by Morgan Rice
“Why did you leave us, Dad?” I finally blurt out.
Bree stiffens, immediately awkward. Dad sits silently for a long, long time, his hands laced together on the table. He looks so much older than I remember. Not only is his face more lined and his hair completely gray, but there’s a stoop in his posture that was never there when I was younger. It’s a vulnerability he would once have never allowed me to see.
“I was barely fourteen,” I continue. “Bree was seven. How could you abandon us like that? Why did you choose the war over us?”
Dad doesn’t look at me when he finally speaks. “It’s complicated, Brooke. I know you think I chose the war, but I didn’t. I chose you two, I always did. I chose to give you a future, and that meant leaving you in the present and fighting in the war.”
“But it hadn’t even begun yet,” I shoot back, anger making the volume of my voice rise. “You volunteered. You left before you even needed to.”
“I had to put myself in the best strategic position,” he says, sighing heavily. “I don’t expect you to understand. But know that I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you two—”
“And Mom,” I interrupt. “Or did you forget about how you slapped her the night before you left?”
He looks away, ashamed. “I haven’t forgotten. And I’ve regretted it every day that’s passed.”
“You know she waited for you,” I say, and I can hear the bitterness in my voice. “Even after the mushroom cloud. She said we couldn’t leave, in case you came back. You hit her and she still died for you.”
Bree begins to weep softly beside me. I know she wants me to stop but I can’t help myself. All the rage and anger I’ve felt over the last few years is spilling out of me. There’s no amount of apologies Dad can say to atone for the death of our mom, or make up for the fact that I had to leave her to her certain death and look after Bree alone. Because of him I had to grow up overnight, make adult decisions, and live with the consequences. I was just a kid and his actions robbed me of my childhood.
“I understand if you never forgive me,” Dad says. “But I had to be right in the thick of it in order to fight it from the inside out.”
I pause and frown. I’m confused, not able to comprehend what he’s saying.
“What do you mean, ‘fight it from the inside out’?” I say.
“The compound,” he explains. “What we’re doing here. We’re building an army. A resistance to both sides of the war. We’re working to take the system down from the inside out. It’s a long, slow process. Once we’re strong enough, we’ll take control of all the cities, destroy all the arenas, and bring the slaverunners to justice. But first we need to unite all the other pockets of resistance across the country. We’ve been trying to communicate with all the other resistance groups that we know of. It’s only when we’re together that we can fight and win.”
My heart begins to thud. “The radio message to Fort Noix. That was you?”
He nods. “We’re making contact with every base we can. There are resistors all over the country. We created compounds because we knew the war would mean mutually assured destruction. We knew it was the only chance we’d have of restoring civilization once it was all over.”
My mind swirls with emotions. “You mean, you left… you volunteered for the army because…”
“Because it was inevitable and I knew it couldn’t be stopped,” he says, sternly. “Because I knew the only way the human race would survive was by making sure there were still people alive after it was all over. And now we’re almost ready to reclaim the country.”
I can’t believe it. It really is a dream come true. All I’ve wanted, ever since meeting Trixie in the forest, is to create a safe world for everyone; a world free from slaverunners and crazies. A world free from arenas.
“When is it happening?” I say, slamming my fists onto the table. “When are you reclaiming the country?”
Dad looks at me. “It’s a strategic military operation, Brooke. I can’t reveal that to you.”
“I want to help,” I say, determined.
“I’m glad to hear it. There’s plenty to do around here and—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off. “I want to fight.”
“Brooke,” he begins.
“I’ve survived two arenas, Dad,” I say. “I’m a fighter now, the fighter you always wanted me to be. I can do this. Whatever it takes to get justice, I want to do it.”
He looks at me hesitantly. But he can tell I’m not backing down. I’m not the fourteen-year-old girl he abandoned all those years ago. I’m a young woman now, one who can hold her own, one who’s taken all the lessons he taught me and used them again and again and again to survive. I’m stronger than he ever thought possible.
“Well, all right,” he says, finally. “If you really want to fight, I won’t stop you. We need all the help we can get.”
“Good,” I say, standing.
“Where are you going?” Dad asks.
“To join the rest of the soldiers,” I say. “There’s a meeting about to happen, isn’t there?”
I raise an eyebrow. Dad gives me a look of disbelief, but he doesn’t challenge me. Instead, he stands from the table.
“Lead the way, Moore.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The meeting is taking place in one of the vast underground rooms of the compound. When my dad enters, all the soldiers stop talking and rise to their feet and salute. Then Dad steps aside and lets me into the room. Though they try not to react, I can almost feel the ripple of confusion as it passes down the line. Everyone’s wondering who this beat-up girl is and what she’s doing here.
“This is my eldest daughter, Brooke,” Dad says. “She’s joining us.”
