Arena Three

Suddenly, our car’s shunted forward. I scream and grab hold of my seat as we jerk roughly around. Ryan fights to keep hold of the steering wheel, to keep control. But whatever hit us rams into us again. I can’t see through the bright light, I can’t tell what’s hitting us. But there’s no chance to work it out, because we’re hit again and suddenly we’re spinning, up and over, round and round.

Charlie and Bree are screaming as we spin. My body feels like it’s being hurled through the air.

Then, suddenly, my head slams against the window. I hear a crack. Before I get the chance to work out if it’s the glass or my skull, everything turns black.

PART THREE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I groan. My head is pounding. I manage to open my eyes a sliver. The daylight is stark and bright, making me wince. I realize my face is against a hard cement ground covered in sand.

Memories of the car crash come back to me in a rush. I sit up, startled. As I do, I hear the distinctive clinking noise of chains.

I look all around. I’m in a bare cell filled with other people. We’re all sitting on the dusty ground, chained to the wall. There’s a window set high in the bricks, letting in the blistering sunshine. We’re definitely still south, but where exactly is a question I cannot answer.

I notice Charlie curled up in a ball opposite me. He’s covered in the sandy-colored desert dust, but other than that, he looks like he got out of the crash unscathed. Then I see Bree slumped against a far wall, unconscious. There’s crusted blood all over her clothes and matted into her hair. My heart clenches at the sight of her. An instinct in me makes me reach for her and my chains jangle loudly as I move. But they hold me back, stopping me from reaching her.

“Brooke?” I hear someone whisper.

I look left. It’s Ryan. He’s one of the few prisoners who’s awake, and must have been drawn by the sound of my clanking chains.

I’m relieved to see him alive, and glad to know that everyone from our car made it out of the crash. But at the same time I feel frantic, desperate, and distraught. We’ve been captured. Again. Once more, my freedom has been stolen from me. And I have no idea what happened to the other car, to Molly, Zeke, Stephan, and Ben.

At the thought of Ben, my heart constricts. We parted on bad terms. What if that ends up being the last time I see him alive? How could I have let him get into the other car like that, with so much left unspoken between us?

There’s no time to dwell. Though my heart aches with worry over what could have happened to my friends in the other car, I have more pressing matters to deal with in the immediate moment: escape.

“Are you okay?” I say to Ryan.

He nods but he’s gritting his teeth and I know something is causing him pain. It’s then that I notice Jack isn’t with him. His trusty best friend, who has been by his side since forever, has been taken. I look back at Bree and realize that Penelope is missing too. Rage swirls through me at the thought of what might have happened to them.

“What are we going to do?” I say to Ryan.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Wait. See what’s what then come up with a plan.”

My stomach drops. I know all too well what’s what. I’ve been in this situation before. There’s only one thing that awaits us, and that’s an arena.

Just then, the sound of footsteps comes from the other side of the cell door. Then there’s a rusted, grinding noise as someone turns a key in the lock. The door swings open and bangs against the wall, making a cloud of dust whirl into the air.

Many of the prisoners who’ve been sleeping jerk awake. One of them is Charlie. He looks around, disorientated and panic-stricken. I catch his eye and nod to him, trying to reassure him. But his large, fearful eyes keep being drawn to the figure that just entered the room, a man dressed in a long, black robe, with a large hood that completely obscures his face.

“Morning, sleepyheads,” the man says in a thick southern accent. He uses a cheerful tone but I can hear the undercurrent beneath it, one that tells me this man is anything but friendly, that he is cruel and mean. “Who’s hungry?”

People begin to moan, stretching their hands out desperately for food. The other prisoners must have been survivors before they were kidnapped, living out in the harsh desert wasteland.

More people enter the room behind the black-clad man, all in similar attire. They’re carrying buckets. The buckets are dropped in front of us, one bucket to three or four prisoners. Breakfast. But when I look inside, I recoil. They’re filled with dead cockroaches.

“Come on, slaves, eat up!” the man cries sadistically. “We gotta get y’all strong for a day’s hard labor!”

I look up at him sharply, trying to make eye contact with him through the slit in his hood.

“Why don’t you just take us to the arena and get it over with,” I bark at him. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”