Triple Crown

Hey everyone,

This is a story I'm in the process of writing, and, as you can see, it's called Triple Crown. It's essentially my version of the Hunger Games, with my own characters and setting and plot twists but with the same basic plot.

My name is Lizzie. Just Lizzie. Well, not just Lizzie, but Lizzie’s all you need to know. Why am I alive? I shouldn’t be alive. It would be easier for everyone – everyone I care about – if I wasn’t. But, unfortunately, I am alive, and now everyone I love gets to watch me fight to the death on national television. I rise to my feet and pace the room I am in, seeing how everything is white. The walls, the furniture, the buildings, even the people, are all so white. Sometimes they are so pale that they seem transparent and I feel like I can look through them. But then I remember that these are the same people paying to watch me die, and I shut away all of those errant thoughts. I freeze when I hear a footstep behind me and whip around, drawing my blade and coming within mere inches of slashing the servant girl’s face. Even though she doesn’t talk – she’s either been instructed not to or physically can’t – her eyes express volumes more shock and fear than any words ever could.
“Oh no, I didn’t mean to scare you, I was just startled,” I tell her, dropping my knife and trying to comfort her, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’m not exactly a people person after all; that’s how I ended up here.
That day, May 10th, had been pretty white too, with thick clouds of snow draping the earth in winter furs and frosting the trees with sugar icing. But that white makeover, the one Mother Nature designed, looked tasteful, not desperate and overdone like this place does. Besides, everything was more beautiful then since I was home. Ah, home. With my dad Tom and my mom Amanda and my little brother Timmy and my twin older brothers Gwillan and Gruffen. Too bad I’ll probably never see them or my home again. I was walking to school on that snowy morning, relishing the cold, the snow, and, more than everything, the storm. I love storms. I always have, and I should, considering that everyone else in my family does too. In fact, I could sense that something was wrong when the storm instantly started to clear, and I knew something was wrong when the clouds pulled back to reveal more gray. Storms weren’t replaced by more storms when they cleared normally. Which meant this wasn’t a normal storm. I was almost to school when a strange, cloaked figure approached me. This immediately sent off sirens in my head, and my hand crept to my knife in my jacket pocket in case this person wanted any trouble.
“Are you Lizzie?” the figure asked in a low, very male voice, moving his head back and forth to see if there was anyone around us. When I had first spotted this person, I thought he was average height, maybe even a little shorter than average, but he seemed to have grown a foot in the time it took him to cross the street and meet me.
Like I always do when I feel threatened or challenged, I answered defensively, maybe even aggressively. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s it to you?” My fingers curled around the hilt of my dagger and I figured that, even though he was bigger than me, I had to be faster than he was. I am faster than everyone, whether it’s running or reflexes or mentally, I am just faster. Which I intend to use to my advantage when I’m fighting to stay alive.
Instead of answering, he merely snickered. “It’s a pity that you’re so rude. I might have let you off easier if you hadn’t been.”
I literally started to snarl at this point. “What the hell do you mean you would have let me off easier?! What the hell did I ever do to you that I could’ve been let off easier from to begin with?” I was positively bristling with anger and defensiveness and was about ready to deck the guy in the nose to show who needs to be let off easy, when, in one quick, fluid motion like a snake killing its prey, he stepped forward, grabbed me by the waist and injected something into my arm with a needle he had concealed in his hand. I tried to fight the drug off, I tried to keep awake and alert, I tried to keep fighting his grip as he carried me over his shoulder, but I could feel the drug’s effects almost immediately. The last thing I remembered before everything went black was him laughing under his breath, not a true laugh but a psychotic, twisted, awful laugh that still rings in my dreams every night and makes sleep almost impossible.
When I woke up, everything around me was black, an incredibly stark contrast to where I am now.
Pushing myself up onto my elbows to get a better look around, I heard a man chuckle softly and murmur, “It looks like Lizzie’s awake now,” and, as my heart sunk into my stomach, I realized it was the man from yesterday. Or however long ago that snowy morning was; for all I know, it could have centuries.
“What do you want?” I snarled back at him, reaching for my knife in my sweatshirt pocket and realizing I have no knife and no sweatshirt.
“Looking for this?” He twirled my knife in his fingers and rose, pulling something from his pocket that flickered one, two, three times before it stayed lit. A lighter. And in the small light of that lighter, I got a first look at my captor. He was huge, as I already knew, with broad shoulders that stretched his black mesh shirt painfully tight, which made me wonder idly how he hadn’t suffocated yet. Even more interesting yet was his face. He had tattoos of fire on his cheeks that were so real I almost thought he was on fire when I first saw him. However, what captured me and held me to that huge, shaved head of his was his eyes. They were even more like flames than his face, their unnatural orange color flickering and dancing, although that seems too light a word, in the lighter’s fire. And then I knew what he was.
“Immortal.” I whispered the word that blessed and cursed us both, feeling a sudden small jolt of companionship for this man with the flames. But how did he end up this like, capturing other immortals?
“You’re a smart girl, Lizzie. Maybe you can put those smarts of yours to some use in the field.” I jerked suddenly upward, knowing exactly what he is talking about. Knowing that he is talking about a battlefield.
“What field?” I shot back, trying to figure out a way to read this man with the flames. His face was a mask of marble; I would never be able to read him that way. But could I read his mind? Thinking that it’s worth a shot at least, I sent out a finger of my mind to probe his, to see if I could maybe discover his secrets. And I was met with a shock of pure solid pain shooting through my brain. I fell to my knees, tears streaming from eyes from the pure physical hurt as I muttered profanities in every language I knew, which was quite a lot.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you Lizzie. You might get shocked.” The man began to laugh again, that disturbed, terrible laugh that made me want to curl up on the ground with my hands on my ears.
“Do you want this back?” He waved my knife in front of me after I pulled myself to my feet and told myself that no matter how bad it hurt, I would not cry, I would not even let my eyes water, because that could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
“Yes.” I lunged out for it, only to have him pull it back just as quickly. This fire-man was fast, that was for sure.
“First, you have to do something for me.” By the way that sick smile crept across his face, I could tell that I wasn’t going to like whatever he was going to have me do.
I tried my best to hide how much that grin unnerved me. “Which is?” I stared him down again, this time out of desperation.
“I have a… problem of sorts,” he told me, meeting my gaze to make sure I am following. Like I wouldn’t be. “I want you to get rid of it.” The way he talked made me think that this problem of his was not an issue but a person. He proved my suspicions right by, a few seconds later, bringing in a little cloaked form. I could see that the person’s feet were bound by the way he or she walked, and I caught a glimpse of brown cord sticking out from one of the sleeves, so his or her hands were bound too. When the fire-man pulled the person’s hood off, I gasped. I had been expecting a dangerous-looking psycho like Fire-man, not the cute little girl that stood before me. She was tiny, four and a half feet tall if she was lucky, and wouldn’t tip the scale at sixty-five pounds soaking wet.
“Kill her,” Fire-man commanded, and I turned towards him with loathing in my eyes. I could not and would not kill her.
“No.” She didn’t look or smell or feel dangerous at all; all she looked and smelled and felt was utterly and completely terrified.
“Well, why not?” Much to my surprise, Fire-man didn’t seem upset or even surprised. I guess he had been expecting my refusal.
“Well, why?” I shot back, thinking I had much less reason to answer his question than he did mine. “Why should I kill this innocent little girl that isn’t dangerous or threatening and looks like she would cry if she hurt a fly?”
“How do you know she’s not dangerous or threatening?” Now it was Fire-man’s turn to stare me down.
“She…” How did I know she wasn’t dangerous? “She… she just isn’t. I can just tell,” was the best response I could come up with, which was incredibly lame, I know.
“Would you kill her if she was trying to kill you?” he asked, his eyes glued on my face to see my reaction.
“Of course,” I answered immediately, all of my assassin and warrior training so ground into me that it replied for me. “Because then it’s me versus her, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be her.”
“Well, Lizzie…” he began, smiling what could only be considered a normal smile. “Maybe you’ll last longer in the field than I thought you would.” Turning towards the little girl, he told her gently, “You can go now. Sorry about this.” She then sprinted amazingly fast away from us, and I was reminded, yet again, that fear is an excellent motivator.
After her slight form disappeared, I asked him suspiciously, “What field are you talking about?” as I narrowed my eyes at him. If he was trying to unnerve me with this psycho-killer then nice-guy act, he was definitely succeeding.
“The Triple Crown battlefield,” he answered calmly, all trace of the mentally unstable person he had just been gone from his face.
“What’s the Triple Crown?” It seemed like every time he answered my questions, he always created more questions than he resolved.
“The Triple Crown is a tournament, televised on national television, where children between the ages of eleven and eighteen fight to the death.” I opened my mouth to interrupt him, but he just held up his hand and continued talking. “There are three events, hence the name. The first is one-on-one fighting to the death, and it starts out with thirty-two fighters. If you kill your competitor, you move up in the bracket, and if you kill everyone you face, you are the champion of that event. If you don’t, however, you are dead because that means someone else has killed you. The second event is much harder than the first. In this event, the same thirty-two of you – they revive the children who get killed in the first round – are thrown out into a wilderness and the last person alive wins. In this event, you can gifts sent to you by betters, or people betting that you will win, and since they want you to win, they will buy supplies that you need in order to keep you alive the longest. The third event is essentially the same as the second, except you are now teamed up in pairs, and the last pair alive wins, and, like the second, you can get gifts from betters in this event, and these gifts may very well keep you alive – or not. This event is the toughest because there is always the high possibility that you will lose your partner, and if you die in the third round, that’s it. There are no revivals.”
“And I’m supposed to fight in this, aren’t I?” I murmur aloud, feeling my heart sink into the floor below me. Fire-man nodded his assent, confirming what I already knew but hoped against just the same. “But… why do they want me to fight in it? I mean, since I’m immortal, wouldn’t that just make it pointless? They’d already know the outcome and that would take away a lot of the excitement and fun behind it, right?” I looked up at him curiously and found my feeling of kinship for him growing.
“It’s been seventy-five years since they’ve had a Triple Crown winner, and they want another one. That’s why they had me take you,” Fire-man told me, sadness – of all things – tingeing his voice.
“You were the last winner, weren’t you?” The room was completely silent, even the tiny flame coming from the lighter silencing itself to eavesdrop on our conversation.
“You always were a smart one, Lizzie,” he murmured sadly, his eyes of flame looking as if someone has dumped a bucket of water on them.
We sat in silence for a few seconds, as I absorbed the extremity of the situation, until I spoke again. “But I’m not completely immortal. I’ve got a conditional immortality, where I can die from ‘normal’ weapons like swords and spears and arrows but not from anything else. Do they know that?” They – whoever they were – probably did and figured they might as well make it partially fair.
“They – the Triple Crown committee – know that, but they figure that it will be more interesting if there is at least a chance that you will die. That’s how it was for me too, except I can die by the elements and by nothing else.” I smirked slightly when I realized that he had read my mind so he could confirm my suspicions without me having to voice them.
I nodded, not confused anymore but angry, and then abruptly asked, “What’s your name? I’ve been thinking of you as Fire-man but I’m guessing that’s not actually what you’re called.”
“In the Triple Crown, since I had these tattoos back then, my name was Fiero, very original, I know,” he began, his eyes twinkling as he knew I was going to say the same thing about it being original. “My real name is Maximus, Maximus Knight. I’ll be mentoring you – which means trying to keep you alive – during the Triple Crown.” He held out his hand for me to shake and my blade for me to take and I gladly took both of them.
“Well, Maximus, it’s nice to meet you. My name’s Lizzie.” I smiled at him, finding him actually pleasant now that he wasn’t trying to freak me out with the psychopath act. If it was an act. “So, do you have any tips about the Triple Crown for me?”
“Yeah; stay alive.” There was no trace of laughter or happiness remaining on his face and I knew that he wasn’t joking at all.
Just as he is about to step forward and inject me with another syringe full of the sleep drug, I cried, almost desperately, not wanting to go under again, “Wait! I have one more question.”
“Which is?” Maximus heard the frantic tone to my voice but didn’t seem to be displeased. Maybe he knew from experience how helpless that drug made you.
“Where am I?” I was guessing I was in another world, since I knew of no place on the earth that I came from that would have thirty-two children fight to the death on television.
“You are in a place called El Tiempo, in a different universe than your own.” This time Max actually did inject me with the sleep drug, and everything went black again.

I will post more later, if anyone's interested.

More added.

I scowl as the servant girl rushes out of the room, terror radiating from her body, since I know that I’m going to get my knife taken away now too. So that makes… nearly a dozen weapons confiscated from my possession in only twelve hours. I think that’s a new personal best. Unfortunately.
Sure enough, two guards come to my room within a minute and abscond my knife with a stern, “You know weapons aren’t allowed until the Triple Crown!”
“You know weapons aren’t allowed until the Triple Crown!” I shoot mockingly towards the door after they leave, along with a middle finger.
The same servant girl who turned me in comes back into the room after they leave. I turn away from her in annoyance, thinking that I really can’t trust anyone around here, beside myself, with anything.
She murmurs to me very quietly and sincerely, “I’m sorry. I had to,” and I whip around in surprise, not exactly sure if she’s talking to me. When I meet her gaze, however, I know that she is, and instantly feel bad for being a jerk and blocking her out.
“Oh, it’s ok,” I tell her just as quietly, now scanning her up and down to try and read her. She is tiny, four and a half feet tall if she is lucky, and very young, probably eleven or twelve. She also wouldn’t tip the scale at sixty-five pounds soaking wet. “What’s your name?” I ask her gently, suddenly very intrigued as to why an eleven-year-old is a palace servant. But, since nearly everyone else is starving and you won’t starve working in the palace, I guess her career choice makes sense.
“My name is Abigail, Abigail Williams,” she replies, the facts that she doesn’t speak above a whisper and that her eyes are glued on her feet making it almost impossible for me to hear what she says. She then looks up at me and I see wonder and amazement and still a bit of fear tingeing her forget-me-not blue gaze. “And you’re Lizzie, Lizzie Lightning,” she utters, staring up at me as though she has never seen a person before in her life. I mean, I’m not bad-looking – in fact, being five-eleven and nine percent body fat, I’d say I’m a lot better than bad-looking – but I definitely don’t deserve the admiration this girl is giving me with her eyes and posture.
“Yeah, that’s me. The girl who’s going to die on national television tomorrow.” I sigh, resigning myself to my fate. I’m good; sure, with two and a half years of working as an assassin, maybe I’m even great, but there’s bound to be someone better than me, someone who’s been training their entire life for the glory of winning the Triple Crown.
“I’ve seen what you can do,” Abigail murmurs, her voice becoming stronger as she becomes more comfortable talking to me. “I’ve seen you run and lift and fight, and I’ve seen the other champions run and lift and fight, and…” She pauses, and I can tell she’s not supposed to tell me as much as she has. “…and you’re better than all of them.” She then turns, cleans up the shards of the vase I broke in my fit of rage earlier, and leaves as quietly as she entered.
“Do you really mean it Abigail?” I ask the door she just left out of, and think, that if anything of my initial judgment of her is correct, it’s that she’s not one to lie.

“Lizzie, it’s time to eat,” Max tells me as he pokes his head in my room. I can tell that he senses my depression, since he’s quieter and has a less demanding tone than usual, which I’m grateful for because he can get awfully loud. “By the way, try to get the other champions to at least stand you; you’ll last longer during the second and third rounds if you make friends.”
“You actually think it’s in my capacity to make friends with people I’m going to have to kill?” I ask him incredulously. I probably wouldn’t make friends anyways even if I didn’t have to kill them.
“Lizzie, just try.” Max sounds tired and resigned – he was probably expecting that answer – so I decide to at least try, but I’ll probably just scare the other champions off by trying to make friends with them. Well, it’s worth a shot at least. “Come on Lizzie. We don’t want to be late,” he adds, and I rise off my bed, sighing and wondering which one of my fellow Section Eight champions is going to die first.

“Everyone, this is Lizzie, the last champion from Eight,” Max introduces, and I step out from behind him to get a clear view of the people who are going to die besides me on national television.
The first champion is a boy, whose name tag says is Nick Hill, probably twelve or thirteen and small for his age with a hollow face that speaks of years of not having enough to eat, and it’s obvious that he doesn’t have a chance at winning, that he’s probably one of the ones to die first. The second champion is a girl named Sarah Mills, who is also thirteen at most and is five feet tall if she’s lucky. Her face is also hollowed out and her resignation to her death is obvious, and I feel a twinge of sympathy for her. Well, at least she’ll get to eat well for a little bit before she dies. The last champion, however, even though he’s facing away from me, looks vaguely familiar. He’s tall, probably six-three or six-four, with broad, muscular shoulders and fluffy blonde hair, and something about him is just… familiar. When he turns around, I know exactly why.
“Luke,” I murmur, staring at him in astonishment. He and I have gone to the same school since eighth grade, and, since that school happens to be in a different dimension, that brings on the question: What in the hell is he doing here?
“Lizzie?” I see him look me up and down a couple times, amazement tinting those stunning ice-blue eyes of his, as though he’s making sure I’m real and not an illusion. “But… how?” He turns to Max now, staring at him in utter confusion. “How’s she here too?”
“You two know each other?” Max asks us, looking back and forth between both of us and seeming to be as shocked as Luke and I are.
“Yeah,” I tell him, not taking my eyes off of Luke. “We go – or I guess went – to the same school.” I question Luke, knowing I have to be very careful about how much I reveal, “How did you…?” leaving off the ‘get here’ part that could cause the other champions to be suspicious.
“Max,” he answers, and I know the same thing happened to him that happened to me. But why would the Triple Crown committee take a boy from a different universe who, even though he’s pretty muscular and maybe a good fighter, isn’t guaranteed to win?
“Why?” I turn to Max and stare him down, willing him to be truthful, even though he’s probably not supposed to be.
Unfazed by my intense gaze, he just shrugs his shoulders and replies, “Orders,” which, even though it probably is the truth, doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out why Luke was taken.
Up until now, the other champions had been basically invisible, but now the boy, Nick, clears his throat and says in a small voice, “The food’s here.”
“Well, let’s eat!” Max booms, and we all converge towards the table where huge dishes of some of the best food I’ve ever seen have been laid out. Mountains of steamed and buttered vegetables, loaves of fresh, still warm, bread, whole animals and so many choices of drink that I’m completely overwhelmed. I get a small amount of carrots and a chicken leg, then sit down next to Luke. The whole meal is basically silent except for Max trying – and failing – to make small talk with us champions. I’m too busy thinking about Luke and how he got here to talk, and the other champions are probably thinking about how they’re going to be dead in a month, which doesn’t exactly make someone want to talk, so eventually Max shuts up and we all just eat. I finish first, since I took the least, but don’t go back for more because my appetite’s disappeared, just leave my plate where it is and take the elevator up to the roof. I need to think. In private. As soon as I step out of the elevator, a chilly breeze hits me, and I relish its cooling effect as I collapse into one of the chairs spread out across the roof.
“Oh God, this makes it so much harder,” I groan as I bury my face into my hands. “How can I go home without Luke and respect myself ever again?” I know Luke’s parents – they’re really nice by the way – and I know how much he means to them, being their only child and all.
“You know, I won’t be able to go home without you either,” a voice behind me says, and I whip around to find Luke standing behind me, his stunning blue eyes glued to my face. “Because I’ll have to think every day about how I let a girl I knew and kind of liked die just because some committee of old men decreed that she should.” I can hear the bitterness in his voice and I think idly that I really should’ve gotten to know him, since we seem to have a lot in common. He pulls up a chair and sits down next to me, his intense gaze still affixed upon me.
“So what do we do Luke? Do we both die and not return? That might be easier than one of us having to go back without the other.” I capture his eyes with my own and I hope he understands that I’m perfectly serious. After all, if we both die, El Nieve won’t get their Triple Crown winner, and that in itself is enough to make me want to go through with it.
“I guess that could work. I just never thought I’d die like this,” he murmurs, dropping his gaze to his feet.
“What, with a whole nation screaming for your blood?” I ask, feeling the exact same way, because dying like this definitely wouldn’t be high up on anybody’s ways-to-die list, much less mine.
“Yeah, something like that,” he answers shortly, and our conversation collapses into silence.
After a few minutes of looking back and forth between Luke and the city spreading out in front of us, I finally rise to my feet and say, “Well, good luck Luke.”
Just as I enter the elevator to go back down to my room, I hear him mutter, “God knows I’m going to need it.”

More added.

“Lizzie, it’s time to go get ready for interviews,” Max tells me gently as he pokes his head inside my room.
“Which entails?” I ask through my yawn, pulling myself off of my bed and stretching luxuriously. Training would be good; I’d really like to beat on a dummy right now.
“Going to the stylists to get dressed.” I sit straight up, hoping I heard wrong, as any sense of relaxation is evaporated by that awful word. I have a clinical aversion to makeup and makeovers and any kind of clothes except for T-shirts, jeans, basketball shorts and sports uniforms, so any mention of the word ‘stylist’ invariably freaks me out some.
“And what exactly am I going to be dressed in?” I stare Max down, thinking that he might just lose a couple teeth if he mentions anything about dresses.
“To be honest, I have no idea.” He shrugs, pretending not to notice the murderous look on my face. “It depends on what stylist you have and on what look you’re going for. By the way,” he adds, “you might want to try something besides hostile and angry. It could keep you alive in the second and third rounds.”
I say nothing and follow Max obediently out to the elevator, keeping my mouth shut because I know that I can’t give away Luke’s and my plan. I watch the lit numeral that shows what floor we’re on as it falls with us, changing from eight to zero in about a second. “And here we are,” Max announces, then shoves me out of the elevator and is on his way back up to the eighth floor before I can say or do anything in response.
“Thanks for the info Max,” I mutter venomously under my breath, all of this talk of stylists not helping my already mediocre mood. “I really hadn’t noticed.”
“And this must be Lizzie Lightning!” I hear a voice squeal excitedly behind me, and whip around to find three people – well, I think they’re people – standing behind me with looks of joy on their faces.
“Who are you?” I ask suspiciously, balling my fists as I look from one strange form to the next. The first person, a short and slight woman, is perfectly blue. Her hair is a brilliant metallic blue, as are her eyes and her lipstick, and even the tattoos running up and down her arms are blue. The second person, a man this time, seems to have gotten the monochromatic memo as well, as he is entirely orange. His hair is the color of fire, and his eyes are like sunsets in their burnt orange hue, and there is even a slight orange tint to his skin, though he doesn’t have any tattoos. The third, another woman, is also following the one-color theme with her all-white appearance. Her hair is shock white, her irises are pure white and her skin is nearly transparent it’s so white, and I wonder how anyone could think that anything like this is attractive and not overdone.
The first woman steps forward and shakes my hand, mesmerizing me with her amazingly azure appearance, as she tells me, “I’m Kate and this is Theo and Macy…” She jerks her head in the direction of the other two freaks, then adds, her tone full of awe, “… and, of course, you’re Lizzie Lightning.”
I nod my head in response, my eyes darting between all of them as I try to figure out what is so familiar about their color schemes, and am barely able to suppress a smile as I realize what it is. “Broncos colors,” I murmur under my breath, my gaze traveling from blue to orange to white as my lips twist into a grin briefly. However, the three colors, as I have now nicknamed them, don’t seem to notice, as they’re too busy talking among themselves and giggling.
I cough loudly, hoping to catch their attention and get this whole styling business out of the way. As if on cue, Kate looks up and exclaims, “Oh, right! Right this way, Lizzie.” She gestures into an adjoining hallway and I follow her and the other two colors into what appears to be a spa. In one corner, I see a tub full of a green, foul-smelling liquid and am immediately repulsed. Am I really going to have to touch that?
“Now, Lizzie, you’re going to have to take your clothes off so we can do a full-body polish,” someone behind me says and I pull my gaze away from the olive-colored fluid to find all three of them watching me expectantly. I give a huge sigh and roll my eyes, then do what they’ve instructed. I hear someone click his or her tongue in approval and I glance down at myself for a moment to be reminded that I am a world-class athlete and have a figure as such.
“If you’d step into the tub please.” Theo places a hand on my back and half-forces me into the green stuff, which burns my skin everywhere it touches me. However, I grit my teeth and tell myself that, if I can win a Triple Crown, I can survive a full-body polish.
The green liquid, it turns out, is actually a hair remover, because apparently I’m supposed to be hairless for the arena. After I’ve sat in that tub for nearly fifteen minutes, during which time Theo has pulled out half of my eyebrows and stripped my arms of hair as well, I’m moved to a tub of pure water to get all of the remaining olive stuff off of me and to give Kate and Macy time to do my makeup. The whole time, they’re all taking to me nonstop about nothing of consequence: I learn about what parties they attended and who’s getting married soon and who’s dyeing their hair a different color. For the first five minutes, I at least try to look interested, but, for the rest of the time, I just try to stifle my yawns. When they finally bid me goodbye and leave, I am left standing alone for a few moments before a door opens and another person comes in. It’s a man, which makes me instinctively cross my newly hairless arms over my chest, with chocolate-brown skin, kind brown eyes and short dark brown hair with a small gold earring in his left ear and no makeup on his face. Even though I feel like he’s nice, I watch him carefully as he makes a few circles around me, his eyes x-raying and examining me.
After about fifteen seconds of this, he nods his head and finally looks up at my face, and I realize that he’s probably got four or five inches on me. “Miss Lightning,” he murmurs, holding his hand out for me to shake, which I do cautiously. “My name’s Mitchell, and I’m your stylist for the whole Triple Crown.”
“Well, if you’re the stylist, then what were they?” I ask him curiously as I jerk my head in the direction of where the colors went, presuming that they were the stylists, considering all of the horrible things they did to me.
“They’re your assistant stylists,” he answers with a kind smile, handing me a robe from a rack behind him. “Come on, let’s talk.”
I slip into the robe and follow him through a door into a different room, intensely quizzical about what our talk’s going to be about.
“So, Miss Lightning, considering your last name, I thought it would appropriate to do something lightning-related,” Mitchell tells me after we both sit down on some of the chairs lying around the room we’re in.
“And what exactly does that mean?” I regard him warily, wondering how stupid or corny this idea is going to be. Trust me, I’ve had my share of puns and costumes based off my name, and none of them were ever good.
“Well, what does lightning do?” He captures and holds my unyielding golden gaze with his soft brown one and I lower the intensity level some, thinking that I probably should make him like me since he’s going to be responsible for my public appearance. “It creates sparks, so I was thinking we could make you Lizzie Lightning, the spark.”
Instantly my heart starts pounding and I question, “You’re not going to set me on fire, right?” I don’t like fire. I’ve nearly been burnt alive too many times to care for it.
“No.” Mitchell shakes his head and smiles, revealing a set of white, straight teeth. “No, we’re going to do something even better.” I see the almost manic glint in his eye and I wonder if, under that calm, gentle appearance, he’s really a lunatic. With that, he rises and leaves the room for a moment, leaving me sitting there in my robe wondering how this society became so twisted as to have children kill other children on national television. But then I think that it’s probably a very effective control method. Seeing thirty or thirty-one children get sent home in coffins and the other one or two broken beyond repair every year, the whole thing televised and compulsory to watch, would definitely intimidate you into not rebelling.
“Why do they do it?” I ask Mitchell as he walks back into the room, a dress hanging over one forearm. I have to know, I just have to.
“Do what?” He looks at me curiously and carefully, his warm brown eyes scanning me up and down.
“Do all of this.” I gesture all around me, trying to encompass the whole Champions’ Center and arena. “Do the Triple Crown, have innocent children kill other innocent children, break the survivors beyond repair. Is all of this really necessary to keep the people in line? Because from what I’ve seen, they’re all pretty broken to begin with.” I capture his gaze with my own and refuse to let him pull away, staring him down and demanding answers with my eyes.
“I don’t know Lizzie,” he answers dejectedly, and I finally let him drop his eyes to the floor. “They’ve been doing it for ninety-nine years, and it’s served its purpose well that whole time, so why would they not do it?” I am almost shocked by his perfectly cold and calculating words, as they sound like something I, an outsider, would say, not Mitchell, someone who’s lived with the Triple Crown his whole life.
I nod, everything buzzing around like a cloud of flies in my head. Closing my eyes for a moment, I try to make sense of it all and sort my thoughts. Finally, after regarding it for a while, I murmur, “I wonder why they think it’s so great though, the people of El Nieve. I mean, do they not realize that those are real children with real lives and real families they’re never going to see again?”
“Lizzie, they don’t. This has been their ultimate entertainment for so long that they blur out the fact that real kids are killing other real kids for the sake of being happy, for the sake of being entertained.” His voice trails off, and I can hear the barely masked hatred and sadness that makes me feel so bad for him. It must be awful, to get to know and like two kids and then send them off to slaughter every year.
I shake my head, dropping my gaze to my feet to study the pattern of the white tile for answers. “How did it get this bad, this twisted, that they’ve given up their freedom, their humanity, their ability to feel and be human for the sake of entertainment? I just…” I begin, shaking my head in confusion and denial. “I just… I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it either,” Mitchell murmurs, and we sit in silence for a little while as we both digest the horrors that have been his life for God knows how long and will end mine in a week or so. Suddenly I see Mitchell move out of the corner of my eye and he tells me gently, “Well, the interviews start in a little more than an hour, so we probably should get moving.”
I stand up and sigh greatly, looking for the first time at the dress Mitchell’s holding. It doesn’t appear to be anything special right now, just a plain orange dress, but I know that there’s more to it, that it’s definitely more than just a plain orange dress. Unfortunately, the only way for me to find out is if I put it on, so I take off my robe and go about the task of slipping myself into the dress, which is a lot easier said than done.
“What did you do before you came here?” Mitchell asks me suddenly, and I look up at him in surprise, since that’s a pretty odd question to be asking me. He sees my look of confusion and elaborates, “You are very tall and muscular, so I was just wondering what you did to get that way.”
“Um, I was an athlete,” I tell him. It’s partially true, and it’s the most I can tell him, considering that no one is supposed to know what else I did. “I guess I was a pretty good one too,” I add, grinning slightly. Pretty good is an understatement.
“Hmm.” He nods, gently pulling at a spot on my hip where the dress has bunched up. “Well you certainly look the part.” He gives me a warm smile and then walks around behind me to zip up my dress. “Would you care to see how you look?”
I nod my head in assent and Mitchell gently guides me into another room to stand in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, where my breath is taken away by the creature I see in front of me.
The makeup creates sharp angles and dark, swooping shadows on my face, accentuating the light gold of my eyes and the slightly darker gold of my hair. And the dress… well, the dress is amazing. Every time I move, the shades and hues of orange, red and gold change ever so slightly, giving me the appearance of a live spark ready to set a fire. I reach a hand out and touch the mirror to confirm if what I’m seeing is real.
I want to say how beautiful how look, how amazing the dress is, but all I say is, “I don’t… I don’t look like myself.”
Mitchell laughs quietly, looking down on me with kindness in his eyes. “I know. By the way, you look absolutely stunning in that dress, although I can’t take all of the credit for it. You gave me quite a lot to work with, Miss Lightning,” he murmurs, his gaze locked on mine, “so all I did was accentuate the beauty you already had.”
“All you did was make me look like a real live spark, Mitchell. That’s not an ‘all you did’. That’s a ‘you succeeded amazingly and made me look like I’m burning’.” I turn around to face him and embrace him, feeling like I can’t repay him for this wonderful deed. At first seeming taken aback, Mitchell then returns my hug when I don’t let go within a few seconds and gently kisses me on the forehead.
“Miss Lightning?” He gazes down at me, his eyes locked on mine, and, as I notice all of the little gold flecks swirling around in his irises, I think that whomever he’s dating is one lucky woman, since Mitchell is one amazing guy.
“Yes Mitchell?” I scan his face, looking for emotion, and find sadness – not surprisingly – emanating from his expression. He probably thinks that, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be dead, and I can’t blame him; the odds say I will.
“I found this in your room, and I want you to wear it, as a symbol of who you are, during the interviews and in the arena. Don’t worry, I’ve already had it cleared by Triple Crown officials,” he adds when he sees I’ve opened my mouth to interrupt him, and, even before he opens his hand, I know exactly what he’s talking about.
I gaze down on the exquisitely carved and absolutely stunning wolf’s head necklace with a reminiscent air and gently reach out and touch it, struck by the moment I received it and everything I’ve grown to associate it with: my freedom, my humanity, my ability to feel. I think that it’s incredibly ironic that I’m going to be wearing a symbol of my sense of self and my compassion into a place that is most definitely going to strip both of those – and a lot of other things – away from me.
“Promise me you’ll wear it.” Mitchell grabs my hand and encloses the necklace in it, his eyes begging me with a desperate plea.
“I promise,” I tell him, squeezing my hand around the necklace. Filled with a new determination, I put the necklace on and look at myself in the mirror, knowing that I’m going to die myself, not a servant of the Triple Crown and El Nieve. They will not break me.

More added.