I hobble into the room and take a seat. I am by far the youngest person here. Though there are plenty of women, most are like the soldier I met in the back of the truck; hardened, bulky, emotionless. I stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll be relieved once I’m given a US Marine Corps uniform to replace the strange, stiff, homemade uniform of Fort Noix that I am still wearing. For the first time, I wish I hadn’t been so hasty in demanding to join in the meeting. I could have really done with a hot bath, a hair brush, a proper sleep, and a change of clothes. But just like when I was a kid, I find myself wanting to please my dad, to do everything right and be the daughter he always wanted me to be. I know, now, after my ordeal and everything I’ve survived, I am so close to making that a reality.
I can tell that the atmosphere in the room has changed. Everyone is a little wary of me. I’m not surprised, to be honest. Just like the Commander at Fort Noix, the people here have learned to be suspicious of everyone. There’s probably more than just a flicker of doubt in the back of each of their minds, questioning whether I really am who I say I am or if their grief-stricken Commander has let in some kind of slaverunner spy. I will just have to prove myself to them and earn their trust and respect.
“Please,” my dad says. “Resume your meeting.”
The General nods obediently and walks over to a map of Texas hanging up on a board.
“This is Arena Three,” he says. “Our target.”
I can feel a coldness spread through my body at the thought of another arena. There must be so many all across America now, filled with kids like me forced to fight to the death.
“We’ve been in strategic communication with the compound up in Massachusetts,” the General continues. “We’re preparing to coordinate a large-scale attack on Arena One and Arena Two in New York, while at the same time taking down Arena Three, here in Texas. We have only one shot to get it right. We’ve amassed enough bombs and weapons to eradicate all three. Once the first three arenas fall, it won’t take long to break the stranglehold of the other, smaller ones across the country. A coordinated attack on the major arenas is step one in the liberation of the people of America.”
I hadn’t fully understood the arenas and how they came about before now, but as I listen in on the meeting,
I start to comprehend the logistics behind the war. The first two arenas weren’t for bloodsport at all, but mass public executions. Different sides of the civil war had different strongholds in the north and south. Anyone who opposed the dominant group in the north were taken to the arenas and killed. In retaliation for their people’s slaughter, Arena 3 in the south turned the public execution of rebels into a vicious game. It was a form of retaliation for what was happening to their sympathizers in the north. The north responded with more bloodshed, turning the arenas into perverse battlegrounds. This all had the effect of making the arena places for survivors to congregate. As more and more people died and the different sides slowly obliterated one another, the arenas became the central hub of the remaining cities, and the survivors who’d gone there had a choice: join the brutal new societies or die.
I remember the moment back in Arena 1 when I’d been offered the opportunity to join them. I’d chosen to face death instead. I wish others had been as strong when the moment counted. Perhaps if they had, the cities wouldn’t have gotten such a strong hold over what remained of civilization.
The General moves over to another board, this one showing a picture of a small electronic device.
“This is the GPS tracker which needs to be placed in each of the arenas in order to guide the bombs. Once detonated, they will completely eradicate the arena and the city around it entirely. Over a hundred thousand people will die in each attack.”
The thought of all those deaths makes my stomach turn. But I also know it’s a necessary evil. Fighting war with war doesn’t sound like it makes much sense but I understand why it has to be this way.
As the conversation turns to strategy and how, exactly, we can get the GPS devices inside, I am hit by a sudden moment of clarity.
“Send me into the arena,” I say, before my brain has even had time to catch up to my mouth.
Silence falls. Everyone looks at me. I can feel their eyes burning into me.
“I’m sorry?” the General says. I can almost hear the derision in his voice. He’s wondering what a seventeen-year-old girl can do in an arena built for slaughter.
“I’ve fought in them before,” I add. “They’ll all know my name, all recognize my face. I’ll be able to walk right in there. Everyone will want to see me fight. I’ll be able to draw every single person in the city into one place. Once I’m there, I can activate your GPS device.”
It’s my dad who speaks first. “How will you get back out again?” he says.
I can feel my hands trembling. I don’t want them to. This is my moment, I have to be brave so that everyone knows I can do this.
“I’ve done it before,” I say.
I can tell Dad is growing tenser. “That doesn’t mean you can do it again,” he says.
“I know. And if I can’t, you’ll just have to blow the place up with me still inside.”
There’s a perceptible change in the atmosphere as everyone realizes what it is I’m offering. Instead of sending a group of soldiers into the city and risking all their lives, I’m offering to infiltrate, to allow myself to be caught. I’m offering to return to the worst place I’ve ever had the misfortune of entering in my entire life, without the guarantee of coming out the other end, just for their cause. I can feel the respect of the soldiers in the room begin to build.
“You don’t have to do this just to prove a point, Brooke,” my dad is saying.
I shake my head. “I’m not,” I say. “I’m doing it because I can. Because I’m the best person to do it. You said we get one chance, that we only have enough weapons for one attack. So let me draw everyone to one place. It will increase our chances of success, won’t it?”
My dad can’t argue against me. He knows I’m right.
“Let me do this,” I say again, firmly. “It’s the right thing to do. If we don’t take these cities down, if we don’t eradicate the arenas and the slaverunners, then survivors will keep being tortured and enslaved. Children will keep being taken for the mines, for the sex trade.”
