Arena 3 Read online

  “This is your first main danger point,” she says, tapping Chicago. She runs her finger down to St. Louis, Missouri. “This is your second one.”

  “Why?” Zeke asks.

  “They’re both major cities and the tracks run straight through them,” the Commander explains. “And where there are cities, there are arenas.”

  I shudder at the thought.

  “So we go around them,” I say. “Adds a day or two to the journey, but it’s not worth the risk.”

  General Reece frowns. “You can’t go around them,” she states, blandly. “You’ll be on a train.”

  I pause and draw my eyebrows together. “We will?”

  “Well yes, of course,” she replies. She taps Toledo again. “The train station is relatively new. It operated throughout most of the war. The chances of it still being operable are highly likely. Especially since all you need is coal. You’ll just need to find an engine still on the tracks, fire up the coal, and you’ll be away.”

  Molly lets out a little squeak of surprise. I shake my head, unable to comprehend.

  “I’m sorry, you want me to drive a train?” I stammer.

  “A coal-powered train,” General Reece says with a nod, as if that makes any difference.

  I take a seat as I try to catch my breath, completely stunned by the enormity of the journey ahead of me. This journey is going to take me entirely out of my comfort zone.

  The Commander looks at me curiously. “If you don’t think you can handle it, Brooke,” he says, “maybe it would be best not to go at all. You’ve made a decent life for yourself here. There’s a group about to head out looking for survivors to start their own colony. You could always go with them. Take your sister. Your friends.”

  I shake my head, determined. “No,” I say, forcefully. “I can do this.”

  “You can,” Molly agrees.

  “We can,” Ryan adds.

  I look up at my friends’ faces. They all seem to have so much faith in me, so much belief. They’re willing to leave their home to help me follow my dream.

  “Any of you guys ever driven a train before?” I ask.

  Everyone breaks into a smile.

  *

  My arms ache as I heave the last of the supplies into the thirty-foot sailboat, making it rock on the banks of the river. We have a huge stash of weapons; plenty of dried food provisions like cured meat and pickled vegetables; changes of clothes; and a medical kit containing slings, bandages, and antibiotics in case of emergencies.

  I then reach over and begin loading the thirty-gallon drums of fuel, knowing how precious each one is as General Reece hands them to me.

  “We can only spare four,” she explains, as I load the last one. “You’ll need to sail as much as you can. Use the fuel sparingly, only if you’re in trouble or in bad weather. That engine is really meant for backup, anyway. Remember, this is primarily a sailboat, not a yacht.”

  I nod, taking it all in. The Commander’s map is safely stashed in my pocket. Of all the items on board the boat, it is by far the most precious. Without the map, we’ll just be four people wandering through America.

  Jack jumps excitedly into the boat, kissing me first, as he always does, and I feel reassured to have the pit bull with us.

  Four people and a dog, I think to myself.

  “You ready for this?” Molly asks, coming up to my side.

  Her question makes me aware of the flutter of panic in my chest. “I guess,” I reply. Then I look at her and frown. “Why did you decide to come with me?”

  The corners of her lips turn up. “You might be the best shooter in Fort Noix, but you’re not going to get very far without the second best watching your back.”

  She says it in her usual dry way. But I read between the lines of her sarcasm. She’s coming because I’m her friend and she wants to help me. The thought is beyond comforting.

  Jack starts barking at something in the distance, and I look over to see figures approaching.

  “Looks like our farewell party has arrived,” Ryan says.

  A group of guards comes up to Ryan, clapping him on the shoulder and embracing him. There are people there for Molly and Zeke as well. My stomach drops at the realization that no one has come to say goodbye to me. A part of me understands Ben not being here. His PTSD has driven a wedge between us and we’ve grown apart over the last six months. And Charlie, of course, won’t be here unless Bree is. But it’s Bree’s absence that hurts me the most. I know she’s mad at me but I wish she would at least come to say goodbye. It reminds me, painfully, of the way I let my dad walk out of my life all those years ago. I’d refused to say goodbye to him because I’d seen him hit my mom and was mad about him leaving us for the army. In my darker moments, that memory has haunted me.

