by Morgan Rice
I turn to see the boy standing there, holding the knife.
“ They’re just trying to raid you. To take what they can. And to test you. After all, you’re their competition. They want to show you who’s boss.”
“ Competition?” Bree asks, stepping forward.
I can see by the way she’s staring at this boy that she likes him. And I can see by the way he stares back that he likes her, too. He lowers his knife.
I hurry over to him. “Can I borrow that?” I ask.
He looks at me warily, reluctant to let his weapon go.
I gesture to Ben and Logan, still tied up on the ground. The boy turns, not wanting to give up his knife, and instead hurries over to them himself and cuts their ropes.
Ben quickly gains his feet; he is shaken, but not hurt badly. Logan, though, just turns over. I can see from the pain in his face that is unable to make his feet. His swollen leg looks worse.
It is warmer in here, much warmer than outside. With all the body heat in this room, and all the torches, it must be close to 60 in here. I welcome the reprieve; we need to thaw out. It’s not good for Logan’s leg, though. I can’t help but think of Rose, of how she ended up. I pray to God the same fate does not await Logan. It’s so strange to look at him now, lying there, so helpless-when just days ago he was our beacon of strength, the backbone of our mission.
“ Yes, your competition,” the boy continues, returning to Bree’s side. “Think you’re down here alone?”
“ Where’s here?” I ask. “Where are we?”
“ You’re in the cage, just like all of us. We’re the entertainment now. Tomorrow, the games begin. You’ll be in it, just like the rest of us. We’ll all die together.”
I turn and survey the room, look at all the faces. They’re all kids, teenagers, just like us. They’re all emaciated, survivors, rounded up from the countryside by the slaverunners. Some look sicker than others. Only a few of them are anywhere near fit. I realize with a sinking feeling that we are heading back into another arena, will soon be made to fight to the death. To kill one of the kids in this room.
I only spot one person who seems strong, and I’m surprised to see it’s a girl. About my age, my height-but with a more muscular build than me. In fact, she’s almost built like a bodybuilder. She wears tight, camouflage pants and a tattered green shirt, and for some reason she stands across the room, her back against a wall, and stares right at me with her big black eyes. It is a piercing, intense stare, and I wonder what I’ve done to get on her bad side. She looks like a formidable opponent.
“ Don’t be scared of her,” the boy says, catching my look. “That’s my sister.”
I turn look at the boy, and see no resemblance.
“ She’s just watching out for me.”
I turn and look down at the boy, and remember how he helped us. I’m so grateful.
“ Thank you for saving us,” I say.
He smiles back and shrugs. He is cute, innocent, with his freckles across his nose.
Brooke approaches him. “Yeah, thanks,” she echoes.
He turns and looks at her, and smiles back, seeming to be transfixed by her.
She looks away, and I could swear that I see her cheeks flush.
“ Want to introduce us to your sister?” I ask.
“ Sure,” he says.
There’s a sweetness to this boy, a happy-go-lucky attitude, that surprises me, as if he is unfazed by all of this.
As we turn and follow him, Ben and I dragging Logan. Bree hurries up and walks alongside him.
“ What’s your name?” he asks her.
Bree turns and looks at me, as if for permission, and I nod back.
“ Bree,” she says. “What’s yours?”
“ Charlie,” he says, holding out his hand.
Bree waits a moment, then shakes it.
“ Charlie,” she says. “That’s a funny name.”
“ Why?” he asks.
“ I don’t know, it just is.”
“ My sister is going to be mad,” he says to me, as we get closer. “I’m just warning you. She gets mad when I talk to people. Especially if I help them. She wants us to keep to ourselves.”
We get closer, and she comes into view, standing beneath a torch: she stands against a wall, arms crossed, and with her sleeveless shirt, I can see her huge muscles bulging in her shoulders and arms. She looks like a rock, like part of the wall itself. She’s a humorless person, with a warrior’s face. The opposite of her little brother. He was right: she is scowling.