“And now, weighing in at six-three, two hundred, is Luke Gates!” I look up at Luke and am reminded, yet again, that I can’t go home without him, I just can’t, and, for some odd reason, I find it comforting to know that he feels the same way. I’m also struck by how out of place he looks here, since he looks nothing like most of the other children champions, because, well, he doesn’t look like a child. But I guess I don’t either. At five-eleven, one fifty and nine percent body fat with all of it on my chest, I’ve got a nice figure. But I guess I’ve got a nice face too, considering the way all of the guys swarm to me. I have pure gold eyes a few shades lighter than my hair, a nice face shape and structure, and a permanent tan, so I’m not half-bad to look at, which I use to my advantage to manipulate men sometimes. But I would never manipulate Luke, especially not now, when our unity may be the only thing that keeps us both sane and ensures that one of us doesn’t have to go home with the other’s body. I decide to watch him to see how he’s handling everything while the other champions proceed to the stage to shake Puck’s, the Triple Crown announcer’s, hand, and one thing that I notice that I find very odd is that the servant girl assigned to me, Abigail, is also a champion, which makes me wonder even more about her motive for complimenting me. All too soon, before I’ve even had a chance to mull over everything buzzing around in my head, it is time for me to go up there. Of course, I am last, to either freak me out or emphasize that I am the best, but I strongly suspect it’s the former.
“And, last but certainly not least, weighing in at five-eleven, one fifty, is Lizzie Lightning!” Puck booms, his voice made exponentially louder by the microphone in his hand.
I will not be afraid I will not be afraid I will not be afraid…
For once in my life, I actually have stage fright, but keep my head high and refuse to let it show. I will not let these scary-white people and their scary-white city have the satisfaction of seeing how frightened I am. I hear the crowd, for some reason, silence almost immediately as I force my feet to move and walk forward towards the stage. Then the crowd erupts in an avalanche of cheers and whistles and hurrahs and it gives me some meager comfort to know that, even if these people want to see me die, they at least are willing to support me for the time being. As I approach my seat, I’m vaguely aware of a pinching pain in my feet, meaning the shoes are too small, but brush it off; I can talk to Mitchell about it later.
After I shake Puck’s hand and sit down next to, ironically, Luke, to wait for the champion interviews to start, I hear a voice whisper to me, “Boy, the crowd really loves you.”
Startled, I look all around me until I see Luke leaning towards me, looking me up and down as a small, sad smile curves his lips.
“Like it really matters. Besides, we’re supposed to be dying together, so they won’t have much time to like me,” I reply just as quietly, staring back at Luke as the full weight of both of us being dead in a few weeks overtakes me. “By the way, they seem to like you pretty well too,” I add, an insincere grin crossing my own face.
“Not nearly as much as they like you,” Luke murmurs back, his gaze glued on my own. “And Lizzie, we’re making the right choice; I could never go home without you, ever, and I wouldn’t want you to have to go home without me.”
“I really hope we are Luke.” I sigh, feeling the full weight of our situation pressing down on my so hard that I think I might break under it.
“We are,” Luke assures me, and just as he turns away from me to sit upright and face the crowd, he says one last thing, so quietly that I can barely hear it. “You look really pretty.”

The first champion, one of the girls from Section One (there are eight sections overall; they have me listed as the last girl from Section Eight), isn’t really going for any look or strategy in particular, unless that strategy or look is weak and frightened. She stammers a lot and the look of relief on her face when her five minutes is up and she leaves the stage is very apparent. The other girl from Section One, however, is the first girl’s polar opposite. She’s tall, nearly as tall as I am, and she just projects confidence and composure. Based off of her height, muscle mass and almost-cockiness, I would bet that she is definitely a career champion who’s trained her whole life for the glory and honor of winning the Triple Crown. Unlike most of the rest of us champions, who consider being selected to compete a death sentence. Both boys from Section One are also career champions; you can tell by the way they look and act. Undoubtedly, in the second and third events of the Triple Crown, they, along with the other career champions, would team up and track the rest of us down. That’s what always happened in the other Triple Crowns I watched on film. One boy from Section Two is a career champion, one boy and one girl from Section Three are as well, and so are both boys and both girls from Four. Great. That makes a total of ten career champions who have been training for this moment their whole lives and are ruthless killing machines. Boy, I might not even make it out of the first round of one-on-one combat. No one from Five, Six or Seven is a career champion, but Abigail, it turns out, is from Section Five, which means, if I can win the first two rounds and secure first selection in a partner, she will be on my team for round three. Good. Maybe I can keep her alive that way. She also seems to be taking weak-and-frightened lessons from the non-career girl from One. Well, at least Abigail’s showing her true colors. Sarah, the first girl from Eight, is not as small as Abigail but close to it, and she has a way of making it impossible to hear her because her voice trails off so badly. I don’t pay attention during her interview, and suddenly I see her get up and walk off the stage. Which means…
Now it’s my turn.
I walk slowly and carefully up to the chair beside Puck, uncomfortably aware of the hundreds of thousands of pairs of eyes on my back. Sitting down carefully so I don’t fall, I cross my legs, wish my dress were longer and wait for the questions to start.

“So, Miss Lightning, what do you think of being chosen as a champion?” Puck asks me, and, for a second, I freeze and have no idea what he said. Panicking, I search the audience desperately for Max, find him and his flame tattoos in seconds, remember what he told me about being completely and utterly honest, and, feeling a little better, answer.
“Well, I think it’s a death sentence personally,” I reply, my eyes darting between Puck’s face and Max’s. “I mean, there are thirty-two of us here, so if we just go off basic odds, that’s only a little more than a three percent chance that I’m going to return home alive.” I see Max shaking his head, a smirk crossing his face, and I know I’m doing exactly what he thought I would: being perfectly analytical and distant. “So I guess I’m not that happy about it, since the odds don’t seem to be in my favor.” I shrug and allow a little smile to come across my face, then glance around quickly and see that every gaze in the audience is glued intently on me, their owners hanging on my words.
“That’s completely understandable,” Puck tells me, nodding his head with a tone in his voice that’s supposed to be sympathy. I think. “Well, Lizzie, there have been rumors that you are quite good and have a lot more than a three percent chance of surviving. Care to elaborate?” He winks at me, which I find sickening, but I swallow my disgust because I know I would definitely get in trouble if I decked Puck in the nose.
I can see Max shaking his head no in the background and decide to follow him since he knows a lot better than I do, considering he won the Triple Crown. “Rumors are called rumors because they are often not true, Puck,” I reply firmly but as politely as I can stand to be. My eyes flicker up towards the trainers’ booth and I add, “Besides, I don’t think I’m really supposed to talk about it.” After all, I don’t even have anything to talk about since I got here after the training was done.
“Come now,” Puck encourages, giving me his perfectly white, Cheshire-cat smile that nearly turns my stomach. “There must be something you can tell us.”
“Actually, she’s not allowed to,” a voice booms, and I look up towards the trainers’ booth again and see that Max is up there now, and, like always, he’s making the people around him look like they’re ten or eleven just because of his sheer size. “Sorry Puck!” he shouts down at us, and I swear I can feel the whole foundation of the arena shake.
It’s a couple seconds before the echo of Max’s voice becomes quiet enough for Puck to speak again.
“So, Lizzie, a pretty young girl like yourself, there must be some special guy at home.” He looks at me expectantly, as though he thinks that I’m going to spill every detail of my personal life to the entire nation at the drop of a hat.
Suddenly I see Luke sit straight upright and become very attentive, his eyes glued on my face. Why does my answer mean so much to him?
Still slightly unnerved by Luke’s odd behavior, I respond, not truthfully at all because I have no intention of revealing my relationship with Jackson, “No, actually there isn’t. I broke up with my last ex last November.” Looking back over at Luke, I see that he is relieved at my answer. Something’s wrong. He shouldn’t care this much about my relationship status when we have to kill each other in a day.
Flicking my eyes over to Mitchell, who’s sitting next to Max, I see him draw a circle in the air and instantly I stand up and twirl, seeing Mitchell nod his head in approval once I’m done.
Puck and the audience goes wild, clapping and cheering, and Puck nearly begs me, “Oh, please do that again!” So I twirl again, and again the crowd loses it, screaming nearly as loud as they will when I’m about to die at another champion’s hand, and I then I sit down, my hand flying immediately to the necklace around my neck. As I turn the pendant in between my fingers, I remember my unspoken promise to myself: they will not break me.
Puck asks me a bunch of meaningless questions after that, which I answer the best I can. However, the whole time I’m still puzzling over Luke’s downright weird actions and I make a plan to confront him about it after the interviews are finished. When Puck dismisses me, I return to my seat next to the other champions and wait almost eagerly to see how Luke’s interview goes.
Nick, the first boy from Section Eight, is another clear non-career champion who seems to have as good of a chance of winning the Triple Crown as Abigail does. I don’t really pay attention during his interview though; the whole time I am still formulating theories about Luke’s behavior. When the boy’s interview is done, he almost sprints off the stage to return to his seat next to Abigail, but I suppose I can’t blame him. After all, tomorrow this same crowd is going to be cheering on our deaths.
“So, Luke, how’s life in El Nieve treating you so far?” Puck asks Luke after he takes his seat on the stage. El Nieve, hmm? That means ‘the snow’ in Spanish, so maybe there’s actually a reason for everything being so white.
“Well, I like it here in El Nieve. It’s certainly a lot fancier than home, that’s for sure.” He gives a smile, and I glance up into the crowd to see many girls pretending to swoon. Ugh. Well, I guess he isn’t bad looking, but he definitely isn’t as attractive as those girls are making him seem. “And the people are great too.” All of a sudden I feel his eyes on me and look up to see him staring at me, but he quickly reverts his gaze back to Puck before I can say or do anything.
Puck must have seen our little interaction because he pipes up and says, “Speaking of people, you’re a handsome young guy. There must be a special girl somewhere.”
“Yeah, there is, but we’ve just always been friends and I don’t think she’d want to be anything more,” Luke answers, keeping his gaze away from me this time.
“Well, what say you win, go home and impress her?” Puck has his gaze glued on Luke as well, and I can feel the intensity in the air growing with every second that passes.
“I don’t think winning would help me that much, to be honest,” Luke replies, shrugging his shoulders, and I become even more curious.
“Well, why not?” Puck, along with the rest of the audience, is very much interested in Luke’s answer. So am I.
“Because I don’t think winning would impress her that much.” Luke is staring at me again, and I have the feeling that he is talking to me… that he is talking about me. “I think she’d probably be mad at me for killing a bunch of people for her sake.” He gives me a small, sincere and yet very sad smile before he looks back up at Puck, and I know, without a doubt, that he is talking about me. But… why? Luke and I have never had anything romantic between us; all we had ever been was rather distant friends, so it makes me angry that he’s making it seem like he’s in love with me when he’s definitely not, since then I get that much more attention.
“Well, Mr. Gates, I do wish you the best of luck with your lady troubles then; maybe she’ll change her mind if you win.” Yeah, not likely Puck. If Luke and I can execute our plan, neither one of us will win since we’ll both be dead.
“Well thank you,” Luke tells Puck as he exits the stage and returns to his seat next to me. The whole time, Luke’s eyes are glued to me, begging me for emotion and reaction that I refuse to give.
As we rise to our feet to take a bow and exit the stage, I pretend like Luke doesn’t exist. Since he just drew a whole hell of a lot more attention to both of us and basically made it impossible for us to die in peace, like we were planning to do, he doesn’t deserve my recognition. Holding my head high and looking past Luke like he’s not even there, I walk back into the Champions’ Center (where our quarters are) and take the elevator up to the eighth floor, where Section Eight stays.
However, as soon as Luke and I step out onto our floor, I turn towards him, pin him against a wall and snarl, “What in the bloody hell did you do that for?!”
Instead of him trying to explain, like I thought he would, instead he shoots back, “What does it matter? Jackson’s not here to see it anyways.”
At this point, I am about to deck him in the nose, when Max yells at me, “Lizzie!” grabbing me from behind and literally pulling me off Luke. Turning me around, Max tells me harshly, “He just did you a favor Lizzie! He just made you desirable, and you being desirable may be the only thing that keeps you alive in the last two rounds.” I stop trying to fight my way out of Max’s grip and look up at him with a look of distaste on my face, since I know he’s right. “Come on,” Max tells me roughly, putting one huge arm around my shoulders and guiding me towards my room.
“You put him up to it, didn’t you?” I ask Max wearily as I collapse onto my bed. It seems exactly like something Max would do.
“Actually, it was his idea, but I agreed to it, since I knew we had to do something to make the crowd like you,” Max tells me almost lightly, then adopts a sterner, more commanding tone. “Now you are going to milk this for all it’s worth, all right?” He looks at me for confirmation and I nod my head. “First reject him, pretend like you hate him, then warm up to him and make it seem like you’re falling for him, all right? The crowd will love it, and their love can and probably will keep you alive.”
“All right Max, I’ll try my best.” I sigh, thinking that it’s not enough just to try to die anymore, that now I have to pretend to fall for a boy I don’t really know that well as I pretend I want to survive. This isn’t just a fight to the death anymore; no, this is now an acting competition as well.
“Don’t try, Liz, do. Your life and probably Luke’s life depend on it,” Max says as he leaves my room, and I sigh again. Boy, this is getting complicated.

More added.

I look out over the city of El Nieve, seeing all of the lights lighting up the sky, and I think that night doesn’t really exist here. Suddenly I hear a footstep behind me and whip around to see Luke standing there with a sad tinge to his whole being.
“Hey,” I greet, pull up a chair next to me and gesture for him to sit down.
After he sits down and we share a silence, we both say at the same exact moment, “I’m sorry.”
Luke looks at me incredulously and asks, “What are you sorry for?”
“Well, I kind of pinned you against a wall, cussed you out and was about to break your nose,” I tell him, and, despite our serious situation, smiles spread across both of our faces.
“Well, I guess if you put it that way, it sounds pretty bad,” he agrees, nodding his head in assent.
“So why are you sorry? All you did was try to keep both of us alive, and that’s even better than having both of us dead.” I look over at him curiously, thinking that he has nothing to be sorry for.
“Because I shouldn’t have said what I did about you and Jackson,” he answers quietly, dropping his gaze to his feet.
Oh. Right. I had forgotten about that. “Don’t worry about it Luke,” I tell him gently, capturing his eyes with own as he looks back up. “Jackson and I… we’re not like that anyways.”
“I know; trust me, your lack of a boyfriend has been all the rage around school since last November.” His eyes twinkle but I can tell that he’s not completely joking. “But, would you be… if we made it home alive?” Luke looks at me intently, all trace of a joke gone from his voice and eyes.
“I don’t know. I mean, I know Jackson needs someone since Alexa rejected him for my brother, but I don’t know if I’m that person.” I shrug my shoulders as I trace the lines on the ground in front of me with my gaze.
Luke nods his head and drops his stare to the ground as well. After we sit in silence for a few minutes, I pipe up and ask, “So what about you? Anyone special in your life?” I look over at him, thinking that if there is, she better be someone I like or at least tolerate; otherwise Luke’s going to get chewed out.
“Nah, no one special,” he tells me as he looks me up and down with an odd look in his eye. “Besides, even if there was a girl, I think she’d probably find someone better,” he adds, lowering his eyes again, and I am literally about to slap him.
Luke, the boy I don’t really know who’s willing to say he loves me just to keep us both alive, says that a girl could find someone better than him. “Luke, any girl would be lucky to have you.” He looks suddenly up at me and I see that odd look in his eye again. “Good night Luke,” I tell him gently as I rise to my feet and walk back towards the elevator, and I swear I can feel his gaze on me the whole time.

Of course, I’m fighting one of the career champions in the first round, the boy from Two. Just my luck. Oh well; maybe if I die early I won’t have to kill Abigail because she’ll already be dead. However, a name catches my eyes and I freeze, looking back down at the bracket in my hand. Luke is on the exact opposite side, so if he wins all of his battles and I win all of mine… we’ll be facing off for the Hand-to-Hand Combat championship, and then I’ll get a chance to pretend to fall for him and maybe even get our plan to work. And now I know that I have to make it to the last round.

I smirk in satisfaction as my opponent gets up, his breathing labored, a bloody scratch across his stomach and loathing in his eyes.
“You’ll pay for that one!” he grunts as he runs after me, his sword raised as he attempts – and fails miserably – to stab me.
“Boy, I thought you career champions were supposed to be good fighters. So far you’re not giving me that impression.” I anticipate his thrust and dodge it easily, not even having to work very hard, and I hear the crown cheering me on in my humiliation of this supposed-to be career champion. Even though I know it can’t last, this whole one-on-one combat thing is actually turning out to be pretty fun.
“I will kill you,” he snarls, heaving so hard that I can barely make out what he says. I’m puzzled why he’s having such a hard time, since I thought these career champions were supposed to be in great shape; after all, they’ve been training their whole lives to win the Triple Crown, right? So why is he so out of shape? Unless it’s a plan to…
I barely jump out of the way in time to avoid becoming a human shish kebab, and I look up at my opponent with a marked expression of distaste. His breathing has returned to normal, and that confirms my suspicions of him acting weak to get me off guard.
“You know, you’re a decent actor. In fact, you almost had me fooled for a second,” I tell him, determined to kill him now. Dancing my way around him, I stab him the back, right through his heart, so he will die quickly and I won’t have to listen to his screams of pain. After all, it doesn’t even matter if you die in the first two rounds, because they’ll just revive you so you can compete in all of the rounds. It would be far more merciful of them if they would just let you stay dead after you’ve died once.
I gasp in horror as the ground begins to eat my opponent’s body, but then realize that a platform underneath the dirt is sinking so that it only looks like the ground is swallowing up his body.
Puck’s voice then booms overhead, “And I give you Lizzie Lightning, your winner!” The crowd goes insane, screaming my name and throwing me roses and other flowers. However, this display of admiration only makes me feel sick and I dart my eyes to the ground so my facial expressions don’t give me away.
As I walk back towards where the other champions are and get a drink of water, I hear one career champion murmur to another, “Based off her look, you’d think that she’d never seen a Triple Crown before!” and they both snicker quietly.
Too bad they’re right.
Seven career champions advance to the second round, and the only reason that more don’t is because two fight each other in the first round and one is killed. Oh, and Luke fought a career champion and killed that career champion within a minute, which impresses me greatly, since I had no idea that he could fight because he never struck me as a violent person. However, Luke beating a career champion wasn’t even the most surprising occurrence in the first round. Little Abigail, who seems like she’d probably cry if she hurt a fly, took out the sickly, frightened boy from Five who I had thought had as much of a chance of winning the Triple Crown as Abigail did. Well, I guess I was wrong about that one, since Abigail’s outlasted him. I don’t think Abigail’s going to make it past the second round though; she has to face the career girl from One and I think she’s going to lose. Badly. But I can’t worry about Abigail right now, considering that I’ve got plenty of my own issues, like the fact that I have to fight another career… oh, right now.

“Hello… Lizzie,” the career boy from Three greets, giving me a perfect white smile as he looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on my chest and hips. He’s tall and perfectly tan, with dancing blue-green eyes and more muscle tone than Luke has. In fact, he would be more attractive than Luke if he wasn’t so utterly arrogant. “My name’s Marshall Moore. It is… lovely to meet you.” He tries to kiss my hand but I jump back, not wanting that mouth – God knows where it’s been – to touch me.
I grimace at him, completely turned-off, give him a flat look and tell him, “I’m not interested in douchebags. That’s not how I roll.” My grimace turns into a satisfied smirk as I see his grin transform into an ugly scowl for a second before he puts his mask of friendliness back on. Well, I definitely pegged him right.
“It’s too bad you’re not willing to… work something out,” he murmurs, his eyes glued on mine. “I would have loved to… figure out a solution to this… predicament we’re in.” I bet you every girl in the stands finds his pauses provocative, but, in my opinion, they make him sound like he’s too stupid to talk at a normal speed.
“Oh, the one where one of us has to die in the next half an hour?” I ask him, thinking that’s not much of a predicament since he’s going to be the one dying. “By the way, you’re going to be the one doing the dying, since I have no intention of losing this early.” I give him a white smile of my own, hoping he picks up on exactly how serious I am.
I’m surprised when he bottles up his anger and keeps his face completely calm. In fact, instead of some snarky, perverted remark – like I was expecting him to make – all he says is, “We shall see.”
Indeed we shall, Marshall Moore, indeed we shall.

Marshall is sitting on top of me, his hips positioned over mine so that I can’t fight back with my lower body. He also has my arms pinned behind my back and is pressing my shoulders down so I am left completely helpless; hopefully he’ll be nice and kill me quickly, although, unfortunately, I don’t really think that’s his style. He seems to be more of the dramatic type, one who will drag out a death just to give the audience a show.
He bends down over and whispers in my ear, “You know, I could kill you right now if I wanted to, Lizzie.” He pulls back for a moment and smiles at me, which I find completely revolting. “It’s a good thing I find you so… irresistible.” I feel his lips on my neck and I begin to panic, my breathing speeding up and my heart rate skyrocketing. Killing me would be a lot more merciful than this torture.
“Getting excited, now are we?” he murmurs between kisses, his lips working their way slowly upward.
“Get the hell off of me!” I yell at him, pushing on him for all I’m worth…to no avail. No matter what way I look at it, whether I die or Marshall continues to kiss me for the next half an hour, I am fully and completely screwed.
“Feisty, now are we?” I can feel his breath on my cheek and I begin to – almost – hyperventilate. “Don’t worry, I like… spunk,” he says to me just before he kisses me on the lips.
In desperation, I start flailing my legs wildly, hoping maybe I’ll kick him in the back of the head on accident, and I muster up every ounce of muscle strength in my body to try to fling him off me, but again it doesn’t work. I am completely and utterly trapped and also completely and utterly at his mercy.
“Well, Miss Lightning, I think we’re going to have lots of fun,” Marshall tells me when he pulls away, his eyes twinkling horrifically. How could I have ever thought he was even the slightest bit cute? Before I can react or say anything, he’s back on top of me again, and this time I feel him force my mouth open and insert his tongue.
As a knee-jerk reaction, I bite down as hard as I can and hear him cry out in pain as the sharp, iron taste of blood fills my mouth. I wait till he pulls away and then spit a glob of saliva and blood right in his face.
“How does that taste, Marshall? I guess you didn’t count on me not finding you irresistible.” I give him my most dashing grin as his face contorts in rage. After all, if I’m going to die, I might as well have some fun.
“Well, Lizzie, I guess our fun has come to an end. It’s too bad we couldn’t have more,” he murmurs as he wipes his face off and pulls out his blade, his eyes glued to my face as though he’s expecting me to beg for mercy or more of his kisses. Like I would actually do either of those things.
As my final act of defiance, I tell him, “Yo tengo relámpago en mi sangre. No puedes quitar eso de mi.”
Much to my surprise, instead of just killing me – like I would if I was him – his eyes become incredibly wide with surprise and he asks me, “What did you just say? Or, rather, what language did you just speak in? I am fluent in many languages and I have never heard that one before.” Unfortunately for him, his surprise causes his pressure on me to let up for a mere moment, but a mere moment’s all I need. In a split-second, I have him pinned on his stomach while I sit on top of him and hold his arms at what I know from experience to be awkward, painful positions behind his back.
Just like he did with me, I bend down over him and whisper in his ear, “Marshall Moore, I believe our fun has just begun.”

I don’t carve too big of a hole out of Marshall, unlike I am so desperately tempted to do; rather, I merely take his blade and stab him in the back and through the heart, a relatively painless and quick death. Or at least painless and quick compared to other ways I could have made him die.
I see the other career champions, only five of them now, eying me with a mixture of jealousy, hate, admiration, and – from the boys – interest as I return to my seat at the edge of the arena and collapse with a water bottle in my hand.
I hear someone come up behind and sit down in the seat next to me, and I glance over, expecting to see Abigail. Instead, I see Luke and debate spitting out my mouthful of water on him, but decide that would be a waste of water.
Without waiting for me to say anything, he tells me, “That was some great fighting out there,” and gives me a smile. I know he’s not here just to compliment me though; this has to be part of the in-love-with-me act, so I decide to do what Max said and reject him.
“Luke, what do you want?” I ask him flatly, pretending to be annoyed and hoping he gets that I’m just acting.
“I want to congratulate you for winning your fight…?” He looks at me, pretending to be confused and hurt by my comment, but I can tell that he’s only acting, thank God. Boy, he’s a better actor than I thought he was.
“Listen, Luke, I’m not nearly as naïve or stupid as you seem to think I am, so it’d be in both our best interests for you to screw off.” I shoot him a fake look of loathing and walk away, hoping that wasn’t overkill and that Max isn’t going to yell at me later.
Suddenly I feel a tug on my arm and see Abigail looking up at me with those beautiful blue eyes that kill me slowly every time I see them. “I don’t think he’s acting Lizzie,” she murmurs, dropping her gaze to her feet. My eyes open wide in shock as I register what she said, but I just brush it aside. I mean, I know he’s acting because didn’t Max tell me specifically that it was just a rouse to get the crowd to like me? Anyways, Abby doesn’t know better than I do.
“Of course he is Abigail,” I reply, bulldozing over her comment and the fact that I’m acting too. “He’s just a really good actor, so he fooled you. But he hasn’t fooled me.” I shoot a false look of pure venom over my shoulder to where Luke is still sitting, his shoulders hunched in what appears to be sadness but it makes me happy to know that he isn’t really sad, that it’s just another part of the act that Max instructed us to do though.
“Oh. That’s good,” she obediently responds, still staring intently at the ground, but I can tell that she isn’t convinced. At all. However, I have no time to mull over her response and its connotation, because she then looks up at me, apprehension in her voice and hope overflowing from each of her eyes, and I know that I’m a goner, that whatever she wants, she’s going to get. “Lizzie, can I hold your hand?” she asks me.
“Of course Abigail,” I tell her, smiling down at her as her doll-sized fingers intertwine with my own large, calloused ones. Suddenly it strikes me that she needs a nickname, so I question, “Can I call you Abby?”
“Of course Lizzie,” she replies, mimicking my tone, which causes my smile to get bigger. “That’s what all my friends at school call me anyways.”
We walk over to and sit down against the arena wall, and I look up to see spectators cheering and nearly jumping the barrier that separates them from the arena – and us. I glance up at the huge screen that shows what’s currently airing live to the rest of the nation to find – like I expected – Abby and I covering every inch of it.
“Lizzie…” Abby begins, her grip on my hand tightening. I drop my gaze to her, pick her up gently, and set her down in my lap. She then rests her head on my chest, seeming to be somewhat comforted.
“Yeah Abby?” I stroke her hair very gently, painfully reminded of my little brother Timmy and how I used to do this with him all the time.
“Lizzie, I want to go home,” she murmurs, nestling her head underneath my chin and clinging to me desperately. I look back up at the screen to find that I’m staring myself down, and I desperately want to demand that they get us off the screen, that this is a private moment, when I remember that there are no such things as private moments anymore, that everything I do is going to be seen by everyone across the whole continent. So I just bite my tongue and hold onto Abby as hard as she’s holding onto me.
“You know, Abby,” I begin, fixing my eyes on her small blond head and knowing that I’m going to have to let go, and that, when I do, she’s going to die, “so do I.”

More added.

At least the career champion who killed Abby made it quick and relatively painless, a dagger through the heart that took her life almost instantly. Even though I know that Abby isn’t really dead, that she’s going to come back perfectly alive and fine, I still freak out when I see her body being eaten by the dirt.
“Abby! Abby!” I shout, trying to run to her and save her from these strangers that don’t care about her, that only want her alive so they can have their show, when I realize someone’s holding me so I don’t run to her. I whip around and see Luke, which only makes me even madder. What the hell is he doing?!
“It’s no use Lizzie,” he tells me gently, lets go of me, and walks off. I look after him, wondering how he makes himself sound so sincere and genuine; I guess he just must be an incredibly good actor.
Even though I’m incredibly puzzled by Luke’s odd genuine display of kindness, I can’t make myself think of anything besides the image of Abby’s dead body. What happens when the third round comes and that’s for real? Even if I win the first two events and choose her to be on my team for the third, can I keep her alive, with thirty other people trying to kill her? But I can’t think about the third round right now, since I’ve still got the first and second ones to win.

I get to fight the career girl from One, the one who killed Abby, in the third round. Picking up my sword and multiple daggers, I search the crowds for Max’s face but am only met with the faces of hundreds of thousands of strangers who can’t wait to see me die. Not exactly the pick-me-up I’m looking for.
“Hello Lizzie, my name’s Danica Roberts.” The career from One holds out her hand to me and smiles, probably envisioning what my facial expression’s going to be when I lay on the ground, dead. Too bad she’s never going to see it, because she’s going to be the one dying. She killed Abby, so she must pay. I resolve to make her kill the quickest of them all, to kill her within thirty seconds if I can.
“Hello Danica, my name’s Lizzie Lightning.” I return her smile, and now it’s my turn to imagine what she’s going to look like when she dies. Even though I don’t like her at all, I think that she’ll probably look regal and take her death in stride, because I know that she definitely won’t grovel and beg for mercy.
“Good luck,” she tells me, and I return her sentiment, idly thinking about adding, “You’re going to need it.” Because with my anger about Abby, she most certainly is.

As soon as the gunshot releases us to start combat, I charge Danica, punch her in the stomach and, while she’s stunned and out of breath, flip her onto her back.
“For Abby,” I murmur as I sink my sword into her heart and she stills, her life-blood pooling on her chest. For some reason, though, I feel that I at least owe it to her to close her eyes, so I do, and when I come back up, I realize I’m right, she does look very regal. I give a false chuckle that’s more of a sigh and turn away from her, not wanting to see a third body eaten by the dirt today.
Suddenly I hear Puck’s excited voice booming over the intercom and I look up, knowing I probably should listen since whatever he’s announcing probably has something to do with my just-ended fight.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the record for fastest kill in hand-to-hand combat has been shattered by Miss Lizzie Lightning, who killed Danica Roberts in ten seconds, which is twenty-three seconds faster than the last record that was, very interestingly, set by Mister Luke Gates!” The crowd goes insane, screaming and raining more flowers on me. Just to humor the advice Max gave me about trying to make people like me, I catch one, a yellow rose, sniff it, and toss it back in the general direction of where it was thrown from, which then starts a fistfight between about four guys over the rose. I shake my head, wondering how they could make such a big deal out of a damn flower when I just killed someone. But, oh, right…
“It’s just a game to them,” Luke murmurs in my ear, and I whip around, surprised and disconcerted that I didn’t hear him before he got behind me. I look up into his steady, unwavering blue eyes and see a strength that I desperately need and want, a strength that could very well keep me me when this whole thing is said and done. And that’s when he steps forward and embraces me.

At first, I try to pull back, but realize that I’ll probably fall over from exhaustion if I do and also that I’m supposed to be falling for him, so I just lean forward – and into him. It’s not bad, at all; in fact, that’s what worries me, is that it’s more than just casual, that when he pulls back, I can tell he wants more – and maybe I want more too.
“You’re exhausted Lizzie,” he tells me as I rest my head on his shoulder and feel his arms tighten around me. It’s lucky that he’s there for me to lean on; otherwise I’d fall over.
“I didn’t sleep last night…” I begin, lifting my head up to look him in the eye, “…or the night before.”
“I know,” is all Luke says as gives me a small, compassionate smile. I know every eye in the nation is on us right now, I but I don’t care. I’m too tired and beaten down and sad and desolate to care. Before I can say or do anything else, Luke gently scoops me up into his arms and murmurs in my ear, “Let’s go. The second half of hand-to-hand isn’t till tomorrow,” and I don’t fight it. I just curl up and place my head against his chest to hear the steady beat of his heart. It’s a comforting sound, since it lets me know that he’s alive and real and there for me. As a friend. Anything more, though, and I can feel Jackson, the guy that I maybe would date if we made it back, watching me all the way from Elizabeth. But it feels like I’m betraying Luke, who, even if he is only acting, I already owe lots to by thinking about a different guy when he’s the one here keeping me sane.
Suddenly I notice that we’re in a room of the hospital, in all of its sterile paleness, and Luke gently sets me down on a soft white bed.
“Get some sleep Lizzie,” he bids me gently, then bends down and kisses me on the forehead. The gesture is so gentle and natural, unlike all of the acting we’ve been doing, that it takes me by surprise, and a question I’ve had for a while strikes me again.
“Why are you doing this, Luke?” I ask him as he turns to leave. He then turns back around and looks at me with confusion in his eyes. “Why are you being so sincere, when we’re only acting?”
“Because I can be kind and act like I’m in love with you at the same time.” He walks back over to my bed and gives me another kiss on the forehead. “Now please go to sleep,” he tells/begs of me as he flips the lights off, and I smile despite myself. You know, I’m starting to think that he’s the best guy I’ve ever met.
“As long as you get some sleep yourself.” I’m happier when I see that he collapses into a chair next to the bed, and I look over at him and realize how much he’s aged since this morning. I wonder how much older I look.
Even though I’m absolutely exhausted, I just can’t, no matter what I do, go to sleep, and when I glance over at Luke and see him watching me, I know he’s having the same issue.
“You know, you’re the first person I’ve never been able to truly get,” I tell him, meeting his gaze in the darkness and willing him to come closer.
I see him get up, so I scoot over to give him some room to sit down. Instead of sitting, however, he lies down next to me and looks over at me with that incredible blue gaze that I’ll never be able to shake from my mind. “What do you mean?” he asks me gently, finding my hand and holding it with both of his.
“I can read most other people, figure out their intentions and personalities pretty quickly, but with you, I can’t. At first, I thought you were just doing this because Max wanted to make me more popular with the crowd, but now I think you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart.” I return his gaze and give him a little smile, enjoying the closeness between us.
“Come here,” he murmurs, so I scoot closer to him, he wraps his arm around me and I rest my head on his chest. “Well, Lizzie, thank you for the compliment, but my only question is why are you trying to figure me out? Why don’t you just let me show you who I am so you don’t have to go through the trouble of predetermining it?”
His questions catch me off guard, and I look up at him in confusion, not knowing the answers. “I guess…” I begin, dropping my gaze to my hands resting on my stomach so I can buy some time. “I guess… I guess I predetermine who you are so that way I know what to expect, so I can prepare myself for what you’re going to do.”
“Well I think maybe you should give people a chance to show their true colors, since your readings of them aren’t going to be right all the time,” Luke tells me finally.
I sit there and think about what he told me, about letting people be who they are, and look up to ask him another question when I see that his eyes are closed and he is soundly asleep. I smile slightly as I see that, even in the darkness, he looks more like seventeen now, and I know that I should probably get some sleep too.
“Good night Luke,” I murmur, roll over so my head is resting on his chest again and have a hard time keeping my eyes open as soon as I get comfortable. The last thought I think before I drift off is that maybe Abby was right about him, that maybe he isn’t completely acting…

