by Ana Mardoll
"No. Shut up and listen." I frown, panting to catch my breath, and look at Tony. "Maybe you should tell them."
He gives Matías a level look, ignoring the others. "The girls are going to escape. This cycle, at third meal. They want us to come with them. The healer told us." He takes a deep breath. "They think the big upcoming match isn't something we'll be allowed to survive: that our deaths are the whole point of it."
Matías looks unsteady as the blood drains from his face. "Do they have good reason to believe that?"
Tony shrugs and thins his lips. "One of them was on clean-up duty in the arena and overheard the Master talking; said he was setting up a big feast to eat all of us, if you can believe it. I guess he could've known she was there and set it up for her to hear, but it wouldn't make any sense for him to do that."
Reese stares at us. "So we're gonna go? Just like that? Has Diamond got a plan?"
"We have a list of stuff to bring," I tell him, laying out a sheet to spread food upon. "You think we can wrap everything in one bundle, Tony? Problem will be arranging things so we won't have to undo the whole pack if we want to take a bite off the top."
"Knot it up at multiple points, so a spill wouldn't lose everything," Tony advises. "And, yeah, just like that. The other new girl, the one they brought in with the healer, has a talent she thinks can get her through the doors. If so, they'll come and collect us; if not, they want us to make Handler open the doors."
Christian's eyebrows rise and he gives a low whistle. "Well, now. That's tempting."
"Capture," Matías says in a warning tone. "If we kill him, we're not getting through."
"Could kill him after," Lucas points out, looking thoughtful. "This is happening at third meal? Not a lot of time."
Reese hops to his feet. "Okay, what do we need to do?"
I hadn't realized how much I'd braced myself for an argument until my shoulders sag with relief. "Um. Weapons for everyone, doubled up because the girls want some for themselves. All the food and as much water as possible. And we'll need some poles to stretch cloth between so we can carry Justin."
"Wait, what?" Lucas looks up with a frown. "No, we're not taking him. That's ridiculous." Every eye in the cavern turns to stare at him and he bristles. "No! Are you all sun-struck? He's half-dead as it is, there's no way we can carry him to wherever we're going. Where are we going, anyway?"
Tony gives him a hard look. "The girl who opens doors is also a tracker. We're following her out. All of us."
Lucas' glare intensifies. "He's dying. Do you think it's better for him to die out there than in here, and slow us down while he's doing it? If we're going to run, we have one chance! This isn't practice, this is a real match, and if he was dumped into a match with any of us right now, we'd have to let him die." His head whips around to stare at Matías. "You know I'm right."
Matías takes a deep breath and his knuckles tighten on his cane. "We're taking him with us. I won't leave him behind to bear our punishment for leaving."
"We could kill hi—"
"No." Matías turns away, an air of finality in the set of his shoulders. "Keoki, take Reese to my room. I keep a stash of poles for cutting into canes as the old ones wear out. There should be a couple long enough to make a stretcher. Christian, you and Tony are on weapon duty. Lucas, help me with the food."
I take off at a trot with Reese's footsteps close behind me. Poles plus blanket equals stretcher, I think as we burst into the room. I'm strong. That's my talent, the thing I'm best at. I can take the brunt of the weight and Reese can take the other end.
These reassurances do little to distract me from a whirl of worried images: Aniyah's perfect face creased with pain, Sapphire's bruises glaring in the firelight, Miyuki's irritated told-you-so expression. She hadn't been right about Lucas—he agreed right away to go, with no thought of selling us out to Handler—but I'd never expected an argument over leaving behind one of our own.
"Hey." Reese's voice breaks through my thoughts as we sort through the poles by Matías' bed, searching for the strongest. "This is gonna work, right? All that stuff the healer said to you? What's her name again?"
I look up to find him watching me in the dim light, his eyes wide with hope. "Her name's Miyuki. She's friends with Aniyah, the pretty one. I think it will work, yeah. If Aniyah says she can do something, I trust her. We've just gotta do our part. Like taking care of Justin," I add, studying his face for a reaction.