My voice falters as I think of Ben’s brother whisked away on a train for the mines beneath Grand Central. I have to do this for him, and for everyone else who died because of this stupid, brutal war.
I can tell I have the support of the rest of the soldiers. But I’ve put my dad in a difficult position, because now he has to fight between his heart and his head. He has to decide whether to listen to the father in him who is inevitably telling him not to let his daughter do this, or the commander in him who knows this is the best chance they’re ever going to get.
Eventually, he stands, having made his decision.
“Brooke’s right,” he says. “She’s in by far the best position to infiltrate Arena Three.”
And with that, I have sealed my fate. For the third time in my short life, I am heading back into the arena.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
I’m raring to go, but the doctor tells me I have to wait a week until I can go on any missions at all. My body was so badly damaged from the time I spent in the desert, I will need to give it time to recuperate. I spend the days in the hospital with my friends, sharing memories of those we lost along the way. I know none of them want me to leave, to do what I have to do, but they know better than to argue with me. If I die on this mission, it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Finally, the day comes when I am to leave. Dad has been in communication with the other compound in Massachusetts in order to coordinate our efforts. The time is now. Today is the day the world will be reborn.
I stand in the meeting room deep beneath the compound, the walls lined with blueprints and strategic maps. For the first time, I am wearing my US Marine Corps uniform. I feel a surge of pride to be standing before my dad in this uniform. Though he doesn’t show it on his face, I know he is proud of me too.
“There’s no need for you to take weapons,” Dad says. “Anything you take will be stolen by the slaverunners as soon as you’re captured. It’s better for them not to get their hands on any weaponry. But I want you to have this, just in case you run into any crazies along the way.”
He holds out a knife. It is the same one I used back on Catskills Mountain, the one that helped keep me and Bree alive and fed for four long years. It was taken from me back in Arena 1. I hadn’t realized how much symbolic value I’d placed on that knife until now, as I hold its replica in my hands.
I stash the knife away and swallow down the emotion in my throat.
“This is your GPS chip,” Dad says, placing a small device securely in my pocket. “Once you’re inside the vicinity of the arena, activate it. It will be our signal to launch the bombs and the tracker inside will guide them to the right spot. Then you’ll have five minutes to get out. So as soon as it’s activated you need to get the hell out of there. Do you understand me, Brooke? No matter what happens, don’t let them take you into the arena to fight.”
I understand what he’s saying. If I end up fighting in the arena, there’s no way I’ll make it out in five minutes. I’ll be at the mercy of whatever fighters they decide to throw at me. It would be a suicide mission. I pray it doesn’t come to that, but I also know I’m willing to give myself up if it does.
It’s time to go. I begin the long walk through the underground corridors, then I’m up into the compound, surrounded by trees and vegetation. It feels so strange standing in this beautiful Eden in a military uniform. That war must exist for peace to prevail is a concept I can hardly wrap my head around.
Up in the compound, my friends have been allowed out of the hospital to see me off. Ryan has shaved his head again, and he gives me his confident, cocky smile. For the first time in a long time, he looks like the Ryan I first met at Fort Noix, the only difference being the sling around his arm and the absence of Jack.
Charlie has bounced back to full strength remarkably. I hug him goodbye, knowing that Flo is watching down on us, grateful that I have gotten him this far.
Ben is still weak from our or
deal. He was always the gentler, more sensitive of us, and it stands to reason that the toll the desert took on his body would be greater than the toll it took on mine. I feel bad for leaving him when he’s still vulnerable, but I know Ben can look after himself, even if his mournful blue eyes are silently pleading with me not to go. Like always, the words we want to speak to each other seem bound up, tied in our throats. Ben and I always struggled to talk about the shared experiences we’d been through, and I vow in that moment that if I make it out of the arena alive, I will open up to him about everything. But for now, I take his hand in mine, noting how the skin has become soft again thanks to a week resting in the hospital, and press a kiss onto the back of it, just like he did with me when we first parted ways all those months ago. Back then he went off searching for his brother, while I went after Bree. Now we’re parting ways again, united in our goal, knowing that the whole future of the world is resting on my shoulders.
Then it’s only Bree and Dad left to say goodbye to. Bree is holding onto Penelope, clutching her against her chest. She looks like a little girl again, like the seven-year-old I raised on the mountainside, the girl who relied on me for everything. It’s as though being back in our dad’s presence has allowed her to regress. She can claim back those childhood years she lost again. I wish I could do the same.
I bend down so my eyes are level with her and Penelope. I address the one-eyed dog first, rubbing her behind the ear.
“Take care of Bree while I’m gone,” I say.
Penelope tips her head to the side as though she’s taking in everything I’m saying. Then she licks Bree’s face, lapping up the salty tears that are rolling down her cheeks.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Bree stammers. “I wish there was another way.”
“I know,” I say. “So do I. But this is the last fight, Bree. After this, the world will begin to heal again. I’ll be able to heal again.”
She doesn’t say what we are both thinking; that there is a chance I might not make it back at all.
