The Arena (Ultimate Soldier Book 1)

by Escalera, Tessa

  But she could go back, haul the ladder here and climb out. She had enough food to last for days. Maybe Katie would come with her. In a couple hours, she could be free of the Arena, free of the wolves...

  Lila stopped the train of thought short. There were far too many “ifs” to get excited just yet. It might not be a way out. There could be wolves on the outside as well. Or hostile people. No, this was something that needed more preparation than launching herself through the hole in the ceiling without a second thought.

  Swallowing back the thrill of hope in her throat, Lila reluctantly turned away from the sunlight and the breeze that smelled of honeysuckle and pine. She listened to the wind sighing through the trees, steeling her heart as she turned around and set off running back the way she had come.

  So Lila ran. She ran so fast that her feet ached from pounding against the hard concrete, and her breath was sharp in her chest. She ran, despite the sinking in her heart at every step that she took away from the sunlight, until the bobbing beam of the flashlight was the only illumination to guide her way. She hit the first branch, and then the second with barely a pause, tossing the backpack through the grate before sliding through. Seeker danced through in front of her and licked Lila's face. Lila managed a laugh and swatted at the dog playfully, switching the flashlight off and sliding it back into the pack.

  Katie was sitting by the fire, her face blotchy from crying. She jumped up as Lila approached, wiping her nose with the back of one hand. “I thought you got lost or something,” she said, managing to make the sentence sound accusatory.

  Lila was torn between sympathy and irritation at Katie's tone. “I haven't been gone that long,” she replied, dropping the backpack in the pile and walking over to the stream to gather more meat too cook. She could only ignore the complaints of her stomach for so long. She grabbed the pot, which she didn't fail to notice was now empty, and refilled it with the same ingredients as the night before. Setting the pot back on its rock, she crouched down next to the fire and poked it with a stick to coax the embers back to life. She sat on her heels, regarding Katie through the newly awakened flames.

  “I guess I should apologize.” Katie sniffed and swiped at her nose again. The words were so quiet that Lila barely heard them.

  “I guess you should.”

  Katie had opened her mouth, but shut it at Lila's tone. “I shouldn't have hit the dog.”

  “Seeker. And no you shouldn't.”

  “Seeker?”

  Lila gestured in the direction of the dog. “Hey!” She yelled when she saw Seeker in the stream near the deer meat, head half buried in the water. At the shout, Seeker's head popped up and the dog skipped away to the other side of the stream with a shoulder of venison in her mouth. Lila sighed and waved her hand at the dog. “Seeker. The dog is named Seeker.”

  Katie swallowed hard and nodded. “I shouldn't have hit Seeker. I wasn't really mad at her...”

  “She didn't know that.” Sure seemed like it to me, Lila added silently.

  A fresh tear rolled down Katie's cheek. “You have no idea what it's like,” she sighed.

  “What what's like?”

  Katie's head shot up, her eyes red and swollen. “Being betrayed!” She cried. “Having your own friends and family turn on you for no reason. You, with your freedom and no one to tell you what to do―you have no idea what it was like.”

  Lila thought back to how she had felt just a few short moments before. “I might have some idea.”

  “Oh? How's that?”

  “Nevermind.” Lila poked at the fire again, a little too vigorously. The stick she was holding cracked and she threw it into the middle of the flames.

  As quickly as it had come, Katie's anger disappeared and her shoulders slumped. She wiped her nose with one hand, cradling her belly with the other. “I'm all alone in the world, I'll never find my husband, our baby will be born in some primitive camp with no medical attention, that is if I even live long enough to have the baby...” Her voice was rapidly rising in pitch with each statement.

  “You aren't alone,” Lila interrupted, before the pregnant woman could completely dissolve into the hysterics that seemed to be threatening. “What you did to my friend has no excuse, but I won't abandon you over it.” It was like the words helped to cement her own thoughts even as she spoke. “I've searched and hoped and waited far too long to give up on you just because I don't like you very much. I'm not stupid―I'm not going to throw away help just because it isn't exactly what I wanted. I will help you when the baby comes, and maybe someday we will find your husband. You can't give up hope just yet.”

  “Why not? There's no reason to keep hoping.”

  Lila repeated one of Protector's favorite sayings. “Hope is refusing to give up when we have no reason to believe. If you have information, it is knowledge. Persistence without promise―that is hope. As long as you live, there is always hope.” Was it just her imagination, or did Katie's skin seem paler than normal?

  Katie shook her head. “You don't undersand,” she said, shaking her head weakly. “I'm living dead. A wolf bit me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wolf fever. The wolf bite contains the virus―no one ever survives the Wolf Fever.” Katie put a hand to her head.

  Lila wasn't imagining it―she was definitely paler than normal. “That's silly. I've lived in the forest for over a dozen years. If there was such a fever I think I would have caught it by now.”

  “You haven't been bitten.” Katie reached down to pull up her pant leg on the injured ankle.