“ Get over here,” she snaps at Charlie.
He hurries over, and stands at her side, facing us.
“ Your brother saved us,” I say to her. “Thank you.”
“ He should’ve let you die,” she says.
She scowls back, meaning every word of it.
I am surprised by her response. I’ve never met such a hard person; she’s harder than Logan ever was.
“ We’re not running a charity here. It’s every man for himself. And if I have to kill each one of you in the games, I will,” she says. “Don’t think that you’re getting on my good side.”
“ I don’t even know what the games are,” I say.
She stares back, cold. “You will.”
“ Don’t be so mean to them, Flo,” Charlie says.
“ What games?” Ben asks, stepping forward.
She surveys him, looking him up and down, coldly summing up the competition. She looks like she decides he isn’t worth the bother.
“ The reason we’re down here,” she says. “We’re bait. Everyone dies.”
“ Except for you!” Charlie chimes in proudly. “Tell them! She’s the only who ever survived. This is her second go.”
I survey her with a new respect. Somehow, I’m not surprised.
But her scowl only deepens.
“ I’m not stupid enough to think that means I’ll survive again. The new arena starts tomorrow. They’ll watch us kill each other, until they’re satisfied. Winning didn’t get me anywhere. I’m right back here, where I started. There is no prize for the winner. Just a prolonged death.”
“ What about escape?” I ask.
She stares at me as if that’s the dumbest idea in the world.
“ Don’t you think if it was that easy I would’ve done it already?”
We stand there, in the gloomy silence, and I ponder this news. It is bleak. She’s right: if there were a way out, I’m sure she would have found it. We are stuck.
“ Or someone else would have,” Flo adds. “They bring in this riffraff by the trainloads. This rooms is always filling with them. I hate them. I hate them all. They’re so stupid. They don’t realize what’s ahead of them. Some of them try to escape. They don’t get far. It doesn’t really matter: we’re all going to do either way. In here or out there.”
I look over and see Charlie sneaking behind his sister; he reaches out and hands Bree something furtively. She reaches out and grabs it.
“ Charlie don’t!” screams Flo, slapping his hand hard. But it’s too late. He is caught red-handed, as he gives Bree a small piece of chocolate.
“ What’s the matter with you!?” she snaps at him.
“ I just want to give her a small piece,” he says.
“ These people don’t care about us,” she scolds.
Charlie looks down, in shame.
You’re wrong, I want to say. I do care about you. And especially about Charlie, who I already love like a brother. I will have a soft spot in my heart for him forever for helping us, and for giving Bree that piece of chocolate. Your heart has become too hard, I want to say to her. You might be surviving, but you’re already dead inside.
But I don’t say any of these things, because I recognize a part of myself in her. And it scares me. She is almost like the version of myself that I might have become, if I stayed along such a hard road. I remember what happened when I helped that man back on the Hudson, and a part of me gets her, and respect
s her-yet dislikes her at the same time.
“ You can have it back,” Bree says, reaching out to hand it to Flo.
Flo looks down at her, and for a millisecond, I think I see her expression soften.
Then it hardens again.
She turns her back, grabs Charlie, and yanks him around, to walk away with her. They disappear, towards a darker side of the cavernous room, clearly signaling that her time with us is done.
I watched him walk into the blackness, already missing Charlie, already feeling as if we’ve lost a friend.
Bree turns and holds out the chocolate to us all.
“ You guys share,” she says.
Ben shakes his head, and I shake mine, too, despite the pain in my stomach.
“ It’s yours,” I say.
“ Logan, what about you?” she asks. “You have to eat something.”
“ That’s a good idea,” I echo, and Ben and I each prop him up.
He looks back at her weakly and shakes his head.
But Bree breaks off a piece of her piece, and puts it in his mouth. She shoves it into his mouth, and he chews. His eyes light up, for the first time in days.
“ That’s the best chocolate I ever had, kiddo,” he says to her.