Light invades my eyes and I clumsily open them to find myself staring at a pure white ceiling. And that when it hits me.
Last night was the first night I’d ever spent with a boy besides Troy, since Jackson and I had never really gotten to that point in our relationship. Sure, Troy and I had spent nights together when we would go hang out in the woods during the summer, but we had never had such a close night like I did with Luke.
Luke!
I sit straight up in bed and glance over to see a blank white expanse of sheet next to me. I am about to panic when I see a note, written in neat handwriting, occupying the pillow where Luke was last night. Hoping that it’s from Luke, I pick it up and read it aloud.
“Lizzie,
I’m all right, I’m just eating breakfast. If you’d like you can come and join me. However, I told Abby you’d be up by nine so expect her in your room at nine on the dot. Also – thank you so much for last night.
Luke.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and then glance over at the clock to the right of my bed to see what time it is.
8:59! That means Abby’s going to be here… right now.
“Lizzie!” she squeals, throwing herself on top of me and wrapping her arms around me so tight that I think I’m going to suffocate.
“Abby!” I cry into her ear, hugging her back as hard as I dare to. “Abby, Abby, are you ok?” I ask her urgently, holding her out from me so I can inspect her and make sure she’s not physically harmed. When I find that she isn’t, I let go of her and she crawls into my lap, like she did yesterday in the arena.
“Yeah, I’m ok Lizzie.” She gives me her innocent little smile and I am reminded, yet again, that she has complete power over me, that what she wants, no matter how big it is, she’s going to get.
“So what do you want to do until the Triple Crown starts up again?” I know that all I want to do is spend time with her, so it doesn’t really even matter to me what we specifically do, as long as we do it together.
“Can you tell me a story Lizzie?” Abby looks up at me hopefully, and, even though I have no idea what I’m going to tell her, I nod my head yes, and her face lights up so much that I know it doesn’t matter what I tell her, as long as I tell her something.
“Ok.” I return her smile, still having no idea what I’m going to tell her. Suddenly it hits me; I don’t have to tell her a story at all.
“So, once upon a time, there was this girl who was a really good runner, and all she cared about was winning every race she ran, which she always did. But, one day, she switched schools and made new friends, and one of those friends was also a really good runner.” My throat tightens up a little bit, and I have a hard time continuing, but I know that I have to. For Abby. “But the first girl didn’t know that until they both went to run for the school against girls from other schools. Now, the first girl was a lot faster than her friend, but her friend was still fast enough to set a school record, so her friend wasn’t by any means bad. But then, in the last race of the year, their coach had put them both in the race, which meant that the first girl would finally get a chance to break the school record – and so would her friend. Now, the friend wasn’t a bad student but she wasn’t great at school and she played the flute but she wasn’t great at it, so running was the only thing she was truly great at. And the first girl, who’d already broken a lot of records, saw that, and she knew that it would make her friend really happy if her friend broke a school record. So the first girl ran slow in the last race of the year and let her friend win the race and break the school record. And her friend being so happy made the first girl realize that there’s a lot more to life that just winning, and the first girl never forgot that moment, never forgot how happy her friend was, never forgot. Never ever forgot.” My voice faded away into nothing and I found myself staring at the wall, trying to fight back tears that were threatening to overcome me. I would never forget how happy Ellise was, I would never forget that. Even if I forgot everything else, that would be the one thing that would stick in my memory forever. Well, that and the image of Abby’s lifeless body as it was carried past me and the feeling that somehow I had caused her death.
I am interrupted from my thoughts by someone standing in the doorway and clapping, and I look up, startled, to find Luke leaning on the doorframe with a smile on his face.
“I think that was the best story I’ve ever heard,” he tells me as he sits down on the edge of the bed, and I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that he knows it’s not just a story. I feel Abby nudge me ever so slightly and look down to see her laughing gaze shooting back and forth between him and I. Ok, so maybe she was right about him and maybe I was wrong, but that gives her no excuse to be so annoying.
“Oh, shush you.” I nudge her no so slightly, then give her a smile so she knows that I’m joking. Because with Abby, sometimes you just don’t know what’s going through her head.
“Care to tell another, Lizzie? I’d love to listen.” Luke gives me the most genuine smile I’ve ever seen and finds my hand, his warmth next to me – steady, solid, dependable, always there – comforting.
“Then I’d love to tell one.” I give his hand a squeeze and think about what tale I should tell them next. And suddenly it hits me: the perfect story to tell them.
“Once upon a time, there was this man, and his name was Charlie, and he was twenty-six years old, and his best friend was a sixteen-year-old girl named Eleanor. So, one day, Charlie went to go see his girlfriend Renee, but she wasn’t there when he got to her house, and Renee was always there when he came over to visit her, so Charlie knew something was wrong. Since Charlie loved her with all of his heart, he decided to go out and try to find her on his own. The only problem was that Eleanor learned what happened and wanted to go with him, but he finally let her come after she bugged him for two whole weeks about it, so they left together to go find who Charlie thought took Renee. But when they got close to Renee’s abductor, Charlie got shot in the chest and was badly wounded. He told Eleanor to leave him and go get Renee, but Eleanor wouldn’t just leave him to die, so she stayed with him and nursed him back to health, and then left in the middle of the night without Charlie – since he was still too weak – to find Renee. However, Eleanor didn’t find Renee, so she had to go back to Charlie and make sure he was ok. When she got back, Eleanor told Charlie what had happened and how she was sorry for leaving him and for not finding Renee but Charlie told her to shush.
He said, ‘Thank you so much Eleanor. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for everything you’ve done.’
Then she told him, ‘You don’t owe me anything.’
And he said, ‘I owe you everything,’ and then -” I reach up to my neck, unclasp the necklace and hold it in one palm. “- Then he gave her this.”
I hold up the necklace and, yet again, I am struck by its beauty and intricacy. The ornate golden wolf’s head, complete with its two amber eyes, is stunning and artfully made, the metal shaped to give the appearance of fur and the eyes so realistic that they seem to be looking into your soul with their calm, sad golden gaze. I glance up at Luke to see him staring at me with an amazed look on his face; I guess my story had more of an effect on him than I thought it would. To be honest, with all of the horrors we had witnessed and committed in the last twenty-four hours, I thought it wouldn’t have that much of an effect on him at all.
“How do you have what Charlie gave Eleanor?” Abby asks me, looking between me and the necklace with an expression of awe on her face.
“Because Eleanor isn’t the girl’s real name,” I answer slowly and truthfully. “Her real name is Lizzie.” I can feel tears trying to free themselves from my eyes and I refuse to let them fall, knowing that I have to be tough, that I am most definitely on camera and can’t afford to show any weakness.
“So that was a real story?” Abby’s mouth is open so wide that she could probably fit her whole hand inside of it, so I laugh weakly and shut it gently for her.
“You need to keep your mouth shut or you’re going to catch flies Abby,” I tell her, smiling slightly as I look down at her and feel the warmth of her body and hear the beat of her little heart that means she’s alive. For now. “And yes, that was a real story.” Unfortunately. Unfortunately because Renee’s been missing for nearly seven months now and I’m starting to lose hope that Charlie and I will find her alive, if we find her at all. Of course, I have to get back to my own universe before I can worry about Renee or Charlie, since it’s not like I’m going to be able to do anything when I’m not even in the same dimension.
Suddenly a voice coming from the intercom above me booms, interrupting my thoughts of home, “Remaining champions, the last two rounds of hand-to-hand combat will commence in exactly an hour. Plan accordingly.” I look over at Luke and it pains me greatly to know that, in a little more than an hour, as long as we both with our first battle, we will have to kill each other, and I can tell by the way he’s returning my gaze that he’s thinking the exact same thing.
“Abby, I need you to get off so I can go get some breakfast,” I murmur, waiting for her to slide off of me onto the floor until I move.
“Can I go with you Lizzie?” she asks me, and when I nod my head yes, she grabs my hand and holds onto it tighter than I thought would be possible. I guess she doesn’t want to let go of me either.
“Luke?” I turn back to where he is still sitting on my bed and look at him, asking him with my eyes if he would like to go too.
“Nah, I’m good Lizzie. I think I’m just going to stay here for now.” I can tell that the immediacy, the reality, of the situation that in an hour and a half, one or both of us are going to be dead is getting to him, and it hurts me to know that I can’t do anything for him, that this is an issue he has to handle on his own.
“Alright. I guess I’ll see you in an hour then,” I tell him as I leave with Abby and think, “I just hope I don’t see you die in an hour.”

More added.

After we take a seat in the deathly-white, OCD-organized cafeteria full of other champions – including the three I killed, who give me nasty looks as I pass them – I can’t eat anything Abby puts in front of me, even though it’s some of the best food I’ve ever tasted. So she won’t yell at me, I sit there and nibble on a piece of toast that seems to have gained the flavor and consistency of carpet.
“You have to eat Lizzie!” Abby tells me, looking at me desperately with those incredible blue eyes of hers. I admire the fact that she cares so much but the fact that she can guilt-trip me into anything is starting to get annoying.
“I am eating Abby.” I hold up the piece of toast in my hand and she nods her approval. When she turns around for a moment to retrieve the other food she got me, I shoot and make the toast into the trashcan across the room. When she turns back around, she sees no toast in my hand and narrows her eyes at me suspiciously.
“What’d you do with the toast Lizzie?” she asks me, looking under the table to see if I dropped it under there. I would never drop any evidence under a table; that’d be way too easy to find.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I answer calmly, keeping my head up and staring Abby straight in the eye as I straight-out lie, and I realize that, even sitting down, I’m nearly as tall as she is.
“Lizzie!” she cries, giving me an angry, almost amazed look. “You just had the toast a second ago.”
Again, I answer evenly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and give her my most winning smile.
Just as Abby has opened her mouth to answer, she looks up at something behind me and I whip around, hoping it’s not another champion.
Which, of course it is, and it happens to be my least favorite champion, Marshall Moore, as well. “Do you have a smile like that for me?” he asks me provocatively, and I instinctively rise to my feet to prevent him from having a direct view down my shirt. Well, at least he’s stopped those incredibly stupid pauses.
“No, but I’ve got two words for you,” I tell him as sweetly as possible, not wanting to give away what they actually are.
“Hmm…” Marshall’s eyes are glued to my face – thank God they’re not glued somewhere else – and I can tell by his expression that he’s at least somewhat suspicious. However, finally his attraction to me wins over and he questions, stepping closer, “Well, Lizzie…” I cringe internally when he says my name, because it’s coming out of his mouth and God knows where that’s been. “…What are they?”
Walking over to Abby and placing my hands firmly over her eyes, I then tell him, probably the most sincere I’ve ever been, “Screw off.”
His face contorts into that awful grimace like it did in the arena and I smile as I know that I’ve pushed the buttons I wanted to. I uncover Abby’s ears since I figure that she’ll probably want to hear this, considering that she hates Marshall nearly as much as I do.
“What, those not the words you were looking for?” I ask him, giving him a falsely sympathetic, falsely sweet look. A quick glance around me proves what I already know: that every eye in the cafeteria is on me. Good. Maybe it will make more of an impression if I embarrass Marshall publicly. “Well, Mr. Moore, here’s a newflash: I don’t care. I hate you because A) you are a douchebag and B) you kissed me without my permission. So, I do believe it’s best for both of us -” I cover Abby’s ears again, knowing that she probably doesn’t want to hear this part. “- if you screw off.”
I then grab Abby’s hand and an apple and march out of the cafeteria to a round of applause and cheering.
As we’re walking back towards the hospital room that I hope Luke is still in, I say aloud, “Well, I’d say that went pretty well. Even the other two champions I killed were cheering for me,” and she nods her head in agreement.
“You make quite an impression Lizzie,” Abby tells me, smiling up at me.
Let’s hope I make an impression on the battlefield too.

I am fighting the boy from Three, a career champion – of course – in the fourth round. I’m not that concerned though, considering that the other three career champions I faced were easily taken down. However, the one thing that I remember about this boy is that he has a way of coming back after taking a couple of hits, so I know that I have to kill him quickly so he doesn’t have an opportunity to come back. So, besides that, I’d say I’m set for this round. As for next round, well… I don’t know. All I know is that I have to win this round first before I even think about next round.

“Lightning,” the boy from Three tells me, jerking his head downward in what I think is meant as a recognizing gesture but looks more like a muscle spasm. I see his knuckles white on his sword hilt and I realize that he, of all things, is nervous, which I find rather odd. If anything, I should be the one who’s nervous, since the odds are most definitely in his favor. After all, he’s been training for this his whole life and is a lot bigger and a lot stronger than I am. So why is he worried?
Puzzled by his odd behavior, I tell him in reply, “Clay,” and nod my head at him like he did at me, although hopefully I don’t look like I’m having a muscle spasm. Glancing over in the direction of the other champions, I see Luke sitting on the edge of his seat, his eyebrows knotted in concern, holding Abby’s hand as she looks at me with an utterly terrified look on her face. Turning away from my grim fans, I barely have time to pull my sword out before the gunshot that starts the fighting goes off. I raise my blade, expecting him to charge me while I’m not prepared, and instead see him running off towards the other side of the arena. What the hell is he doing? I look over at Luke and Abby again to see similar looks of shock on their faces and I know that I’m not alone in my amazement.
I yell at them, hoping they’ll have at least some idea of what’s going on, “What is he doing?” and Luke just shrugs back at me, looking even more concerned now.
Well, whatever Marcus Clay is doing, it certainly is original, I’ll give him that. Suddenly it strikes me that maybe he wants me to chase after him and tire myself out, so, instead of doing that, I simply sit down and wait for him to come back, deciding that if he is going to make this into a contest of patience, I am going to win. Besides, once the audience gets bored enough, the Triple Crown committee will drive Marcus back towards me so they will actually get a winner, because having no winner would be bad, very bad. After all, they went through the trouble of rounding me up and taking me from my universe was so they would have a Triple Crown winner. For some reason, Marcus has now turned around and is coming back at me, so I leap to my feet and assume a battle stance, determined to kill him as soon as he gets within reach. When he gets to be about twenty feet in front of me, he drops his sword and his spear, then continues to walk towards me.
“What are you doing?” I ask him when he’s ten feet away, not dropping my weapon since I have a feeling it’s some kind of trap or trick.
He takes a couple steps forward, but isn’t so close that I can stab him, and looks at me, his eyes pleading and desperate. “Kill me.” His low voice is so quiet that I almost don’t hear what he says but figure it out as soon as I see his eyes darting between my sword and I.
“What?” I stare at him with a mixture of shock, astonishment and still some suspicion. The idea that this could be a trap to get me off guard has not left my mind yet.
“Kill me,” he repeats, louder this time. His eyes are glued on mine with such an intense, frantic gaze that I think he’s actually serious.
“But… why?” I ask him, dumbfounded. “You’re a career champion. You’ve been training for this your whole life, so why do you want to die and lose?” I don’t get it. His goal in life for years now has been to win the Triple Crown, so why does he want to die and therefore throw away all chance of winning?
“I never wanted this, I never wanted to win. All I ever wanted to do was stay at home and be a blacksmith, like the rest of my family, but since I was big and strong they said I had a good chance at winning and convinced my family to put me in training for the Triple Crown, and then my name got drawn to be a champion and everyone was so happy, they said I had a great chance at winning. But no one ever asked me if I wanted to be a career champion or fight in the Triple Crown. And now that I’m here, in the Triple Crown, I don’t want to win, because winning means killing other kids, and I don’t want to kill anybody. All I want to do is go home.”
All of a sudden, I don’t see Marcus Clay, the six-six, three-hundred-pound favorite to win the Triple Crown, I see frightened little Abby merely stating the truth about how she felt, and I’m reminded, yet again, that I should never judge a book by its cover.
“So will you help me go home Lizzie?” Marcus has come closer and is now within striking distance. He has no armor on, so killing him would be a snap, and, even though he wants to die, I don’t know if I can kill him. He’s, he’s too… innocent, too childlike, even though he’s so huge, and I can’t kill a person like that. I won’t.
Marcus apparently sees the denial in my eyes, so he gets down on his knees and begs, “Please, Lizzie, please! Think of it as doing me a favor!” I stare into the chocolate-brown depths of his pleading eyes and I know that I have to. For him.
“Alright Marcus,” I tell him finally, sighing as I know that I’ll feel bad if I kill him or not, so I might as well make one of us happy. I see the look of relief on his face and I feel more confident in my decision, which is not to say that I like it. At all. But I think it’s the right one now. I wait until he rises to his feet, and, seized by an impulse, stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek.
“Goodbye, Marcus,” I whisper as I sink my blade into his heart and he falls to the ground, a faint smile on his lips. Bending down over his body, I close his eyes, thinking he might as well go as honorably as possible, then turn back away because I don’t want to his body getting eaten by the dirt. Sighing a great, sad sigh, I walk over towards where Luke and Abby are and collapse into a chair, feeling more drained than I did last night.
“You did the right thing Lizzie,” Luke tells me quietly, staring at me with concern overflowing from his eyes.
“I sure hope I did,” I murmur back, my eyes glued on my feet as my hands fidget with the water bottle I’m holding. I look up at Luke and sigh again, the sadness and desperation of the boy I just killed hanging over me as if, at any moment, they could fall down on me and crush me because of their weight.
“Edward Knightley and Luke Gates, report to the center of the arena for your battle,” an unearthly, cool male voice booms over the arena and I see Luke rise from his chair and grab his sword.
“Good luck!” Abby tells him, somehow managing to sound sincere and upbeat when her eyes are wide with fear.
Standing up, I walk over to Luke and murmur, my eyes glued on his face, “Good luck,” then step forward and hug him as tight as I can. I bury my face in his shoulder, breathing in his scent and committing it to memory, and, even when he lets go of me, I don’t let go of him, because I know that when I do, he’s either going to get murdered or become a murderer.
When I finally release him and take a step back, he says to me quietly, a sad smile on his face, “Let’s hope I won’t need it,” then turns away from me and walks out towards the center of the arena to either cause death or face it.

More added.

I almost groan when I see the boy Luke’s fighting. Hunter Knightley is nearly seven feet tall and is ripped enough that he makes Luke look downright scrawny in comparison. Hunter’s face is harsh and cruel, with cruel blue eyes that glint murderously – but not intelligently at all – and arms that could break anyone’s neck with little effort. I hate to say it, but I think Luke has a better than fifty percent chance of dying in this fight. That doesn’t mean I’m going to not root against his eminent doom; I will still root for Luke even if it’s a hundred on one, because I like underdogs (since I’ve been one so many times) and, okay, maybe I like him as a friend. Only as a friend. Because anything more, and I can feel Jackson’s gaze burning the back of my neck all the way from Elizabeth, in a completely different dimension. So I keep my mind away from all thoughts of Luke as anything besides a friend and instead focus on watching him kill or be killed, as if that’s much of an improvement.

“Luke, to the left!” I yell at him, seeing a wide-open patch of Hunter’s skin that would be easy to stab with a sword.
Luke doesn’t look up, but I can tell he hears me because he immediately jabs Hunter in that spot and then sinks his sword into Hunter’s back when Hunter bends over in pain. The gunshot fires, showing that Hunter is dead, and Luke turns away, apparently having the same aversion to seeing the ground eat dead bodies that I do.
As he nears Abby and I, I tell him, “Good job Luke,” then give him a genuine, unforced smile, truly impressed by his performance in his fight.
He turns to look at me suddenly, confusion and sadness in his eyes. “No, it wasn’t a good job. I should’ve just died,” he murmurs, not acting at all as he drops his gaze to the water bottle in his hands, and I remember what I had forgotten for a millisecond of kindness: that now Luke and I are going to have to kill each other for the Triple Crown.
“Luke…” I call to him, but he doesn’t even look up at me and instead fiddles with the lid of his water bottle, twisting and untwisting and twisting again, and, in a spurt of anger, his fist crushes around the bottle and flattens it as he stares down at it, his eyes stormy with rage. “Good luck,” I whisper to him, so quietly that I can barely hear it myself, then grab my sword, give Abby one last hug, and walk out into the center of the arena.

The gunshot that releases us to fight goes off, and I raise my sword instinctively, not actually expecting him to charge me but wanting to be safe than sorry.
“Luke,” I murmur almost inaudibly, my eyes scanning his face, searching every feature for any sign of emotion that would let me figure what’s going on inside of his head and decide what card he’s going to play in our ‘relationship’.
“Lizzie.” He looks at me, confused, and drops his sword. Instead of running and fleeing like Marcus did, he begins to walk towards me and I brace myself for what words will be uttered and the fact that, if all goes as planned, we’ll both be dead soon.
“I’ve always loved you Lizzie, always,” he tells me quietly, his gaze glued on mine, and there’s something about the intensity and sincerity of his gaze that almost makes me doubt that he’s acting, even though he most definitely is. It’s not like he actually loves me.
I fake shock, trying to swallow and pretending that I can’t, then looking back at Luke’s face, knowing that, if it weren’t for his acting skills, we definitely wouldn’t have gotten this far. Knowing that it’s time to act like I completely fall for him.
“You can’t have loved me always,” I tell him finally after I finish pretending to be surprised. “After all, we’ve only known each other for four years now.”
“All right, so I’ve loved you as long as I’ve known you,” Luke answers gracefully, taking my less-than-lovestruck response in stride. “I remember the first day of eighth grade when you walked in wearing your ASU Fear the Fork shirt, basketball shorts and flip-flops and had all of the guys drooling over you immediately, including me. And I remember thinking how beautiful you were and how I could never want any other girl.” Wait… that’s exactly what I wore the first day of eighth grade and that’s exactly what happened… is Luke not acting anymore?
Before I can say or do anything in response, Luke bridges the gap between us with two steps and kisses me on the lips.
The most interesting thing about the kiss is not the fact that it happened but the feeling – or lack of one – which I get from it. I was expecting to at least feel something, even if it wasn’t love, but I feel nothing. At all. And that almost concerns me, since now I’m going to have to work extra hard to make it look like I’m in love with him.
“I had to do that, at least once,” he murmurs in my ear, not able to keep the desperation out of his voice when he pulls back. I look up at him in wonder, now knowing for certain that none of this is an act for him.
I scan his face for emotion to find him looking down at me for a reaction, so I drop my gaze. Placing my hand on his chest to feel his heart beat steadily and reassuringly under my palm, it sickens me that I would even think about making it stop.
“You know, I think I always knew, deep down, that you loved me – and that I loved you,” I tell him finally, looking back up at him and seeing hope blossom in his eyes. Does he think I’m not acting? “Oh God, why couldn’t I have figured that out three years ago?” I cry, knowing that I’m really laying it on thick now as I bury my head in his shoulder and feel his arms tighten around me. “Then maybe we could’ve had some time together.” Removing my head from his shoulder, I add, completely sincere, “Besides, I could’ve used your calmness freshman year, when hormones were all the rage.” His mouth twitches into a tiny smile at my last comment, and it makes me marginally happy to see him even the tiniest bit pleased when I’m just going to break his heart later.
For a few seconds, we just stand there, holding onto each other desperately, him actually meaning it and me just playing along and thinking that I’m a horrible person because I don’t love him when I really should, and then Luke pulls away and tells me urgently, his eyes doing as much pleading as his voice does, “Kill me, Lizzie. You’re worth more than me.”
“No!” I answer, trying to be emphatic, as I realize that’s the cue to start putting our double-suicide plan into action. Going along with what we agreed to do, I ask him, “Will you kill me if I kill you?” knowing that he’ll say no first but eventually say yes, since that’s what our plan is.
“No, of course not! I could and would never kill you!” Luke exclaims in reply, his eyes widening in pretend shock and anger at my suggestion.
“Luke, consider it a double suicide, a way to make sure that neither one of us has to go on without the other one,” I say to him, acting like I’m desperately trying to sway him. When I see that he is pretending to be unconvinced, it’s my turn to fake begging. “Luke, please. I can’t kill you, you can’t kill me and at least one of us has to die, so this is the only solution I can come up with,” I tell him, uncomfortably aware of the silent spectators and that every word I say, every move I make, is being transmitted to televisions nationwide, so if I mess up and give myself away, I’m not only going to have to deal with Luke but an unhappy country as well. “Luke, think of it as doing me a favor,” I finally say, cuing him that it’s time to die.
“Alright Lizzie,” he finally replies, and I silently celebrate that this whole thing is going to blow up on El Nieve by them losing their supposed-to-be champion, and this time I stand on tiptoe and kiss him, not feeling anything again but knowing that the kiss doesn’t seem forced. “Always remember… I will love you till the last,” he murmurs in my ear as I pull back, and I see that look in his eye, the one he had when he looked at me on the roof and denied that there was anyone special, and I’m even more certain that this is not just an act for him.
“Well, it’s the last, so feel free to stop loving me at any time,” I respond, bringing a weak, insincere smile to his face as I think that it’d make this a whole hell of a lot easier if Luke actually could just drop the act and stop loving me. Oh well; he does love me, and now we’re both going to die. Those are two facts I can’t change, and might not change even if I could.
I pick his sword up from the ground and give it to him then pull my own sword off my back and heft it in my hands, knowing I’m going to miss my blade. Just before I position my sword so that it will go straight through Luke’s heart, the fastest, least painful death, I raise two fingers of my right hand to my forehead and give mocking salute to the crowd. Since I’m going to die, I might as well die in style. After Luke has also lined his sword up so that it will go through my heart, I murmur, “It was nice knowing you, Luke William Gates,” as I prepare to stab him.
Just before we are about to kill each other, a human voice from overhead, Puck’s voice to be exact, not the detached male voice I heard earlier, booms, “Stop! And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you your winners of the Hand-to-Hand Combat round of the Triple Crown!”
The crowd erupts around us and I turn to Luke, a sincere grin of pure happiness and relief spreading across my face. “We did it Luke!” I yell, throwing my arms around him and hugging him as hard as I can. Even though I don’t love him, I really wasn’t looking forward to killing him. “We did it,” I repeat again, feeling the liberation – along with sadness – spread through my body. I then pull away and kiss him again, even though I’m very aware of the emptiness I feel, it doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters right now is that we both survived. He then grabs my hand and intertwines his fingers with mine, sharing my smile and not noticing my confusion, and I can see right through him. I can tell that he thinks I’m not acting, and I can tell how much it’s going to hurt him when I tell him that I only pretended to love him because Max told me to so both of us could survive.
“Feel free to do that as much as you want,” he whispers in my ear emphatically, both of our grins growing bigger. “I mean, we’re supposed to be madly in love, so don’t ever think you have to limit how much you kiss me.” I know it’s supposed to be meant as a joke, but it makes me sad to know that it’s not just a supposed-to for him and that it’s only a supposed-to for me.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I reply, trying to make my eyes twinkle, and, as they beam us back into the Champions’ Center, a stray lyric from a Switchfoot song strays into my mind.
“But you haven’t lost me yet,” I hear in my mind, and I look over at Luke and down at our linked hands. I know that, at some point, I’m going to have to let go, and that, when I do, I might not ever get him back. However, I can't let myself dwell on that, so all I do is think, “No you haven’t Luke,” and hold onto his hand tighter, dreading the moment when I have to let go.

More added.

“Lizzie, that was perfect,” Max whispers in my ear as he embraces me. “If I didn’t know better, I would have actually thought you fell for him!” He breaks away from me and gives me a smile that I don’t deserve as I remember that Luke actually does think that.
“You were just… acting?” Luke stares at me with confusion and hurt, this time most definitely real, in his eyes.
“I was doing what Max told me to, Luke,” I tell him gently, knowing that the moment has come that might take Luke away from me for good. “I was only keeping us alive.” I hear the pleading creeping into my voice and push it aside; I can’t afford to look weak now, of all times.
“You two had this worked out before?” Luke turns to Max, the pain in his voice being replaced by pure anger, and even Max looks somewhat intimated. “You told her to lie to me, to trick me?” I can almost heart his heart fracturing – along with my own. Oh God, how can I be such a bad person? How can I not love him when he loves me so much?
“I told her to milk it for all it was worth and get the crowd to love you two, and look what it did. It kept you both alive.” Max is clearly trying to come off mad but I can hear the regret and sadness in his voice, and I know he didn’t mean for it to go this far either.
“I should’ve died then, because at least I would’ve died under the delusion that you loved me,” Luke tells me as he leaves the room, and his words hurt more than any weapon ever could.
“He’ll come around Lizzie, I just know it,” Max tells me encouragingly but shuts up immediately when I give him a flat stare. Now is not a time to be all happy and nice when there’s nothing really happy or nice that he can say.
After we sit in silence for a little while, Max says to me, “Lizzie, there’s something you need to know,” and I look up at him, hoping desperately that it isn’t about Luke. “El Nieve, they don’t like the stunt you pulled with the double suicide, since many of the Sections didn’t see it as love but rebellion and are now rebelling against El Nieve itself.”
My heart drops into my stomach as I realize what this means: I’ve started a rebellion that could very well kill millions of people.
“So, from now on out, you’re going to have to be very careful about what you do. Lizzie, the only thing that can save you and Luke and all of your loved ones is if you prove, without a doubt, that you are in love with him and did it because you couldn’t stand to live without him, all right?” Max tells me urgently, catching my gaze with his to make sure I’m following. As if I wouldn’t be. “Basically, play dumb and in love and pretend that you had no idea that your actions could be considered rebellious. Tomorrow, during the victory interviews, lay it on as thick as you dare.”
“All right.” I nod my head in agreement, resigning myself to having to become an actor again. I swear to God, this constant faking I’m having to do is a whole hell of a lot more work than staying alive with thirty – well, twenty-nine – other people wanting me dead.
“You’re going to have to fake it better this time Lizzie,” Max reminds me. “Because this time you have to stop a rebellion and save more than just your own life.” I glance up at him and see sadness and pity in his eyes. I guess he didn’t have to deal with a rebellion he caused during his Triple Crown. “By the way, you have a visitor.” He jerks his head in the direction of the elevator, which opens and out steps Jackson.

“Lizzie,” he whispers, and I run at him and throw myself into his arms, feeling his hard, lean, incredibly muscular frame against my own and committing his scent to memory, in case it’s the last time I ever see him again.
“Jackson,” I murmur into his shoulder, wishing I could live in this moment forever. I then look up at him and see his yellow eyes dancing as he stares down at me, which brings a smile to my face, but then I see it: a sadness in his whole being that he can’t quite hide. And then I know why.
“You saw, didn’t you?” I ask him quietly, gazing up into those stunning, haunted eyes of his. As he nods his head ever-so-slightly in assent, I’m reminded, like I always am when I see him, that Jackson has seen and gone through horrors I can’t even imagine. Jackson is the one-in-a-trillion chance of a canid – he’s originally a gray wolf – being born with a language receptor, so the government captured him and experimented on him to see if they could get him to speak English, as he already understood it. And they got him to speak – but his vocal ability came with a lot of other side effects they didn’t bargain on. Jackson became six feet tall at the shoulder and a half a ton of muscle when a wolf, gained the ability to shapeshift into a human and received power over the elements, so those scientists that experimented on him created a superweapon without even knowing it. But Jackson knew very well what he could do, so he broke himself out, with my and my brothers’ help, of the lab he was held at about a year ago and has been attending Elizabeth High School with me ever since. He’s a senior and I’m a junior, as he is turning eighteen in human years on June 13th and I turned seventeen on February 13th. I guess the experiments they did on him make him age like a human too. Of course, I’m not human either. I am, in fact, a shapeshifter as well, and my base form is a pure gold wolf with pure gold eyes that just happens to be six feet tall at the shoulder and a thousand pounds of muscle – like Jackson. You know, the funniest part about it all is that Alexa, my ex-best friend who rejected Jackson for one of my twin older brothers, Gwillan, went from one shapeshifter who shouldn’t exist to another shapeshifter that shouldn’t exist. Which I find incredibly ironic. But I’m not complaining about it, because then I wouldn’t have the relationship with Jackson that I do know. I raise my hands up to Jackson’s back and can feel, even through his shirt, the raised scars from where the government carved the specifics of his experiment into his flesh. I feel him relax under my touch and continue to trace the one and the three (he was Project Number 13) inlaid in his skin. I then remove my hand and feel his arms tighten around me as I lean into him. I’ve missed him so much, even though it’s only been four days since I last saw him. Jackson suddenly raises a hand and gently cups my chin, then, before I can do or say anything, leans in and kisses me, and I feel a hunger start in my chest and spread through my whole body, and I kiss Jackson back as I feel his arms slide down to my lower back. However, all of a sudden I see movement in the corner of my eye and pull away to find Luke standing there, his face stony even as his eyes boil over with rage and hurt.
“I had to do that, at least once, before you became his,” Jackson murmurs in my ear, his eyes flickering in Luke’s direction, then turns and leaves silently.
I look around desperately, hoping Max is still here so I don’t have to face Luke alone, but, of course, Max is nowhere to be seen, so I guess I’m doing this by myself.
“I thought you weren’t…” Luke begins, staring at me with betrayal written all over his face.
“I thought we weren’t too,” I reply, looking Luke up and down sadly as I realize that this may have pushed him over the edge and that I may have lost him for good. “Luke, I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly, taking a few shaky steps towards him until I walk into his open arms.
“I know,” he whispers in my ear, kissing my neck softly as he holds onto me tighter. “So what do we do now?” he asks me as he pulls back and gazes down on me with that stunning ice-blue gaze that I know I’ll never be able to shake from my mind.
“Well, we have the interviews tomorrow and the victory tour, where we go around to all the sections and they have to pretend like they love us and we have to pretend like we’re happy to have won.” Despite the fact that, if I don’t convince the country that I’m in love with Luke, all of my loved ones could die, I smile up at him as I realize it’s going to take a lot more than me kissing another guy to lose Luke. “And… we also have to pretend that we’re in love,” I add quietly, anticipating what Luke is going to say and preparing for how much it’s going to hurt.
“I won’t be pretending Lizzie,” he answers quietly, just like I thought he would, and my heart sinks into my stomach. Why does he have to be so good and true?
“Oh God Luke, why do you have to be so damn sincere?” I cry, burying my head in his shoulder and pulling back. “You’re over here actually loving me and trying to do what’s best while I’m just acting and manipulating you to keep us alive and I really wish I loved you because I know I’m never going to do better than you, better than someone who would die for me, but I don’t love you, and that makes me feel like a horrible person to know that you do and that I’ve just been pretending!” I sigh a huge sigh and gaze up at him, wondering how he’s going to take this confession of mine.
Luke draws me closer to him and I feel his hard abdominal muscles as I press against his body, my heart rate jumping as he leans towards me.
When his face is so close to mine that our foreheads are nearly touching, he tells me, his ice-blue eyes glimmering in the low light, “Well, let’s see if I can make you real,” and then kisses me.
But I don’t feel anything this time either, just the emptiness that I felt the other times he kissed me. I can’t break Luke’s heart like this, though, so I kiss him back, hoping to dear God that Luke falls for it.
“That should have been our first kiss,” I murmur, wishing desperately that I was a better actor when he pulls away, his eyes ever fixated on my face.
“You’re telling me,” he replies, smiling the biggest smile I’ve ever seen in the four years I’ve known him. “So… did you feel anything?” he asks me, and I can hear the trepidation and hope in his voice.
I open my mouth to say yes, to keep this ruse going, but I find that I can’t do it, that I can’t break Luke’s heart even more than I already have. So I tell him the truth and say, “No.” I see his face fall and I sigh another huge sigh, wondering if our relationship could ever return to normal, if we were to both go home. But then I remember that we probably won’t go home and that, if we do, the Triple Crown has taken the word ‘normal’ out of both of our vocabularies. And then suddenly it hits me, why our relationship could never be normal: there’s still Jackson, and there’s still the fact that I can’t love Luke as much as he deserves, and there’s still the fact that I plan on being dead in a month, and I feel the smile fall off of my face as I think about the seriousness of our situation.
“Luke…” I begin, pulling completely away from him and dropping my eyes to the ground, “Even if I did love you, I can’t love you as much as you love me, I can’t love you as much as you deserve, because there’s still Jackson and there’s still the fact that I’m going to have to act in love with you on the victory tour and I’m still a horrible person and I still wish I had never met you and this had never happened and that I could just go off and die in peace in my own little rebellion of El Nieve, but I know that I can’t do that now because you won’t let me and El Nieve won’t let me and, hell, maybe even I won’t let me just run off and die anymore, because maybe I’ve actually got a purpose now that the Sections have seen our attempted double-suicide and are rebelling themselves and I know that I can’t just leave them and I know that I can’t just leave you either and…” My voice cracks and I find that I can’t continue.
“The Sections are rebelling?” I look up at him to see his eyes wide with shock – and maybe even happiness.
Still not able to speak, I nod my head in assent and then avert my gaze to the floor. Finally I am able to clear my throat and tell him, “And the only way that I can keep everyone I love alive, including my family and Jackson, is if I convince the rebelling districts that I suggested our double-suicide because I was too in love with you to think of living without you and that I had no idea it was at all rebellious. Since you’ve already proven your devotion and I’m the one who has to show how devoted I am, you don’t have to do anything except be as genuine and sincere as you always are.” I pause, not knowing how to say what I feel. “But… I’m not completely convinced if I should try to stop the rebellion Luke. I mean, I truly think it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, and I think these people should at least have a chance at being on their feet, you know?”
“Well, I’ll stand beside you, no matter what you decide to do.” He pulls me to him again, and I lean on him as I feel him gently reach up and caress my face. He then kisses me on the neck and I feel warmth spread from the spot where his lips touched me, and, yet again, I wonder about the nature of this utterly twisted relationship of ours.
“Luke, I don’t think I could do any better than you,” I murmur, gazing up at him and nearly drowning in the beauty of his eyes. “Which just makes me feel like even more of a bad person because I don’t love you when you’re perfect for me and you love me with all of your heart.” I drop my gaze to the ground, searching the immaculately polished white tile underneath my feet for solutions to my dilemma.
“Lizzie, don’t feel bad about not loving me; even though I may be incredibly jealous and I may love you so much it hurts, I know you can’t really help it that you love Jackson and it makes me happy to know that you would love me if you had a choice.” And there Luke has gone off and done it again: he’s made me feel like a horrible creature, like the lowest form of living organism, and he hasn’t even tried.
“You are so inherently good, Luke, so much better than anyone around you, and it just hurts to be around you and have you be all good and truthful to me when I know that I can’t return it, even though I desperately want to.” I lean into him again and bury myself in his shoulder, wishing that this had never happened, that the Triple Crown didn’t exist. Like I had been wishing for the last four days.
Luke seems unfazed by my comments and asks me gently, “Well, my only question is, if I’m inherently good, what are you?”
“Luke,” I begin, looking up at him and knowing that he needs to understand, “I am inherently dangerous.”