He snorts and turns away, stripping the bed of its blanket for the stretcher. "Are you asking my opinion? I'd leave Lucas behind before I'd be okay with leaving Justin," he says, his voice firm. "Do you think one blanket can bear the weight, or should I get the one from my room, too?"
The blankets are so thin that we end up using three, liberating the one from my room to layer over the rest. We wind fabric around the poles, then cut slits through the blankets and loop a sheet through the cuts, fastening knots as we go. We could make a better one if we had more time, but this will do. We carry Tony in a lap around the cavern to test it before lifting Justin out of bed and onto his new stretcher.
"Where are we going?" Justin asks, looking up at me with bleary eyes. He doesn't seem entirely here and his skin is clammy, beaded with sweat. I try not to recall Lucas' earlier words.
"We're going somewhere better, dude. There's three girls for every guy there, and not just during Auctions. The food is amazing, too. So you gotta hang on tight and not fall out, okay?"
Tony seems less certain of my brilliant plan. "We're gonna have to lash him to the stretcher," he decides, peering at Justin with a frown. "If we're running, we don't want him to bounce off."
"We need to hide him," Christian adds, looking around the cavern. "Behind that column? If we lay him out flat at an angle, Handler shouldn't see him from the door."
Reese's brow furrows. "How are we going to jump him? If we crowd up near the doors, he'll see us and might not come in. We usually stay pretty far back when he brings food; he's too creepy to get close."
Matías stares at the doors, looking thoughtful. "It'll be third meal when he comes. Everyone's always drifting around at that point; washing off from practice, or taking a shit, or changing into clean clothes for bed. He won't notice if a few of us aren't in the main cavern. Tony and Lucas will hide behind those pillars. Reese and Keoki and I will sit out here pretending everything is normal. Christian, you'll sit with us, but—"
"Be ready to pop. Got it."
I'm surprised at how quickly Matías formulates plans and how easily the guys leap to their posts. They're used to working together in the arena, I realize, and Matías pounds it into them in practice. I'm the only one who's new at all this teamwork stuff.
Their honed cooperation produces a blur of activity. Weapons, food, and water are hidden by the doors. Tony and Lucas slip behind nearby pillars, and I keep an eye on Justin where he dozes fitfully. Reese sits on the floor and begins teaching me a game of carved stones; I can't concentrate but we appear busy. Christian lounges close by, looking bored as he repeatedly tosses and catches his knife in one hand. When Matías is satisfied with our deployment, he sits and carves a new cane from a fresh pole while we wait.
Time drags to a halt until I wonder if the Master knows our plans and has called off the ringing of bells until he decides how to deal with us. When we hear the screech of doors against stone, it's the most beautiful sound in the world. Handler pushes his cart into the cavern while the doors close behind him and I stare so intently at the stones in front of me that my eyes threaten to pop out of my head. "Teacher, come unlo—"
The sentence ends in a gurgle as I hear the tiny puff of air that signals Christian's movement. I whip my head up to see Handler just inside the cavern, his hands outstretched in placation. Tony presses a sword into his right side, while Lucas pokes Handler from the opposite side with a spear as long as my arm, tipped with a sharp metal blade. Christian grips the taller man from behind, holding a knife to his throat.
"We're
leaving," Matías says, stabbing his cane into the ground and pulling himself up. Reese and I rush to grab the stretcher, carrying Justin between us. "You're going to take us through the doors, Handler. Don't give us any trouble and we won't kill you."
"Understood." His voice is a low rasp and he holds perfectly still under Christian's blade save for a persistent tremble in his outstretched hands.
"Tony, pass out the packs," Matías orders, scooping up one of the bundles to sling over his shoulder. "Keoki and Reese, you guys have a good grip on Justin? Good. Let's go. Handler, get the doors."
Handler hesitates while Tony drapes a sling around my neck: a bundle of tied spears identical to the one Lucas carries, selected in the belief that the girls would have an easier time with those than with swords. "The Master will not like this," Handler warns, turning to face the doors as Christian and Lucas move with him. His hands are still shaking. "There will be resistance."
"We figured it wasn't gonna be easy," Christian drawls, keeping the knife on his throat as he moves. "Doors. Now."