My heart breaks at the sound of his voice, to hear how weak he has become. I think of the irony: we have come all this way because of him, and he sustained his injury while saving Bree. I feel awful. And Bree does, too.
“ I need to sit,” Logan whispers.
We all head to a far wall, dragging Logan with us. We find a spot against the stone where we can all sit, flickering beneath a torch, our backs to the wall. It is a good vantage point: we can survey the entire room, see what everyone’s up to, make sure no one sneaks up on us.
We settle in and wait, and a heavy silence blankets us. I can’t help but feel as if we are all waiting for our deaths.
We sit there, the four of us, our backs against the wall, looking out, watching. I don’t know how much time has passed. The activity in the cave seems to have quieted down, with most of the others sitting or lying down along the sides of the cave. Few people in here cross from one side to the other, interact with each other. Most are wary and cautious, and keep to themselves. I feel as if we’re in prison, and I trust no one. Especially after the reception we received.
I look over at Bree, sitting to my right, and Ben beside her. They each sit with their eyes wide open, looking shell-shocked. I look to my other side and see that Logan’s eyes are closed. His breathing is shallow, and I worry for him. I reach out and brush the hair from his eyes, place my hand on his forehead. He is cold and clammy. He groans from the pain.
“ Shhh,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”
I look down at his leg, see his wound festering, and wish there was something I could do. Some medicine, antibiotics-bandages, at least. But I have nothing. I remember the time he nursed me back to health, in the city, when I was so sick. He brought me back. He found me medicine. I feel terrible that I can’t reciprocate.
I run my hand again and again over his forehead, trying to soothe him.
Slowly, his eyes flutter open. He looks at me. Weakly, he smiles. Then he closes his eyes again.
“ You’re not half bad,” he whispers, eyes closed.
I can’t help but smile back.
I feel Ben looking over at us; I can’t help but feel that he is jealous that I’m giving Logan all of this attention. I don’t want him to be. And I do have feelings for Ben. But I can’t ignore Logan in his time of need either.
I lean back and close my eyes for a minute and wonder how we got here. I can’t believe that I am in this position once again, about to enter another arena. I messed up somewhere along the way. I try to think of what I could have done differently. I should’ve been more careful, more guarded. Maybe we never should have stopped at my dad’s after all. Maybe if we stayed on the river, like Logan said, if we never stopped, things would have gone differently. Maybe we just had to keep going. But to where? That’s the million-dollar question. There seems to be nothing left in this world. Nothing, except for violence and evil and arenas, clustering in what’s left of the big cities. This is what our society has come to.
I get another sharp hunger pain, and I am feeling lightheaded. I’ve never been this hungry in my life, and I seriously don’t think I can make it through the night without another meal.
As I’m thinking this, a set of boots appears before me from out of the shadows. A large teenager, maybe 19, broad, stocky, stops before us. He looks down, puts his hands on his hips, as he looks us all over carefully. He especially looks Bree over, up and down, as if she is a thing of prey. He smiles, an evil smile.
“ The new kids,” he states.
My anger rises, especially as I see how he looks at my sister.
“ What do you want?” I ask sharply.
Slowly, his smile drops.
“ All business, huh?” he says. “I like that.” He licks his lips. “Well, sweety, I came here to do you a favor. To make you a deal. You want food, right? You all do, right?”
He looks left to right, examining us.
“ Well,” he continues, before we can respond. “I’ve got some. Good food. Fresh fruit. A lot of it. As much as you can eat.”
I look over this creep: he is broad and stocky and looks well fed, much better fed than the others. He looks strong, a fierce opponent. And shady, slimy. I hate the way he licks his lips at me.
“ Like I said,” I repeat, an edge to my voice. “What do you want?”
He smiles.
“ I want to trade,” he says, his cold black eyes locking on mine. “Food for sex.”
I can’t believe it; I am too shocked to even respond.