More added.

“How do you do it?” I ask Luke as I lay next to him, his arm around me, and watch the moonlight’s silvery tendrils creep through his bedroom window. I couldn’t sleep – like usual – so I snuck into Luke’s room and found him having the same issue, and we decided that maybe the other’s company could help us. And it has. Greatly.
“Do what?” He looks over at me, his face bathed in the soft glow of the moon, and he gently smoothes a strand of hair away from my face.
“Keep up with me, put up with me, love me when I don’t love you,” I murmur, rolling over to face him. “It must be incredibly exhausting.”
A small smile quirks his lips and he draws me closer to him, his eyes shining in the low light. “Well, it has its very tiring moments – like when you want me to kill you – but generally I can keep up and I can always put up with you.” Now it’s my turn to smile. “And as for the love part…” he whispers, his gaze locked on mine, “No matter how hard it gets, no matter where we go or what we do or even if we die, I will always be there, always. Te amo siempre, Lizzie.” He then kisses my forehead gently and wraps his arm around me tighter, and he falls asleep soon after. But I just lay there, gazing over at Luke and wondering why he’s given me his all when I’ve given him nothing. And then I start to think about the meaning of devotion and about how I have none, even though I want to, and I know that the epitome of it is lying next to me, and that, no matter what I do, Luke will always be there. I’m sure that if I died and Luke survived, Luke would visit my grave every day for the rest of his life, not caring that I didn’t love him when I really should have, but only caring about the fact that I’m dead and he’s alive, and probably blaming himself for my death the whole time even though I chose to die. That’s the kind of guy Luke is. But what would I do if he died? How long would I care about him after he passed? Would I think about him every day for a week, a month, a year after he died? Would I even care? No, I would care. But how much would I care? Would I care as much as he would? Would I visit his grave every day like he would mine? I don’t know if I’d visit his grave every day, but I’d like to think that I’d at least think about him every day; that would be the least I could do for the boy that gave his life, his heart, his soul, his everything for me. And I’d like to think that I’d never forget him, the boy who loved me when I didn’t love him and gave me everything when I gave him nothing and died for me when I just wanted to die myself. I’d like to think that I’m not as horrible of a person as to forget that. But I can’t think about forgetting or leaving or saying goodbye now, because first I have to get through the ordeal of staying and remembering and saying, “I love you,” and not meaning it, and I’m going to need my full, unoccupied mind to do that. So I curl up next to Luke, place my head on his chest, feel his heart beat steadily and find myself falling asleep before I can even close my eyes.

I awake to find Luke watching me with a small, sincere smile on his face that is mirrored in his eyes.
“What?” I ask him, disgruntled and almost shocked that he awoke before I did, considering that I average four or five hours a night.
“I like watching you sleep,” he answers, gently reaching for me and pulling me closer. “You’re so calm and serene when you sleep; it’s quite a contrast to when you’re awake.” I share his smile and punch him jokingly on the arm. “Good morning Lizzie,” he murmurs right before he leans in and kisses me on the forehead.
“Good morning Luke,” I whisper back, and, seized by a sudden impulse, kiss him on the cheek. I see his eyes open wide with shock and then his smile get bigger.
“What was that for?” he asks me, sincerely happy and sincerely quizzical. I can’t blame him though; last night I’m telling him that I don’t love him and this morning I’m kissing him, even if it is only on the cheek. It’s definitely quite a contrast.
“I guess you’re growing on me, Mr. Gates,” I tell him, my eyes twinkling as I gaze into his beautiful ice-blue eyes. Oh God, why don’t I love him? He’s handsome and intelligent and loves me and would die for me…
My thoughts are interrupted by Luke leaning in again and kissing me, this time on the lips and, after a few moments, I kiss him back, thinking it’s the least I can do for him. Besides, I’m starting to like kissing Luke, even if it isn’t anywhere near as serious for me as it is for him, since he’s a good kisser. And, yet again, I get to wanting that I could make myself love him, that I could feel the same way about him as he does about me.
“Lizzie, you’re growing on me every second I spend around you,” he utters when he pulls back, his gaze locked on mine.
I give him a small smile, hoping my sadness doesn’t show, and then we just lay there in silence for a few moments, absorbing one another’s company as I think, “What did I ever do to deserve Luke?”
“What do you see in Jackson?” Luke asks, looking over at me as we bathe in the warm sun coming through the window. Even though our horrible victory tour starts today, at the least the weather’s nice.
“I see myself in Jackson,” I reply steadily as I catch his eyes with my own, knowing that it was only a matter of time before Luke brought this up and I would have to face it. When I see that Luke’s expression is quizzical, I elaborate. “I get him, Luke, and I know what he’s going through, and I also know that he needs me badly, and I’m not going to deny him that in his time of need, since I know he’d do the same for me.”
Luke nods, his gaze still very serious even as a grin begins to curl his lips. “So you’re letting your want to love me and your need to love Jackson dictate your relationships, hmm?” Now it is my turn to be confused, since I don’t know where Luke’s going with this. “And so far your need to love Jackson because he needs you is winning. My point is, Lizzie,” he begins, “You’re loving – or hoping to love – Jackson and me because of our situations or how we feel about you. But I think you should actually choose who you love, and not let us decide for you with our pitiful situations. And yes, I know, this means that I could lose you to him for good. But I’m willing to do that if you make your own decision and are happy. All I care about is what’s best for, you, Liz, and if you think Jackson’s better, then I’m not going to question that. I may be incredibly jealous and wish that you had chosen me, but I’m not going to question your decision, because I know that it will be your decision.”
I stare at him in amazement, stunned and truly touched by his words. “How do you do it?” I question again.
“Do what?” he replies, his tone much lighter now as a smile that finally reaches his eyes flits across his face.
“Be so honest and good and nice and amazing when it goes against everything you want, your whole personal agenda.” My gaze is locked on his and I can tell he’s hanging onto every word. “You tell me – and I believe you – that you won’t question my decision if I choose Jackson because it’s my decision when all you want is for me to be yours. So I ask you again: how in the hell do you do it?”
“I already answered that question Lizzie,” Luke tells me, his eyes losing their twinkle of happiness for an intense, smoldering look. “All I want is for you to be happy, and if you’re happy with Jackson, then I’ll be insanely jealous, but I won’t tell you that you could be happier with me. If you’re happy with me, then I’ll get you as well as the knowledge that you’re happy, but either way I’ll get what I want as long as you make the decision on your own.” I lock my gaze onto Luke’s for a long second and realize that his eyes really are windows into his soul, that I will always be able to read Luke by his eyes. And I can tell from his eyes that he’s being utterly and completely truthful.
“That’s still amazing though, that you would give up on being with me if I told you that I would be happier with Jackson.” I shake my head in astonishment, wondering how Luke can care so deeply about me when I’ve never given him any kind of care. “And it makes absolutely no sense from a human want-need-greed perspective.”
“There’s this thing called love that doesn’t care if it makes sense from a want-need-greed perspective. And I’ve been struck with that thing for nearly four years now.” Before I can say or do anything in response, Luke sits up, yawns and stretches, breaking the emotionally charged moment with a return to reality and the fact that we have to get up because, at noon, we’ll be being interviewed by Puck on national television and then will be leaving on a train for Section Eight to have everyone pretend they love us when they don’t even know us.
I rise off of Luke’s bed and walk towards the exit, knowing that they’ve probably given Luke and I especially ridiculous, matching outfits for today. As I reach the door, I turn around just in time to see Luke taking his shirt off.
“See you later Luke. By the way, you’d make quite an impression shirtless, but I think that’s not really the kind of impression you want to make,” I tell him, a smirk flitting across my face as my eyes flick between his torso as his face.
“You should put a longer shirt on Lizzie,” he replies, getting a grin himself as I glance down at my shirt, which shows about two inches of my stomach, “because the only person I want seeing any part of your stomach is me.”
“I’ll do that Luke.” My smile nearly stretching from ear to ear now, I slide through the door, thinking I shouldn’t stay any longer or I’m going to become seriously distracted.

“Miss Lightning, you have a visitor,” a voice tells me as I step out of the elevator, a half-eaten piece of toast still in my hand from breakfast. My heart soars, since I think it’s Max talking and I think that Jackson’s my visitor, and then I realize whoever’s talking sounds nothing like Max. My heart sinks when I see who is talking to me and find a guard carrying a machine gun and at least five pistols, and my disappointment is soon replaced by terror and dread. Who on earth would want to talk me that requires four guards – I see the other three as I sweep the room with my gaze – with no shortage of weapons to be watching me at all times. One of the other ones then opens the door to my room from the main room, and I walk in to find myself staring down Prime Minister Rush.

“Miss Lightning,” Rush greets, nodding his head at me and gesturing for me to sit down in front of his desk – well, my desk that he’s taken over. “If we promise to be truthful with each other, this meeting will be a lot less painless.”
“Mr. Rush,” I reply, dipping my head ever so slightly but never taking my eyes off of him. What is El Nieve’s Prime Minister doing visiting me and opening our conversation up with a comment like that? Max never said anything about this, and I get the feeling that this isn’t standard practice. “I’ll be honest with you as long as you’re honest with me.”
“Good.” Rush nods his head in satisfaction and takes a sip from a flask in his hand. “Miss Lightning, I have a problem, a problem that occurred when you and Mr. Gates attempted a double suicide yesterday.” I feel my heart fall through me and hit the floor; this is about the Sections fighting back.
“The Sections are stirring up,” I murmur, my gaze locked on his.
“And do you know why?” Rush asks me, his pitch-black, serpentine eyes eating at my soul like termites as I sniff the air, ever so slightly, and smell, even though it’s masked by the carnation in his lapel, very distinctly, death. Despite everything that Max told me, I shake my head, wondering what Rush’s reason will be.
“Because some of the Sections weren’t convinced that you were really in love and thought that you were simply defying El Nieve.” I will not break my gaze away I will not break my gaze away I will not break my gaze away…
“So, they think, if a seventeen-year-old girl can defy El Nieve and survive, why can’t they? And this, Miss Lightning, is an issue, because if the Sections rebel, everything fails. Our society as we know it is destroyed.” If I were speaking to a man that I didn’t know could kill me instantly, I would have said something about the destruction of society not being a bad thing, but this is Prime Minister Rush, and you don’t talk back to him unless you plan on dying.
“Now, Lizzie, I am going to give you two options. Number one, you work with El Nieve and me and convince the unrestful Sections that you were in love with Mr. Gates and never meant to defy El Nieve. Number two, you don’t work with us and your loved ones pay the price.” I feel rage boiling up in me as I realize Rush is blackmailing me, but then I remember that he’s the Prime Minister of El Nieve and can do whatever he wants. “So, which will it be, Miss Lightning? Choose wisely.”
There is no choice for me here; I have to keep everyone I love alive. Besides, I was already prepared to continue acting after what Max told me yesterday. “I will continue to be in love with Luke and convince the Sections that I was not defying El Nieve,” I tell Rush, hating that I have to do what he says but knowing that my friends and family and Jackson are far more important than I am. The ever-present scent of death, poorly masked by the carnation’s scent, is starting to make my palms sweat and I try to block it out, to no avail
“Good. Then you have three weeks to do as much damage control as possible, starting with the interviews today. If you do not do as much damage control as I deem sufficient, your friends and family members will be punished, so use your time judiciously.” Just as I am about to rise from my seat and leave, not wanting to be in Rush’s presence any longer, he leans forward and whispers to me, “By the way, I know about Jackson, and what you two did right there.” He points with his eyes to the exact spot where we kissed and I feel my head begin to pound as he rises and leaves, taking his guards with him, and I realize, which makes my heart beat even faster, that the scent of death was coming from him.

“Lizzie,” Mitchell greets as I step out of the elevator into the spa. I walk into his open arms and embrace him, breathing in his sweet, cinnamon-tinted scent. “You look remarkable for someone who has just been threatened by the Prime Minister of El Nieve.”
Despite my surprise and sadness, I feel a smile creeping onto my face and pull back to look Mitchell in his dancing chocolate eyes. “How’d you know about that?” I ask him, truly intrigued by his large knowledge of who Rush threatens.
“I saw him enter the center and go up to Eight, and I figured that you and your attempted-double-suicide-salute debacle would be the only thing to draw him this far out into the open.” Now all smile falls off Mitchell’s face, and he looks down at me with sadness and empathy in his eyes. “What did he threaten you with?”
“Eminent doom for all of my family and friends if I don’t cooperate or do as much damage control in the Sections as Rush deems fit.” I shrug like it’s no big deal and even add a yawn into the act, which causes Mitchell to start laughing weakly.
After his chuckles fade away into oblivion, Mitchell tells me, “You know, Lizzie, you really are a survivor and even a savior. You’re so determined to keep your friends and family and yourself alive that you’d pretend to be in love with a boy you don’t know. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how you do it.”
“I guess that makes two of us then,” I reply, and the room falls completely silent for a moment.
“Lizzie, I see you as a survivor in a world with an acute case of survivor guilt,” Mitchell murmurs, his gaze locked on mine.
“For once, it’s not a good thing to be a survivor,” I mutter, and he shakes his head in confirmation, finding my hand with his own and giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Well, Lizzie, I think we have to get to work now. After all, we have to find some way to get you into another dress.” I smile feebly at him and let him lead me off in the direction of the room with the floor-to-ceiling mirror, wondering how he sends two kids off to slaughter every year.

The crowd erupts into cheers and screams as Luke and I take the stage hand-in-hand, him smiling at me with sadness in his eyes and me not even smiling. As I think that we can’t look like a very happy couple, I remember what Rush told me about damage control, and instantly I force a grin onto my face, knowing that the lives of everyone I care about depend on how well I act here and on the victory tour. Eying Puck dubiously, I glance around the stage for a second chair and realize there has only been one provided, so I wait for Luke to sit down and then, without hesitation, lower myself into his lap. Looking down at my dress and tugging at it, I am reminded that today, I am actual lightning. The golden dress I’m wearing flickers and dances in sunlight, giving the appearance that I’m pure electricity, which makes me think that Mitchell is probably one of the most talented people I know, at least when it comes to clothes. I feel Luke’s arms wrap around me and I lean back into him, finding one of his hands with both of mine and giving it a squeeze.
“Well, it’s quite nice to see our favorite couple together at last,” Puck tells us, and the crowd screams in agreement. Luke gives Puck a smile as I sit there, regarding the stage and the spectators with a cold, calculating gaze. Luke and I have already agreed that he is the communicator, the one good with words and that I am the fighter, the warrior, and, because of this, I am perfectly happy to let Luke do all of the public speaking. After all, every time I open my mouth or do something, someone dies or a rebellion starts, so I think it’s in everyone’s best interests if I just shut up.
“It’s nice to be together Puck.” Luke pulls me even closer to him and a small smile flits across my face as I relax ever so slightly. If Luke is here, everything will be all right, because he can make anyone believe anything with just a few words.
“So, Lizzie,” Puck begins, turning to me, “it was very obvious that you did not always feel this way about Luke, and I think I speak for all of us here by asking when you fell for him.” He looks at me expectantly, his wild brown eyes twinkling, and I desperately seek out Mitchell in the stands, knowing that if I speak to him, everything will be so much easier.
“I think that him carrying me to the hospital was when I first felt something for him,” I answer truthfully, my gaze locked on Mitchell, who’s conveniently sitting right behind Puck, the whole time. Of course, what I felt was gratitude and confusion, but the specifics don’t matter. It’s television, and the audience will eat it up either way.
“I thought so.” Puck nods, giving me a smile, and I realize, with a shock, that he’s actually trying to help me. Maybe he knows how bad it is up here. “And, Lizzie, can you tell us what was going through your head when you suggested that double suicide?”
The stands fall completely silent and I take a deep breath, knowing that this is my chance to do a whole hell of a lot of damage control. “I was thinking,” I start, turning to face Luke, “that I couldn’t live without him, that I’d rather be dead than live without him.” I then kiss Luke gently on the cheek, knowing that I just knocked that one out of the park because I was completely sincere. I couldn’t live with myself if I returned home without Luke because I know how much he means to his family and because I couldn’t live with the fact that I couldn’t save him, that I let him die because a committee of old men said he should die. I guess the motives don’t matter as long as I convince everyone that my motive wasn’t rebellion.
“Well isn’t that just wonderful,” Puck chokes, pulling a handkerchief out of a pocket in his suit and dabbing at the tears coming to his eyes. Even if he’s just acting, I’m incredibly grateful, because he just did as much or more damage control as I did by myself. “Now, I have one more question to ask you, Miss Lightning,” Puck finally says after he’s put away his handkerchief and has stopped crying. I meet his gaze to let him know I’m listening as he questions, “So, what was with that salute at the end there?”
I desperately want to answer, “I thought I was going to die, so I figured I might as well go out in style,” but I know that would essentially be anti-damage control, so instead I give the safe reply of, “I was saluting my friends and family, since that’s the salute we use with each other sometimes.” That’s actually true, since that’s what my brothers and I give each other when we’re playing football. After we’ve just embarrassed one another.
Puck nods and gives me a final grin, then turns to Luke. “So, Luke, what was going through your head when Lizzie finally came out and said that she fell for you in the last round?”
Luke looks over at me, his gaze locked on mine, and murmurs, “I was thinking that it didn’t matter if I died in a second, because my life had been made complete. Nothing mattered except for Lizzie at that point.” A small, sad smile creeps across his face, and I feel like crying because I know I’ve caused the pain I see in his eyes.
Puck opens his mouth, as if to say something, then shakes his head, turns to the side, and begins to sob into his handkerchief again. Before I can say or do anything else, Luke leans into me, so close that our noses are touching, meets my eyes for a moment, then kisses me on the lips, his hands working their way up my back and pressing me into him. I think that this is an excellent damage control opportunity as I kiss him back, sitting there with my eyes close for a second after Luke pulls away. I glance over to see a fresh set of tears forming in Puck’s eyes, then look over at Luke and smile. Luke and I rise to our feet and take a bow as the crowd goes insane again, applauding and yelling and throwing us flowers, one of which Luke catches and hands to me. My palms begin to sweat and my heart begins to pound as I smell its sickly sweet scent, but I force myself to look happy and put on an incredibly fake smile. However, once Luke and I have gotten off the stage and back into our rooms, I gaze down at the flower with the hatred it deserves. It’s one of Rush’s carnations, I’m sure of it, and I will not keep it, no matter how much damage control it could do, so I snap my fingers, start a fire in my palm, and feed the flower to the flames slowly, watching with pleasure as the bloom is eaten by the flame. Sparks beat flowers every time.

I stare out the window as the landscape whips by, trees green blurs, soil a brown smudge and flowers various shades of blotches and wish I could just throw all of my problems, all the fighting, basically just the last five days out of the window and watch them crash into the ground and break. Well, everything except for Luke. And Jackson. And Abby. They’re the only people who’ve made these last five days nearly bearable, so I’d save them, if I had a choice. Speaking of Abby, I wonder how she’s doing. She’s probably happier that the first round is over and that she only has to die one more time, because I am determined that she will not die in the third round and will make it home alive – and so will Luke. If I win the first two rounds and get first choice in a partner, everyone will expect me to pick Luke, with us being lovers and all, but I can’t do that. Luke can keep himself alive, Abby can’t, and I’m pretty sure Luke already knows what that part of my plan is. However, I don’t think he has any idea about my plan where I die to ensure that he and Abby make it home alive, since they’re both so much more important than I am. Luke’s parents couldn’t survive without him, considering that he’s an only child and therefore their pride and joy. And Abby, well, even if she’s not vital to her family like Luke is, she’s too young to die and reminds me too much of my little brother for me to let her die while I’m alive. And that’s why I intend to die to keep them alive. My family would miss me, sure, but they could do without me, because I’m not an only child and I’m not necessary to their survival. Besides, Gwillan and Gruffen might get the recognition they deserve with me out of the way.
I pull my eyes away from the window to find Luke staring out the windows on the other side of the train, his eyes distant as he thinks of any number of topics: my insincerity; how I broke his heart; my lack of devotion; the fact that, most likely, one of us will die soon; the possibilities are really endless. But I know, in my heart, that whatever Luke’s thinking about, it has to do with me. I see his expression, as cold and smooth as a piece of polished marble, and I know that he’s thinking about me and everything I’ve done to him. But wouldn’t he be happy, now that we’re officially dating? I leave the compartment in silence, not being able to stand that broken boy and his broken heart in this broken world any longer.
I find Max sitting by himself in a different car and I murmur as I sit down next to him, “I thought he wanted this,” and I know that Max will know exactly what I’m talking about.
“He wanted it to be real, Lizzie,” Max almost whispers in reply, rising to his feet and leaving me alone as quickly as I joined him.
So now I’ve lost Max and Luke and Jackson and Abby all within three days. That means I’m one person short of being an ace of lost people. But maybe that’s all I can do, terminate. Maybe that’s all I’ll ever be able to do. After all, how many people have I killed now? How many families have I ripped apart? How many relationships have I ruined by alienating myself, on purpose or unintentionally? The list of my kills, whether it’s people or animals or relations, goes on forever, and I’ll always be expanding it. Always. Maybe I should just give up on the hope of ever finding someone and ever settling down and ever stopping moving because I can’t stop. I’m inherently dangerous, remember? So wherever I am, there will be danger too, and I couldn’t lose another person, especially not one loved, not with all of the people I’ve already lost. But maybe this loneliness is best; that way I don’t hurt anyone besides myself, and I’ve already got a layer of psychological scar tissue too deep to penetrate that I can use as a barrier to stop anything that comes at me. Besides, if I’m lonely it will be easier to die.

“Fifteen minutes until arrival in Section Eight,” a metallic voice announces over the intercom, and I instantly rise to my feet, knowing what happens now. Knowing that Luke and I now are ‘dating’ and have to act accordingly. As if on cue, Luke walks through the south door of the car I’m in and I start towards him, his gaze locked on mine.
“Miss Lightning,” he whispers in greeting, his eyes darting up and down my body. I drop my own gaze for a moment to be reminded that the dress I’m in is very tight fitting.
“Mister Gates.” Luke really does look dashing in the black, buttoned-up shirt, black dress pants and black boots he’s wearing; we really are a well-matched couple in height, physical appearance and choice of clothing.
“‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves,’” Luke murmurs, taking a few steps closer so that the gap between us is about five feet.
“I think this one’s on the stars, dear Cassius,” I reply, and weak smiles spread across both of our faces. Luke then closes the gap between with us a few steps so that his face is only two feet from mine.
“Dear Brutus, ‘now is it Rome indeed and room enough/When there is in it but one only man’. Only one of us can come out of this alive, Lizzie,” he tells me as he gazes down at me, and I can see my reflection in both of his pupils looking down at me as well. “And I know you want it to be me, which I don’t get. You’ve got as much, if not more, reason to live than I do, but you would die in my place. Perhaps you have far more devotion than you think you do, Lizzie, even if it is for a horrible cause with stubborn reasons.” My mouth twitches slightly, but I don’t let a smile appear; now is not a time for lightness.
“And you think that you dying for me is going to help anyone?” I shoot back, my temper getting the best of me. “People need you more than they need me, Luke. Besides, how could I go home without you?”
“How could I go home without you? I need you far more than you need me, because if you’re gone, I don’t have anything. If I’m gone, you still have Jackson and-”
I cut him off by grabbing his collar and kissing him fiercely – and then I feel it, that hunger I felt when I kissed Jackson. It’s small, true, but it’s there. And that makes me so happy and sad that I can’t do anything but just continue to kiss Luke and hope that he understands how much I need him.
When I finally pull away I find him looking down at me, his brows knotted in confusion. “You are so… progressive. No, maybe you’re more dynamic than progressive.”
Now it is my turn to be confused. “What do you mean?” I ask him, wondering if the shock of me kissing him has somehow messed with his mind.
“You’re always moving and changing Lizzie; it can be quite hard to keep up.” His eyes shine with the same smile that quirks his lips, and I think this is the happiest I’ve seen in four years of knowing him.
“So are you actually having an issue keeping up now? Because if you are I’m going to leave you in the dust,” I tease, not resisting as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him. I place a hand on his chest and feel, underneath his muscle, his heart beating steadily and reassuringly.
“I will always keep up with you,” he whispers in my ear as his lips gently brush my cheek right below my ear.
We then just hold onto each other until the train arrives in Eight and I keep my mind completely blank, knowing that distracting myself by thinking about what happened and about Luke’s and I’s twisted relationship will not help me. When we finally slow to a stop and the doors to the outside world begin to open, Luke silently holds out his hand as a way of asking for mine. And I give him my hand as a way of showing that, no matter what I feel about him, we are a team. Forever and always.

Luke and I never let go of each other’s hands during the governor’s half-hour speech, because we’re keeping each other up the whole time. I keep on looking out at the people of Section Eight, who are required to gather and celebrate and pretend that they’re happy that we won, and notice how desperate they are, how wildly their eyes flit around, how almost every person’s ribs can be seen through their clothing. They are so sad, all of them, and are as frantic as rats trapped in a cage. But I guess being the poorest section with the worst living conditions that’s least cared about by El Nieve would make you feel like a rat caught in the crushing trap of poverty and starvation. It makes me feel so fake, so porcelain, in my perfect black dress and my perfect makeup and my perfect white heels, as if I would shatter into a million pieces if one of those poor, distraught people even touched me. However, what surprises me the most about these people is that, at the end of the governor’s speech, when they’re all supposed to clap and fake how much they’re enjoying this, no one claps or even makes a motion as to put their hands together. Instead, they all put two fingers to their foreheads salute me, like I did to the audience during the last round of hand-to-hand, and, before I can stop myself, I find myself saluting them back. I scan over all of their faces, still desperate but now mostly masked with a grim determination, like soldiers marching off to a gruesome battlefield death. But, by defying El Nieve, I guess they are signing their death warrants, which means that I can now add all of Section Eight to my kill list. It really will never stop getting longer, will it? Dropping my hand instantly, I look over at Luke in confusion to find him scanning the crowd with a distant, concerned expression, and I can tell that he’s thinking what I’m thinking: that we’ve just killed these people.

More added.

“Oh God, what did we do Luke?” I cry as my legs give out and I sink down the wall, ripping off my stupid white heels and throwing them across the floor with a vengeance. I don’t want anything to do with them or anything else made in El Nieve, which I guess includes me now.
“Well, we definitely didn’t do damage control, that’s for sure,” Luke mutters as he sits down next to me, his head in his hands.
I sit straight up and gaze over at Luke in astonishment. How could he know about that? “Did Rush give you the help-us-or-we’ll-kill-your-loved-ones talk too?” I ask him, thinking that I’ve been incorrectly reading his motives if he did.
“Yeah. And, of course, I chose the help us option because I didn’t really want to be responsible for my parents’ deaths along with everyone else I’ve killed.” I see the bags under his eyes and realize that the last few days have aged him ten years at least. “We’ll never stop killing people, will we?” He raises his head and stares me straight in the eye, his gaze desperate and pleading.
I shake my head and see his face fall ever so slightly, since he had to know I was going to answer know even if he was hoping against it. “No, we never will. It’s the only thing we can do now Luke. The Triple Crown’s taken everything else away from us.”
“I guess I understand what you mean about being inherently dangerous now.” Luke chuckles softly and bitterly, his mouth contorting into a grimace and his eyes reflecting loathing and rage.
“Look at it this way: if we die, we won’t be able to hurt anyone else besides ourselves,” I tell Luke, reaching out and touching his arm gently just to remind him that I’m still here, for the time being, and so is he.
“But… I can’t let you die. I just can’t, Lizzie.” He shakes his head. “Oh God, this is all my fault! If it weren’t for me, there would be a lot more people alive right now! If it weren’t for me-”
“You think this is your fault?!” I exclaim, looking over at him in shock and anger that he has to be so good as to take responsibility for me. I don’t want him to clean up after the mess I’ve made. After all, I intend to stain it with my own blood in the end, so I why would I want it all cleared up now? “Luke, I’m the one who did that salute during the Triple Crown! I’m the one who has the huge kill list!”
“Lizzie, we share a kill list,” Luke tells me, and I drop my head in begrudging admittance of the fact that he’s right. “You do seem to have more practice at killing than I do though, considering how you broke the fastest kill record by twenty-three seconds.”
“Yeah, that was held by you!” I shoot back, attempting and succeeding in diverting the topic away from my killing prowess. I have no intention of telling Luke my secrets, since it’s better for him to not know them. He has too much to think about to begin with. “And you don’t just kill someone in thirty-three seconds without practice. Which brings me to the question, Luke: how did you learn to fight?”
“I took self-defense classes and practiced fencing every weekend,” he replies, acting like his fighting skills are no big deal. “I guess I didn’t realize I was very good until I came here and actually got to fight in a life-or-death situation.”
“Oh.” Now it’s my turn to be shocked. I mean, you generally practice fencing and self-defense on dummies, so it’s got to be a big leap to fight against people. But if you forget that they’re people, I guess it’s no different at all.
We sit in silence for a little while, absorbing the fact that both of us are trained killers and that we kill people no matter where we go or what we do, until Luke pipes up and asks aloud, voicing what I’m thinking, “Well, where do we go from here?”
“Well, to start with, we really need to work on our damage control, since I don’t want to go home and find everyone I care about dead; I’ve already got too many deaths on my conscience to begin with.” I force myself to not think about my family and Jackson being murdered and continue talking. “And damage control means we have to go all-out in our love for each other.” My mind jumps to the kiss earlier and I quickly brush it aside; one kiss that made me feel something doesn’t mean I love Luke, and besides, I can’t love him now, considering I’m going to be dying and leaving him soon.
“Done,” Luke answers instantly, a small smile more than tinged with sadness flitting across his face. I hear Max’s words, “He wanted it to be real,” ring around my head and I shut them out, knowing that I can’t afford to think about if it’s real or not right now. “Well, anything else we need to do?”
“When we get back into the arena I guess we can try the whole double-suicide thing again, but we might not get as much of a chance as we did last time, considering that they’ll want a Triple Crown winner and can’t have one if we both die, although us being too rebellious may make them want to have us dead, so you never know.” I shrug again and look over at Luke, finding his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “But for now, all we have to do is keep up our in-love-and-dating act.”
“It’s not an act for me, Lizzie,” Luke murmurs, his gaze locked on mine as he rises to his feet and pulls me up with him. And he’s done it again; he’s made me feel like a horrible person without even trying because he’s honest about loving me when I don’t love him and am just acting.
We then just stand there, staring each other down, until Max pokes his head around the corner and calls to us, “Come on, the feast’s starting,” and the last thing I think as Luke leads me into the dining hall is that it’s funny how our roles have switched: I’ve become the actor and Luke’s become sincere.

