She scowls back, meaning every word of it.
I am surprised by her response. I’ve never met such a hard person; she’s harder than Logan ever was.
“ We’re not running a charity here. It’s every man for himself. And if I have to kill each one of you in the games, I will,” she says. “Don’t think that you’re getting on my good side.”
“ I don’t even know what the games are,” I say.
She stares back, cold. “You will.”
“ Don’t be so mean to them, Flo,” Charlie says.
“ What games?” Ben asks, stepping forward.
She surveys him, looking him up and down, coldly summing up the competition. She looks like she decides he isn’t worth the bother.
“ The reason we’re down here,” she says. “We’re bait. Everyone dies.”
“ Except for you!” Charlie chimes in proudly. “Tell them! She’s the only who ever survived. This is her second go.”
I survey her with a new respect. Somehow, I’m not surprised.
But her scowl only deepens.
“ I’m not stupid enough to think that means I’ll survive again. The new arena starts tomorrow. They’ll watch us kill each other, until they’re satisfied. Winning didn’t get me anywhere. I’m right back here, where I started. There is no prize for the winner. Just a prolonged death.”
“ What about escape?” I ask.
She stares at me as if that’s the dumbest idea in the world.
“ Don’t you think if it was that easy I would’ve done it already?”
We stand there, in the gloomy silence, and I ponder this news. It is bleak. She’s right: if there were a way out, I’m sure she would have found it. We are stuck.
“ Or someone else would have,” Flo adds. “They bring in this riffraff by the trainloads. This rooms is always filling with them. I hate them. I hate them all. They’re so stupid. They don’t realize what’s ahead of them. Some of them try to escape. They don’t get far. It doesn’t really matter: we’re all going to do either way. In here or out there.”
I look over and see Charlie sneaking behind his sister; he reaches out and hands Bree something furtively. She reaches out and grabs it.
“ Charlie don’t!” screams Flo, slapping his hand hard. But it’s too late. He is caught red-handed, as he gives Bree a small piece of chocolate.
“ What’s the matter with you!?” she snaps at him.
“ I just want to give her a small piece,” he says.
“ These people don’t care about us,” she scolds.
Charlie looks down, in shame.
You’re wrong, I want to say. I do care about you. And especially about Charlie, who I already love like a brother. I will have a soft spot in my heart for him forever for helping us, and for giving Bree that piece of chocolate. Your heart has become too hard, I want to say to her. You might be surviving, but you’re already dead inside.
But I don’t say any of these things, because I recognize a part of myself in her. And it scares me. She is almost like the version of myself that I might have become, if I stayed along such a hard road. I remember what happened when I helped that man back on the Hudson, and a part of me gets her, and respects her-yet dislikes her at the same time.
“ You can have it back,” Bree says, reaching out to hand it to Flo.
Flo looks down at her, and for a millisecond, I think I see her expression soften.
Then it hardens again.
She turns her back, grabs Charlie, and yanks him around, to walk away with her. They disappear, towards a darker side of the cavernous room, clearly signaling that her time with us is done.
I watched him walk into the blackness, already missing Charlie, already feeling as if we’ve lost a friend.
Bree turns and holds out the chocolate to us all.
“ You guys share,” she says.
Ben shakes his head, and I shake mine, too, despite the pain in my stomach.
“ It’s yours,” I say.
“ Logan, what about you?” she asks. “You have to eat something.”
“ That’s a good idea,” I echo, and Ben and I each prop him up.
He looks back at her weakly and shakes his head.
But Bree breaks off a piece of her piece, and puts it in his mouth. She shoves it into his mouth, and he chews. His eyes light up, for the first time in days.
“ That’s the best chocolate I ever had, kiddo,” he says to her.
My heart breaks at the sound of his voice, to hear how weak he has become. I think of the irony: we have come all this way because of him, and he sustained his injury while saving Bree. I feel awful. And Bree does, too.
“ I need to sit,” Logan whispers.
We all head to a far wall, dragging Logan with us. We find a spot against the stone where we can all sit, flickering beneath a torch, our backs to the wall. It is a good vantage point: we can survey the entire room, see what everyone’s up to, make sure no one sneaks up on us.
We settle in and wait, and a heavy silence blankets us. I can’t help but feel as if we are all waiting for our deaths.
We sit there, the four of us, our backs against the wall, looking out, watching. I don’t know how much time has passed. The activity in the cave seems to have quieted down, with most of the others sitting or lying down along the sides of the cave. Few people in here cross from one side to the other, interact with each other. Most are wary and cautious, and keep to themselves. I feel as if we’re in prison, and I trust no one. Especially after the reception we received.
I look over at Bree, sitting to my right, and Ben beside her. They each sit with their eyes wide open, looking shell-shocked. I look to my other side and see that Logan’s eyes are closed. His breathing is shallow, and I worry for him. I reach out and brush the hair from his eyes, place my hand on his forehead. He is cold and clammy. He groans from the pain.
“ Shhh,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”
I look down at his leg, see his wound festering, and wish there was something I could do. Some medicine, antibiotics-bandages, at least. But I have nothing. I remember the time he nursed me back to health, in the city, when I was so sick. He brought me back. He found me medicine. I feel terrible that I can’t reciprocate.
I run my hand again and again over his forehead, trying to soothe him.
Slowly, his eyes flutter open. He looks at me. Weakly, he smiles. Then he closes his eyes again.
“ You’re not half bad,” he whispers, eyes closed.
I can’t help but smile back.
I feel Ben looking over at us; I can’t help but feel that he is jealous that I’m giving Logan all of this attention. I don’t want him to be. And I do have feelings for Ben. But I can’t ignore Logan in his time of need either.
I lean back and close my eyes for a minute and wonder how we got here. I can’t believe that I am in this position once again, about to enter another arena. I messed up somewhere along the way. I try to think of what I could have done differently. I should’ve been more careful, more guarded. Maybe we never should have stopped at my dad’s after all. Maybe if we stayed on the river, like Logan said, if we never stopped, things would have gone differently. Maybe we just had to keep going. But to where? That’s the million-dollar question. There seems to be nothing left in this world. Nothing, except for violence and evil and arenas, clustering in what’s left of the big cities. This is what our society has come to.
I get another sharp hunger pain, and I am feeling lightheaded. I’ve never been this hungry in my life, and I seriously don’t think I can make it through the night without another meal.
As I’m thinking this, a set of boots appears before me from out of the shadows. A large teenager, maybe 19, broad, stocky, stops before us. He looks down, puts his hands on his hips, as he looks us all over carefully. He especially looks Bree over, up and down, as if she is a thing of prey. He smiles, an evil smile.
