Morgan Rice: Arena Three

Up in the compound, my friends have been allowed out of the hospital to see me off. Ryan has shaved his head again, and he gives me his confident, cocky smile. For the first time in a long time, he looks like the Ryan I first met at Fort Noix, the only difference being the sling around his arm and the absence of Jack.

Charlie has bounced back to full strength remarkably. I hug him goodbye, knowing that Flo is watching down on us, grateful that I have gotten him this far.

Ben is still weak from our ordeal. He was always the gentler, more sensitive of us, and it stands to reason that the toll the desert took on his body would be greater than the toll it took on mine. I feel bad for leaving him when he’s still vulnerable, but I know Ben can look after himself, even if his mournful blue eyes are silently pleading with me not to go. Like always, the words we want to speak to each other seem bound up, tied in our throats. Ben and I always struggled to talk about the shared experiences we’d been through, and I vow in that moment that if I make it out of the arena alive, I will open up to him about everything. But for now, I take his hand in mine, noting how the skin has become soft again thanks to a week resting in the hospital, and press a kiss onto the back of it, just like he did with me when we first parted ways all those months ago. Back then he went off searching for his brother, while I went after Bree. Now we’re parting ways again, united in our goal, knowing that the whole future of the world is resting on my shoulders.

Then it’s only Bree and Dad left to say goodbye to. Bree is holding onto Penelope, clutching her against her chest. She looks like a little girl again, like the seven-year-old I raised on the mountainside, the girl who relied on me for everything. It’s as though being back in our dad’s presence has allowed her to regress. She can claim back those childhood years she lost again. I wish I could do the same.

I bend down so my eyes are level with her and Penelope. I address the one-eyed dog first, rubbing her behind the ear.

“Take care of Bree while I’m gone,” I say.

Penelope tips her head to the side as though she’s taking in everything I’m saying. Then she licks Bree’s face, lapping up the salty tears that are rolling down her cheeks.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Bree stammers. “I wish there was another way.”

“I know,” I say. “So do I. But this is the last fight, Bree. After this, the world will begin to heal again. I’ll be able to heal again.”

She doesn’t say what we are both thinking; that there is a chance I might not make it back at all.

I pull her into me, hugging her tightly. Over my shoulder, I catch sight of Charlie watching me. I know he’ll take care of Bree if I don’t return. She’ll have Charlie and Penelope and Dad. If there was any time for me to disappear from her life, it would be now.

I let go of her and straighten up before my own tears have a chance to fall. I can hardly bear to look into her sorrowful eyes, and so I don’t. I move along, pain swirling in my gut, and come face to face with my dad.

In unison, we salute.

“Commander,” I say.

“Good luck, soldier,” he says.

Then he reaches forward and pulls me into a tight embrace. “You can do this, Brooke,” he says into my ear. “I believe in you.”

“Thank you, Dad,” I whisper back.

And then there’s nothing left to do but to mount my motorcycle and head off into the desert, alone. I kick the engine to life and rev, making fumes spew out behind me. Then I’m off, heading away from the compound, away from the Eden my dad has created. I am leaving behind everything I care about.

I decide not to look back.

The Texas sunshine is blistering hot. It’s the height of midday and the sun’s rays are burning into me. Being back in the desert makes me uncomfortable. It brings back all those horrible memories, of the wild dog attack, of the slave city in the crater of Memphis. I try not to think about all that I’ve endured because it just serves to remind me that what I’m about to do is only the first step in reclaiming the planet. Ridding the world of slaver cities and crazies and mutated creatures will take far, far longer to do. Eradicating the arenas is just the catalyst needed to start that process.

I head west toward San Antonio, where Arena 3 is located. Remarkably, the road is still intact. It will barely take me three hours to reach the city. Which means that in three hours’ time, I’ll be heading back into an arena, back into the place of my nightmares. But for now, everything is peaceful. The road stretches on forever, seemingly into oblivion. There is nothing left of the civilization that once used this route. No gas stations at the side of the road, no fields growing crops. There’s just desert as far as the eye can see, and above it a cloudless blue sky. If there was anything that could make me feel insignificant, it would be driving along this road alone.

I have to remind myself that I am not insignificant at all. Right now, I am a very important cog in a machine that will change the course of the world forever. I know that elsewhere in the country, there are other soldiers like me, riding motorcycles alone down endless, straight roads, heading toward other cities and other arenas.

As time passes, I feel my anxiety growing. It’s forming a knot in my stomach. There is so much resting on my shoulders, the pressure is almost too great to handle. But then, all at once, I see San Antonio appearing on the horizon and a strange sense of calm settles over me. I feel like I was always meant to be here. I was always meant to do this. Every road I have traveled, every decision I have made, every person, crazy, and creature I have fought, every friend I have lost, it was all to take me to this exact place, this exact moment. I am about to face my destiny.

Then I see it, appearing out of the distance. Arena 3. It is enormous, rising up from the ashes of the city that once thrived here, casting a shadow over everyone who still lives here. Light glitters off its metallic surfaces. It is by far the most imposing arena I have seen yet.

But my time to dwell has come to an end, because all at once, as though appearing from nowhere, several motorcycles appear and surround me. Their riders are dressed all in black and they each have gun trained on me. Slaverunners.

I kill the engine of my bike and slowly get off, my hands raised into a truce position. I’m surprised by how completely calm I am. My heartbeat has hardly increased at all.

The slaverunners approach me cautiously, as though expecting me to pull a weapon out. But when they frisk me, all they find is the knife. Once again, my Marine Corps branded weapon is stolen from me. This time, I know I will get it back again. I will survive. Because I’m not doing this alone; I have a whole army behind me. Somewhere back in Houston a red light on a machine is relaying my GPS’s coordinates back to a room full of soldiers.

“What have we got here then?” one of the slaverunners says to me.

“My name is Brooke,” I say. “I’m a fighter. The only person to have survived Arena One.”

The slaverunner raises his eyebrows as though in disbelief. “Is that so? A slight little thing like you?” His face is so close to mine I can smell his breath.

I set my jaw firm. “You could’ve asked their leader if I hadn’t killed him.”

There’s a murmur around the rest of the slaverunners. News of my victory over the leader in Arena 1 must have filtered down south. The man questioning me frowns, studying my face.

“What are you doing here?” he says. “How’d you make it all the way to Texas if you were fighting in Manhattan?”