to accommodate for our people to blow off steam. The trick is to let them do it under controlled conditions.”

“You call what happened out there a controlled condition?”

A half-smile brightens his face. “I’m sure Boden didn’t think so.” He rubs antibiotic ointment on my scraped knuckles. “One of the concessions we made is that if a fight breaks out, no one interferes until there’s a clear winner or it becomes life-threatening. We just let people take bets on the outcome. It blows off steam for both the fighters and the spectators.”

So much for the power to maintain a piece of civilization.

“Also,” he says. “It helps keep the number of fights down when the entire camp is taking bets on the outcome. People take fights seriously when there’s no one to rescue you and the whole camp is watching your every move.”

“So everyone knew this rule but me? That no one is allowed to interfere?” Had Raffe known it? Not that it should have stopped him.

“People can jump in if they want, but that invites someone else to jump in for the other side to keep it a fair fight. The betters wouldn’t like it if it suddenly turned one-sided.” So much for making excuses for Raffe. He could have jumped in, we just would have had to fight someone else too. Nothing we haven’t done before.

“Sorry no one explained the rules of the playground to you.” He bandages my bleeding elbow. “It’s just that we haven’t had a female get into a fight before.” He shrugs. “We just didn’t expect it.”

“I guess this means you lost your bet.”

He grins sourly. “I only make big bets that involve lives and the future of humanity.” His shoulders slump as though the invisible weight on them is too much. “Speaking of which, you handled yourself well out there. Better than anyone expected. We could really use someone like you. There are situations that a girl like you could handle better than a platoon of men.” His grin turns boyish. “Assuming you don’t clock an angel for pissing you off.”

“That’s a big assumption.”