The Arena (Ultimate Soldier Book 1)

by Escalera, Tessa

  Lila shuddered at the thought. "But what does that have to do with me?"

  "The kids see you as everything they want. You have lived out there all your life, without the rules our children so hate. You could go wherever you want, eat whatever you want, have the freedom they crave."

  "It wasn't like that!" Freedom? Lila's life had been about as opposite of freedom as she could ever imagine. If she didn't hunt one day, she didn't eat. More often than not, she went to bed hungry. The winters were one long blur of cold that nibbled at her toes and fingers, that rapidly burned up her meager fat stores. Three months of the year spent constantly on the verge of giving up, laying down and letting the cold take her. Even the summers were hard with the unrelenting heat, the mosquitos, fighting through the mass of undergrowth in the forest and trying to be absolutely silent at the same time lest her prey hear her and she make the next day's hunt with the pinch of hunger in her stomach.

  Martha's gaze was understanding. "I know that. But all the children see is the adventure and the glory."

  "Do you think I should stop telling them the stories?"

  "Oh, no. Give them their moment of escape. Creator knows they have little enough of that. All they have to look forward to is marriage and babies for the girls, the boys hoping to get into Jarda's elite fighting force because those men get to go outside the walls to train. The rest only leave for raids." Martha watched her boys play, and there was a haunting sadness in her eyes despite the small fond smile on her lips. "When you leave, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them follow you."

  That was the last thing Lila needed, but it brought to mind another uncomfortable truth. "Josef says Jarda may try to keep me from leaving."

  "I have no doubt."

  Lila shook her head, accidentally pulling the top from a tomato plant. "She does not own me."

  Martha smiled. "No, she doesn't."

  "She has no reason to keep me here."

  Martha sighed. "I have spent my life staying out of Jolan's politics, and now his daughter's. I have never had a reason to want to leave. Where would I go? Where would any of us go?" She wiped her forehead again and stood up. "Perhaps that is why Jarda hates you so much--you give us hope, remind us that there is a world outside of the walls. But who am I to know what goes on in the hearts of others?" She left Lila crouching in the garden row. Lila watched Martha walk away, ruffle the boys' hair and move to another row, not moving until her legs began to ache. Sweat was pooling in the hollows of elbows and knees, making her feel sticky. The air was heavy with the promise of rain to come later that day.

  Chapter 11: Voices in the Dark

  That evening, Lila sat just outside the wall with her hands cupped around a mug of hot tea. There was a thunderstorm rolling in from the west. Lightning flickered amidst the dark blue clouds, the setting sun blocked by their bulk. The moon and stars were gradually disappearing as the cloud moved over the Arena. Thunder growled after each lightning crash.

  The wind whispered through the tall grass, creating waves and ripples among the stalks. The first few drops of rain splashed on Lila's arms. She still wore the skirt and shirt Annie had found. Her hair was braided down her back in her new favorite style, so long that she had to be careful not to sit on the end. Around her neck was a necklace little Hanna had made her, braided string with painted wooden beads. For the first time she could remember, her hair and skin were clean, though the rough soap they used was harsh and acrid smelling. Annie had shown her where a no-longer-functioning bathroom held a mirror, and Lila had barely recognized herself. The last time she had seen a mirror was as a scrawny, acne-prone preteen. This girl that had stared back at her seemed like a stranger. Hair that was black as midnight, skin that was light no matter how long she stayed in the sun, with high cheekbones and cheeks that were still too hollow. It was her eyes that had struck her the most. She remembered having blue eyes, but the brilliantly colored irises that gazed back at her from the streaky glass were a deep purple. Her eyes were so big in her thin face that it gave her a rather striking appearace, and for the first time Lila had known why people tended to stare at her so much. Annie had called her "beautiful". Lila had never cared about her appearance before when survival was all that mattered.