The dinner is modest, with little food by El Nieve standards and a lone fiddler in a corner playing softly. I like it the most of any ceremony we’ve been to so far though because it’s the smallest. During the dinner, I don’t eat very much, as I ‘m too sickened by the state of the people to ingest anything, especially in their presence, and I begin to think that maybe El Nieve ceremonies are better because they don’t make me feel nearly as guilty. After everyone else finishes eating, four or five more musicians with various instruments come out, the lights are dimmed and the dance begins. Luke places one hand gently on my hip and I take his other hand with one of my own, and we dance slowly in a circle to the music, not saying much as we cling to each other to keep ourselves upright. I know this would probably be a great time to do some damage control by kissing, but I can’t bring myself to continue this awful act with all of the poor, desperate people from Eight still watching me and seeing right through me. I think Luke feels the same way, because he says nothing about damage control either.
Finally, after about fifteen minutes of just twirling, I get enough nerves to dare to attempt to act in love, and I stand on tiptoe and whisper in Luke’s ear, “I think it’s damage control time,” then kiss his neck to cover up our communication.
I hear the music slow even more and Luke draws me closer to him so that we are touching. I gaze up and him and he gazes down at me, and for a mere millisecond I see it, that look in his eye he had when telling me there was no one special in his life, that look he had when we won Hand-to-Hand and he thought I was in love with him, and I know what it means: that he’s not acting. And then he bends down and kisses me, and I kiss him back, uncomfortably aware of the void in my chest where there was feeling earlier today. I see Max watching us very closely out of the corner of my eye and I avert my gaze quickly; I can’t make it seem like Max is part of this and blow our cover.
When Luke finally pulls away, he considers me for a second before leaning in again, this time kissing my neck and working his way slowly upward. In between kisses, he murmurs in my ear, “Should we try to sneak off together? For damage control?” and I wait until he kisses me on the lips again to answer.
“As long as we make it so obvious that we can’t not get caught,” I tell him quietly as stand on tiptoe and kiss him gently on the cheek.
In response, Luke abruptly scoops me up in his arms and begins to walk towards the servants’ quarters in plain sight of everyone in the room. I am careful to quickly morph my shock into giggles and it almost sickens me to know I could be called simpering, but I guess that even I can play the part of a lovestruck, sappy girl when the threat of death to everyone I care about hangs over my head.
I’m relieved that I don’t have to keep up the silly in-love act for too long, as we only make it a couple steps before the governor asks us, his voice falsely stern, “And where do you two think you’re going?” Underneath his fake strict tone, however, I can hear strain and sadness, not very noticeable but most definitely there, and it makes me grateful that he’s willing to help us pull off the love act even when he knows it’s just an act.
“Oh, nowhere,” Luke answers, gently setting me down and dropping his gaze to the ground as he pulls off the caught-guilty face perfectly, and it occurs to me that, after all the acting I’ve seen him do, I might not be able to trust him again. But then I remember that he would never act around me because he’d have no reason to, and I’m slightly comforted, even though we’re probably both going to be dead before I get a chance to trust him or not anyways.
“Well, go on back then,” the governor commands, trying to seem imposing and disappointed in us but just seeming tired, sad and desperate. Like the rest of the people in Section Eight.
“Yes sir,” Luke mutters, his gaze still on the ground, then grabs me by the hand and leads me off back towards our original dancing spot. When we begin to dance again, Luke bends down and whispers in my ear, “Was that obvious enough for you?”
I nod my head almost imperceptibly, a smile creeping across my face, and murmur in reply, “Yes, that was very obvious. In fact, I don’t think you could’ve made it any more noticeable.”
“Well, I probably could have if I started trying to take your dress off right here, but I thought that might have been overkill even by your standards.” At first I give him a flat look, trying to look unamused, then lean forward into his shoulder to laugh. When I pull back, I see him grinning down at me, his eyes twinkling.
“I like it when you laugh,” he tells me quietly, his eyes glued on mine as his hands rest on my lower back. “You have a beautiful laugh… along with beautiful eyes and a beautiful nose and a beautiful mouth and beautiful ears and a beautiful smile and a beautiful face and a beautiful body and a beautiful voice and, the most stunning of them all, an absolutely radiant personality.” For a second I can’t breathe or think or do anything because I’m so taken aback by Luke’s compliments, but when I finally come to my senses, I throw my arms around Luke’s neck and kiss him passionately, feeling his arms tighten around me as he kisses me back.
He pulls away after a long while, and, best I can tell, it’s only for air, although he doesn’t make a move to try and kiss me again. Instead, he murmurs, not nearly as quiet as when we’re communicating privately because this qualifies as damage control, “So you kiss me for telling the truth? I guess I should be more honest then.” He then leans in and kisses me softly on the neck, his lips working their way up to my mouth again.
“I guess maybe you should,” I reply, trying my best to act as content as Luke is. I jump when he hits the spot where Marshall nicked and bruised me on the neck and try to cover it up by exclaiming, “That tickles!”
However, I can tell Luke knows I’m hurt because he raises a hand and gently traces the not-so-small cut on the side of my neck with his finger. He then kisses me incredibly lightly on my scratch and asks me teasingly, going along with the ruse, “Oh, right there?”
“Yes, right there!” I tell him, pretending to collapse into laughter and doing a pretty good job of faking if I do say so myself.
“I didn’t know you were ticklish, Miss Lightning,” he tells me as he pulls away, his eyes twinkling, but underneath the pretend happiness, I see worry, and it makes me smile sincerely to know how much he cares for me.
“To be honest,” I begin, staring up at him with almost amazement as I realize how much he loves me and would do for me when I don’t love him and have never done anything for him. “I didn’t know I was either.”
Luke then leans so close that our noses are touching and whispers, “You’re not invincible Lizzie,” before kissing me gently as one hand slides up towards the back of my neck and pushes me into him. I relax under his steady, warm touch and kiss him back, aware of the void in my heart but also aware of his lips pressed against mine.
“Hey lovebirds, time to go,” Max calls to us, and we break apart quickly, Luke smiling down on me as he brushes a strand of hair away from my face.
He bends down and is about to scoop me into his arms when I stop him by saying, “No, not this time. It’s my turn now.”
“What do you mean?” he asks me confusedly, a slight grin still haunting his lips.
In answer, I bend down and scoop him into my arms, hefting his weight and finally telling him, “Luke, you really aren’t that heavy. I don’t know why you don’t let me do this more often,” before marching off after Max to a round of applause.

And that’s how every Section visit goes. Luke and I stand together, hand in hand, pretending to care about the governor’s speech while we really look at the horrible conditions or the signs of rebellion, then we kiss or do some kind of damage control, careful not to add any other Sections to our kill list. We go to the dinner after that, where neither one of us eat much because we’re too preoccupied with the memories of the Triple Crown or with the desperate people or with the tension that threatens to break the air. And, when the dance comes along, we force smiles onto our grim faces and walk out to the floor and twirl in slow circles together, me laughing at things that aren’t funny and Luke nearly killing me with the pain radiating from his eyes. Then it’s damage control time, and we kiss and I feel awful for not loving Luke when he’s so perfect for me and Luke gets even more hurt because he knows I’m just acting to save people I love and people I’ve never met when he’s not just acting, and we both end up feeling horrible. It’s harder than the Triple Crown, a lot harder, because at least when you’re in the arena all you have to worry about is your own neck, and the families of the kids you killed aren’t standing in front of you, and it doesn’t matter what the Sections are doing. All that matters is staying alive, and I’d much rather spend an eternity in the arena than have to keep worrying about a lot more necks than just my own and feeling like a terrible person every moment I’m around Luke and knowing that every move I make could kill or save millions. So by the time the victory tour is almost over and our last stop is El Nieve itself, I feel like I’ve been run through a meat grinder eight times, and I can tell by looking at Luke that he feels the same way. I wonder what our relationship would be like, if we made it home alive. He’d still love me, and I still wouldn’t love him, but would I feel so in debt to him that I’d date him because I know that’s what he wants? No, that would be worse – for him and for me – than not dating him at all and having everything I owe to him hanging over my head. But the thing is, I don’t know if I could ever be with anyone other than Luke ever again, because no one besides him knows what it’s like in the arena, to be forced to murder desperate, innocent children for the entertainment of a desperate society. And then there’s also the fact that we’d both be so broken, so beyond repair, so stripped of our humanity that we might need each other to keep each other whole and sane and alive, so I don’t know if I’d even have a choice as to date Luke or not if we got back because my need for someone who knows what it’s like might overcome everything else. Jackson could win Alexa back, no problem, and then he wouldn’t need me anymore, and Luke still would, and then it’d all work out, right? I can have Luke and Jackson can have Alexa and we’ll all be happy, right? So now all I can ever have is a not-so-happily ever after with a not-so-happy boy that I don’t even love, which means that El Nieve has not only taken my present by my future as well. I guess the repercussions of the arena will never stop; they’ll reverberate throughout my whole life for the rest of my life, and I guess going back to how we were isn’t an option if we get home. Of course, there’s always that if, but if I can execute my plan, it won’t be an if, because I won’t be coming home. Besides, now that my future’s been taken away from me as well, maybe it’s best to die now and not have to live out a future that I didn’t choose, that I don’t want.

The first thing I think when I see the inside of Russel’s castle is, “It’s beautiful.” The castle, from the outside, looks dark and forbidding with its faded brickwork that had its best days a few hundred years ago and looming towers that literally block out the sun when the angle’s right. But its inside is the polar opposite. In classic El Nieve fashion, everything is white, the walls, the floors and the furnishings, but gold inlay and gilt wind their way around many things inside the castle, making its paleness bearable. The ceiling of the dining hall goes up at least forty feet to be capped off by a glass skylight probably two hundred feet wide and a hundred feet long that shows the stars in all of their glory. I can hear Luke’s breath catch in his throat as he takes in all of the beauty around him, and I glance over with a smile on my face.
“You’re right, it’s pretty, but it’s not nearly as beautiful as you.” Luke finds my hand with one of his, returns my smile and, for a moment, I don’t see any pain in his eyes. But that moment ends too quickly, and, as we are jerked abruptly back to reality by Max shoving us into the dining hall, the hurt returns to his eyes again.
I gasp in awe at the sheer amount of food laid out in our honor. Ten-foot-long tables filled with whole roast birds and pigs and cows even, stuffed with vegetables and fruit and even other animals. And then there’s four tables dedicated just to soup, with huge pots filled to the brim with every kind of broth and bisque and chowder imaginable, and, after that, five tables are occupied by side dishes of many colors, shapes and sizes, including fruit and vegetables and bread. And, at the very end, are three tables covered in so many different kinds of dessert that it would probably take at least an hour to name them all.
“Boy, you’d think they actually like us,” I mutter under my breath as I gaze at all of the food and think about how long it must have taken to prepare all of it. I turn to Luke to see a wan half-smile flitting across his face and stop him from walking forward by pulling him aside into a cutout six feet tall and six feet wide in the white marble walls.
“What?” Luke looks at me, confused, and it makes me happy to see the pain disappear from his eyes for a millisecond. So Luke’s not in pain as long as he’s changing emotions, hmm? I guess that means he’s in the pain the rest of the time though.
“You alright?” I ask him sincerely, gazing up at him and intertwining my fingers with his own. I know, that at a base level, he hasn’t be alright since we came here, but that unease that goes with our existence in this dimension needs to be overlooked for now.
“Yeah,” he answers quietly, nodding his head and pressing his lips together in what I think is supposed to be a reassuring smile. “Well, I’m as alright as I can be.” He pulls one hand away from mine and raises it to my face to gently caress my cheek, then pulls the other one away and drops them both by his sides. “I’m just living with the reality that I didn’t get to tell the girl I love ‘I love you’ the way I wanted to and that she doesn’t love me back because she’s in love with another guy and that I fall harder for her every moment I’m around her but realize even more every second that I can’t have her and that I didn’t get the fairytale ending I wanted with her professing her love for me and us riding off into the sunset and that I’m probably going to die soon with the knowledge that I came close but I wasn’t enough, that I didn’t quite make the grade.”
For a few moments that span the eternities between our dimension and the one we’re currently in, I just stare up at Luke, every memory I have of him flashing before my eyes: him giving me the only genuine smile I got from any guy the first day of eighth grade, getting into a huge debate with him over Fahrenheit 451 in Honors LA in eighth grade, him managing JV soccer freshman year even though it meant not playing baseball, me running into him and getting tomato soup all over both of us the second-to-last day of freshman year and then talking to him as we both cleaned up at a drinking fountain, him catching me when I fell halfway through sophomore year, going over to his house to do a project and being struck by how much he meant to his parents halfway through the last semester of sophomore year, getting soaked by the sprinklers when running outside in Weights together two weeks from the end of sophomore year, sitting next to him and joking with him in Philosophy and Religion during the first semester of this year, high-fiving and celebrating with him after our team won Capture the Flag in Weights only two weeks from when we were taken. Did he really love me that whole time?
“How did you… how did you do it? How did you live every day with me right in front of you, parading around with one guy or another, a lot of them your friends? How in the hell did you put up with me enough to love me, and why in the hell didn’t you ask me out? I definitely would have said yes!” I almost yell, staring him down with puzzlement and shame in my eyes. I seriously don’t know how he put up with me, since I know I wouldn’t have been able to put up with myself.
“You wouldn’t have meant it though,” Luke murmurs, and I at least have the decency to bow my head in admittance. “And dating you when you don’t mean it is worse than seeing you every day with a different guy.” Now I drop my head so low that it’s nearly hitting the ground, because I know Luke is talking about our current situation.
“I guess I see why you wanted it to be real,” I mutter, searching the white-and-gold tile beneath my feet for answers. In my mind, I put myself into his point of view: the guy I’ve liked – no, loved – for four years and I are whisked off to a different dimension and we have to act we’re in love just to stay alive, but it’s not just an act for me. It’s only an act for him though, and then, of course, there’s that other girl…
I hate myself for not loving Luke, I hate Jackson for me loving him, I hate the stars for causing this fault, I hate the Triple Crown committee for ordering us here and I hate Max for following those orders. I hate everything and everyone in and about this dimension, because it all seems to bring Luke pain. I gaze back up at Luke, staring into his eyes and seeing my reflection in each one of his pupils.
“Why do you care about me so much? Why can’t you just see that I’m inherently dangerous and stay away? Why can’t you-”
Luke leans down and kisses me, wrapping his arms around me and refusing to let me pull back. And then I feel it again: that hunger starting in my heart and spreading throughout my body, and I kiss him back, grinning up at him when he pulls back.
“That was a really nice way of telling me to shut the hell up,” I tell him, and I see his eyes twinkle happily.
“I’m only returning the favor Lizzie.” A genuine smile – for once not tinged with sadness – curls his lips and he offers me his hand with the calloused, large palm up. “Shall we?” he murmurs, his gaze locked on mine.
“We shall.” I nod my head and give him my hand, feeling his fingers instantly tighten around my own. We then turn back towards the dining hall, hand in hand, and enter to a round of applause and cheering, but the whole time I’m only thinking about what’s going to happen when I have to let go.

More added.

“What do you want to try first?” a voice behind me asks as I purvey the food options at the table in front of me, but I don’t have to turn around to know that it’s Luke. What he looks like, what he sounds like, what he feels like, what he smells like, what he tastes like are all permanently ingrained into my memory now.
I see him come around to my right side and feel him wrap an arm around my waist, and, shrugging my shoulders, murmur, “None of it. But that wouldn’t be very good for damage control, now would it?”
“I know what you mean,” Luke mutters under his breath. I guess we share the feeling that we don’t want anything to do with anything made in El Nieve. In a louder voice, Luke says, “The chicken? That looks good,” then leads me over to a different table, and I smile briefly as I realize how lucky I am – and so is everyone else I love – to have Luke and his incredible gift for knowing exactly what to say and exactly when to say it, because God knows I’m not very charming or persuasive or good with words.
Luke hands me a warm plate and points to various dishes as we along the side of the table together. I take a tiny amount of each one, to be polite, but know that I’m going end up throwing most of it away later. I feel someone nudge me gently and look up to find Luke scanning the small tables around us, where other guests are sitting and eating. “Where do you want to sit?” he questions over the din of the crowd.
I grab silverware for both of us as we reach the end of the line and reply, “Wherever we can sit by ourselves,” then follow Luke as he carves a path through the crowd towards an empty table with four chairs in the southwest corner of the hall.
“Does this work?” He sets his food down, turning around to survey the rest of the chamber, presumably to find another empty table if I find this one dissatisfactory.
“This is perfect,” I tell him, giving him a genuine smile as I squeeze myself into the seat facing away from the wall and facing him.
“I could have sat there!” Luke exclaims, rising to his feet as though to right this awful wrong, but sits back down when he sees the flat look I’m giving him.
“Luke, me sitting in a seat that’s slightly hard to get into isn’t nearly as horrible as you seem to think it is.” I roll my eyes as I think that this is what I get for wearing dresses. “Besides, I want to sit with my back to wall so I can see everyone.” And so I don’t get stabbed in the back. I mean, I doubt anyone from El Nieve’s going to want to ruin the fun by killing me early, but the people in this dimension that I trust I can count on the fingers of one hand.
I see the light of understanding click in Luke’s eyes and I know that he understands my motives now. However, he doesn’t get a chance to say anything in response, because I see Max and Mitchell and call to them, both searching the hall for a place to sit with plates of food in their hands. “Hey!” I gesture for them to come over and smile at them as they sit down.
“Max, Mitchell,” Luke greets, giving them a grin of his own as he scoots over to give them more room. “How are you guys doing?”
“Never better,” Mitchell answers warmly, his gaze glued on me so I get the feeling he’s talking to me. However, I see his eyes running up and down my body and I know that he’s just checking to make sure his dress – this one a beautiful, tight-fitting crimson – fits right.
“I don’t know Mitchell,” Max says dubiously, running one hand nearly as big as the plate in front of him over his shaved, bald head. “I’m having a pretty hard time keeping up with these two, so I’d definitely say I’ve been better.” That brings a smile onto all of our faces, even mine, though I’m carefully studying both Max and Mitchell the whole time, and it concerns me to see that, under careful inspection, they both look worse for the wear.
After a few moments of silence, during which I’m alternating between watching Mitchell and Max and Luke is watching me watch Mitchell and Max, Luke pipes up and says, “Well, let’s eat!” and, as if a spell has been broken, we all start moving.
Like usual, I pick at my food, not really eating it but just giving my fork something to do, and instead amuse myself by scanning the crowd and finding some of the oddest-looking guests. The colors catch my attention almost immediately and I have to hide a snort in my hand as I see them following each other and simpering in a little line. No matter how long I spend around them, I will never be able to think of them as anything besides Broncos colors.
“What’s so funny?” Luke asks me, and I tear my gaze away from them to look at him with a smile still on my face.
“Kate, Theo and Macy,” I reply, and instantly Luke’s mouth twitches slightly and his eyes light up a little.
“Broncos colors, don’t you think?” he murmurs, and I nod my head in agreement, picking them out of the crowd again easily.
“They’re funny all right. If I didn’t know that they don’t even know what football is, I would’ve thought that they had planned it.” Now it’s Luke’s turn to nod, and he turns his head ever so slightly to see them out of the corner of his eye.
When he finally catches sight of them, he shakes his head and mutters, a smile on his face, “Quite the fashion statement, hmm?”
“Thank God they haven’t tried to do that to us yet,” I exclaim in reply, thinking that being monochromatic is definitely not my thing, although, if I did have to choose one color to be, I’d go with gold, because not much would have to change.
Mitchell, who had been completely silent up until this point, now pipes up and tells us, “Oh, trust me, they most certainly wanted to. In fact, they wanted to surgically alter both of you, but I convinced them that you two didn’t need it.”
I sit straight up at the mention of surgery, my fingers tingling as I feel the number thirteen carved into Jackson’s flesh. “Good,” I force myself to say, refusing to let the panic spreading through my body show. “I’m not fond of surgery.” Suddenly feeling claustrophobic in my corner, I look around me to find no way out to the sides, which means that the only way out is over the table. Rising to crouch on my chair, I tense my legs and propel myself, head-first, over the table, barely clearing the edge on the other side. I have just enough time to stick my arms out, catch myself, and roll neatly into a standing position. Feeling an acute pain in my feet as I put my weight gingerly on them, I bend down and rip off my shoes, sighing in relief as I flex my toes and feel the soreness ease.
“They’re too small; sorry Mitchell.” I look up, shoes in hand, to find Max, Luke and Mitchell staring at me with looks of astonishment on their faces. “What?” I stare back at them, starting to become concerned.
“That was… amazing,” Luke murmurs, his tone almost reverent. “How did you land that without hurting yourself?”
I shrug, thinking that leaping over a table definitely doesn’t qualify as amazing but going along with it anyways. “I don’t know. I mean, I just landed it the easiest way possible. I don’t get why that’s so amazing, but…” My gaze moves between them, Luke still amazed but Mitchell and Max amused.
“He’s only saying it’s amazing because he saw a lot of your thighs Lizzie,” Max tells me with a smirk on his face. As if on cue, Luke begins to blush profusely, his face turning a brilliant shade of crimson.
“That’s… that’s… no!” Luke splutters, clearly trying to defend himself but only proving even further Max’s statement.
“Luke, you should quit while you’re ahead.” I pat him on the shoulder and he quiets with a sigh, finally realizing that the cause of defending himself is a pointless one, as Max will believe what Max will believe. Obligingly Luke scoots over to give me room to sit down next to him, but I opt to sit squarely in his lap, which he seems to like better too.
“So, what do you mean, the shoes are too small?” Mitchell leans across the table and takes the black flats from me, examining them with a frown on his face.
“The shoes are too small for my feet. I mean, I don’t know what else I could mean by saying the shoes are too small.” I feel Luke wrap his arms his arms around me and lean back into him momentarily, appreciating for the first time that he was the one to come here with me.
“How can that be? I made measurements based off your height and weight and came up with an exact shoe size, so I don’t know how they can be too small.” Mitchell pulls at the shoes in different directions, the furrows on his forehead becoming more prominent. “Well, they haven’t shrunk at all, so I have no idea as to how they could be too small, as I know my measurements were right the first time.”
Knowing that I might not get another moment to talk before Mitchell launches into another “But they have to fit!” spiel, I open my mouth and hold up my hand when Mitchell tries to speak too, as I will not be interrupted. “That’s the thing, Mitchell. My feet are a lot bigger than they’re supposed to be, if you go off my height and weight.” Turning to Luke, I tell him, “My feet are supposed to be a woman’s size eleven, but they’re a woman’s size thirteen, man’s size eleven-and-a-half instead. The funniest part is that they don’t even make woman’s size thirteen shoes normally, so I have to special-order them through Nike.”
“Your feet are three sizes smaller than mine then. You have awfully big feet Miss Lightning,” Luke teases, smiling at me. Suddenly I realize that our faces are only a few inches apart, and I look away quickly, not in the mood for any more damage control than sitting on Luke’s lap.
“Ah, that explains it then.” Mitchell seems somewhat relieved, now that he knows it’s not his fault that the shoes don’t fit. To be honest, I don’t see why it matters beyond the fact that they don’t fit, but I’m not a stylist and don’t devote my life to clothes and fashion either. “Well, I’ll get right on making you a pair that fit then.” Mitchell gives me a grin and I see the excitement in his eyes, and I’m reminded that he really does love his shoes.
“Hey Lizzie, you going to eat that?” Max asks me, jerking his head in the direction of my abandoned, nearly-full plate of food.
I shake my head, staring at the plate with contempt. No matter how hungry I get, I will not eat anything produced by slave labor. “Have it Max. I don’t want it.” I watch as he extends one large arm, pulls the dish to him and begins to eat.
“You can have mine too,” Luke says, and pushes his plate in Max’s direction as well. Now, turning to me, Luke murmurs, his eyes full of concern, “You’re getting thinner. I can feel your ribs.” I feel him gently tracing the individual ribs and relax a little under his touch, my breathing slowing but still faster than usual.
“You’ve always been able to feel my ribs,” I counter, hoping that Luke will just give up on the matter because the last thing I want is to be force-fed on top of everything else.
“Not like this.” He drops his hand and looks at me with such evident distress that I almost feel like I should eat something, just for his benefit, but I refuse to eat anything made in El Nieve, because it has undoubtedly been grown or manufactured at the expense of the Sections. “You really should eat something Lizzie, because it’s not like we’re going to have a lot of food during Survival.”
“Besides, if you don’t, I can always have Kate, Theo and May surgically alter you,” Mitchell adds, surfacing from his trance of studying the shoes long enough to get on Luke’s side, and I give him a flat look. He’s supposed to be helping me, right?
“I’ll eat something when we get back to the Champions’ Center, alright?” I finally say, hoping to just get everyone off my back.
At last, Luke nods his assent, but, when Mitchell has gone back to his shoes, he whispers in my ear, “You know, this isn’t very good for damage control, refusing to eat the food they’ve made in our honor.”
“I know,” I begin, staring Luke in the eye, “but I don’t care. Not right now, at least, because for once, I’m going to do what I want to do.”
Luke nods his head in understanding and then we just sit, gazing into each other’s eyes, me trying to read him and Luke probably thinking about how I’ve broken his heart, until the shrill, crisp note of a bell breaks the air.
Instantly I rise to my feet to hear a cool – but thankfully human – voice announce that the dance is starting, then turn to Luke to see him taking his shoes off. “What are you doing?” I stare down at him, utterly perplexed. “I thought your shoes fit.”
“They do,” he starts, “but we might as well match. Besides, you don’t need any other distinguishing features; you’ve got too many for your own good already.” We both smile as I breathe an internal sigh of relief at the fact that Luke doesn’t know what I actually am, since it’s one hell of a distinguishing feature in itself. “Now, Miss Lightning, may I have this dance?” He bows respectfully and offers me his hand, which I, of course, accept.
“You don’t even have to ask, Mister Gates.” I then lead him out onto the dance floor as I realize how much we must stand out: me a good six inches taller than the average El Nieve woman, and Luke a good five inches taller than the average El Nieve man, and both of us in our socks to boot.
I sigh inwardly as Luke places one hand on my hip and takes one of mine in the other, since I know that it’s damage control time, that it’s time to break Luke’s heart into a million pieces with my insincerity. For the ninth time.
We begin to twirl slowly, Luke gazing down at me as I stare off into the distance, wishing that I could just run through one of the huge glass windows and fall to my death – the castle is at the top of a cliff to make it harder to infiltrate – when I remember that I can’t, that I won’t die, no matter how much I want to.
I am startled slightly when I feel Luke’s lips on my neck and tear my gaze away from the window to find myself staring into one alarmingly clear ice-blue eye. “‘Concrete girl, don’t fall down/In this broken world around you/Concrete girl, don’t fall down/Don’t fall down, don’t fall down, my concrete girl,’” he whispers in my ear, and my eyes shoot open in surprise. “The only thing is, you’re not completely concrete Lizzie. I know there’s a human and a heart and feeling in you, no matter how much you wish there wasn’t.” He pulls back, searching my face for emotion I refuse to give.
“Don’t you think it’d be more appropriate to quote the part ‘fake your laughter’?” I brush past Luke’s remark about not being concrete; it may be true, but I’m not going to admit to it. I would much rather continue to tell myself that I am concrete, that I cannot be broken, than face the fact that I am not invincible.
Luke shrugs, still scanning my face for any reaction. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He gently raises one hand and caresses my cheek gently, moving his hand down to cup my chin. I feel my heart rate increase dramatically, because the last time this happened, I ended up kissing someone, and I’m not sure I want to do that right now. Leaning closer until our noses are touching, he tells me quietly but with strength, “Actually, no, because I know you don’t fake all of it, Lizzie. I know you don’t fake it with Abby; I know you don’t fake it with Mitchell; I know you don’t fake it with Max. I guess I’m the only one you fake it with.”
I shake my head, tears filling my eyes, but blink them away sternly. Now is not a time to lose it to crying. “Luke, I don’t fake it with you.” I meet his gaze fiercely just before I kiss him, grabbing his collar and pulling him into me as I feel his arms tighten around me. And, for the third time in probably ten times as many kisses, I feel it: that hunger, starting in my chest and spreading through the rest of my body that I’ve come to associate with overwhelming happiness and unbearable sadness. But, for once, I refuse to let myself feel the sadness, and just lose myself in the happiness, in the joy that maybe I love Luke, that maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to act anymore.
When I finally pull away, needing air, I find Luke gazing down at me with a distinctly pleased look of almost confusion on his face. Bending down over me, he whispers in my ear, “Maybe I was wrong about you Miss Lightning. Maybe this isn’t just an act for you anymore.” He then kisses me on the tip of my nose and holds me against him, a genuine smile on his face and his eyes twinkling – for once no hurt apparent in them.
I am nearly overcome with joy when I see that, for once, I’m not causing him pain every second of every day, and I bury my head in his shoulder to stop myself from breaking down and bawling, because there’s still a hole in my heart the size of Jackson Lucas Carter. That hole hurts me every time I kiss Luke because it begins to throb with my betrayal of Jackson and my loneliness and my feeling that I’m a wretched human being, my feeling that I should have never fallen for Jackson because it’s only ended up hurting us both. So I can’t help but hear a song lyric, from To Them These Streets Belong by Rise Against, echo around in my head as Luke and I dance.
“‘It’s not this hate/But the loneliness/That’s left me here into this mess of love.’”

After a while, unfortunately, people begin to gravitate towards us, asking for pictures and dances. Thank God most of them are rich El Nieve girls wanting to dance with Luke, for which he gives me sincere apologetic looks, but there are a few yuppy El Nieve boys who ask to dance with me. I don’t want to be touched by them; I don’t want to be touched by anything having to do with El Nieve; I don’t want to be touched by anything having to do with this dimension; but, for the sake of damage control and the cameras, for of course there are press here, I force a smile onto my face and dance with each and every one of them. The only thing that keeps me from kicking them in the shins and running off is the threat of death to my family and my friends and Jackson that’s hanging over my head. I know having the deaths of the people I love on my conscience – if I still have one, after spilling so much blood – would be far too much to bear. The fact that many of them look rather disconcerted at me having two or three inches on them also makes the dancing with them more bearable, because I know I’m embarrassing them in the process. However, one boy, who seems to think he’s incredibly handsome despite having large, stick-out ears and a monkey face, decides that his hand is going to go a bit farther down than my hip. At first, I try to ignore it, knowing that getting angry at an El Nieve boy on national television when I’m supposed to be getting people to like me would not be good, but, when he is literally touching my butt, I decide that my persona is far less important than my personal space, so, as quick as my last name, I grab his arm, turn him around, and put him in as tight a headlock as I dare while pinning his arm against his back in what I know to be a painful position.
“You should keep your hands to yourself, Monkey-face,” I tell him, enjoying my three-inch height advantage as he whimpers and claws feebly at my arm.
“Lizzie!” Max barks sharply at me, rising to his feet and walking over towards me. “Let him go!” I stare him down and see a mixture of alarm, fear and panic in his eyes, and I know that Max isn’t a fool for being afraid; in theory, all of us could executed for my assault, but El Nieve wouldn’t do that before the Triple Crown was over, because then they’d have to explain why they had lost a mentor and a champion.
“Max, Monkey-face here,” I begin, indicating the boy I’m threatening to asphyxiate, “seems to think that, when you dance with a girl, your hand does not stay on her hip, but instead moves down and to the back some.” I hear Monkey-boy’s whining become louder and I see the anger on Max’s face waver as he looks between Monkey-boy and me, clearly trying to decide whether to believe my story or Monkey-boy’s exaggerated moaning.
Finally Max repeats, “Lizzie, let him go,” but with less of edge to his voice, and I remove my arm from around Monkey-boy’s neck and shove him forward.
By this time, Luke has come over – as has nearly every other guest in the castle – and asks me gently, “Lizzie, what happened?”
“Oh, nothing,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders. “Just a mix-up on where to put your hand when dancing with a girl, as apparently Mr. James-” I finally remember Monkey-boy’s actual name, Anthony James. “-And I have different opinions on where to place said hand.” I catch Luke’s gaze for a moment, but a moment is all I need to see the understanding flicker in his eyes.
“Well, Mr. James,” Luke starts, turning towards Monkey-boy with an expression of pure sympathy on his face, which quickly morphs into a look of anger, “When in doubt, keep your hands off my girlfriend.”
And then Luke punches Mr. Anthony James square in the face.

Luke and I are seated side-by-side on a couch in a compartment of the train and are watching Max pace agitatedly back and forth in front of us, his head in his hands as he mutters things under his breath.
Finally he stops walking and turns on both of us, the anger in his eyes making his fiery irises even more dramatic. “That was unacceptable, both of you!” he booms in his most intimidating voice, affixing us both with an incredibly angry gaze that reminds me kind of being burned alive. “Lizzie, I don’t care if he tries to French-kiss you against your permission, you do not hurt him unless he’s in the arena with you! Then you’re welcome to cut as big of a hole in him as you want, but since that boy was not another champion, you don’t hurt him, no matter what he’s doing to you! Do you understand?” Not wanting to be yelled at again, I nod my head tersely, drop my eyes and grit my teeth in frustration. So apparently anything in El Nieve is untouchable, despite the fact that El Nieve has violently ripped us from our lives and forced us to either murder or be murdered.
“And Luke, that goes for you too! You do not punch someone in the face, no matter what they do to you or Lizzie, unless you’re in the arena! Do you understand?” The anger in Max’s voice is fading and is being replaced by a weariness; I guess having to keep two seventeen-year-olds alive who have their own, very definite opinions and don’t even want to be kept alive is probably incredibly exhausting.
“Or what?” Luke’s quiet response, not externally defiant or loud, takes both Max and I by surprise, and we both look over at him, not knowing what he’s talking about. “What happens if we continue to do this, if we touch the untouchables of El Nieve?” he repeats, staring back at Max and I, seeming to be genuinely curious.
“Then,” Max begins, “then it’s endgame, then it’s all over. Then it doesn’t matter that you’re champions of the Triple Crown, then they’ll get rid of you no matter how many lies they have to make up. You can kiss your lives goodbye.” He shrugs his shoulders, emphasizing the hopelessness of the situation.
“We already have, Max,” Luke replies steadily, his gaze glued on Max’s. “So what do we have to lose? I’d rather die myself and die in defiance than live as one of the broken masses with no sense of self.”
“So you’re saying you’d rather die on your feet than live on your knees?” I ask Luke, affixing him with an inquisitive golden stare.
“Certainly,” he answers immediately, his eyes locked on mine, causing a thin smile to flit across my face.
“‘You’re a shameful opportunist! What you don’t understand is that it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’ ‘You have it backwards. It’s better to live on your feet than to die on your knees,’” I murmur quietly, my smile fading nearly as quickly as it had come. “Know who said that, Luke?”
He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head, looking puzzled. “No. I only know Switchfoot songs, remember?”
“Lizzie, you’re walking on dangerous ground by quoting things like that,” Max cautions, but I brush right past his warning and continue to talk.
“Rise Against said that in their song Survivor Guilt. Well, Rise Against didn’t actually say it; they took a sound clip from Catch-22 and used it in their song, but same effect.” Turning to Max, I tell him, “Max, Luke’s right. Our lives are already gone. We’ve got nothing to lose – except for our humanity – and that’s the one thing I refuse to let El Nieve strip away from us. When I die, I will die on my feet, as Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, not on my knees and not as a pawn of their great game.” I sit straight up, staring Max right in the eye and knowing that nothing he says or does will change my mind.
“Lizzie, you don’t have to die! In fact, you most likely won’t die, if El Nieve gets their way, so why don’t you just let them rig the Triple Crown for you and come out victorious?” Max shoots back, and I’m almost taken aback by the selfishness of his words.
“I couldn’t do that Max, because then I’d have his-” I jerk my head in Luke’s direction, “-and Abby’s deaths on my conscience, since I would’ve basically left them for dead, and I can’t do that, I can’t just leave them to die. And that’s the point, Max; my death will be a rebellion in itself because then El Nieve won’t get their Triple Crown winner, and I can die knowing that I didn’t fail anybody, that I kept everybody alive that I wanted to and that I died as myself, with my sense of self, and that’s so much more than I’d get if I won.”
Max sights, his huge chest heaving and his whole posture resigned. “Lizzie,” he begins, “do what you will, but know that, as your mentor, I will be trying to keep both of you alive.” His eyes dart towards Luke for a second and I nod, knowing that I’m not going to get any more out of Max than that.
“And Lizzie, know that, as a person who loves you and wouldn’t be able to live without you because you’re my whole world, I will be trying to keep you alive too,” Luke adds, getting that look in his eye that means he’s set on whatever he’s decided. Which means that I’m going to have an even harder time of dying in peace ,with Luke always beside me and making me feel guilty about going and leaving him alone.
“Ok. But know that, as a stubborn, determined, strong-willed seventeen-year-old girl with her very definite opinions, I will be trying to die.” I give Max and Luke small smiles and they return them, but there is a markedly changed feel in the air around us now, and I know for sure why.
The real Triple Crown, Lizzie versus Max and Luke and everyone else determined to keep me alive at their expense, has just begun.

