“It’s nothing,” I say, not knowing whether I can trust her.
“Looks like something to me,” comes her reply.
I deliberate whether to tell her more. But then I remind myself that I’m not here to be polite or friendly. I have a mission and nothing should be distracting me from it, even if that something is just a light-hearted conversation with an old woman.
As I’m feeling my way in the gloom along the perimeter wall, I pray the other survivors don’t suss out what I’m doing, or haven’t been drawn to my movements by the nosy old woman. I can’t trust anyone, not even people who in other circumstances would be on the same team as me. I feel guilty knowing that my actions will be causing their deaths, but I have to remind myself that they’d all be dead anyway. At least this way, other people elsewhere will get to live. I shouldn’t have to turn them into martyrs, but I have no choice.
As I’m searching for a strategic place to prepare for my attack, I start to hear something that piques my suspicion. It sounds a lot like the distant shouts of a crowd. I listen intently, straining to hear over the sounds of the other prisoners shuffling around in the cell. It is unmistakable. I can hear the sound of an approaching crowd, their cries for blood growing louder and louder and louder.
The old woman who’d spoken to me before must hear it too.
“Must be a special event,” she says. “There ain’t usually fights this early in the day.”
I want to ask her how she can even tell what time of day it is, since we’re in a completely dark cell without any way of seeing outside, but I have more important things to think about. A special event could only mean one thing: the slaverunners have announced my arrival. I knew I’d be a draw for the crowds but I didn’t realize I’d be such a draw that they would move the games forward to the middle of the day. I won’t get the evening to prepare at all. They’re holding a special fight, right here, right now.
A jolt of panic races through me. I’ve barely been here twenty minutes and already the plan is diverging off course. My escape route hasn’t been planned. I haven’t had time to figure out what I’m doing.
Suddenly I hear the sound of footsteps approaching from outside. They’re coming for me. The lock screeches as someone opens it from the other side of the door, then a slaverunner appears, a silhouette against the dim light coming from outside.
“Brooke Moore,” he says. I recognize his voice as the slaverunner who first captured me back out in the city. “You were right about you being a crowd pleaser. The second we said we had you, our leader called a fight. A special fight. You’re coming to the arena.”
I try to keep calm. Everything’s happening more quickly than I was expecting—it’s barely been four hours since I left Ryan, Ben, Charlie, Dad, Bree, and Penelope at the gates of the compound—but I have to keep my wits about me. I’m a soldier, a fighter, I can do what I have to do. The time is now. The moment has arrived.
The old woman begins to chuckle. “Oh, you’re the special event. Well, good luck to you.”
I turn and glare at her, at her wizened face. She’s missing all her teeth and her hands are gnarled.
But I don’t have time for anger, I have work to do. I reach into my pocket for the GPS device. But before my thumb hits the button, the woman screams.
“She’s got something in her pocket!”
Chaos breaks out in the cell as prisoners start panicking. I quickly press my thumb into the button, but in my trembling haste I can’t tell whether it fully activated or not. I don’t get a chance to double check; the guard is there in one second flat, wrenching my hand and the device out of it. I can’t see whether the red blinking light has been activated because the guard drops it on the ground and slams his heavy boot into it.
My insides drop like a ten-ton weight. If I didn’t manage to activate it before he destroyed it, the rest of the army won’t have seen my signal. They won’t know that the moment has arrived much sooner than anyone was anticipating. Even if they did pick up the signal, it would only have been for a split second. They could easily have blinked and missed it. And there won’t be anything to guide their missiles. They have one shot to hit their target and now they’re going to have to do it blind.
I’m so taken aback by the speed with which everything has changed, I don’t even have time to attack. The guard has already grabbed me roughly by the arms and is dragging me from the prison cell. Meanwhile, the sounds of the crowds above intensifies. I can hear their footsteps as they march above my head and take their seats. I’m being taken to the arena and there’s nothing I can do about it.
As I’m pulled from the cell, I narrow my eyes at the old woman who turned on me at the very last minute. I know she probably just wanted to survive another day, to not be the one called to fight today, but her callousness has ruined everything. That one decision to call me out might even have changed the course of the future of the world.
The cell door is slammed shut and I’m dragged, stunned, along the corridor. As I go, my calmness completely disappears. In its place comes a frantic, racing heartbeat, a whirring mind, and palms slick with sweat. It’s all gone wrong. My worst nightmare has been realized.
I’m heading for Arena 3.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Each one of my footsteps echoes as I am prodded along the corridor by the guard. My mind is a frantic blur. It is so dark down here with only the emergency lights to illuminate the path I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. It makes everything stark. I feel like I am walking into hell.
Slaverunners walk ahead of me and behind me. They must have gotten the lowdown on me. They know what I did in Arena 1, how I killed the leader there, and they’re not taking any chances.
The corridor bends, taking me away from the path that leads to freedom, steering me in the opposite direction, toward the jaws of death. I can hear the crowd above stamping their feet, chanting my name. Everyone wants to see me fight, but no one wants to see me survive. They all want to bear witness to my death.
I dig my heels in, my body not letting me move. A slaverunner comes up behind me and kicks me in the small of my back, making me take a stumble forward. I almost lose my footing. Because my hands are bound so tightly, if I fall, there will be nothing I can do to stop myself hitting the floor. I have no choice but to let myself be shoved onward.
Finally, the corridor opens out into a circular room.
“Stand there,” one of the slaverunner says, pointing at the ground.
I can just about make out a metal shape on the floor in the middle of the room. It looks like some kind of trap door.
As I step on it, metal cuffs wrap around each of my boots, sticking me to the ground steadfast.
“What is this?” I ask, frustrated to hear my voice trembling. “What’s happening?”
The slaverunners don’t get a chance to respond, because in that moment a circular panel opens up directly above my head. Stark daylight pours in through the hole above me, blinding me. I turn my head to protect my eyes from the glare. Along with the light, a blast of sound comes down the hole, so loud it’s deafening. It’s the chanting, screaming, braying crowd. At the same time, I feel someone fiddling with the cuffs around my wrists. They’re unlocking me. And that can only mean one thing.
All at once, the ground moves beneath my feet. The metal thing I’m standing on is beginning to rise. My hands are free but my feet are locked into the ground, making sure I don’t go anywhere. I rise slowly, the light blinding me. I want to cover my eyes but I know that within a matter of seconds I’ll be in an arena where anything could happen to me. I have to be alert, ready for anything they might throw at me.