  Heavy drops of rain pattered down around her, a few splashing into the cup she held cradled on her knees. The wind whipped shorter strands of hair around her face. Lila closed her eyes, listening to the roar of the wind, the rustling of the grass. The thunder echoed through her as if she were a part of the storm. The rain began to come down harder, but she didn't move. She kept her eyes closed, feeling the wind tugging at her clothes and hair, daydreaming of running with it, wanting to feel the adrenaline of movement pounding through her veins.

  Lila, she heard, as if it were whispered from a distance. Her eyes flew open and she looked around, but she couldn't see anyone. The wall loomed behind her, the grass spread out in every other direction. Lila closed her eyes again, listening.

  Lila, Lila. Little Lilac.

  Only one person called her that. Lila opened her eyes and stood up, staring around. "Josef?"

  Help me, Lilac.

  "Josef! Where are you?" Lila cried, but only the wailing of the wind answered her. The rain became a downpour, soaking Lila within seconds. She ran around the wall, pulling up her heavy skirt so it wouldn't tangle her feet. Lightning cracked over her head as she crawled under the grate. Just as the storm hit full force she pulled open the gate to the courtyard and slipped inside, into the empty courtyard. She had to run the last few feet across the concrete as the skies opened and thunder crashed so loud that she was temporarily deafened.

  "There you are!" Annie cried, hurrying forward. She threw a blanket around Lila's shoulders. "There's a bad storm coming, old Mary says. You should stay inside."

  Lila nodded, shivering. Annie mistook her tremors for a chill, and pulled the blanket tighter around Lila's shoulders.

  "Martha has a big pot of tea, you want some?" When Lila nodded and handed her the cup, she wove her way through the crowd toward the table sitting on one side of the hall.

  Nan and Naomi, twin girls in their early teens, bounced over to Lila. "Where were you?" Nan asked.

  "We've been looking all over for you!"

  "Why?"

  The girls ignored, or didn't hear, the absentminded tone in Lila's voice, as she searched the crowd for any sign of Josef. "Is the hunting party back?" She asked, cutting across whatever the girls were babbling at her.

  "Nope," said Nan.

  "They're always gone at least a week," said Naomi.

  The girls resumed their conversation but Lila didn't answer. She moved past the them and around a group of young men who were playing a game with a little sand-filled bag, tossing it back and forth.

  Feeling stifled in the stuffy air of the hall, she found herself walking down the corridor toward her room. Hers was the last room on the left

  Lila pulled open the curtain into her room and sat on the mattress, wrapping her arms around her knees as she stared out the window into the pouring rain. The windowsill gleamed with water and the far end of the mattress was damp from raindrops that had blown in through the bars.

  Am I going crazy? She wondered. Dreams are one thing, but hearing voices while I'm awake...She shook her head, propping her chin on her knees.

  The wind howled and wailed outside, and as Lila listened she felt as if it whispered her name. Lila. Lila. Lilac.

  Josef? The whisper was not in the wind, but inside her mind. Josef, is that you?

  Lila. Help me.

  Where are you?

  Help me, Lila. There was an image that flashed into Lila's head. Dimly lit concrete walls, figures slumped against them with bruises showing through tattered clothing. A metal door opened and a shadow filled the doorway. It was a man with a shaved head, impossibly tall and heavily muscled. Tattoos covered the dome of his head and his bare arms, which were crossed in front of him. He advanced through the doorway and toward Lila
(or was it Josef?).

  The image faded and Lila jumped and gasped when the curtain rustled. A small hand pulled it aside and Hanna poked her head around the edge of the fabric.

  "Hi, Lila."

  Lila mustered a smile and held out her arms.

  Hanna came over to Lila and snuggled into her arms.

  Other than Josef, Lila could only think of one person that she knew she could trust, whose hatred for Jarda rivaled her own. The man who hated the Fox leader with every fiber of his being. If anyone would know how to help her, it would be the tribe's resident "madman", Nolan. Josef said the man had been found nearly fifteen years ago, wandering in the grassland, half mad with fever and starvation. The healers had originally thought him to have contracted the wolf fever, but when he started to get better he had proved them wrong. Josef said that Nolan had never seemed to fully recover and was as thin and pale as the first day anyone had laid eyes on him, with no memory of what had happened to him before being found.

