Arena Three

For someone who has been alone for so long, he seems strangely jovial. I can’t help but think of Emmanuel in the castle on the Thousand Islands. Being alone has driven him crazy, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe because being crazy has made it possible for him to survive.

There’s ample space in the bunker part for everyone to get a place to sleep, though we leave our stuff upstairs in order not to crowd the room. We all huddle up together, full after eating jar after jar of provisions. Knowing we’re so close to Houston—just an eight-hour drive—has made us throw caution to the wind. We all know that once we wake up tomorrow morning, we’ll head out on the open road and reach our destination. With the radio to help guide us, there’s no way we can fail. That doesn’t stop me whispering a prayer under my breath. This world is brutal and unpredictable and I know that between now and tomorrow evening, anything could happen.

For the first time in a long time, we feel like we can relax, let our guards down just a little bit. The bunker feels so secure, not to mention being in the middle of literally nowhere. But feeling secure gives our minds the chance to process what’s happened. One by one, our emotions creep up on us. Zeke and Stephan are dead. So are Rose, Flo, and Logan. We’ve all lost so much, seen so much, fought for so long.

“Hey, Molly,” I say when I realize sleep won’t come to me. “What did you mean when you said we all had pasts?”

I hear her sigh in the darkness. “I meant that I was a bit of trouble when I was a kid. The hotwiring cars kind. My parents were going crazy because of me. I was always in trouble. Then the war came and they died. There’s nothing like being orphaned to make you clean up your act.”

Her words hang in the air. Silence falls in the cabin as we all process what she said.

“I lost my parents too,” Ryan says. “During one of the first airstrikes.”

I roll onto my side and look over at where his disembodied voice is coming from. It’s so dark that I can’t even make out his silhouette. I wonder if that’s the reason for his sudden candidness. In all the six months we were together in Fort Noix, Ryan never spoke about anything personal like his family or life before the war. I never asked because I figured he had a reason not to.

“But it was when my sister died that it was the worst,” he finishes.

“What happened to her?” Bree asks softly.

“She had an asthma attack. Can you believe it? With the war and the slaverunners and nuclear destruction it was her own body that killed her. She’d run out of medication and that was that. She was six years old.”

Six years old. The same age as Trixie.

“My brother was killed by slaverunners,” Ben says.

His voice is as clear as a bell. It’s the first time I’ve heard him truly admit his brother is dead. For a long time, he was clinging onto the hope that he was alive, but it seems that he’s finally accepted reality.

“You had a brother?” Ryan asked.

I think it’s the first time I’ve heard Ryan and Ben behave cordially to one another since they first met back at Fort Noix. Finally, they have something in common, something that can make them realize they’re not so different from one another, that they’re both on the same team.

“I did,” Ben says. “It’s how Brooke and I met. We were chasing the car that had Bree and my brother in it.”

“He was brave,” Bree said. “Right up to the end. He didn’t let the slaverunners hurt me. And he loved you. He said you would come for him.”

There’s a long silence.

“Thank you,” Ben finally says. I can hear the emotion thick in his voice.

“Flo wasn’t my only sister,” Charlie says suddenly. “I had two other ones, Daisy and Rebecca. Flo was the oldest. I was the youngest.”

“I didn’t know that,” I say into the darkness.

I can hardly believe we’ve all been beside each other so long without getting to know the fundamentals. It’s just another thing the war stole from us: socialization, communication, friendship. When your life is reduced to fighting and surviving, there’s never really a good time for a chat.

“That’s why Flo wanted me to be stronger,” Charlie adds. “She didn’t want me to get taken like they were.”

“Was it slaverunners?” Molly asks.

“Yes,” Charlie says. “Slaverunners.”

No one asks anymore. The very fact that we’ve even spoken feels like the beginning of a healing process has begun. It’s like we’ve stepped over some invisible line, broken down one of our guarded barriers. In this awful, terrifying world, opening up to each other about our pasts has been one of the scariest things we’ve done.