  Lila gasped in revulsion when she saw the bite. Katie's entire ankle was severely swollen, an angry red color. The edges of the gash were an unnatural shade of gray. She jumped up and grabbed a scrap of cloth from the pile near the backpack. “I need to wash the wound again. You'll be fine.” She wet the cloth and dabbed at the wound, nausea clenching her stomach at the smell of infection. She tried to smile reassuringly, but was alarmed when she looked up to see that Katie's face was white and her hands were trembling.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don't feel―” Lila moved back when Katie suddenly turned to the side and retched violently. She stepped behind Katie and held her hair back away from her face. The spasms wracked Katie's body until her stomach was empty, until finally she turned away and lay down on the grass bed, beads of sweat standing out on her forehead.

  Lila placed a hand gently on Katie's forehead and realized it was burning up. Despite this, and the muggy heat of the day, Katie began shivering so hard that her teeth chattered, still sobbing weakly. As gently as she could, she used the cloth to clean away the scabs until fresh blood began to flow from the wound, helping to carry the infection away. It took several trips to the stream to wash out the cloth before the injury was as clean as Lila could get it. Katie bit her lip and whimpered as Lila worked.

  “I'm sorry, I'm almost done.” Eventually Lila had to step back, knowing there was nothing else she could do. Despite her efforts, one glance at the sick girl was enough to tell her that it was unlikely that anything she could do would be enough to stem the infection. She had no medicine, she didn't even have any soap. There were a couple plants that she could find to bring down the fever, but that was it. She went to stand, intending to wash the cloth out in the stream, but Katie grabbed her arm.

  “I'm going to die.”

  “You are not going to die!” Lila exclaimed, squashing the thrill of fear at the thought. She didn't find another survivor just to lose her like this, and told Katie as much.

  “You can't do anything. Wolf fever leaves no survivors.”

  Lila was not one to allow the world to tell her that she couldn't do something. She leapt to her feet, throwing the cloth into the stream where it sat in a heap while the water rushed around it. She strode blindly toward the mouth of the tunnel, her heart pounding in her ears. There had to be a way. There was always a way. Just because everyone else had died didn't mean Katie had to―right? M
aybe it wasn't wolf fever after all. Maybe it was just exhaustion, or something to do with pregnancy. The wolf bite might just be a coincidence.

  But no matter how hard she tried, Katie's pale face and labored breathing showed the lie in Lila's thoughts. Lila walked back to the stream and picked up the rag, using it to clean the vomit from the concrete.

  “Promise me something,” Katie whispered. She took Lila's hand and guided it to her belly, where the baby was kicking away furiously. “Promise me.”

  Lila looked down at Katie's hand over hers. “Promise you?”

  Katie swallowed, wincing. “Promise me that when I die, you will save my baby. Two months early―he probably won't survive, but he has a greater chance with you than with me. You have to promise me that when the fever takes me, you will get him out in any way possible.”

  Now Lila felt like retching. “I'm not going to cut him out of you! I have no way to feed a baby, to clothe it, to care for it. A baby would never survive...”

  “Promise me!” There was desperation in Katie's eyes, and her hand clenched on top of Lila's. “Please.”

  Lila wanted to protest that Katie was going to be fine, that there would be no cutting or forcibly removing an infant from its mother. There would be no need. I can't... she thought, tears burning in her eyes at the thought of using her knife, so oft employed in skinning and gutting animals, to slice through the sinew and muscle of another human. A girl, just like her. Her stomach lurched and her heart pounded in her ears so loudly that she felt she couldn't breathe. But then she looked down at the pale face on the floor, the pleading in the dark eyes, and she knew she couldn't refuse. “I promise,” she whispered, one hot tear escaping to splash onto the fabric of Katie's shirt.

  Katie smiled wanly, closing her eyes and laying her head back on the bed.

  “But I'm going to try to keep you alive first,” Lila insisted.

  “Good.” Katie nodded almost imperceptibly, her hand going limp on Lila's. Her breathing was fast and shallow.

  Lila's own hands were shaking as she took the cloth back to the stream. The tremblign was so bad that she could barely rinse it. Her eyes blurred, and she thought she was about to pass out until more tears splashed onto the back of her hands.

  No, no, no! I can't. I just can't. She can't ask this of me! Lila was angry, at Katie for asking this of her, at the wolves for biting Katie's ankle, she raged against whoever had created the wolves and put them both in this situation. She left the cloth in the stream and stumbled into the sunlight at the end of the tunnel, collapsing to her knees near the edge. Her breath was sharp and short in her chest, her mind whirling with pictures that she desperately thrust away.

  There has to be a way. Lila wracked her brain for any solution, anything that she could use to keep Katie and the baby alive. She had nothing. The woods held nothing powerful enough to conquer this “Wolf Fever”, whatever it was. Protector said that necessity was the mother of invention, that a will made a way. There had to be something...

  The mansion. Lila recalled the sight of the storeroom in the mansion. The day they had walked out for the last time, deserting their safe home in search of food, she had looked back into the basement at the rows of empty shelves, bare of every can and package and jar of food they had once held.