  As I’m dwelling in my emotions, I suddenly catch sight of a figure standing a little way behind the others. It’s Ben.

  My heart leaps at the sight of him. I always thought Ben was handsome, with his soft features and gentle eyes, but right now he looks beautiful, standing so still like a statue in the midday sunshine.

  He notices me looking but doesn’t approach. I wonder if he was planning on just watching me leave and think maybe I shouldn’t say anything to him. Then I decide that I don’t care about his poignancy, and head toward him.

  “You came to say goodbye,” I say as I walk up to him.

  He shakes his head. “I came because I wanted to come with you.”

  His words shock me. We’ve barely spoken for six months and now he’s telling me he wants to up and leave Fort Noix to be with me.

  “You do?” I stammer.

  He nods, his expression pained. “I did. But this was as far as I could go.”

  I look him up and down, frozen to the spot as though with fear. The group of well-wishers are down by the shoreline. Ben’s PTSD has stopped him from getting any closer.

  Once again, I feel guilty about leaving him here. He’s managed so far to just about present himself as well enough. He’s kept himself beneath the radar. But what if my leaving triggers something in him, makes him worse?

  “Are you going to be okay, Ben?” I say.

  He nods, but I can see tears glittering in his eyes. The sight of them makes my own emotions threaten to choke me. Ben’s been by my side more or less since Bree was kidnapped. We’ve been together through everything. The last six months as he’s pulled away from me has made me unaware of just much I will miss him.

  Suddenly, I realize how much of a jerk I’ve been to Ben. I’ve been pushing him away for months, unable to deal with his detached, grief-stricken ways. I’d run to Ryan like a moth to a flame, wanting to be with someone who wasn’t so damaged, to have a friendship where for once I didn’t have to be the strong one. Bree’s right. I am an idiot.

  I fly into Ben’s arms and hold him tightly, so tightly I can feel his heart beating against my chest.

  “Come with me,” I whisper into his ear. “Please.”

  He shakes his head. “I wish I could,” he replies, his voice tremulous. “You have no idea how much I wish I could.”

  I pull away from the embrace, feeling like my heart is splintering into a thousand pieces.

  “Look after Bree,” I say, quickly wiping the tears from my eye.

  Then I turn and head back to the boat.

  “You ready?” Ryan asks, offering his hand to help me into the boat.

  I don’t take it, just step onto the boat beside him.

  “Let’s do this,” I say.

  We raise the sails together. I yank on the coarse lines and already my palms are burning; it takes more power to raise the sails than I’d imagined. They rise slowly, one foot at a time, and I must use all the leverage of my body to get them up. Molly helps beside me, while Ryan leans over the hull and raises the anchor. Zeke secures the lines and turns the rudder, and a moment later, I experience the most incredible feeling: we are moving. The wind catches our sail, and foot by foot we begin to leave shoreline and gai
n momentum.

  I look back, taking one long, last look. I wonder if I will ever see this place again. My heart aches from my goodbye with Ben, from knowing I can never come back.

  “Look, Brooke,” Molly says.

  I see all the people amassing on the shore, standing on the banks, saluting. The four of us salute back. I wish my dad could see me now.

  We stand there, saluting each other, as the boat drifts farther and farther away. Then, farther down the shoreline, we see another group of people. It’s the Forest Dwellers. They wave, clap, and cheer. I see that Trixie is there at the front, her giant bunny in her arms. The sight of her reminds me why I am doing this; to make the world safer for everyone.

  We wave back, feeling like superstars. The sounds of the cheers make me smile.

  That’s when I notice that one person isn’t waving or smiling like the others. It’s Bree. She’s standing beside Trixie, with Charlie clutching her arm on the other side. She watches me, silently, her chin tipped up.