"Yes." His words are soft as he extends his hands closer to the door and his head cranes forward in spite of the knife. "I need to be close."
A tremor ripples through his body as his words slur into a pained sigh. The doors shudder and a crack splits down the center, followed by the familiar strain of metal grinding against stone. A sudden chorus of girls' voices bursts through the sliver of air that expands between the doors.
"I can't hear a thing on the other side. Do you think—"
"Wait, it's opening!"
"Get the doors! Hold them!"
"Keoki!"
My heart jumps at the sight of Aniyah through the doorway and I have to remind myself not to drop the stretcher and run to her. "I'm here! We're okay; we got Handler to open the doors."
"I've got the door, Hana, if you wanna deal with the new Handler." The girl with fiery red hair slumps against one half of the iron doors, pinning her side open. "Seems fair, since I got the last one."
"Looks like I don't need to just yet. Where are our weapons?" Diamond—no, I must get used to calling her Hana—strides through the doorway, scanning the cavern with purpose. When her eyes land on my pack, her frown evaporates and she hurries over to grab the spears from my back. "These'll do," she decides, pulling one from the bundle and tossing the rest to the tall tattooed girl. "Sappho, hand 'em out."
"We don't need Handler any more, do we?" Christian points out, his knife sliding just far enough into his captive to bead with blood along the edge.
"Wait, we do!" Aniyah stumbles forward, one arm outstretched to stop Christian and the other digging into the small of her back as she pants for breath. "There's another door and a gate beyond it; don't kill him!"
Matías strokes his fingers along his cane, grimacing as he does so. "We'll have to tie him up. I don't want him trying anything and we need all hands for our packs."
Handler moves his outstretched hands to meet in midair in front of him, ignoring the knife teasing open skin at his neck. He still trembles and, when he clasps his hands together, one thumb begins to worry at a large mole on his wrist. Aniyah halts in front of him, her shoulders heaving as she gulps in air. At the sight of his hands, her eyes open wide and she gasps. Reaching out, she takes his hand in hers and peers at the mole.
Alarm is etched on Miyuki's face. "Aniyah! What are you doing?"
She ignores her, looking at Handler. "You're the one," she says, frowning deeply. "Aren't you? The Handler who hasn't been totally horrible. You helped me, when he wanted to sell Miyuki and I argued with him; and you warned me when you took me up to the stands."
Handler holds still under her touch, hardly seeming to breathe. Behind me, Reese clears his throat. "Um, I'm confused?"
"There's more than one Handler." The words are strained as the girl with glossy black ringlets and slender arms limps into the light. A network of dark burns has been cut over her beautiful face and her liquid brown eyes brim with fresh pain. Shit, how did that happen?
"That doesn't mean we're making friends with any of them," Hana warns, hefting her spear.
Aniyah doesn't let go of his hand, turning to the other girl with a pleading expression. "Hana, please trust me? I know. This one isn't bad."
"I can get you through the gate, but we have to hurry."
Shivers run down my spine at the sound of his voice. I shouldn't fear him—we have him captive and bleeding and soon to be tied—yet helpless as he is, he's as creepy as ever. I can appreciate Christian's eagerness to be done with him after having had to stand so close to that.
"C'mon, then," says Aniyah in a brisk tone that brooks no argument, grasping his hand to pull him forward. "Christian, put away that knife."
Christian stares at her for a long moment, then shrugs and takes a step back. She nods at him and pulls Handler along with her, the tall man almost stumbling from the sudden yank on his arm. Hana and Matías both set their teeth in similar grimaces, but they follow without complaint.
"He's right about one thing," Hana mutters, hefting the bag she carries as she jogs to catch up with them. "We do have to hurry. Come on!"
I look at Tony, but he just shrugs and follows. He hasn't put up his sword, though, and I'm pretty sure he could take out Handler in the time it'd take to blink if the terrifying man decides to hurt Aniyah. I don't like it, but I guess we don't have much choice.
"You ready, dude?" I look at Reese, who meets my gaze with a wide grin.