  The storm increased in ferocity as the afternoon merged into evening. Thunder and lightning provided the punctuation to Lila's uneasy thoughts. The hum of conversation filled the corridor outside as people wandered back to their rooms. Lila's stomach growled and pinched, reminding her she had missed dinner, but she ignored it. Hannah's slight form breathed deeply in her arms.

  Lila wondered if Seeker would come back to their room, but lately the dog's love for playing with the children seemed to supersede her loyalty to her oldest friend. That might be a good thing tonight, Lila would need to move quietly and quickly and Seeker would just get in the way.

  When the hallway was finally emty, Lila laid the sleeping Hanna down on the mattress and covered her with the blanket. The little girl stirred when thunder growled, but remained asleep. Lila ran down the empty hall and slipped through the propped-open door into the stairwell. That was when she discovered her first obstacle. Two men, tattooed and dressed in black clothes, sat on either side of the stairs at the next landing down. Jarda's lackeys.

  Stepping back into the hallway, she peered around the edge of the door into the twilight of the stairwell, lit only by the window at the first floor level that looked out over the courtyard, and the light of one sickly candle on the concrete. Each man held a plate on his lap, and even in the dim light Lila could see the large portion of meat on each plate. There was movement off to the left, and with a swish of skirts, Martha came into Lila's field of vision, holding a steaming cup in each hand. When she leaned over to hand the first man a cup, he grinned and grabbed her arm, pulling her down and roughly grabbing her waist to pin her against his side. With a leer that showed off his missing teeth, he leaned in and tried to press his lips to Martha's. Rage burned through Lila's veins and she started to lunge through the doorway, but Martha slapped his face away and, moving faster than Lila had ever seen her move, jumped to her feet, yanking her skirt out of the man's hands.

  "Hey, you gotta pay for those boy's food somehow, love," The second man called, while the first tossed his food aside and lunged to his feet. His companion held him back as Martha stormed up the stairs, her skirt billowing around her legs. Lila drew back into the shadows as the woman came through the doorway, but Martha saw her. For a moment their eyes locked, and Lila saw a depth of pain in the woman's eyes that seemed so unfamiliar on the gentle face. Lila opened her mouth to speak, but Martha turned without a word and continued down the hall to her room. The door slammed loudly enough to make the walls shake, and Lila was left alone in the corridor.

  The men on the stairs guffawed loudly, and the red haze of anger threatened to fill Lila's heart, but she shoved it back. One of the men grumbled and stretched out his legs. One of the men grumbled and stretched out his legs. "Why can't Nolan guard the Armory? He is the Arms Master, after all."

  Lila listened in the doorway, hoping no one came out of their room to ask what she was doing. She had to strain her ears to hear when there was a boom of thunder at the same moment that the man's companion replied.

  "Eh, who knows. At least it beats wall duty in this weather."

  "True. True. You know what would be even better?"

  "What?"

  "The company of a nice, warm--"

  Disgusted, Lila left the doorway and braced herself for the sudden drenching when she walked outside. Nolan wasn't in the Armory...so where was he? From what she could tell, he lived down there and rarely left the basement. It wasn't like there were that many places to go other than the one building.

  Lightning flashed, revealing through the clothes on the lines another set of guards on either side of the gate leading from the courtyard. With a gasp, Lila pulled back inside. You set guards to keep the wolf out, not the sheep in! She thought, remembering a fable Protector used to tell her about sheep and wolves. There was an undercurrent here, the overwhelming feeling that things were not as they seemed. Lila swallowed hard when she realized the only way out was from one of the upper floors. Hugging the wall, she padded on light feet up each stair, sure at any moment that the pounding of her heart in her ears would give her away.

  No one lived on any of the higher stories, besides the top floor which was occupied by Jarda and her closest advisors. At the second story landing, Lila stood in front of the door, listening for any sign of pursuit, but the men had not moved.