  I let my waving hand drop. As the boat sails past, we continue to watch each other, our gazes locked together. I watch the figure of my little sister grow smaller and smaller as the distance between us lengthens. I watch until she is nothing more than a smudge on the horizon. My heart breaks as it never has, as I am filled with waves of self-doubt and guilt.

  Then I turn around and face the open water, ready to take on the rest of my life.

  Ready to find my father.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ryan sits in the stern___, steering the boat, Jack beside him, paws up on the rail, his tongue lolling. I lean back, letting the wind catch in my hair, tousling it behind me. It is surprisingly windy and because of the speed, the wind is bracingly cold. My nose is stinging and my cheeks are frozen.

  It feels good to be on the move, to know my journey has finally begun. After all these months thinking about this moment, it has finally arrived. It’s especially great to be on the water, away from the cities and destruction. Out here, you can almost pretend the war didn’t happen.

  The water sparkles beneath us as we cut through it at speed. I let it relax me. If it weren’t so cold, I’d almost be tempted to sunbathe.

  “Take a look at that!” Ryan calls over his shoulder.

  I sit up and see where he’s pointing. Up ahead are lots of small islands dotting the water. Some are filled with trees, like mini floating forests. Some are linked by bridges, now rusted and falling apart. On others there are houses; big, grand buildings that are beginning to crumble into the water.

  “Did people live in those?” I say, surprised.

  Zeke holds up the map and points to the St. Lawrence River, which we are currently sailing down. “Must be the Thousand Islands,” he says, tapping the blobs of green that run along the length of the river.

  I watch, awestruck, as we weave in and out of the islands. I can’t even begin to imagine the sort of community that would have lived here, needing a boat to get to their neighbor’s house, or to the mainland for school and work. The houses are very plush, making me think that they must have been inhabited by rich people.

  We pass a house that would have been a mansion in its heyday. It’s covered in thick ivy that strangles all the windows, turning it into something out of a children’s fairy tale. For a moment, I wonder what it would be like if we all pulled over and moved into one of these mansions, lived out our days here, in crumbling opulence. I wonder if anything inside is still intact. Chandeliers? Marble fireplaces? Priceless rugs? Antiques?

  All of that, if not looted, would surely be ruined by now. We’d be living in a hull of a mansion, unheated, without food or running water. I shake my head. It is a mirage of opulence, a dream from another era.

  “This is where the others should bring the survivors,” Molly says with a laugh. “Can you imagine?”

  I cast my mind back to the moment we were rescued in the Hudson River. After our horrendous ordeal, finding Fort Noix was like stepping into paradise. But finding this place would have been like stepping into another world, a dreamland.

  “Too bad we can’t go back and tell them about this place,” I say, with a hint of bitterness in my voice.

  Molly picks up on my tone. “Are you pissed with the Commander for saying we can’t go back?”

  I shake my head. For all his faults, the Commander really came through for me in the end. Without him we wouldn’t have the map or the boat.

  “It’s not that,” I say, gazing out over the crystal blue water.

  “Is it Bree?” Molly probes.

  My heart squeezes at the memory of her watching me silently from the shoreline. She truly believes that I’ve left her forever. She has no faith in me to find our dad. In my mind, I’ll make it to Texas and send a radio transmission home, calling to her. Or drive one of the military tanks up and collect her myself. But in her mind, I’ve left her behind, just like I left Mom. Just like Dad left us. What she thinks I’ve done to her is unforgivable.

  When I don’t say anything, Molly puts her arm around my shoulder. She holds me like that, not saying a word, just letting me be present in my pain.

  Just then, the clouds start to darken.

  “Looks like rain,” Zeke says, gazing at the sky.

  We all look up at the graying clouds starting to crowd above us.

  The boat is completely exposed. Depending on how bad the storm is, we could be soaked to the bone if we keep going. But I don’t want to have to stop so soon after leaving.

  “Why don’t we stop off there?” Molly says, pointing up ahead to where an amazing castle stands on one of the tree-covered islands.