I stretch out on the luxurious bed in my compartment and watch the moonlit landscape rip by in a blur of silver, blue, gray and black. Like usual, I can’t sleep, and watching the land go by calms me some and gives me time to think, something I desperately need.
So what do I do about this start of the real Triple Crown, me versus Max and Luke and maybe even myself? I can’t go home without Luke, I know I can’t, even if it’s only for the distinctly ignoble reason that I wouldn’t be able to face his family and friends without feeling responsible for his death somehow, and, of course, there’s also that thing that I need him, that I maybe love him and maybe can’t live without him. But Luke, he needs me far more than I need him, because I know that he has nothing if he doesn’t have me, and that he would probably just end up committing suicide or being so miserable that his life is pointless, so I guess we’re stuck. I can’t live without Luke, Luke can’t live without me, but one of us has to die and both of us are trying desperately to keep the other alive. So what do I do? I know what I want to do: I want to die, in rebellion of El Nieve, and save Luke and Abby in the process, but that would be the coward’s way out, because death is easier than life and because I’d be leaving Luke, all by his lonesome, to deal with the problems we created. But is possibly losing my humanity, my sense of self and Luke in the process of surviving worth it? Is living on my knees, broken and crushed and without Luke, better than dying on my feet as myself and with Luke? No, it isn’t; I’d much rather die on my feet with someone I loved next to me than live on my knees. But that’s really the base question here, isn’t it? Is your humanity or your survival more important? Are the sacrifices you make to live worth living?
A knock at my door jerks me to attention, and I sit up and rise to my feet, padding soundlessly over to the door and opening it silently to find Luke staring down at me.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” I murmur, and he shakes his head in conformation. “Well, come on in then.” I move to the side to let Luke enter, then sit back down on my bed and motion for Luke to sit next to me.
“So what do we do?” Luke asks me, his eyes made silver by the moonlight reflecting off of them. He finds my hand with one of his own and holds onto it with a desperate air, as though if he lets go, one of us will be lost. The worst part is that’s not such an unrealistic fear.
“I don’t Luke,” I answer quietly, meeting his gaze and tightening my grip on his hand. “I haven’t known since we left home, and I don’t think I’m going to start knowing anytime soon either.”
He nods his head, dropping his eyes to the floor. “I just wish… I just wish there was a way that we could either both go home or both not return. But, of course, El Nieve’s going to try to keep you alive, since they want their champion, so that means I have to die somewhere in there.” He pauses for a second, and I can hear him swallow. “So, I’m going to try to keep you alive the best I can, even though you probably won’t need my help. I think it’s more for my benefit though, so maybe I can say that I died for a cause, that I had a purpose.”
I feel my chest constrict and I take a couple deep breaths, willing myself not to cry as I realize that Luke wouldn’t just die for me, he would die for the idea that he was helping. However, Luke notices this and instantly becomes concerned, scooting over to me and wrapping me in his arms as he questions, quietly but with a sense of urgency, “Lizzie, are you ok? What’s the matter?”
“You’re the matter!” I cry, pulling myself away from him and staring him in the eye. “You’re so devoted to me that you’d give everything just for the idea – the idea, not even the knowledge! – that you were helping me, and I just wonder why, Luke, why? I’ve given you nothing except a broken heart and some fake kisses, but you’ll willingly give me everything you can at the drop of hat. So I ask: why? Why do you care about me so much when I’ve never really cared about you? Why do you give me everything when I’ve given you nothing? My God Luke, why are you so damn devoted?!” I finally exclaim, burying my face in his shoulder and not protesting when he gently picks me up and sets me down in his lap.
Luke merely holds me for a little bit, not saying anything and letting me cry on him until I can’t cry anymore. When I’ve calmed down enough to breathe normally and presumably hear him, he murmurs in my ear, “Lizzie, oh Lizzie, we’ve been over this so many times. It doesn’t matter if you don’t love me, it wouldn’t even matter if you didn’t care about me, because I’m in love with you Lizzie, and I always will be, always, and that’s why I’m so devoted, that’s why I care so much. I love you so much that you’re my whole world, so I’d hope I’d be devoted to something that important, you know?” He sees I open my mouth to say something, holds up his hand and continues talking. “And Lizzie, I don’t know why I love you, all I know is that I have ever since I first saw you, and I fully intend to keep loving you until I die, and into heaven – if I make it there – too.”
I start to laugh through my tears and choke, “You honestly think you won’t make it into heaven? Luke, if anyone’s heaven-worthy, it’s you for sure. You’re so genuinely good that God would stupid not to take you. If anything, I’m not the one not going to heaven, considering I’m the one who broke your heart, gave you nothing and actually wanted to kill you earlier.”
“Only because we were both going to die!” Luke shoots back hotly, anger coming from his voice and eyes that quickly fades away and is replaced by more quiet sympathy. “Lizzie, I know you, and you would never think about killing me unless it was part of our plan, like it was, or unless you thought you were helping me or doing me a favor.” I nod my head reluctantly, knowing that, fortunately and unfortunately, what he says is true. “And Lizzie,” he begins, cupping my chin gently with one hand, “you would make it into heaven just as quickly as I would because you would give everything for a cause – or a person – you believe in. When I managed soccer freshman year, I saw the way you sacrificed yourself for the team, for the goal. It didn’t matter if you got hurt; all that mattered was that you scored and won the game. By the way, you totally should have been on varsity freshman year,” he adds, and I smile slightly through my sadness. “After all, you played for the Junior National team that year, right? And if you’re good enough to play almost-Olympic level soccer, then I’d say you’re definitely good enough to make Elizabeth High School’s varsity team, considering that we’re no soccer power.” Luke has a way of making me instantly feel better, no matter what has just happened or what horrible danger is facing us. When I’m with Luke, it seems like the only thing that matters is the present, that the past and future just fade away into oblivion for a few minutes, and this relief from the demons of the past and the monsters of the future is probably the only thing keeping me sane at this point.
“Luke, I still don’t know how you do it.” I wipe away my tears with the back of my hand and touch his face gently, feeling the warmth of his skin underneath my fingers and desperately hoping that he won’t lose that warmth soon.
“Do what?” He grabs my hand gently and kisses it as he grins at me, his eyes twinkling in the moonlight.
“I still don’t know how you keep up with me, put up with me and love me when I don’t love you. It’s more than incredibly exhausting, since every second must drain you to fatigue.” I look up at him and see that something in his gaze has changed greatly. There again is that aching in his eyes and his voice, and I know I’ve blown it big time again.
“Lizzie,” he begins, his voice a hushed whisper, and already I can see the pain overflowing from his expression and hear it bubbling over in his voice. “I thought you said that you weren’t faking with me, at the dance earlier.” His eyes search my face for any emotion or reaction that would confirm or deny that.
I pause, my breath catching in my throat, and look him in the eye to see that unmistakable hurt there again. I can’t tell him about those kisses where I felt something, I just can’t, because I don’t know if what I felt was real or just me convincing myself I love him out of sheer desperation. So, instead of pouring my heart out to him and telling him I love him, which would be the decent thing to do even though I’d be lying, I tell him, “Luke, that was damage control. That was what Rush wanted me to say, that was what I had to say to keep my family and friends alive. I know, I know, I’ve betrayed you again – I do that a lot it seems – but I had to Luke, I had to. I owe it to the people I love to keep them safe and to myself to not have to deal with being responsible for their deaths too.” Luke nods his head in defeat, clearing his throat with some difficulty and dropping his gaze to the floor. I feel the tears begin to well up in my eyes again but I hold them back this time, since me crying two times in one night would be very uncharacteristic and disappointing too.
After a long while of me sitting there thinking that I’m a horrible person because I don’t love Luke when he loves me with his all and him probably thinking about how I’m a horrible person too, Luke asks me quietly, “Lizzie, can I stay here with you for the night?”
“Of course Luke,” I answer just as quietly, looking up at him and being struck by how much he reminds me of a little boy right now. “I mean, neither one of us is going to get any sleep any other way,” I add, and Luke nods, his whole body seeming to slump as he sits next to me with his hands in his lap and his eyes on the ground.
I then lay down and pat the bed next to me to tell Luke to lay next to me, looking up at the ceiling, where the moonlight is slowly creeping its way across the white panels and turning everything it its path blue and silver. I relax a little when I feel Luke’s arm snake around me, and sneak a glance over at him to see him looking out the window, his eyes distant but still filled with pain. My God, is all I can do hurt people?
“Good night Luke,” I whisper to him, rolling over and resting my head on his chest as he continues to stare out at the landscape blurring by us, probably thinking that it’d solve so many of his problems if I were to fall out that window.
“It will be, because I’m with you,” he murmurs in return, turning his head to look me in the eye and gently brush a stray strand of hair away from my face. “And that’s all I could ever ask for, is to be with you, even if it isn’t real.” I see the longing and hurt in his gaze and wish that none of this had ever happened, that we could just go back to Elizabeth and continue our dysfunctional relationship where I don’t really know he exists and he’s in love with me but won’t tell me because he would want our relationship to be real if we were to have one. But I know that we can’t go back now, because the Triple Crown has changed us so much that going back isn’t an option. We’ve both had to murder or be murdered, act well enough to convince a nation so we don’t lose our lives as well as the lives of our loved ones and keep ourselves alive and sane while doing both of those things. Through all of this, the Triple Crown has stolen the definition of a ‘normal teenager’ right out of both of our vocabularies and has thrown it into a furnace, only to be recovered as a pile of ashes. And the Triple Crown’s trying to do the same with our sense of self, with our empathy, but that’s the one thing I won’t let it take from me. When I die – and I know now that, when it’s all said and done, I will be dead – I will die me, Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, with the knowledge that I gave it good show, that I kept the people I loved alive, that I accomplished everything I could hope for out of my death. I will die knowing I died for a purpose, and I think that’s more than other people get out of passing on. I guess that means that for once, I might actually be fortunate.

More added.

“Good morning, Miss Lightning,” I hear a voice murmur as I open my eyes, and find Luke sitting up on the edge of bed and looking down at me with a smile on his face. No trace of his sadness of last night remains except for the pain hiding in his eyes, and I’ve seen that so much that I might actually be able to stand it now.
“My God, how do you keep on doing that?” I ask him incredulously, sitting up, yawning and stretching luxuriously, then, completely on accident, look down to see my ribs sticking out of my tank top as I stretch. Maybe I am getting too thin.
“Do what?” There is no smile in his reply this time, as clearly he’s remembering that, the last time I asked him something like this, I took the remnants of his heart out of his chest and crushed them into a powder with my words.
“Get up before me. I average four to five hours of sleep a night usually but somehow you manage to get up before I do every morning.” I look over at him expectantly, hoping for an answer that I might actually accept, and, yet again, am struck by the sheer physical beauty of his eyes. On first glance, they are an ice blue, a nice color but not stunning or incredibly remarkable in any way; however, if you look closer, you can see that they are a million different shades of blue, ranging from nearly white around the pupils to a neat rim of navy on the outer edge of the irises. I find myself so captured by their attractiveness that I almost don’t hear what Luke says in response.
“I get up extra early so I can watch you sleep. Like I said before, I like watching you sleep and seeing you so peaceful and calm is worth losing an hour of rest.” He gives me a gentle smile and reaches out a hand to caress my cheek, and I relax under his touch, wishing I could just forget about the future and the past and stay in this moment forever.
“You know, Lizzie, I think I finally figured out something that’s been bothering me for a while now,” he murmurs after we sit in a serene, content silence and absorb the sun coming through the window for about a minute.
“Which is?” I scoot closer to him, so that our shoulders are touching, and hang my feet off of the end of the bed. I glance down momentarily and see that, in fact, my feet aren’t that much smaller than his.
“I think I finally figured out what you smell like, even though that’s kind of awkward.” He looks over at me for confirmation with a shy grin on his face, and I shake my head because I know that I’ve been trying to commit Luke’s scent to memory ever since the first time I talked to him, on the roof the night before interviews, because, at that time, I thought I might not get another chance.
“And what, Mister Gates, do I smell like?” I give him a smile, genuinely curious since, even though I have an incredibly sensitive nose, as part of being a wolf in a human’s body, I’ve never really been able to smell myself.
“I know this is going to sound weird, but… I think you smell like ozone. You know, like how it smells after it rains?” I nod my head slowly, a million worst-case scenarios flashing through my head. If Luke finds out that Lightning isn’t just a name, I might lose him for good, since learning that my whole human existence is essentially a lie might be too much for even him to take. In all of the commotion in my mind, I nearly don’t hear what he adds at the end, but I catch him say, “And, even though a lot of people don’t like that smell, I do. It reminds me of beginnings, of fresh starts, and I think that you can’t have too many of those, because there’s always new possibilities to be explored or new things to be discovered when there’s a new beginning.”
“Well, I’m honored to smell like fresh starts,” I tell him genuinely, thinking that it’s ironic that me, an immortal, reminds someone of new beginnings when I’m the opposite of them, the ever-existing rather than the ever-changing.
“Sorry, I know that’s weird, I just realized it and said it aloud.” He shrugs, a smile still on his face, and, seized by an impulse fueled by his diffident kindness and his general attractiveness, I lean forward and kiss him on the cheek.
“What was that for?” he asks me, looking pleasantly surprised, when I pull back, and I see that his grin has widened some. Good. I like seeing him smile, especially since he doesn’t do it very much because of this situation we’re in.
“For being one of the nicest – no, the nicest – guy I’ve ever met,” I tell him, then lean my head on his shoulder for a moment and feel him wrap his arm around my waist, and I laugh a little on the inside as I think of what Gwillan and Gruffen, my identical older brothers, would do if they were here and saw me with Luke. Gwillan and Gruffen seem to take it upon themselves to personally approve all of my boyfriends, since they’re both twenty, six-eight, two-forty and are going to ASU on full-ride football scholarships, but I think that even they would be literally speechless upon seeing how perfect Luke is. Well, I guess Luke would be the first boyfriend of mine that they would completely approve then.
“You know, I think my brothers would like you,” I murmur, getting captured by Luke’s gaze and not trying to pull away. Upon seeing his puzzled expression, I add, “They’re both twenty, six-eight, two-forty and going to ASU on full-ride football scholarships, so they take it upon themselves to personally inspect and approve all of my boyfriends, and I think that you’d be the first to pass without them saying anything bad about you. No,” I begin, realizing what Gwillan and Gruffen would actually do, “they’d probably grumble and say you’re too perfect and that I need to find a human boyfriend because you’re clearly not human.”
Luke grins at the last part and replies, “No, I think I’m the one who needs to get a human girlfriend, because you are clearly too… amazing to be human.” I feel my heart rate return to normal and remind myself that Luke doesn’t know, that he doesn’t need to know, that he never will know because one of us will die before he does.
I give him my best fake smile and he seems convinced, so I take a deeper breath than usual and answer, with complete sincerity now, “Luke, you’re ten times the human I could ever be, and nothing will ever change that.”
When his jaw falls so far open that I think it’s danger of hitting the ground, I gently close it for him and tell him, “Luke, you’re going to catch flies. I mean, if you want extra protein, just eat more meat at breakfast.”
However, Luke seems unfazed by my joke and responds, appearing quite stunned, “Lizzie, that part about me being ten times the human you could ever be, that’s the nicest lie anyone’s ever told me.” He pauses for a moment, a grin on his face now, and continues, “I really appreciate it, I really do, but I hope you know that that is a complete and utter falsification, since you are so much… more than I am.” He raises a hand and gently cups my chin, then leans forward and kisses me on the end of my nose. “Every day, every hour, every minute, every second I’m around you, I’m always thinking, ‘How on earth did I get you?’ I mean, even though it was only chance – or I guess really horrible luck – that we had to do this, it just makes me wonder why God gave me this opportunity to be with you, even if it’s only for a couple months until we both die. And then I wonder if maybe God gave me you, just for a little bit, so that my life could be complete, even though it’s so short, and, every night, I thank God from the bottom of my heart for putting me here, for letting me get to know you and love you even more before I die. You know, Lizzie, I think that I’m incredibly lucky, the luckiest person on the planet, because I’ve gotten to kiss you.”
Now it’s my turn to be truly and completely amazed. I sit there in silence for a few moments, trying to reconfigure the thoughts that Luke has so perfectly blown apart with his statement, and just finally say, giving up on speaking from my head and deciding this is better left to my heart, “My God, why don’t I love you? Why is the only thing I can do to you is hurt you? Why don’t I-” I freeze, not knowing if I should finish the sentence as I had planned, with “feel something for you,” because that’s not true – I do feel something for Luke – but intermittently and sporadically, not the steadiness that he has in his love for me. I don’t think what I feel for him qualifies as love, and I don’t want to hurt him even more by telling him that I feel something for him, but that it’s not real, that it’s just a little crush brought on by desperation, because I know that would hurt him even more than I already have hurt him; it would be like me taking the powder that remains of his heart and stepping on it repeatedly.
“Lizzie?” He gently places a hand on my arm and looks at me in apprehension, his eyes clouding over with concern. “Are you alright?”
I stare at the floor, thinking about how I should respond. I want to yell at the top of my lungs, “No!” and pour my heart out to him and tell him about everything – about what I am, about Jackson, about my fake feeling – but I know I can’t. Luke’s got too much on his mind already, and me giving him even more to worry about wouldn’t be good for either one of us. So the rational part of me just wants to say, “Yes,” and never come back to the subject and never tell Luke about me or Jackson or my fake feeling and just, for once in my life, let everything be. But I can’t do that, I know I can’t; if Luke and I can’t trust each other, then we don’t have anything, not even the twisted, sorry excuse for a relationship that we have now. So, instead of answering and letting one side of me get the better of the other, I rise to my feet and walk out of the door without saying a word.

“Max, I don’t know what I did wrong,” I hear Luke say, and I press my ear to the door of the closet I’m in. Following my departure from Luke’s presence, I promptly found the most secluded storage closet on the train that probably no one else knows exists, locked myself inside and began to bawl my eyes out. I cried myself out within fifteen minutes and then just sat there with all the cleaning supplies, marveling at how bleach and mops make such excellent company for the lonely.
“One moment it’s perfectly fine – I mean, she even kissed me on the cheek – and she tells me she thinks her brothers would like me and that they’d probably say I was too perfect and that she needed to get a human boyfriend, and then I tell her that I need to get a human girlfriend because she’s too amazing to be human, and then she tells me that I’m ten times the human she’ll ever be, and then I tell her that’s the nicest lie anyone’s ever told me, and that she’s so much more than I am and then I just kind of told her how I feel.” I put my eye up to the small hole in the door and see Luke shrug, even though he looks like there’s a ten-ton weight sitting squarely on his shoulders. “And then she went off into one of her things, saying why didn’t she love me, why is the only thing she can do to me is hurt me, and she got onto another why don’t I, and then she just stopped. And then I asked her if she was alright and she just sat in silence for a little bit and then just got up and left. I’m trying Max, I’m trying my hardest, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” The pleading and desperation in Luke’s voice makes me want to stop listening right then, but I force myself to keep my ear next to the door, since I might actually learn something that could help me face Luke again. If I ever come out of this closet. After all, it’s a pretty nice place compared to the world outside of it.
“Luke, you’re being incredibly self-centered if you think that you’re the sole cause of Lizzie’s behavior,” Max tells Luke in response, and I smile despite myself. Leave it to Max to defend me when I really shouldn’t be defended. “I mean, think about all the other stuff that’s happened to her in these last few weeks. She’s been taken from her universe to another one, had to fight and kill other children to survive, had to act in love with you to keep her loved ones alive and lost the boy she loved all in a matter of three weeks. I mean, that would be enough to crack many people to begin with, and add the facts that she feels awful about not loving you and that she knows one of you is going to have to die in the end… it’s not hard to see why she’s acting so erratically and stressed.” I put my eye to the hole in the door again and see Luke bow his head and drop his gaze to the floor.
“I know, Max,” he mutters, addressing the carpet, “but I don’t know why she feels so bad about not loving me. I mean, I haven’t done anything to make her feel that way, have I?” I hear the hope and apprehension in Luke’s voice and hope Max lets him down easy, since this could do with some sugarcoating or maybe even a nice little white lie.
“Actually, you have and you do, every day and every hour and every minute. I know you don’t mean to, but you’ve definitely made her feel like that, trust me.” This is not what I had in mind in terms of sugarcoating.
“What have I done – or what do I do – to make her feel that way? Because all I want to do is show her how much she means to me, show her that she’s my whole universe, but somehow I always end up hurting her. I just want to know what I’m doing wrong so I can stop hurting her.” I know that’s what Luke tries to do when he’s around me, but his sheer devotion and love for me just end up making me feel even worse.
“You hurt her by telling her things like she’s your whole universe,” Max says, then, upon seeing Luke’s incredibly confused expression, continues, “When you tell her things like that and profess your love for her, you make her feel bad that she doesn’t feel the same way, even though she wants to.”
“So I have to stop saying I love her to not hurt her?” Luke blinks repeatedly, completely and utterly perplexed.
“So far, yeah,” Max tells Luke, smiling slightly at Luke’s expression. “Just give her time, Luke. She’s being faced with a really desperate situation, and I don’t think she really knows what to do right now. I mean, between surviving and you and Rush’s threats of doom to her loved ones, she hasn’t had much time to sort things out and think. So, Luke, the best, most loving thing you can do for her right now is just give her time, alright?” Max claps one massive hand on Luke’s shoulder, then turns and leaves the room to leave Luke sitting by himself and me in the storage closet with my consult of cleaning supplies.
I watch as Luke lets out a great sigh and buries his head in his hands, appearing to be saying something under his breath. Pressing my ear to the door, I quickly pick up what he’s uttering with my incredibly sensitive wolf-ears.
“My God Lizzie, my God, my God, my God. Why is everything I do wrong? Why can’t I do anything right for you? Why can’t I just show you how much you are to me without hurting you? Why am I not good enough to do just that? Why am I so corrupt that, when I try to help you, I only end up bringing you pain? Why did I fall in love with you the first time I saw you? My God, I wish I could reverse that – actually, no, I wish I could reverse everything that’s happened here, and just go back to Elizabeth and continue on with our lives where you don’t really know I exist but I love you with all of my heart the whole time. Loving you secretly and seeing you dating my friends was a lot easier than this, a lot easier, because, even though I knew you didn’t mean it with them, you didn’t have to act in love with me and prove that me loving you was a fool’s dream that I should have never had. But here we are, Miss Lightning, here we are, me with a broken heart and you in love with another guy and us with a camera-made love, but maybe this is all we can ever have, these dysfunctional relationships. We hurt each other every minute we’re around each other, and it seems like that’s how it always will be, because I won’t stop loving you and you won’t start loving me, no matter how much you want to. We’re at a sort of stalemate I guess, but at least I know that, if you could choose who you love, you’d choose me, and that means almost as much to me as you actually loving me would. I know it’s not the same, that you saying you’d choose me to love if you could is a sorry excuse for the real thing, but it’s the best we can do, and I’ll take it. I’ll take anything you give me and hold onto it with all of my heart and soul because it comes from you, and you are everything to me. You are everything I could ever want or need, Miss Lightning, and seeing you and holding you every day is really the only thing that keeps me sane. Oh God, why did this happen? Why did we, of all people, get sent here to die? Bad luck? God’s vengeance or God teaching us a lesson? I remember you saying that you think this one’s on the stars, and I agree with you. I hate our stars for causing this fault; I hate Jackson he’s better than me and you love him; I hate myself for not being quite good enough, for almost making the grade. I hate everything about this place, everything except for you. I could never hate you, Lizzie, never; I’d commit suicide before I’d hate you, and so far it looks like that suicide part is going to happen, unless you get in my way in your foolish quest to keep me alive. Just let me save you, please, because at least then I’d know I died for a purpose, because I’ll die either way, you know. I’ll die to keep you alive and I’ll die if you die since I can’t live without you, so please just let me have a goal to my death, please. But, Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, the love of my life, know that, no matter what happens, I am always yours.” His voice cracks and breaks off, and he rises to his feet and exits, tears streaming down his cheeks.
I turn to my company of bleach and mops, my mouth hanging open in shock, try to say something but can’t, and begin to cry again.

“Lizzie, Lizzie,” a voice calls, and I wake, for a few moments not knowing where I am as I stare at a dark ceiling. However, my state of ignorance doesn’t last long. In a moment, I remember that I’m in a storage closet, sitting next to bleach and mops, and then everything that happened to get me here and while I was in here floods in. With me being in no mood to see or talk to anyone, I sit completely still, hoping that whoever’s looking for me will give up and go away.
Unfortunately, the voice says again, “Lizzie, Lizzie,” and, with a roll of my eyes, I rise to my feet and open the closet door to be met with a combination of white and light so bright I initially have to look away. I quickly blink away my blindness and shut the closet door quietly, hoping to keep its existence as unknown as possible. I stand and wait for the voice to come to me, as it seems to be approaching as it calls my name, and suddenly my heart skips a beat. I’d know that Texas drawl anywhere…
Jackson.
“Jackson, Jackson!” I cry wildly, running through the door on the left and barreling right into him. I feel his arms tighten around me and smell his scent and I know that it’s him, that it’s really him. After I just let him hold me for a few blissful seconds, I pull back and murmur, “Jackson,” as I look up at him.
“Lizzie.” He smiles down at me, his hands resting on my back, but not even the biggest grin in the world could cover up the bags under his eyes or his hollow cheeks. What has he been doing that’s aged him five years in the last two and a half weeks?
I brush right past his smile and ask him, raising a hand to gently touch underneath his eye, “What happened?”
“I’ve been worried about you Lizzie, so worried. I’ve been watching the live feed of the victory tour every day just to make sure you’re doing all right, and every night I got down on my knees and thanked God that you were, although you could do with eating a bit more, if I do say so myself.” He places one hand over my ribs and gently traces the outline of them through my white tank top. All of a sudden I remember I’m still in my nightclothes and look down to find two inches of my stomach exposed and nearly all of my thighs showing because of my very short shorts. Jackson smiles slightly as he sees me glance down at myself and adds, “Don’t worry Lizzie, you’re going to get a chance to change.”
“Good,” I tell him, nodding my head in agreement but feeling indecent for having so little clothes on in front of Jackson. It’s interesting: I don’t have an issue with being so exposed in front of Luke but I do with Jackson, even though I’ve known him and have been around him longer. I guess I’ve just become so comfortable around Luke because I’ve been around him so much these last few weeks.
“Well, Lizzie, are you ready to go and see Mitchell?” Jackson pulls away from me completely and finds my hand with one of his own as he looks down at me expectantly.
“No, Jackson, I don’t want to leave and face the outside world ever again, I just want to stay here with you and the bleach and the mops forever.” I can’t help but hear the pleading in my voice, but I brush past it. If I sound desperate, good, because I am.
“Lizzie…” he begins, clearly intending to tell me that I have to go outside sometime, that I can’t stay here forever, that I need to go see Mitchell because I have to get dressed, but he doesn’t, and instead pulls me to him and kisses me.
I feel his hands touch the bare skin of my back and I get goose bumps, for a second not knowing whether to kiss him back or not. But then I feel it, that hunger, and it overtakes me and makes me kiss him back as I throw my arms around his neck.
After he pulls away and looks down at me with a small smile on his face for a few seconds, he murmurs, “Ready to go now?”
I shake my head and bury my face in his shoulder, wanting to stay and lean on him forever. As I stand back up and stare up at him with anxiousness in my eyes, I mutter, “I just want to stay here and do that for a while. A long while.”
Jackson’s grin gets bigger and he replies, “Well, Lizzie, I’d love to do that, but I believe that Max is going to come in here and drag us both out by the scruffs of our necks if we don’t get moving,” then takes my hand and gently leads me towards the train exit.
“Jackson, how do you stand it?” I ask him as we stop next to the exit doors and wait for them to open.
“Stand what?” He looks over at me, curiosity and apprehension on his face, and catches my golden gaze with his own yellow one.
“Stand seeing me parading around all over national television with Luke.” I see his eyes flicker and I know I’ve hit a touchy subject, but I don’t really care. I’ve done too much crying and hurting recently to care.
“I stand it by remembering our kiss, in the Champions’ Center, and reminding myself that you don’t kiss him like that, that you love me, not him, no matter how much better for you he is.” I can’t help but smile at the last part. Even though I have kissed Luke like that, just not in front of Jackson, many of my thoughts these last few days have been about how Luke is too good for me, so it’s interesting that someone else – especially Jackson, of all people – would bring up the exact same issue. “Why do you ask?”
“Morbid curiosity, I suppose,” I answer, shrugging my shoulders. “I mean, I asked Luke how he can put up with me, keep up with me and love me when I don’t love him, so I guess I just have a knack for asking difficult kinds of questions.” Jackson grins weakly at the last part, but it’s very obvious that neither one of us are very amused by it.
The doors then slide smoothly open and a torrent of light barrages my eyes and blinds me momentarily. When I’ve done enough blinking and shaking of my head to see properly, Jackson offers me his hand, the palm – even larger and more calloused than Luke’s – up and murmurs, bowing slightly with his gaze locked on mine the whole, “Shall we?”
With the same formality, along with the deeper, larger feeling that I’m going to my own execution, I answer in the same quiet tone, as I slip my hand into his and feel his grip tighten around it, “We shall.”

More added.