“ You’ll do,” he says, looking at me. “I’ll bring you back in an hour, when I’m done with you, and I’ll give you enough food for all of you.”
As he smiles at me, proud of himself, I’ve never been more disgusted in my life. I want to get up and kick him, but it’s not worth the energy. Instead, I just turn my head, waiting for him to go back to the rock he crawled out from. He doesn’t even deserve a response.
But then, he turns and looks at Bree.
“ Or, if you give me a go with the young one here,” he adds, “I’ll give you twice the food.”
Something snaps in me, and without thinking, I react. I push up on my palms off the ground, swing back my leg, swing it across, and kick him hard behind both of his knees, sweeping them out from under him. He lands flat on his back, hard.
Without pausing, I jump to one knee, lean over him, and take my thumb and forefinger and dig them deep into pressure points on his throat.
He looks up at me, his eyes bulging, gasping for air. He grabs my hand, trying to remove it, but I have him pinned down, and the strength that overcomes me keeps him there. I think of what he said about Bree, and I want to tear him to pieces. I make him struggle for every breath.
“ I’m only going to say this once,” I growl, through clenched teeth. “You come near my sister again, or even look her way, and I’m going to kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.”
Slowly, he nods, and I let go. He sits up, gasping for air, then jumps to his feet and trots away.
He turns back and looks at me as he runs.
“ You’re dead!” he screams out, in a whiny voice. “Tomorrow, in the arena. I’m going to get you. You’re dead!”
And with that, he disappears into the darkness.
I turn and look at the others. Bree looks scared, and Ben sits there, fists clenched.
“ You okay?” he asks.
I nod back, breathing slowly, my heart still pounding. I lean over, and kiss Bree on the forehead.
“ Was he going to hurt me?” she asks.
“ Don’t worry, love,” I say. “No one’s ever going to hurt you. Not while I’m around.”
I slowly lean back, and I see Logan grinning at me.
“ Nice move,” he
says, his voice hoarse. “Of course, I would’ve swept him differently.”
I can’t help but smile back. I am about to answer, say something witty, but my thoughts are interrupted.
A loud buzzer sounds, and I look over and am surprised to see a huge hole open up in the ceiling of the cave. A bright spotlight shines straight down, and suddenly, all the other kids are on their feet, racing, running towards the light in the middle of the room. I don’t understand what’s happening-until suddenly, I see something fall from the ceiling, land on the floor. It pours straight down, and I don’t understand what it is. And then I realize: food.
Slop is being poured down, straight down to the dirt floor, buckets and buckets of it. It looks like oatmeal, and it hits the dirt floor with a splat.
It is gross-looking, but the other kids are racing for it, pouncing on it, grabbing it by the handful and shoving it in their mouths.
Up above, leaning down over the edge, are dozens of faces of humans, laughing at the spectacle. They throw more buckets in, and some of it lands on the backs of the kids as they eat on all fours. They laugh harder.
I waste no time. As gross as it is, it’s feeding time, and my stomach decides for me. Ben and Bree also jump to their feet, not needing any prodding.
We all rush to the center, and reach the pit of kids who are elbowing each other out of the way; I get closer, and people viciously elbow me left and right. After taking some hard bruises, I get to the center, get down on all fours, and grabbed a handful of the slop. I cram it into my mouth, and chew it.
It is slimy, and perhaps the grossest thing I’ve ever eaten. It tastes like raw barley, barely cooked. But it is food, and I grab handful after handful. I look over and see Ben getting a handful, but see Bree getting edged out. I grab a handful for her and put in her hand; then I grab two more and do the same.
As I’m looking over at her, I spot something: a few feet away is Charlie, on his hands and knees, grabbing a meal. He doesn’t see the person creeping up behind them-a skinny boy, maybe 16, with curly black hair and lots of acne. He creeps up behind Charlie, and in one quick motion, he reaches down and grabs the knife from his sheath.
He then raises it up high, and I see that he’s taking aim: he’s about to plunge it into Charlie’s back.