  But there were shelves that had barely been touched. The aisle that held medical supplies―each metal shelf was still piled high with bandages, splints, and bottle upon bottle of medicine. Medicines that cured everything from headaches, to fever, to nausea or infection.

  Lila looked back at Katie's prone form near the fire. Did Katie have weeks, days, hours to live? It would take her days to make the trip. She might not even make it back before Katie succumbed to the fever that burned in her body. But she had nothing here, and if she stayed, there was nothing she could do.

  It's my only chance, Lila thought as she paced across the mouth of the tunnel. Katie's only chance. The fever burns hot and swift―she won't survive without the medicine. But what if Katie died while she was gone, and the baby with the mother? She had promised to save the baby by any means possible, as horrible a promise as that was.

  The more Lila thought, the more she knew that it was the only way. Katie moaned and writhed on the floor, crying out in pain. Whether asleep or unconscious, she no longer answered Lila's questions or touch. The fever burned so hot that Lila could feel it even through the fabric of Katie's clothing. The baby was still within the young woman's belly, barely stirring when Lila touched the purple fabric of Katie's shirt.

  It was this weakening of the babe that sharpened Lila's mind into a crystal clear decision. For her to find the mansion, and the medicine, was the only chance for either one. As soon as the thought entered her head she launched herself to her feet, grabbing the backpack and stuffing the apples and tubers into it. She pulled out enough meat for half a week, cooking it as quickly as she could. She ate the deer stew when it was done, then started another pot cooking. On the chance that Katie woke up enough to eat, at least there would be a little food.

  It wasn't until the meat was cooked and laid in the backpack along with the other food that Lila looked outside. Her heart sank when she realized that the sun was halfway between zenith and the horizon. It was midafternoon and would soon be night.

  Reluctantly, chafing at every moment she was forced to delay, Lila steeled herself to spend another night in the tunnel. There was no point in starting now. The air held the heavy scent of rain to come, and the storm clouds that sped from the west to meet the sun would bring the dark―and the wolves―even earlier than normal.

  As the sun descended behind the clouds, Lila checked on Katie, feeling more helpless than ever before. She placed a cloth soaked in cool water on Katie's forehead, and cleaned the wound as best she could, shuddering at the sight of the wound, with the purple lines of blood poisoning beginning to mar the skin on Katie's ankle.

  Afterwards, there was nothing she could do besides sit at the edge of the tunnel, one hand trailing in the stream and the other around Seeker's shoulders, watching the lightning flicker beneath the black clouds. A massive wolf stood on the edge of the forest, his eyes gleaming yellow in the deep twilight. As she watched, he lifted his muzzle to the sky and let out a low, mournful howl. Seeker whined, sniffing the air, her eyes not keen enough to see that far.

  “Shhh,” Lila whispered, laying her head against that of her friend. “It's gonna be okay.” She wasn't sure who she was talking to―Seeker or herself. As she watched, the wolf seemed to stare straight at her, before turning to vanish into the trees.

  Lila leaned back against the wall, laying her head on the cool concrete. Seeker curled up by her side. Lila alternated between watching Katie's uneasy sleep by the fire, and the lightning that lit up the sky outside. She was sure that she would never be able to sleep, and that dawn would come bringing with it the haze of exhaustion. The concrete was rough and hard, and the thick night air was cool without her blanket. She lay down on the floor, back against the wall. The first drops of rain struck the back of her neck, and she could smell the scent of wet concrete. She couldn't bear to move any closer to Katie and the fire―she might get rained on out here, but at least she had freedom at her back instead of the heavy feeling of sickness hanging over her when she was any farther inside.

  Soon enough, sleep claimed her in its grip and she surrendered to a night filled with uneasy dreams. At least this time the scenes were unknown, rather than her being forced to relive her worst memories in one night.

  Lila and Seeker waded upstream through a babbling rivulet of water that cut a path through the dense forest. Birds chirped overhead, flitting from tree to tree. The cool water was a welcome feeling on her feet, her only escape from the sweltering air. Seeker's tongue lolled out as the dog panted.

  After a few minutes of battling the underbrush, they came upon a clearing. In the center stood a large, sprawling building that was very familiar to Lila. It was the house she and Protector had lived in for
over ten years. It looked much the same as she remembered it, though the grass had grown much longer in the years she had been gone without Frostbite to keep the grass cropped short. The place looked strange without the dappled horse wandering around, lifting his head to whinny at her any time he saw her.

  There was something else strange about the house, though at first she couldn't place it. She spit and swatted when she got a faceful of the invisible spider web that stretched across the last two trees on the edge of the clearing, hoping she hadn't caught a mouthful of spider as well. It was then that she realized what was wrong. There was smoke rising from the chimney in the kitchen.

  The next scene faded in so quickly that Lila stirred and almost woke, but the dream pulled her back in. She was running at a grueling pace down a deer path through the woods, sweat pouring from her face and stinging her eyes. A full, heavy pack bounced on her back, the straps rubbing her shoulders raw. There was a massive urgency behind her flight, whether to or from something she did not know.