Arena Three

My grief is all consuming. It hurts so much my stomach aches. It’s more painful than the blisters, than the gnawing starvation. It’s more painful than the car crashes and the arena fights, than the snake bite and the slavers’ whips.

I fall back against the hard, cracked desert ground, feeling completely defeated, and let my eyes close.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Brooke. Brooke, wake up.”

My eyelids flutter open. I’m flat on my back on the parched earth. I can’t feel any pain at all; my whole body is comfortably numb.

There’s a blanket of stars above me. I squint, trying to work out who it is standing before me. But it’s impossible. The person is nothing more than a silhouette.

“Who are you?” I manage to say.

My voice is no longer parched. My tongue isn’t swollen, nor are my lips dry and cracked. But it’s still hard to get my words out. It’s like I can’t move, like I’m more than just numb, but paralyzed.

“It’s me,” the voice replies.

But I can’t place it. It sounds like a hundred different voices in one. I can’t even tell whether it’s a man or a woman.

I don’t know whether I’m dead or alive, awake or dreaming. All I know is that the pain has gone. I’m filled with peace and tranquility. My eyelids are so heavy, I could easily just fall back to sleep.

The person reaches out and touches my cheek with their fingers.

“Don’t fall asleep, Brooke. Not now. Not yet.”

As I finally place the voice, my heart clenches. Because it belongs to Rose. I can’t make out her features in the darkness, I can only conjure a memory of what she looks like.

“How did you get here?” I stammer, confused by her presence.

“You brought me with you,” she replies, touching my heart gently. “I’m in here.”

As her hand presses into my chest, I realize that it’s not Rose sitting beside me anymore. It’s Flo.

“Thank you for looking after him,” she says. “For taking care of Charlie all this time.”

“Flo?” I stammer.

“I don’t blame you, Brooke,” she says. “You did everything you could for me.”

She reaches down and presses a kiss to my forehead. But as she straightens up, it’s no longer Flo. It’s my mom looking down at me.

Disorientated and slightly panicked, I try to shake my head. My heart is fluttering, my breath coming in short, anxious gasps.

“Mom, I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I know,” she whispers. Then she repeats the words Flo said a moment ago. “I don’t blame you, Brooke. You did everything you could for me.”

Emotion begins to well inside of me. All these people, all my dead friends, my mom; it’s like they’re saying goodbye.

I try to reach out for my mom, to touch her and feel her hand in mine, but I can’t move at all. Even as I struggle against whatever invisible force is keeping me paralyzed, I can sense that the person has transformed again, that it’s no longer my mom sitting beside me.

“We would have made a good team, you and me,” the voice says.

It’s instantly recognizable as Logan’s. I gasp, but I can’t see his face. How I wish I could look into his eyes one last time.

“You can let me go now, Brooke,” Logan says. “You can be with him.”

“With who?” I stammer.

“With whomever you choose.”

I try to reach out for Logan but my arm feels like it’s pinned to my side. I can’t move at all.

“I don’t want to choose,” I say. “I can’t. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Then let fate decide,” he says. “Like it did with us.”

I don’t know what to make of his words, but it’s too late to try and decipher their meaning. His silhouette is moving, standing up and leaving an empty, yawning space beside me. Starlight illuminates the figure but doesn’t show me any of his features. I don’t want him to leave but I can’t stop him. I watch helplessly as he paces across the desert ground, leans down, and picks up Molly in his arms.

“No!” I shout. “Don’t take her! Please!”

But Logan doesn’t listen. He holds Molly’s limp body in his arms. Her hair splays over and swings in the breeze as he starts to walk away. Jack the dog trots along beside him.

I watch helplessly as they disappear into the distance. My heart aches. I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, but wherever my mind is right now, I know my body is giving up. This is what dying feels like. Like floating and falling all at once. Like a horrible, dark chasm opening up inside of you. I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to die here. But I don’t think I get a choice. The fight is leaving me.

As I lie there, my weak arm gesturing in the direction Logan went, I see something else coming toward me. Another ghost? Another person from my past come to haunt me?

The person is drawing closer and closer. When they reach me, I notice that they’re wearing army fatigues. They bend at the knees, and shadows judder against their face, obscuring their features.

“You can do better than this, soldier,” the voice says.

It’s my dad’s voice. I recognize it instantly.

“I can’t go on,” I say. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”

“Not on my watch, soldier.”