“Lizzie!” I hear a relieved voice cry as I walk out of the elevator and onto the eight floor of the Champions’ Center, still hand in hand with Jackson, and I look wildly around to see who’s calling my name. However, I know exactly whom it is when I feel a small body fling itself on my midsection and look down to see a little blond head buried in my stomach.
“Abby!” Instantly my mood improves and I squat down to give her a proper hug, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing her as hard as I dare. “Oh, come here,” I tell her when she finally lets go, and I gently lift her up and set her on my shoulders, keeping a firm grip on her spindly legs so she won’t fall backwards onto the cold white tile floor.
As soon as she gets settled, I feel her stiffen and glance up to see her staring hard at Jackson. She then bends down and whispers in my ear, “Who’s he?” all the while shooting Jackson venomous looks.
“That’s my…” I begin, knowing I can’t tell her that he’s my best friend who would probably be my boyfriend if I weren’t here, “brother Jackson. He’s really nice, don’t worry.” I smile at him and thank God that we look at least a little bit alike, the most noticeable of our shared features definitely our eyes, although Jackson’s look more haunted than mine. Or at least they used to.
“Oh, okay.” Abby immediately brightens and sits back up, leaning forward and stretching her arm out to shake Jackson’s hand. “Hi Jackson, my name’s Abby,” she introduces cheerfully, and I can’t help but notice that, even sitting on my shoulders, her head isn’t that much higher than his.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ma’am,” Jackson replies, bowing and exaggerating his drawl for effect, then smiles when Abby giggles at him.
“You talk funny Jackson. Why do you talk different than Lizzie?” Abby asks him, and my eyes shoot open. I feel like hitting myself on the forehead with my hand, since I should have thought about his drawl before saying he was my brother. Desperately I seek out his gaze and send him a message telepathically, praying he follows it, “She thinks you’re my brother. Answer accordingly.” Though he probably already heard my comment to Abby about him being my brother, I have to make sure he plays along.
I nearly let out an audible sigh of relief when Jackson nods almost imperceptibly at me, then responds, “Well, Lizzie and I didn’t grow up together.”
“Oh, okay.” I glance up to see Abby nod her head, a smile eternally on her face, and I grin myself. Abby truly does have a gift for cheering others up, and I’m incredibly grateful for that, since it made Hand-to-Hand Combat mostly bearable.
Suddenly a question strikes me and I ask her, my neck starting to hurt from being held at such an extreme angle for so long, “Abby, why are you here on the eighth floor when you’re supposed to be on the fifth floor with the other Section Five champions?”
I see a look of confusion flit across her face for a moment before the light of remembrance flicks on in her eyes and she answers, “Well, I’m the servant girl assigned to your room, so they sent me up here to get it ready for you.” For the first time, I notice that she is, in fact, dressed in the solid-white outfit of Champions’ Center servants and know that her story is true.
“How did you get here, working as a servant girl in the Champions’ Center?” Jackson questions and Abby turns her gaze back to him, her smile fading now.
“Well, when I was eight, things got really bad for my family, and I knew I had to do something to help them, so, since I knew I was just another mouth to feed that my family couldn’t feed, I decided to become a servant girl here and get myself off of my family’s hands, since we get fed and clothed and housed here.” I stare up at Abby with an expression of mingled surprise and empathy, as I can imagine how hard leaving her family because they couldn’t feed her must have been for her. “But I was still entered in the Triple Crown, because I’m still from Section Five, and, well, you know what happened after that.” For the first time in the whole month I’ve known her, Abby’s sad, and maybe even angry, which astonishes me even more. Abby doesn’t get angry. She gets afraid and sad and tired and hopeless but she doesn’t get angry, and so it shocks me to see her mad. To be honest, I thought it wasn’t possible for her to be angry, despite all of the things that have happened to her.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck in the Triple Crown, Miss Abby.” Jackson bows again, then turns to leave, but I stop him with a cry of dismay.
“Jackson, don’t go. I really could use you around for now,” I tell him as I gently lift Abby off of my shoulders and set her down on the floor, hearing the pleading creeping into my voice and not really caring. The fact that I sound desperate – because I am – will probably help convince him to stay.
“As you wish, Ma’am.” Jackson nods his head and gives me a smile, his golden eyes twinkling as he steps closer towards me and finds my hand with one of his. I glance down to see Abby looking at us apprehensively, clearly confused, and I realize that most brothers and sisters probably aren’t this close; Gwillan and Gruffen and I definitely aren’t nearly this affectionate, not even in private.
Suddenly Abby’s face lights up and she grabs at my arm, simultaneously pulling on me and telling me excitedly, “Come on Lizzie! Come on! There’s something I want to show you!” and, knowing very well that I can’t turn her down – and I wouldn’t even if I could – I allow her to drag me, and inadvertently Jackson, towards my room and then wait patiently outside as she slips inside to “check something.”
“So what do you think?” I ask him as we stand there, hand in hand, my eyes twinkling as I look over at him.
“Well, Abby is quite a character, that’s for sure,” he answers, grinning back. “She really does love you, you know. I can see it in the way she looks at you and acts around you and to you. I find that amazing, honestly, that she loves you as much as she does – like a big sister – after only knowing you for about three weeks.” I glance over at him to find him watching me with his intense golden gaze, his eyes glued on me with a distinctly wolf-like look in them.
“Well, how long did it take you to fall for me?” I question him in response, knowing that his answer is going to be a short period of time. Before I came here, I knew for a while that Jackson had feelings for me, but I also knew that his feelings for Alexa were unsurpassed by none, so I didn’t really think much about it until she rejected him for, ironically, Gwillan.
“I think two weeks after I met you,” he admits, smiling at me as his stare loses some of its strength to become less wolf-like in nature. “I saw you kissing Troy – like you did a lot back then – and I realized that I cared, that I wanted you to kiss me, not him. But then, of course, there was Alexa, and I suppose you could say I got… sidetracked.” The grin I had gained at the comment about me kissing Troy instantly slid off my face, because I knew very well that Jackson didn’t get sidetracked. He found the one, his soul mate, the person he would love for the rest of his life. The only problem was, she didn’t feel that way about him.
“Jackson, any girl would be lucky to have you,” I murmur, my gaze locked on his. As a small smile curls my lips, I add, “I know I am.”
Jackson leans down to kiss me, and I stand there with my eyes closed waiting for it, only to hear my bedroom door open and feel Jackson’s lips on my forehead. Instantly my eyes pop open, and I glance over to see Abby standing there, her expression confused and more than the slightest bit suspicious, which isn’t good at all. Abby is one of the people that truly believe I love Luke as much as he loves me, and I know it would negatively affect her trust in me if she were to see me with a guy besides Luke, especially a guy who I had originally told her was my brother.
“Shall we, sister?” Jackson’s gaze flickers back and forth between my room and me, and I let him lead me into the surprise Abby has prepared for me.

I hear myself audibly gasp in amazement as I look around me at the beautiful wall-to-floor painting now occupying the west wall of my room. It’s a nearly-perfect replication of a picture of Luke and me, both of us smiling as we gaze into each other’s eyes. But the painting itself isn’t what strikes me the most. It’s the small word, printed at the bottom center of the painting, which reads, “Always.” Because of all the connotations I have associated with that word and with what it means in Luke’s and my relationship, I feel a rising tide of emotions surging up in me and fight back against it. After all, I can’t start crying or attempting to scrape the picture off the wall in front of Abby. So, restraining all of the feelings running rampant in me, I tell Abby, completely truthfully, “It’s beautiful,” as my eyes run up and down the painting, taking in every square inch of resemblance, emotion and memory. Reaching a shaky hand out, I gently touch the mural and feel the smooth consistency of the paint over the rough texture of the wall.
“You really like it?” Abby asks, sounding surprised and excited all at once, and I tear my gaze away to look over at her.
“I love it, Abby,” I murmur in response, bending down and giving her a huge hug as I wonder about why she cares so much about me to give me such an amazing welcome-home present. When I finally let her go, I look into her eyes and question, trying to make myself sound happy and not at all sad, “How on earth did you finish it in only two weeks?”
“I worked all day and night on it because I knew it had to be great, just for you.” She gives me a beaming grin and I feel even closer to breaking down and crying than I did before. “See?” She then holds out her hands and shows me her paint-stained fingers, rubbed red and raw by her servant-girl chores.
“Well it’s really nice of you to do this, Abby,” I finally manage to say after I take a few moments to recollect myself, refusing to let myself cry in front of her. I can cry once she leaves. “It really is amazing. Since you’re this good at painting, maybe you should be a stylist and design clothes. I’m sure they’d be awesome.”
“You really think so?” Abby looks up at me, her angelic face glowing with hope and possibility, and I can’t help but smile through the tears welling up in my eyes.
“I know so.” I turn away from Abby and take a few deep breaths to prevent the tears from streaming down my face. Glancing up, I see Jackson looking at the mural with a detached, cold interest, but I can see the anger and jealousy in his eyes and instantly turn back around to face Abby again. I don’t want to have to deal with Jackson’s rage right now.
Suddenly I hear something buzz and I see Abby jump in surprise, her hand going to a little device about the size of a cell phone at her waist. “Well, they need me in the kitchens, so I have to go,” she announces aloud, then runs to me, embraces me quickly and nods her head at Jackson before dashing out the door of my room.
After Abby’s departure, Jackson and I stand in an incredibly awkward, very self-conscious silence for a few moments before he opens his mouth and murmurs, “It’s a beautiful rendition of a lie.” He reaches a hand out and touches my painted face, his gaze searching the painting for answers to unspoken questions.
“Jackson,” I begin, thinking that I’m going to tell him that he’s right, that there’s nothing between Luke and I, that it is just a lie, a camera-made romance, but then I remember those three kisses Luke and I had, and I remember Luke and Max’s conversation, and I remember Luke’s willingness to die for the idea that he was helping me, and I know that I can’t tell Jackson there’s nothing there, because there’s undeniably something there. So I just finish my statement with, “Look at it this way: both Luke and I will be dead soon, so then there won’t be anyone to lie anymore.” Instead of being sad now, I’m angry that Jackson would suggest that my entire relationship with Luke is a lie, that I can’t be truly happy with Luke when Luke has actually made me incredibly happy at times these last few weeks. True, he’s made me cry, though inadvertently, as many times as he’s made me happy, but he has made me happy, and that I can’t and won’t deny that.
Not wanting to be in Jackson’s negative presence anymore, I turn away from him and towards the door, taking a step forward to leave when he grabs my hand and pulls me back to him. “Lizzie, please don’t,” he begs of me quietly as he gazes down at me, desperation flickering like a flame in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” He bows his head momentarily, acknowledging his mistake, but it doesn’t do a thing to convince me to stay with him.
“Jackson, I have a lie to uphold,” I tell him coldly as I extract myself from his arms, then walk out the door, the only thought in my head being that I need to find another storage closet, the farther away from here, the better.

“Lizzie!” a voice behind me calls urgently, but I ignore it, bent and determined on getting to the storage closet at the end of the hallway and locking myself in it. However, instead of losing the speaker like I had intended, I hear quick footsteps behind me and glance over to see Luke standing beside me.
“Luke,” I murmur in reply, my eyes glued on the storage closet as I run calculations over in my head and wonder, if I suddenly started sprinting for the storage closet door, if I could successfully lock myself inside before Luke got there. Considering that I run a 4.13-second forty-yard dash, and it’s about that long down the hallway to the closet, it’s worth a shot, but I decide to wait and see what Luke has to say before bolting.
“I was worried about you when you left on the train earlier,” he tells me, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s gazing at me concernedly. Well, he hasn’t started professing his love for me yet, so maybe at least some of Max’s talk stuck with him.
“I can imagine you were,” I answer blandly, gritting my teeth and wishing, completely selfishly, that he would just go away because I don’t want to talk about my earlier meltdown; all I want to do is lock myself in a storage closet and cry.
All of a sudden, I feel the air to my left move and I look over to find Luke simultaneously wrapping me in his arms and pinning me against the wall. At first, I try to pull away, shooting desperate glances down the hallway to the storage closet door, but am forced to focus on Luke when I feel his lips press against mine. Placing my hands on his chest, I attempt to push him off me, but it is a truly feeble effort and soon I find myself with my arms locked around Luke’s neck as I kiss him back.
“You know, Miss Lightning,” Luke begins after he pulls away, his ice-blue eyes locked on mine as he leans over me and pushes me gently into the wall, “sometimes I wish I knew what’s going on in your head, what you’re going to do next, but then I remember that our relationship wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I did since it’d be a lot more predictable, and, you know, I like your erratic behavior.” He gives me a small smile, even as the pain in his gaze is almost more than obvious, and I remember that he probably knows about Jackson coming to get me off the train and has also most likely come to his own conclusions about what that entailed. However, I don’t have any time to dwell on that, as I am torn from my thoughts by Luke kissing me again, this time with less urgency and more gentleness, maybe even desire, to the embrace, and, yet again, I find myself kissing him back.
This time I pull back, since I run out of breath, and lean against the wall as I stare up at Luke and watch as he raises a hand and brushes a strand of hair away from my face. He’s done that so many times before that it could be our relationship’s signature gesture, if there is such a thing.
“So, Lizzie, what do you want to do, now that we have a week before One-Person Survival starts?” Luke asks me quietly, a small smile curling his lips as he snakes one arm around my waist and finds my hand with one of his own. Even though I can tell that he’d rather I wouldn’t, I pick up on the implied, “and one or both of us is going to be dead in two or three?”
“I want to go out in style, Luke,” I reply, my eyes glued on his. “I mean, now that we’re both basically dead, I’m saying what the hell, let’s just do what we want. After all, we might as well have some fun before we die.” I allow myself a grin for emphasis here even though it’s not exactly a happy topic. “I mean, when I die, I want to die as me, Luke, as Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, not as one of El Nieve’s pawns.” Luke nods his head, looking like he understands and agrees. “Besides, the Sections might as well have a martyr, a spark, that they can use after I’m gone.”
Now Luke becomes confused and questions, his brow furrowed in a question mark of its own, “What do you mean, about the spark part?”
“Haven’t you seen my dresses and outfits? Mitchell’s taken it upon himself to make me Lizzie Lightning, the spark, and I’m pretty sure my fire-starting capabilities haven’t been lost on the Sections.” ‘Pretty sure’ is an understatement, of course.
“Oh.” Luke drops his gaze to the floor and searches the white tiles, his eyes distant and stormy as he thinks. “But doesn’t Mitchell know that’s dangerous, to make you a spark when you’re supposed to be suppressing rebellion?”
“He knows, Luke,” I begin, “but I think he figures that he’s dead too, and he’s decided to go out in style too.” I find it ironic that Mitchell’s version of going out in style happens to be styling my clothes in a political fashion, but I guess there’s not much else a stylist can do to effectively commit suicide.
“Oh,” Luke replies again, this time adding an “okay” to the end of his answer. We then just stand in silence for a few moments as Luke continues to think and I shoot furtive, longing glances down the hallway at the storage closet door. Finally Luke pipes up and says, “Lizzie, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you since the train thing.” He checks to see that I’m following – like I wouldn’t be – and then continues. “Where’d you go after you left your room on the train?”
Instantly my eyes shoot open for a splitsecond, since I know that this is a difficult situation, a very difficult situation. If I tell him where I actually was, then the fact that I, although inadvertently, eavesdropped on his and Max’s conversation will come out. That could, in turn, lead into a conversation between Luke and I about our incredibly twisted relationship, which could then end up with me locking myself in a storage closet again. Of course, I might do that last part anyways, but that’s irrelevant.
“Um, I locked myself in a closet and cried myself to sleep next to the bleach and the mops,” I answer truthfully, thinking that he doesn’t need to know exactly where the closet was. However, all of a sudden I remember thinking once that if Luke and I don’t have trust in each other, we don’t have anything. I then realize, with an internal sigh, that I have to tell him, I just have to, no matter how much I don’t want to. “And, well, I kind of overheard you and Max’s conversation,” I add almost sheepishly, looking over at Luke apprehensively to see his reaction, which I pray to God isn’t going to be angry.
“Oh,” Luke replies for a third time, appearing more surprised than anything else. “Well, how much did you overhear?” he questions, and I note with satisfaction and some surprise with my own that he doesn’t seem angry, but merely quizzical.
“Everything, or at least what I think is everything. From the part where you said you didn’t know what you did wrong onward,” I respond, leaving off the part that, at the end, I cried myself to sleep again.
Luke nods his head, his eyes on the ground again, and I continue to watch him with a certain degree of caution, knowing that there’s still plenty of time for him to have an angry outburst and for me to lock myself in a closet again. “Well, what do you think?” he finally asks me, and, upon seeing my confused expression, elaborates, “About what you heard Max and I talk about?”
“Well, Max is right,” I say carefully, knowing that I have to choose my words carefully in this situation, considering that one wrong phrase could twist our already-twisted relationship beyond repair.
“About how much of it?” Luke’s gaze is locked on my face, his eyes scanning me so intensely that I feel like I’m being x-rayed.
“About all of it, Luke. About you not being the only source of my problems, about you making feel like a bad person by saying you love me all the time, about the best thing you can do for me being just giving me some time to think and sort things out.” I give Luke a weak smile as I add, “You know, Max is a pretty smart guy. You should listen to him.”
Luke returns my smile halfheartedly, his grin looking more like a grimace than anything else. “But Lizzie,” he begins, looking at me confusedly and almost pleadingly, “why does it hurt you when I tell you I love you? I mean, all I want to do is show you how much you mean to me, and telling you that I love you is one of the ways I do that. So I’m just stumped by how me showing you how much I don’t want to hurt you, how much I care about you, hurts you when it’s supposed to be doing the opposite.” He gives a feeble laugh that is so fake I want to scream and then looks at me in confusion and pain
“Luke, when you tell me that you love me,” I start, swallowing audibly and refusing to let myself melt down here, “you remind me that I don’t love you, even when I really should, and then I get to thinking about how the least I can do for you, with all that you’ve done for me, is love you, and I can’t even do that, and then I get to thinking that I’m truly a horrible person and that there must be something wrong with me because I don’t love you. I mean, I know you don’t try to hurt me, I know you try to make me feel better, but it just doesn’t work because I’m so screwed up. Trust me Luke, it has nothing to do with you, nothing at all. It’s all on me.”
“So you feel bad about not loving me when you really should?” Luke repeats, his gaze locked on mine as a small, knowing small flitting across his face. “Lizzie, who’s to say if you should love me or not? There are no shoulds or shouldn’ts in love, unless you’re talking about something you did, but not when you’re talking about people. You love who you love Lizzie, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you loving or not loving those people isn’t right or wrong, it just is. So you need to stop blaming yourself for something you really can’t control and just accept it for what it is, alright? And, since you seem to think that you owe me something, do it for me if you won’t do it for yourself. Please.” Now he gives me a true smile and then leans close to me until our noses are touching. “Promise?” He holds up his fist, with the pinky outstretched, and I grin despite myself. I haven’t done a pinky promise since about fifth grade, and I think idly that it’s something Timmy might have me do.
“Promise,” I echo, and wrap my pinky around his to seal the pledge. Looking down at our entwined fingers, I am yet again reminded of Timmy, but refuse to let myself think about him, because I’ll just end up crying again.
“Good,” he murmurs in reply, then leans a little bit more forward and gives me a short, sweet kiss. When he pulls back, he stands all the way up, glances down the hallway, then tells me, “Well, since you’ve been eying that storage closet for a while now, I suppose I should probably let you go and have some more bonding time with the bleach and mops.” He gives me a partially sad grin, as I know he would rather have me spend time with him than with cleaning supplies, then lets go of me completely and turns to leave.
“Luke, wait,” I call after him, and he turns around again, his eyes glued to my face. “How about we have some bonding time with the bleach and mops together?” I see his eyes light up and I know I’ve made the right decision. Besides, now I won’t be tempted to talk to the cleaning supplies. I begin to walk down the hallway, then pause and look over my shoulder to see Luke just standing there. “You coming?” I ask him and wait for him to catch up to me before I start walking again.
When we get to the closet, I test the door handle, find it locked, then kick the door open, being careful to not knock it completely off its hinges. Glancing over momentarily, I see Luke’s eyebrows go up in surprise and a grin curls my lips. Well, I guess kicking a door down is one way to impress a guy.
“After you.” Luke nods his head for me to go in as he holds the broken door open, having to stop it from leaning since apparently I kicked it at such an angle that it now wants to fall off its hinges.
“Well thank you. You’re quite a gentleman.” I give him a beaming smile and enter the closet, instantly seeing and feeling the cool darkness wrap around me like a blanket, for which I am grateful. I’ve seen too much white lately, so some darkness is quite welcome since it’s a change in the pattern. As I sit down, I glance up to see Luke closing the door and sealing us in the ammonia-smelling blackness. I then reach up and grab Luke’s hand, guiding him to a clear spot on the floor next to me.
“Well, what do you think, with this being your first time hiding in a storage closet?” I ask Luke, breaking the silence that covered us momentarily.
“Well, I definitely know we’re with the cleaning supplies,” he answers, snuffling slightly, and I grin. I guess he’s noticed that the ammonia and bleach smell really strongly too. “But, besides that, I think what strikes me the most is that I’m here with you.” He gropes around in the dark for a moment before he finds me, gathers me up in his arms, and deposits me on his lap, and, even in the blackness, I can see Luke’s teeth glint as he smiles. He then kisses me gently on the neck and wraps his arms around me as I feel warmth spread from the spot where his lips touched me.
I let out a contented sigh and lean back against him, feeling his muscular torso behind me. Resting my head on his shoulder, I look up at him and touch his cheek gently, then sit up and kiss him right where I touched him. I feel him start in surprise and can’t help but grin, since you’d think that he’d be used to me kissing him by now.
However, I can tell that him jumping was from being jerked from his thoughts when he asks, “Lizzie, what happened between you and Jackson that got you to where you are now?”
I sigh again, this time from exasperation at myself for not seeing this coming, and slide off Luke, thinking that it’s best to be able to look straight at him when I tell him. Of course, I can’t tell him the truth: that I helped bust Jackson out of the government testing facility he was being held in However, I don’t feel like lying to Luke again either, considering I’ve been doing too much of that, so I guess I’m going to have to compromise and tell him the a version of the truth.
“Well, you know that Jackson transferred to EHS at the beginning of last school year, right?” I look over at Luke for confirmation, see him nod his head, and continue. “Well, he and I were in the same Weights class, and we played football together too, so we became friends pretty quickly. I didn’t know this until after, but he started seeing me as more than a friend about two weeks after we met. However, Jackson was hopelessly in love with Alexa from the moment he laid eyes on her, so Jackson never flirted with me or asked me out or anything. But when Alexa rejected Jackson for, of all people, my brother Gwillan on Valentines’ Day this year, Jackson came out and told me how he felt – after he was functional enough to – and I just…” Here I pause, not knowing what to say or even if I can continue. Taking a deep breath, I realize that, if I don’t get everything out right now, I probably won’t be able to talk about it ever again, so I force myself to keep on talking. “I just… I think I felt so bad for him that I kind of made myself love him, and I think that’s part of the reason why I feel so bad about not loving you, is because I made myself love Jackson when I didn’t originally love him, so I think that I guess I feel that I should be able to do the same thing with you.” I shrug, dropping my gaze to the floor shrouded in blackness.
I look up to see Luke nodding, his eyes on the ground as well. “You don’t really love him then, if you’re just loving him out of pity,” he finally says, and my eyes shoot open in surprise, which quickly turns into anger. Who is he to tell me I don’t really love Jackson, just like who is Jackson to tell me that my whole relationship with Luke is a lie? Luke, however, apparently senses my anger and quickly continues to talk, making sure that I have no chance to interrupt him. “I mean, it’s not really love if you force yourself to be attracted to someone, because you can’t force real love. Real love, at least in my opinion, is unconditional love, while the love that you have for Jackson is conditional, because you wouldn’t love him if you didn’t think that he needed you to love him, right?” I bow my head in admittance here, knowing that I can’t deny a fact that I’ve explicitly told Luke is true. “And, if you were really in love with Jackson, you’d love him no matter what happened or how much circumstances change or even if he got Alexa back.” I grit my teeth, feeling that Luke’s talk really isn’t helping my mood that much. “Lizzie,” Luke begins again, scooting around to face me in the darkness and finding both of my hands with both of his own, “I will love you no matter what happens between us or how far apart we get or even if one of us dies. Lizzie, you’re my whole world – you have been since I first laid eyes on you – and I’ve been planning out how to tell you that since the first day of eighth grade, and, while this isn’t exactly how I envisioned everything panning out, I’m still going to tell you that you’re my whole world and that you are everything to me because it doesn’t matter what the situation is, it doesn’t matter where we are or what we’ve done or what we’re going to do, I will love you always Lizzie, always, and it’s crucially important to me for you to understand that, alright?” He gently reaches forward and cups my chin with one large hand, and, when he lets go, I feel obligated to nod in conformation. Luke then smiles and leans close to me so that our faces are only a few inches apart, even though, in the darkness, the inches could be feet.
As soon as I feel the air in front of me move, my heart begins to race and I close my eyes, figuring that I’ll be able to see about the same with them open or closed, and then sit in silence and wait for Luke to make another move. When I feel Luke’s hand on my cheek, my eyes pop open and I tense up, my heart rate still increasing, and see Luke staring at me, our noses a few millimeters apart.
“Why are you so tense Lizzie? We’ve been around each other and kissed each other many times before, so I don’t know why this time is so much different.” He gazes into my eyes with a concerned expression, and I can’t help but smile at how much he cares about me. His undying devotion for me really is amazing.
“Because,” I begin, then immediately stop when I realize my head is completely empty and that I have nothing planned out to say. After blinking a couple times and trying to form rational, organized thoughts so I can respond to Luke, I start again, “because… because this time it matters, this time there’s something there.”
“Lizzie,” Luke murmurs, that small, knowing smile he’s given me so many times before curling his lips, “it’s always mattered, at least to me. And, as for something being there…” He leans forward enough to make our noses actually touch, then continues in the same hushed tone, “I think there’s always been something there, even if only at the basest human-to-human level.” Gently he caresses my cheek as he kisses me lightly, and scoops me back up into his lap after he pulls back. “Lizzie, when it comes down to who you are, in your heart and as a person, you are no concrete girl.”
And, instead of protesting or fighting back or coming up with reasons as to why he’s wrong, like I would have a year or a month or maybe even a week ago, as I return Luke’s smile, I just reply, “I know.” However, somewhere deep down inside of me, I know that I will not let go of the idea that I am invincible, that I do not feel. In my heart, I am still a concrete girl.

More added.

A booming echo, like that of a cannon shot, awakes me, and instantly I sit straight up in the blackness, holding my hand out in front of me and finding that I can barely see it, even though it’s only a few inches from my eyes. Feeling around in the dark, I hit another warm body with my hand…
Luke!
I bend over him to whisper in his ear and wake him when another blast sounds, this one closer, and I know that he and I have to move quickly.
“Luke, Luke!” I nearly yell in his ear as I shake him vigorously and he awakes with a start. “Luke, we have to go!” I tell him urgently, then drag him to his feet, kick the storage closet door open again and stand in the doorway for a second to let both of our eyes adjust to the torrent of light sweeping over us.
I let out a gasp of surprise almost unconsciously when my eyes have gotten used to the pale brightness as I look around in horror at the wreckage of what used to be a perfectly immaculate white hallway. Broken, shattered doors torn off their hinges lay strewn around the hallway on top of cracked white tile, and the colorless walls are pockmarked with numerous holes. As soon as I take in all of this destruction, I know exactly what the cause is: Jackson.
When Jackson was experimented on, the hormones they frequently injected him with caused many side effects, one of those being outbursts of extreme rage. Of course, he learned to keep them in check with practice, but, in the first few weeks after his escape, I had to calm him down and clean up one almost every other day. However, he went nearly six months without having a fit of anger – until Alexa rejected him. Since then, he has had one every other week, so I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning up and calming down lately. The only this is, this fit is far more violent than any other frenzy I’ve seen him throw, and that concerns me greatly. Generally his outbursts are very short and not nearly this destructive, which means that I have to find him and control him before he runs into anybody else.
“Jackson, Jackson!” I yell at the top of my lungs, running down the hallway with not a thought about Luke or anything else in my mind. My mission is clear: find and control Jackson, and, for now, nothing else matters.
“Jackson!” I continue to call, detachedly feeling shards of tile enter the soles of my feet but ignoring the pain. Until I get Jackson, everything else can wait.
“Lizzie!?” a strangled, unsure voice shouts in reply, and, as a wave of relief spreads over me, I follow the voice to find Jackson, minus his shirt – which I had seen torn and bloodied laying in a different hallway a little ways back – standing with a pained, confused and enraged look in his eye.
“Jackson!” I run to him, not bothering to think about the fact that he could very easily want to kill me as part of his rage fit.
“Lizzie,” he murmurs in my ear in a stifled, but thankfully not murderous or angry tone as embrace him, but I am instantly alarmed and afraid when he places his hands on my shoulders and pushes me into the wall. I look up at him, my eyes wide with shock and fear, to feel him wrap his arms around my waist and press his lips against mine almost violently. At first, I try to push him off of me, shoving against him with all of my might, but, when I don’t succeed, I just stand there and hope that he’ll stop soon. I breathe a sigh of relief when he pulls back for a moment, but he immediately leans back in and kisses me again, his hands working their way up my torso and into my shirt. At this point, I begin to panic and try with renewed energy to push him off of me, knowing very well where this is going to go if I let it continue, and finally manage to shove him away from me for a second.
“Jackson, Jackson, stop!” I yell, and he seems to come to, his eyes shooting wide in surprise as he looks around at me, the surroundings and himself.
“Oh, oh my God Lizzie, I’m so sorry!” he cries as he shoots desperate glances at the wreckage around him. “I didn’t mean it, I really didn’t! I didn’t mean to destroy everything and kiss you and make you hate me even more than you already do; I just was so angry about that picture and about you being Luke’s and not mine when all I want is for you to be mine. I mean, I know that’s not an excuse,” he adds, his gaze dropping to the cracked tile beneath his feet, “but I was just so angry.”
“Jackson,” I begin, grabbing his face between both of my hands and giving him the best smile I can muster with the memories of him kissing me against my will still in my head, “I don’t hate you, and I could never hate you. I mean, you’re my best friend Jackson, and nothing you do will ever change that, ever, so please don’t think that I hate you, alright?” When I get no sign of conformation from him, I repeat, “Alright?”
“Yes Ma’am,” he mutters to the floor, his golden gaze searching the broken floor with an almost pitiful dejectedness. My heart goes out to him and his scars and his own broken heart, but now is not a time to be empathetic, I remind myself. Now is a time to show Jackson tough love, not the mushiness he’s almost begging for.
“Good.” I do my best to sound authoritative, then grab his chin and force him to look me in the eye. “Jackson, I love you, alright?” I tell him, pleading him with my eyes to understand and accept it. “Just know that always, ok?”
A huge grin breaks out across Jackson’s face, a sight that relieves me greatly, and his eyes begin to twinkle as he replies, this time with much more enthusiasm and happiness, “Yes Ma’am.” He then steps forward and wraps his arms around me again, this time with gentleness and care, leans in so that our foreheads are together, and murmurs, “Lizzie, I’m sorry. I never meant to kiss you against you will – and I definitely didn’t mean to start feeling you up – but I just was so angry and jealous and-”
I cut Jackson off by placing one quieting finger on his lips and smile slightly when I see how much happier he looks. I then just stand there and hug him for a while until I hear a gasp at the doorway in front of me and facing Jackson’s back. Pulling myself away from him, I look over to find Luke standing in the entrance of the room we’re in with a look of pure shock on his face. Jackson soon quickly whips around too, then stands and stares at Luke with an expression of pure distaste on his face.
“What are you doing here, Gates?” Jackson asks him with hostility, his eyes narrowing as he looks Luke up and down, sizing him up like he’s prey to be killed. However, the really scary thing is that Jackson might actually be doing that.
Luke, thank God, brushes right past Jackson’s less-than-friendly question and instead asks him in reply, “Jackson, what happened to your back?”
The effect on Jackson is almost instantaneous. Suddenly his face loses its suspicious look for an intensely angry one, and I place a hand on his forearm, not wanting another fit of rage to happen that I have to clean up after. “None of your business,” he shoots back, his hands balling into fists.
“Jackson,” I murmur, forcing him to wrap his hand around my waist in the hopes that it will calm him down and prevent another outburst. He glances down at me momentarily, sees the warning on my face, and seems to calm down a little.
“Lizzie, I know,” he sighs, turning away from me so that his back faces Luke again, but this time warping the air right next to his back to give the appearance that he has no scars. “And Luke,” he begins, looking over his shoulder at Luke with the even, measured look that he takes on when lying, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Lizzie, what on earth happened out here? And why is Jackson bleeding and shirtless?” Luke asks me, looking at the wreckage around us with horror and shock. He then shoots me a furtive, questioning stare, and I know that I’m going to have to be creative with how I lie my way out of this one.
“Um, well…” I begin, glancing wildly around me for ideas as I stall for time. “Um, well…” I start again, “Jackson, he has his… moments. He gets really angry and then there’s just no stopping him.” I shrug to make Jackson’s fits of rage seem commonplace and try my best to pull the lie off, which I do, if I do say so myself.
“Oh,” Luke murmurs faintly and nods, looking even more perturbed now. “But… why does he get so angry? I mean, normally you don’t get angry enough to rip doors off hinges and put holes in walls and crack floor tiles on a regular basis. And, for that matter, how is he strong enough to do all of that stuff?”
Well, that worked well. Now I have a bunch more questions to answer. “Well, Jackson had a pretty traumatic childhood from what he told me,” I answer carefully, thinking that traumatic doesn’t even begin to describe it. “And Jackson’s naturally really strong. I mean, he benches something like almost four hundred pounds and he was the number-one overall high school recruit this year for football, so…”
I’m incredibly relieved when Luke nods again, this time actually looking convinced, and says, “Yeah, didn’t he sign with ASU or something?”
“Yep,” I confirm, smiling slightly, as that means he, my brothers and I are all going to be going to the same school at some point. “So ASU better win now, especially with all the good things I’ve told my dad about Jackson.” My dad, Tom Lightning, played as a cornerback for four years at ASU, during which time the school won two national championships and my dad won two Heisman trophies while he broke school records for interceptions, punt returns and kick returns, and interception touchdowns scored. He then went on to be drafted number-one overall in the NFL draft, played seven years in the pros, won two Super Bowls, was MVP in all four of the Super Bowls he played in, broke NFL records in interceptions, punt returns and kick returns, and interception touchdowns scored, and made enough money to marry the love of his life and my mom Amanda, a fellow electrical engineering student at ASU and live comfortably with her for the rest of their lives. “Um, by the way,” I begin, seized by a spur-of-the-moment idea, “if we get back alive, you are most definitely invited to go see ASU kick CU’s ass with us when they play them this fall, since they’re playing in Boulder this year.” I give him a smile, thinking that inviting him to one football game we probably won’t even get to see is the least I can do after all he’s done for me.
“Well, thanks Lizzie. That’s really nice of you.” He returns my smile, then wraps his arms around me, embraces me and kisses me gently on the cheek. “So I presume your dad has season tickets to ASU football?”
“Actually, he has season tickets to every ASU sport, so, if you want and if we make it back, you can come with us to Oklahoma City to see the Lady Sun Devils play in the Women’s College World Series, and, you never know, we might see them win the whole thing again.” I’m a huge fan of Arizona State softball, considering that I most likely will be playing on that team sometime, and, while I don’t think that they’re as good as they were when they won the WCWS last year, I know they’re definitely good enough to make it Oklahoma City and maybe even win another championship.
“Ok, cool.” Luke’s grin gets bigger, but seems to become deeper if that’s possible, and his eyes begin to twinkle as he looks down at me. “But I wouldn’t be going for the softball.” I feel his hand on the sliver of bare skin on my back and suddenly get goosebumps, which causes me to pull back and look up at him uncertainly.
I see the question, “Are you alright?” brimming in his concerned eyes and hear it echo around in his head as I read his thoughts and answer impatiently, “Yes, I’m alright Luke.” Feeling slightly annoyed, I add, “I don’t why you have to ask that every damn time I do something impulsive or move quickly, because just because I do something unexpected or unplanned doesn’t mean I’m bad or not alright, it just means that I’m impulsive, which – shocker! – I am.” I shoot him a look of mild contempt and march off, fully done with Luke and his caring and planning and deliberation, as I have a certain amount of loathing for all of those things.
“Oh, what in the hell did I do this time?” I hear Luke groan, and a small smile creeps onto my face. However, I refuse to turn around and talk to him or apologize, since that would ruin my resolve and unplanned plan, so I just keep on walking down the decimated hallway with my head held high as I curse my back for getting goosebumps.