"Guess this is it," he says, his muscles tensing as he lifts his end of the stretcher. Justin moans in his sleep but doesn't stir from where we've strapped him. "Do or die, right?"
"Let's go for the 'do' part." I lift with him, feeling the tension in the poles as I do. The stretcher doesn't fall apart, but the strain in the wood as the poles bend tells me the contraption won't last forever. It just needs to last until we get out of here. We take up the rear behind Lucas; it might be my imagination, but the girls seem to be giving him a wide berth.
"Move, move, move," Hana orders from the front, her words drifting back down the hallway to us. "Faster, don't drop anything! No, don't mind that, it's just the last Handler. He's dead; don't poke at it."
"Babe, did you do that?" The low whistle unmistakably belongs to Christian.
"He was in my way."
"Move, I said!"
We round the corner behind them and I see the source of the commotion: an overturned silver cart, identical to the one we left behind, one tiny broken wheel disappearing into a pool of blood. The source of the blood is a dead body lying near the doors to the girls' room, the head a mess of brain and shattered bone.
I look at Reese, relieved to find he looks as unsettled as I feel. "Keep up," Lucas hisses back at us before rounding the next corner and running smack into Tony, who has stopped moving and whips around to glare at him.
Reese and I edge the stretcher around the corridor until I see what has caused the others to stop: another set of enormous doors stands in our way. These doors are made of bleached bones that look as though they were scavenged from arena kills. The effect might have been cool, using the bones of our enemies to build with, except I'm pretty sure the Master wouldn't see any reason not to include our bones in the building process. Tony blanches at the sight of the doors, and I wonder if he's had the same thought.
"Go ahead," Aniyah says, her voice gentle as she urges Handler forward. He nods and reaches out with his hands, tilting his head to face the stark white doors. Tony tenses his sword-arm and beside him Lucas readies his spear. Matías takes a deep breath, his eyes avoiding the bones.
Despite Aniyah's trust, I'm expecting trickery. I look at Reese, wondering if we should set down the stretcher so we can join the fray in case of a fight, or if it would be better to keep hold of Justin and be ready to run. But the doors shudder and creep open in the same ponderous manner we're used to; no tricks, no alarms. Then Aniyah gasps and takes a step back, her eyes widening with alarm.
T
he newly-opened doors spill onto an expanse of sunlit cavern. On the right is a gate which appears to lead to a vast desert of not-here. Directly across the cavern from us lies a pair of matching bone-white doors. These doors are flung open and in the dark passageway beyond loom at least a dozen Handlers, clumped tightly together in the hallway.
Every single one of them stares at our group with closed eyes as they shamble towards us.
Chapter 29
Aniyah
There are more of them than there are of us.
After adjusting to the shock of more than one Handler, I'd slipped into an expectation of maybe four in total: one to serve us, one for the boys, and a couple in reserve to allow those two to rest. I hadn't imagined the Master would as many Handlers as the fighters and prizes they served, but we're faced by over a dozen robed giants crowding through the far hallway: a host of jailers roused to subdue us.
Their sheer number is startling enough but the sight of their magic sends me reeling backwards. Magical fear drips from their robes and pools onto the floor and their outstretched hands flicker with red-hot light. I open my mouth to yell a warning but as I back away, I slip on the bone dust beneath my feet. This is going to hurt, I think, feeling my stomach flip over and my muscles tense in anticipation of impact.
Yet I don't hit the floor. Strong arms catch me as a jolt of fresh fear stabs my heart, stoking the terror pounding in my blood. As my savior rights me, my eyes widen at the sight of Handler's mutilated face hovering close to mine. He steps away as soon as I've regained my footing and Miyuki rushes to steady me while glaring a warning at him. His expression doesn't change, but there's sense in the tilt of his head that he is watching us. Then he takes off at a run before any of us can react.
"Where's he going?" Sappho's voice is pinched with terror.
"Back to the others! Stop him!"
"We're safer without him; let him go."
Hana's warning and Matías' reassurance overlap each other by a heartbeat. For a moment we are paralyzed with indecision, unsure who to heed. Hana starts forward, abandoning the door she holds open, then stops two steps out and flings a hand behind her to catch the door again.