  My mouth drops open. “It’s beautiful,” I gasp.

  Ryan, at the helm of the boat, looks over at me and raises an eyebrow. “Well? Time for sightseeing?”

  Just then, the rain begins to fall. It’s a cold, hard rain that lashes us.

  “Pull over,” I say. “Let’s shelter in the castle.”

  Molly pulls the line on her side, and we all duck as we tack and the boom swings, while Ryan steers us toward the little island that houses the castle. He steers us expertly to a stop by the small jetty.

  Jack’s the first off the boat, jumping off and running onto the steady ground and barking his excitement. He pees, then rushes off toward the castle, taking in all the new smells of grass, mud, and stone.

  Molly and I leap off while Zeke ties up the boat. As soon as he’s done, Ryan follows, and the four of us race into the castle.

  We’re soaking wet by the time we’re inside. The castle has seen better days, and parts of the ceiling have caved in. Water drips down, pooling in the middle of the large, marble floor.

  There’s a spiral staircase leading up, a broken piano in one corner of the hall, and a grandfather clock that’s no longer ticking. Black mold spots the walls and there’s a dank smell.

  So much for my fantasy of opulence.

  “Where’s Jack?” Ryan asks, peering through the gloom.

  “He ran off that way,” Zeke says, pointing down one of the corridors.

  We begin to walk down the corridor, our footsteps echoing across the marble tiles.

  “Jack!” Ryan calls. “Where are you, boy?”

  There’s the sound of barking from far in the distance. We head toward the sound.

  “Hey,” I say as we go. “What’s that up ahead?”

  Everyone looks, peering through the darkness. There seems to be something glowing in the distance, like some kind of source of light. But it’s too yellow to be daylight. It looks more like a flame.

  “A fire!” I gasp, suddenly alerted to the fact that someone else is here.

  Immediately we draw our weapons. My mind races. Who could be here? A crazy colony? A group of slaverunners camping out on their way to the cities?

  A lone survivor?

  Suddenly, Jack emerges from the shadows. He leaps up at Ryan, licking him.

  “Whoever it is,” Ryan says, “Jack seems to t
hink it’s safe. He’s usually a good judge of character.”

  “Who is there?” a voice calls from the darkness.

  We all freeze, our guns poised, ready to fire. Shadows leap across the stone walls as a figure slowly shuffles toward us. As he gets closer, I see that it’s a young Hispanic boy, maybe fifteen. He’s thin with a baby face.

  “Don’t come any closer!” I shout, jabbing my gun forward for emphasis.

  The boy holds his hands up. “That’s not a very polite way to treat your host,” he says. “You are in my home, after all.”

  My eyes dart right and meet Molly’s. She’s pulling a bemused expression.

  “You live in this castle?” I say to the boy. “Alone?”

  “All alone,” the boy replies. “You’re the first people I’ve seen in four years.” He looks away as though pained. “I’d started to think I was the last.”

  “The last what?” I ask.

  “The last human on earth.”

  My heart aches for him. To have spent all those years alone, thinking he was the only one left. It’s a thought too horrible to bear.

  I lower my gun.

  “I’m Brooke,” I say, holding my hand out to shake his.

  He looks at me, guarded, unsure whether he can trust the girl who moments earlier was pointing a gun in his face. In the end he takes my hand.

  “Emmanuel,” he says.

  He peers over at the others, their guns still trained on him. The rest of the gang take my lead and lower their weapons.

  “You got any food in there?” he asks, eyeing my bag.

  “If you’ve got a fire we can dry ourselves by,” I reply.

  He nods. “This way.”

  We follow him down the corridor and into a large hall that resembles a ballroom. The mold smell is even worse in here. There’s a large marble fireplace in one of the walls with a small fire burning in the middle. We all rush over and begin to warm ourselves.

  I notice that Emmanuel is eyeing my satchel.

  “Help yourself,” I say, knowing there are enough rations in the boat to last us for weeks.