  The door creaked loudly when she pushed it open, and with her heart in her mouth, she slipped through quickly in case anyone came looking. Behind the door was a small empty hallway with the right filled with a dirty window, just one door on the far end. This stood propped open by an ancient, rusting paint can. The hallway and rooms beyond were covered in thin carpet that muffled the sound of her feet. Josef had told her that this building used to house hundreds of people. The tiny rooms like Lila's had been for the wolves, who had been treated as pets by their handlers. The handlers and families lived in the apartments across the hall, and the higher floors were devoted to offices, labratories, apartments, and conference rooms. Most of the doors had been wood and were warped and rotted on their hinges, if they even still existed. A thick layer of dust covered everything except for a double pair of footprints that looked to be only a few weeks old. The footprints led away from the door, but only one trail returned. Lila felt dread in the pit of her stomach despite the age of the prints. Without thinking, she followed the trail, coughing when her steps stirred up dust. The prints led about halfway down the hall then turned into a room. On the other side of the door that hung askew, Lila could hear the whine of the wind. She pulled the door open.

  The sickly sweet smell of decay hit her like a wall. Lila gagged and bent over, retching. She pinched her nose closed with one hand and breathed deeply until she could get her stomach under control, glad she had skipped dinner. The room contained a metal bed frame holding the remains of a mattress. There was a leaning desk and chair on the other side. But what drew her eyes was the still human form on the far end, slumped beneath a window that held only jagged shards of glass. Its clothes were covered in a huge black bloodstain from a stab wound on the chest.

  For a moment Lila stood in the middle of the room staring at the dead man. Forget exile, this was flat out murder. Was it Jarda, or someone else? Even though she couldn't smell anything, Lila's stomach roiled and heaved much like the wind through the window. Lightning flashed, and Lila's eyes were drawn to a piece of crumpled paper in the corpse's fist. Keeping her nose tightly closed, she crouched next to the body and worked the paper from between the fingers. She could barely read and the letters scrawled on the paper weren't ones she recognized. She shoved the paper into a pocket of her skirt and left the room as quickly as she could. She would find another way out.

  Lila soon found a room with a broken window that had a pipe running down the wall near one side. The wind whipped her skirt around her legs as she climbed down, and she was glad there was no one beneath her. She wished now that she'd thought to change into her old clothes, something more suitable for running and climbing.


  She shivered when her feet hit the cold, wet grass. The rain had calmed and only a few drops hit her as she ran alongside the building, staying close to the wall. The twilight was deepening into darkness, but she welcomed it for its ability to conceal her. Off to her right the clothes that were supposed to be drying on the lines whipped and snapped as the wind tugged at them. It was unlike Martha to forget the clothes.

  When she reached the corner of the building, she stood peering around the rough brick edge for a moment. This isn't right. Where are the guards? She couldn't see anyone standing in the square. Granted, the dark that was her friend could also work against her, but her instinct was what had kept her alive for so long, and she knew there was no one out there.

  The feeling of wolves guarding their prey was only reinforced. After making doubly sure that there was no one in her way, Lila ran out along the front of the building, staying close enough that she could trail her fingers along a seam in the bricks. She would cut across at the corner so that she had to cross the least amount of open space. Maybe Nolan was in one of the lean-tos.

  I left one type of wolves only to be caught by another, she thought as she ran lightfooted from the corner of the building to the shelter of the wall. A glance down the wall showed the stream swollen within its banks.

  The door to the clothing shed swung open and Lila gasped, pressing back against the wall. A knob of wood pressed into her shoulder blade hard enough to hurt. Two men walked through the door, both dressed in the black leather of fighters. They spoke loudly, as if to hear each other over the wind and rain, loud enough that Lila could hear the words. She held her breath and bit her lip until it bled, trying to will herself into invisibility.

  "The kid's got to be around somewhere," The taller one said, stomping his feet and shaking himself like a dog. "Gah, but this rain'll draw a chill into your very bones."