“Lizzie, I’m sorry,” are the first words out of Jackson’s mouth as he sees me walking down a not-destroyed hallway towards my room, jogs after me and catches up to me. I knew this apology of his was coming, but I don’t want to hear it, because it’s just a reminder of what happened in that destroyed room, and I don’t want to remember that. However, I am happy to see that he has found a clean shirt and has washed up some so that he’s not smeared with his own blood anymore, even though his knuckles are still oozing.
“Jackson,” I begin, stopping abruptly and turning to face him with my gaze locked on his, “it’s alright.” I can almost feel my mouth twist in protest as I utter those words, since it’s not right, it’s not ok, and I know that. I’d rather lie to Jackson and have him be happy than tell him the truth and break his heart even more though, so I force myself to keep a straight face and stare Jackson straight in the eye. Almost instantaneously, the iron tang of his blood fills my nose and blurs my thoughts, but I force it away, knowing that right now, it’s as poisonous to me as a noxious gas.
“No, it’s not, Lizzie,” he shoots back, his brow furrowing as he frowns down at me. “That… that was inexcusable. I don’t care how angry I am, I don’t care what has just happened, I don’t care about any of that. In any situation, that would be inexcusable. I’ve broken the gentleman’s honor code by touching you without your consent, and that, along with the act itself, is unacceptable.” He look down at me with pain and anger in his eyes as his hands ball into fists, and, yet again, I wish the men in my life weren’t so damn honorable.
“Jackson, what the government did to you is inexcusable, far more than what you did to me.” I grit my teeth at adding the last part, as I was hoping to not have to say that. However, my argument wouldn’t be complete without it, and I am determined to convince Jackson that it wasn’t all his fault, that there are other people to blame besides him. I guess it’s almost funny how I’m willing to feed people lies just to keep them happy. “They hurt you far more than you could ever hurt me, ever, and all of the things they did to you, all of the drugs they pumped into you and all of the scars they gave you are inhumane, sadistic even, and what you did was not sadistic by any means. What you did was full of passion and feeling, and I respect you for that, but I think you need to find a different way to express it.” I give him a smile and it relieves me greatly to see him grin weakly back at me, even though his eyes are still twisted with a kaleidoscope of constantly changing and shifting emotions.
“Oh, besides destroying a whole floor of a building and kissing and touching you against your will?” His joke is feeble, more of an angry question directed at himself than a jest to be laughed at, and instantly I become on-guard again. I don’t want another fit of rage to clean up, especially an outburst that ends with nearly revealing our secret like the last one did.
“Yeah,” I am forced to agree, gritting my teeth as I know that I’m only feeding Jackson’s hate of himself and the world around him. I then add, attempting to do some situational damage control, “I mean, I’m sure there’s something else that’s a little less destructive that you can do to express yourself.”
“You mean like this?” He takes a swift step forward and wraps me in his arms, one hand brushing over the exposed skin on my back and giving me goosebumps again, then kisses my neck slowly and deliberately, with extreme care and remarkable gentleness I didn’t know Jackson possessed. He pulls back for a moment, gives me a small yet incredibly sad smile and kisses me again, this time his lips closer to my mouth. And, instead of pulling away or fighting back, like I really should considering I’m dating Luke, I just stand there and marvel at the loneliness welling up inside of me even when I’m surrounded by people. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that death and love can make me feel coldly distant, not really there, even when Jackson’s kissing me and holding me and letting his warmth spread from his body to mine. I love Jackson, I do, even if it’s not the real, unconditional love Luke has for me. I’m so lonely though, because I know that soon I’m going to be leaving Jackson, that I’m going to have to first act in love with another guy and then eventually die for the sake of entertainment, and that knowledge separates me from Jackson, even when he’s standing right next to me. I’m a corpse, waiting to be buried, and that keeps me emotionally away from Jackson. Somewhere deep down inside of me, the unfeelingly rational part of me is distancing myself from him so it will be easier to die when all I want to do is just get closer, even though it will make everything that much harder. So I guess this loneliness isn’t because of anything else besides my internal conflict. It’s a result of the battle of me versus me, and currently both sides are losing. However, I can’t focus on my misery, I just can’t, because I can’t lose any more of my short life to my sadness. I need to be there and get the most out of the rest of my few days, I need to enjoy and actually live the rest of my life, so I can’t lose any more precious time to desolation. So, when Jackson’s lips meet my own, I kiss him back, with a determination to use the rest of my time wisely and a desperation spurred by the knowledge of my isolation and the want to make myself be there and feel and not be distant. I then wrap my arms around his neck and give myself to him, thinking that maybe he can take better care of me than I can. And, when Luke walks in on us, probably on his way to make me feel even worse about myself by unconsciously showing how much better of a creature he is than I am, I just ignore him and kiss Jackson with renewed resolve. I’m almost relieved when that hunger begins to creep its way through my body again, considering that this is by far the most passionate kiss that I’ve had with Jackson yet, and continue to kiss him. And I think that this is my personal rebellion against my rational self and my want to make things as easy as possible, against Luke and his perfection, against Max and his goal to keep me alive, against Abby and her fairy-tale endings, against Rush and his incredibly twisted sense of amusement, against El Nieve and its want to make me its puppet, and maybe even against Jackson and his goddamn sense of honor.
When I finally pull back to find Jackson gazing down at me with joy and unbearable sadness in his eyes and Luke standing in a corner with ‘betrayed’ stamped across his forehead in huge red letters, I sigh a huge, audible sigh and murmur, “I’m sorry.” I then look back up at Jackson and tell him, “I’m sorry, Jackson, for doing this to you when I’m just going to have to go off and parade around in front of you with another guy and then eventually die.” I stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek, then turn around and walk over to where Luke is standing and gaze into his eyes, filled to the brim with pain.
“Luke, oh Luke,” I begin, smiling up at him sadly and touching his cheek gently, “I’ve done so many things to you that are inexcusable, and I’m sorry, Luke, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve led you on and broken your heart time and time again; I’m sorry that I don’t really know what I feel for you right now; I’m sorry that I cause you pain just by being around you; I’m sorry that we’re in this mess together; I’m sorry that one of us might have to kill the other in the end; I’m just so sorry Luke. I’m so sorry.” My voice trails off into nothing and I force myself to stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek too before marching off down the hallway, leaving behind two broken boys with two broken hearts and a million other apologies I owe them just clamoring to be made.

“You know, Luke, I never really liked you,” I hear Jackson say, and instantly I sit straight up and press my ear to the door. After departing abruptly from Jackson’s and Luke’s presences, I found the closest storage closet and locked myself in it, as seems to be the solution to all my problems of late.
“Why not?” Luke asks in reply, and I listen intently, wondering where this conversation is going and hoping that it’s not going to result in Jackson kicking Luke’s ass, as I know he most certainly can and probably would do.
“Because you were competition.” I press my eye to the hole in the door next to the doorknob to see Jackson giving Luke an intense but not quite hostile look as they sit side-by-side on a small couch in front of a neatly polished wood coffee table. “From the moment I saw you, I knew that you were competition, not even because you loved her, but because of what you were: popular, handsome, Lizzie’s age and decent, so, even if you weren’t going to make your intentions known and actually ask her out, you would always be on her radar as a possible boyfriend, and even that was too much for me to stand. Of course, I have no choice but to stand you and her now, but just know that I’m doing it for her, not for you.” Jackson continues to stare down Luke, but his expression becomes the slightest bit satisfied when he sees Luke nod in understanding.
“Well, thanks for standing it, no matter what your reasons or motives are, because I know how painful it must be.” I see Jackson open his mouth to retort and tell Luke that he doesn’t know what it’s like, that he has no idea how painful it is, then close it abruptly when he realizes that Luke knows exactly what it’s like and that he has a perfect idea of how painful of it, because Luke’s been seeing me parading around with other guys, almost all of them his friends, for nearly four years now. After a long silence in which both Jackson and Luke have staring contests with the tile beneath their feet, Luke pipes up and questions, looking Jackson straight in the eye, “Jackson, do you know anything about Lizzie’s past boyfriends?”
I see the want to ask why flash through Jackson’s eyes but see it go away as quickly as it comes because he knows why, because he knows that it’s because Luke cares about me and just wants to know where I’ve been. “Well,” he begins, dropping his gaze to the white floor again, “I don’t think any of her boyfriends really mattered until she dated Troy. I mean, they dated for a year and three months, so there must have been something there besides the fact that he was tall and handsome and popular and decent, but, you know, I don’t think she really loved him. I think she was in love with the idea of being in love, rather than in love with him.”
“What do you mean?” Luke’s brow furrows into a question mark of its own as he looks at Jackson with a quizzical expression, and I pull my eye away and press my ear even closer to the door. I want to hear Jackson’s answer too.
“I think she was more attracted to the idea of loving him than she actually was to him.” Jackson looks up at Luke, sees his still-confused appearance, and elaborates, “Like I said, they had a long relationship and he was tall and popular and handsome and decent, but I don’t think Lizzie really ever meant it, you know?”
“Yeah, I know exactly,” Luke replies shortly, and their conversation lapses into silence again. So that’s what Jackson thinks about Troy and I, hmm? Well, unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge of myself, he’s right. I really should have truly loved Troy; I mean, he was handsome, intelligent, popular, decent, funny and even a shapeshifting immortal, so I wouldn’t have to worry about him dying and leaving me all by myself, like I would with Luke. But I didn’t love him, I didn’t even feel anything when I kissed him, and finally, last November, after one year and three months of faking it, I decided to call it quits and stop fabricating myself just for the sake of a boy that didn’t really need me anyways.
“Luke,” Jackson begins, breaking the empty silence with his even emptier voice, “do you think she means it now, with either one of us?” Looking through the hole in the door again, I see Jackson stare Luke straight in the eye with both apprehension and hope in his gaze.
“I don’t know Jackson,” Luke responds quietly as he searches the tile beneath his feet for answers. Looking back up again, he shrugs with an apologetic smile across his face. “She told me that she meant it, once, but I think she was just desperate and confused and didn’t really know what she was saying.” That once was earlier today, and is that really what Luke thinks? Does he really think that I’m so desperate that I’m convincing myself that I love him? I mean, maybe I am, but I’m the only one allowed to think that! “But…” Luke starts, raising his gaze to look Jackson straight in the eye, “I know she means it with you. She may not love you like I love her, but she loves you Jackson, she really does, so I know she means it with you.”
“That’s the thing though, Luke, I don’t love her nearly as much as you do, or nearly as much as I ought to, because I’m kind of in love with another girl.” Jackson sighs and drops his eyes to white floor, and, yet again, I feel my heart clench as I see his sadness and depression. He doesn’t deserve this, not after all he’s done for Alexa; he deserves her love, not her rejection. Gritting my teeth, I ball my hands into fists and know that getting angry at my best friend will get me nowhere, even if she did make a horrible and stupid choice. “I’ve been desperately in love with Alexa Nikohl Sweet from the moment I laid eyes on her, but she rejected me for, ironically, Lizzie’s older brother Gwillan in February and I just can’t get over her. I mean, I do love Lizzie – I’ve seen her as more than a friend since about two weeks after I met her – but I don’t love her like I love Alexa, and I definitely don’t love her like you do. Luke, for all that I don’t like you because you’re competition and because you’re so much better for Lizzie than I am, I have to hand it to you. You’ve shown Lizzie so much devotion and caring when she’s given you almost nothing, and I greatly respect that, I really do, since I know exactly where you’re coming from.” Both of them smile weakly now, and I sigh inwardly. Yet again, I’m the source of everyone’s problems, from Luke’s to Jackson’s to mine.
“So what are we going to do, if Lizzie and I both make it home alive?” Luke asks aloud, and I know he’s not directing his question at Jackson, but merely at the world to see if anyone has an answer.
“I don’t know,” Jackson replies quietly, his golden-yellow eyes clouding over with thought. “I don’t know will happen between you and me and her, after all that you and Lizzie have been through together and after all of the times I’ve hurt her.” I nearly groan aloud at the last part. Jackson Lucas Carter, don’t even say that you’ve hurt when you haven’t done anything to me, as compared to all the other things that have happened as of late.
“You think you’ve hurt her?” Luke shoots back incredulously, his expression skeptical. “I’m the one who hurts her every moment I spend around her!” Oh great. Now they’re going to get into a debate over who’s hurt me the most. That’s not exactly what I expected their conversation to be about.
“Well, I’m the one who kissed her and felt her up against her will,” Jackson murmurs, and I can see the anger smoldering in his eyes as he looks down at the mahogany coffee table before him. He glances up to find Luke staring at him in disbelief, then adds, as his mouth twists into a grimace that makes him look like he’s going to spit in disgust, “I violated the gentleman’s code of honor, and that can’t be forgiven.”
“You follow an honor code?” Luke regards Jackson quizzically, and I realize, for the first time, exactly how different these two are. Luke is a quiet, gentle, secretly passionate boy who’s always had enough to eat and a place to live and clothes to wear and a school to go to, while Jackson is quiet, distrustful, secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) raging gray wolf shapeshifter with an acute hatred of scientists, doctors, and occasionally all humans who’s a natural killer maybe even bordering on a psychopath and has barely ever had enough to eat or a place to live or clothes to wear or a school to go to. They’re quite different, that’s for sure. In fact, quiet is about the only personality trait they share.
“Always have, always will,” Jackson answers shortly, nodding his head. “That’s why I call women ma’am and try to act as honorably as possible. After all, everything’s bigger in Texas, and that includes honor.” A small, grim smile twists Jackson’s lips at the mention of his homeland, and I think that, for Jackson, remembering where he came from means remembering what happened to him there.
Luke grins falsely too, and I get to thinking that it’d be better if both of them just didn’t smile at all. “Jackson, what part of Texas did you come from?” Luke questions, and I see Jackson’s eyes flash dangerously. I guess I was right about him and his home.
“Forth Worth,” he finally responds quietly, his gaze glued on the coffee table in front of him as though it is the most captivating thing he has ever seen. “I didn’t really like it there,” Jackson adds, and now it’s my turn to give a fake smile, as that’s the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard.
“What didn’t you like about it?” Luke really is pushing it here, and it would really be in his best interests to shut up right now. But, of course, he has no idea about Jackson’s past, so I guess I can’t blame him for asking and trying to make conversation between two people where there would be awkward silence otherwise.
“The mentality and the ideas,” Jackson replies, and I can tell that there is some truth to his answer, even though that isn’t the main reason. “The mentality that certain kinds of people, whether it’s because of their ethnicity or their skin color or what they’ve done, are worth less than you. I also didn’t like the undercurrents of neo-Fascist and almost neo-Nazi bullcrap that everyone seemed to believe in down there.” Jackson shakes his head and, yet again, I wonder how much interaction he had with people before he was experimented on. Well, I guess he had enough to pick out the defects in their – and basically every Southern – society, although it wouldn’t take much time to do that.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it was sixth grade that I spent a whole summer with my grandparents who live in Georgia, and it was horrible down there. It seemed like the whole state was a time capsule of the nineteen-fifties ideologically. I hated it when I was down there, and I was so happy to come back here, where most of the state isn’t racist or obese and most of the residents have actually graduated from high school.” Luke and Jackson both snicker at that, and I’m struck, for the first time, by how well they’re getting along, considering that they have completely different personalities and Jackson opened up the conversation with, “You know, Luke, I never really liked you.” “Besides,” Luke adds, shuddering at the memory, “it was too humid. You went into the shower as wet as you came out, and there were way too many bugs down there too.” Jackson nods his agreement and smirks slightly, though his golden-yellow gaze is still as cold and calculating as ever.
“Well, Texas doesn’t have quite the bugs and humidity Georgia and the rest of the Deep South states do, but it sure as hell has the heat.” Jackson shakes his head in distaste, appearing to shudder himself. “It got up to a hundred and fifteen degrees once, straight temperature, not adding in the relatively high humidity. You know, I literally don’t think I could live in that anymore, since I don’t do real well with heat.”
“Yeah, I didn’t like the heat or the fact that they had basically two seasons – spring and summer. I mean, there’s no such thing as winter in the South, since the coldest it gets is about fifty, maybe forty if it’s unusually cold that day.” Luke shakes his head too, a grimace crossing his face at the mention of two seasons. Well, I guess Luke shares my opinion on that matter, as I, for one, love Colorado because of the fact that it is one of the few places in the country with four distinct seasons.
“Speaking of weather and climate, Luke, what do you think the arena for One-Person Survival is going to be?” Jackson affixes Luke with an intense golden-yellow gaze, and I sigh internally. I don’t want to speculate about the Triple Crown, much less hear Luke take guesses, but I find that I can’t pull my ear away from the door and sigh again when I realize I’m going to have to listen to Luke make guesses.
“Well, I watched all the old tapes, and, based off those, I don’t think I can really guess.” Luke shrugs his shoulders, not seeming very perturbed by the fact that he’s talking about the place that he might be dying in later. “I mean, there was every type of arena imaginable in the past: deserts, forests, jungles, oceans with small beaches even. All I know is that, whatever the arena ends up being, it’s not one of those trick arenas.” Upon seeing Jackson’s puzzled expression, Luke elaborates, “An arena that looks beautiful or easy to survive in but turns out to be incredibly dangerous, like that one year where the arena was beautiful rainforest in which everything, including the water and almost all of the plants, were poisonous. I know that I definitely would rather have a basic forest or plain with scarce food and water than an arena where everything’s poisonous.”
“I know I would too, and I do,” Jackson murmurs, and now it’s Luke’s turn to be confused. “I want the arena to be easy – or at least survivable – so that way I don’t have to watch Lizzie die on national television next week.” Jackson sighs, dropping his gaze to the floor, and I can practically see the million worst-case scenarios of deadly arenas and my mangled body being carried away in a helicopter flashing through his eyes. “Don’t worry; it’s not like I care about you,” Jackson adds, and both of them smile weakly. Well, I guess they have to keep up the rivalry thing because they’re technically both rivals in fighting for me.
“So do you know what happened in the hallway earlier?” Luke asks Jackson, gaze locked on Jackson’s face, and I shake my head. Boy, if Luke knew what he was getting himself into, he would shut up right now.
“Nope,” Jackson responds evenly, returning Luke’s gaze steadily. Jackson’s getting better at lying all the time, but that might not be a good thing. “I mean, it looked like a tornado swept through there, but I don’t know what actually happened.” Jackson shrugs, seeming completely nonchalant, but I see his expression change to look the slightest bit relieved when Luke looks away for a moment.
“Yeah, I don’t know either.” Luke shakes his head in puzzlement, tapping one finger to an even beat on the coffee table in front of him. “Maybe someone just got really angry,” Luke jokes, glancing up at Jackson, and Jackson’s smile is so fake that I’m surprised Luke doesn’t see right through it.
“It looks like something the big man with the fire tattoos on his cheeks – what’s his name? Max? – could and maybe even would do,” Jackson offers, obviously trying to change the subject, and Luke nods his head in agreement.
“Yeah, but, you know, Max actually isn’t nearly as scary or angry as he looks,” Luke replies, smiling slightly. “I mean, he’s still scary and can be angry sometimes, but he’s not perpetually mad like he looks.”
Jackson smiles again and nods mechanically as I see the gears whirring in his head, and I know that he’s probably thinking of all the worst-case scenarios that could come out of this. After all, if Luke finds out about Jackson, then he finds out about me, then our relationship is ruined for good… Oh shit, I’m the one who really gets hurt if Jackson outs himself.
After a long silence which involves a lot of glancing around on Luke’s end and a lot of thinking on Jackson’s, Luke finally pipes up and says, “So, congratulations on being the number-one high school recruit this year.” Jackson is, in fact, the number-one high school football recruit, since he put up incredible rushing yards as a halfback and led Elizabeth to another state title. In fact, he signed to a full-ride four-year scholarship with Arizona State right after the football season ended, which will make it quite awkward when – well, if – my brothers, Jackson and I are all going to school there.
“Well thank you,” Jackson replies nicely, dipping his head in recognition. “I don’t think I deserve that title, considering there are a lot of other very talented players who are bound to be better than I am.” Of course Jackson’s being modest and not taking any credit for being able to run a four-one forty or bench nearly four hundred pounds, like he always is. Jackson adds, which surprises me since he’s completely unprompted by Luke, “You know, the thing that I found the most interesting about that was that they were calling me the number-one recruit even before the season started, and they hadn’t even seen me play yet.”
“Well, I guess they just saw how good of an athlete you were and said that you had to be good at football if you’re that good of an athlete.” Luke shrugs and gives Jackson a smile, no jealousy in his gaze at all, but I wouldn’t expect there to be, since Luke’s a pretty good – well, very good – football player himself.
“Maybe,” Jackson murmurs skeptically, and I wonder why he’s making such a big deal out of being called the best before actually proving it. I guess it’s because Jackson just has a marked dislike for hypocrites.
“And I saw you signed with ASU. Well, you’ll be going to school with Lizzie’s brothers and then eventually Lizzie, which could be both good and bad.” I know Luke’s just trying to be friendly and make conversation, but he’s really not helping anyone here.
However, instead of getting angry – like I thought he would – Jackson merely smiles another fake smile and replies, “You’re telling me. I won’t really even get a chance to talk to her as long as her brothers are around!”
“Well, they’re sophomores right now, right?” Luke looks at Jackson for confirmation, then continues when he sees Jackson nod his head. “So they’ll be gone in two years, and then you’ll have Lizzie all to yourself for two years.” Now there’s a definite jealous and longing tone tingeing Luke’s voice, and I idly wonder why, considering that the odds are most definitely against me even being alive in two weeks.
“Luke,” Jackson begins almost gently, capturing and holding Luke’s ice-blue gaze with his own golden-yellow one, “I don’t think anyone could ever comprehend how much you love Lizzie, but I know it’s a lot more than I love her. You deserve her so much more than I do, since you’re so much more devoted to her than I am, and, even though she doesn’t love you, don’t forget the fact that she desperately wants to love you, she really does. I mean, she feels guilty and bad every minute she’s around you because she’s reminded of how great you are every minute and thinks that she really should love you because you’re so perfect and great and what she needs. I know it’s not the same thing as her actually loving you, I know that, but at least it’s better than her not caring about you at all, Luke.” Jackson rises to his feet and stretches luxuriously, at one point banging his knuckles on the ceiling and swearing under his breath. “Luke, to be honest, I don’t know why she loves me when she has you,” he tells Luke, claps Luke on the shoulder, and walks out with his hands in his pockets.
Well, Jackson Lucas Carter, I think that makes two of us.

More added.

Luke and I spend the next week relaxing, actually eating for once, talking to each other, and – somehow – laughing together. Luke says he really likes it when I laugh, because he knows I’m happy. I like it when he laughs too, not just because he’s happy, but because he has a great smile. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out, but Luke actually is really handsome. Of course, he’s tall and muscular, at six-three, two hundred, and he’s got a nice face and a decent hair cut that doesn’t make him look like a dork, but I think the two most striking features about him are his eyes and his smile. His eyes are a mosaic of millions of shades of blue, ranging from nearly black to nearly white, every part of them having different arrangements and shades. They’re captivating really; in fact, I occasionally find myself staring into so intently when we’re talking that I forget the subject and hand and just lose myself in his eyes. I also find myself doing the same thing with his smile sometimes. It’s not so much that his teeth are straight and white – which they are – but that his smile just exudes kindness and genuineness. He’s so good and true that not even his smile can lie – unless, of course, he’s grinning at something Jackson says, because then Luke’s invariably smiling falsely.
Oh, Jackson. I guess from a physical standpoint he’s as attractive, if not more, than Luke. At six-six, two-twenty, Jackson’s definitely got a nice body, and, like Luke, he’s got a decent hair cut and handsome face, but Jackson is ruggedly, darkly and almost cruelly handsome, while there is no darkness or cruelness to Luke’s face. But, if Luke had gone through the things Jackson has, he might be darkly and cruelly handsome too. However, Jackson can have incredibly kind eyes and an incredibly genuine smile too. Jackson has eyes a few shades lighter than mine, wolf’s eyes, a piercing golden-yellow that makes you feel like you’re been x-rayed whenever he looks at you. Jackson’s far more intense and dark than I am; it seems like the norm for him is to look intimidating and mysterious, as his eyes are almost always golden-yellow, very intense chips of ice, and, even when he smiles, his eyes often stay that way. It’s only when he really smiles that you get to see truly how handsome he is, because then his eyes melt. Jackson’s eyes, when he’s happy, are welcoming, intelligent and sparkling, and sometimes I find myself gazing into them just to see the variations in the gold and dark and light flecks in his irises. And, when his eyes melt, he’s invariably truly smiling, and then his whole face changes. His expression loses its hardness and gains a light, almost carefree air, and his nearly perfect white smile just completes the picture. Unfortunately, Jackson isn’t truly happy very much anymore; in fact, I don’t think I remember seeing him really content since Alexa rejected him. He used to be happy a lot when he was around her.
Jackson and Luke… they’re quite a contrast in every aspect of their beings, that’s for sure. I wonder what Luke were to do if he were to find out about Jackson, and what he’s been through and done and how hard it’s been for him to survive. Jackson’s whole life has been like a Triple Crown, as he’s been constantly having to kill others to stay alive, but the Triple Crown’s almost easier, because at least you aren’t getting a million different drugs pumped into your body or a thousand different tests getting run on you every day. I’ve heard Jackson talk about his time at the Fort Worth Experimental Weapon Facility occasionally, and, the way he describes it, it was hell on earth, so much worse than dying. Jackson was Project Number Thirteen, born the one-in-a-trillion chance that a canine had a language receptor, and had been captured by the facility and experimented on in order to make him speak as well as understand. He wasn’t originally intended to be a weapon, but soon evolved into that when the scientists understood the full extent of his side effects. Jackson said that, every waking moment, he was constantly in pain, whether from the needles sticking out of his arm or from the broken bones given to him by the guards or from the details of his experiment carved into his back by a laser.
I’ve seen the scars on his back three times before, and that’s three times too many. In about half-a-foot-high letters, starting in between his shoulder blades and stretching to his back, is “Project Number 13.” Jackson has said before that, no matter where he goes or what he chooses to call himself, the only name or symbol that will ever stick with him is thirteen. I guess he meant that literally and metaphorically.
Below his ‘name’, in a smaller font, are the technical and exact details of his experiment: “Canine with language receptor. Subjected to radiation, electroshock and hormone therapy. Side effects: tripled height, tenfold increased weight, shapeshifting and element-controlling abilities. Status: an unstable and extremely dangerous living super weapon.”
Jackson used to laugh bitterly about the government scientists labeling him unstable and extremely dangerous when they were the sadists who were torturing him just to see how his body would react. “Fricking hypocrites, the lot of them,” he would say with a shake of his head, his eyes flashing dangerously and his expression becoming even harder and crueler.
And I used to say, “I know, Jackson,” since I knew there was nothing I could do besides agree with him and hope that he wasn’t angry enough to have an outburst. Besides, it’s not like I wasn’t going to agree with him; if Jackson were put in the scientists’ position, I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t have tortured them just out of curiosity.
Jackson never wanted my pity – he never wanted anyone’s pity – but he had it from the moment I helped break him out of the facility last August. I had stumbled across his file when I was on a different mission (I used to work for the government as a spy and assassin, but went rogue and destroyed the whole immortal tracking-and-killing department when I found out that was what they intended me to do.) and felt so bad for him that I knew I had to get him out of there, so I rounded up my brothers and set him free. You know, to this day, I think that’s the best – in terms of decency – thing that I’ve ever done. Jackson was a mess – both physically and mentally – when we found him. He was dripping blood from numerous cuts, bruises covered nearly every square inch of his body, and many bones were obviously broken or in the process of healing. However, his mental state was much worse.
He didn’t know who he was – or even what he was – as he kept on asking us, “Do you know my name? Do you know my name?” and, when he told him no, he would say, “Well, I guess my name’s Project Number Thirteen then,” and, even though we desperately wanted to tell that that wasn’t his name, that he had a real name, we couldn’t, because we didn’t know what his real name was. However, after a few careful questions, we found out that the scientist in charge of his project, Lexi, had been calling him ‘Stonewall,’ for his temperament and coloring, and that’s when it struck me.
“Have you ever heard of Stonewall Jackson?” I asked him on the car ride back to Colorado after breaking him out and burning the facility to ashes, and I was surprised and happy to see a light of recognition flicker on in his eyes.
“That famous Southern general, right?” he replied in a heavy drawl, much heavier than his drawl today, his eyes locked on mine. He kept on shifting back and forth between a human and a wolf, I remember, as he could talk in both forms and was just learning how to shapeshift and stay in one form. “People say great things about him, they say he was very brave. Some people down in Texas view him as a hero, a god almost,” he added quietly, his hands balling into fists as he though of his home.
Not wanting him to have another outburst, as I saw the destruction he could cause as we were destroying the facility, I quickly asked him, “Well, since Lexi called you Stonewall, and that’s not really a proper name, would you like to be called Jackson?”
He regarded me with that intense, hard golden-yellow gaze for a few moments, clearly trying to decide what my motive was, and, in turn, if I was a friend or a foe. After I was convinced that he would think me a foe and I had found my knife in my pocket and was holding it tightly, ready to strike, he did the exact opposite: his currently-human face broke out into a smile, a real smile, and that was the first time I saw him truly happy. He then answered, his warm gaze fixed on mine, “I’d like that.”
After a few moments of silence, during which time I shot sidelong looks at Jackson – who had finally stopped changing forms and was now a human – he piped up and asked, “Don’t a lot of humans have last and middle names?” then looked at me curiously, not incredibly happy anymore but not distrustful and cold either.
“Yeah, they do,” I replied, smiling slightly as I realized that Jackson wanted to have a middle and last name. “Do you want to pick some out?”
“If that’s alright, Ma’am.” He nodded his head respectfully at me, clearly trying not to seem too excited but most definitely very happy again.
“Of course it’s alright.” I gave him a smile and hoped that I looked comforting and friendly, then questioned, “Well, do you have any idea what you want your last name to be? I think we should get that one out of the way first so that way we can pick out a middle name that fits with your other two names last.”
Jackson nodded in understanding, then told me, “I want it to be Carter. I… I think I had a friend named Carter once, or at least that’s what us wolves called him, so I think I want to honor him, and I think I want to remember the good part of my past too.” I smiled at him, completely overwhelmed with emotion and empathy for him, but refused to let myself cry in front of him, much less over him.
“Well, Carter it is then,” I responded, trying to keep my voice as steady and even as possible but still hearing myself waver some. “So, Jackson Carter. What would go well with Jackson Carter?” I thought aloud, and then glanced over to see Jackson thinking deeply beside me.
“Jackson John, Jackson James, Jackson…” I murmured, frowning slightly as I realized that I had almost no good ideas.
“I think I like the name Lucas,” Jackson said abruptly, interrupting my musings and looking over at me for confirmation, even though it was his name that we were discussing, not mine.
“Lucas, huh? I think that’d go well.” I gave him another smile, then, seized by a spur-of-the-moment emotion, held my hand out for him to shake and told him, “It’s nice to meet you, Jackson Lucas Carter.”
His face then erupted into another huge, real grin as he took my hand, shook it, and replied, his smile stretching from ear to ear and his eyes dancing as he meets my gaze, “It’s nice to be met.”
After a few more rounds of questioning him, I discovered that he was seventeen in human years, and that his birthday – if he remembered right – was June thirteenth, 1994, making him exactly eight months older than me. I then realized that Jackson was old enough to be a senior in high school, and that, no matter what anyone else said, I was set on having him go to EHS with me because I knew that going to high would be very beneficial for him.
So I had my brothers hack the government records – because they’re excellent with computers and technology – and make it seem like Jackson Lucas Carter lived in Fort Worth and went to Fort Worth schools for thirteen years then moved to Elizabeth, and they did it in such a way that no one would be able to prove differently. Jackson was also made a legal US citizen, because my brothers forged his birth certificate, along with all of the other documentation and numbers he needed. I guess you could say that my brothers and I literally gave him a normal human life. My mom and dad, after finding out about Jackson and his situation, also let him live in our guest house for a little bit before he met and moved in with another immortal, Kodiak Johnson. Kodiak is a freshman at the Air Force Academy – and is Air Force’s starting quarterback – and, since he doesn’t need the apartment he used to rent with his sister Nymeria full-time (Nymeria, twenty-four and a criminal profiler, moved out and got her own apartment), he lets Jackson stay there, as long as Jackson contributes half the rent each month. It works out pretty well for all of them I think: Jackson has people who understand him, as Kodiak and Nymeria used to be in the government’s captivity too, and a place to live; Kodiak doesn’t have to pay the full rent each month and Nymeria doesn’t have to live with her younger brother anymore. As the beginning of school was approaching last year, I thought that Jackson might want to play football with me (I’m the first girl in Elizabeth High School history to play on the football team and I’ve played varsity since freshman year), considering he was definitely fit enough to, so I took him to one of the football summer camps, and Jackson loved it. He then signed up to play football, attracted a lot of media attention with his athleticism and talent, and was soon christened the best high school football player in country. Halfway through the season, he already had one thousand rushing yards, and then the scholarship offers started pouring in. He destroyed all of the ones from Southern schools, and immediately burned those from Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and TCU, as he said that playing in that Southern environment – as well as playing close to where he was tortured – would take all of the fun out playing for him.
After lots of consideration and many nights spent talking to him on the phone about his options, Jackson decided to accept a four-year, full-ride scholarship from ASU. “It’s the south, sure, but in the Southwest, and it’s a lot different – a different mentality, a different climate – than Texas or the rest of the Deep South. Besides,” he added with a playful grin, an extreme rarity considering that Jackson was generally incredibly far from playful, “between your brothers and you going and playing there-” – ASU had told me that I could play whatever sport I wanted on a full-ride, four-year scholarship as long as I played for them – “-we could win a national championship.”
Looking back, I wonder now why I didn’t realize Jackson thought of me as more than a friend before he came out and told me. He always smiled at me a lot, a great deal more than he smiled at any other girl, even Alexa, and he seemed to be truly happy around me more than he was around any other person. He laughed at all the stupid things I said and did, said things to me that were most definitely flirtatious, looked me up and down a lot, always was more polite to me than he was to other girls and always called me, “ma’am.” He held my hand and comforted me after I dumped Troy (just because I didn’t actually love him didn’t mean I wasn’t attracted to him and liked him as a person), he attended every one of my basketball games – he even drove all the way up to the Pepsi Center to see us win the state 4A title – as long as he didn’t have one of his own, he waited for me outside the door and walked me to my first class every morning, he always backed me up in an argument or debate even if I was wrong, he always was there for me when I needed him, and I’d like to think that I was there for him when he needed me. I guess the whole time I just brushed his behavior off as friendly – even though it was definitely more than friendly – because I couldn’t see around the fact that he loved Alexa deeply, and that he belonged with her and she belonged with him.
Of course, when that didn’t happen and Alexa rejected him in February, I started to take note of odd actions, and then he came out and told me that he had felt more than friendship for me for a long time, and I didn’t know what to do. Jackson was my friend, and I always thought that, even though he was tall and handsome and incredibly nice and would make an excellent boyfriend, we never would be more than friends, because I would always be in meaningless relationships and he would always be chasing Alexa. But then I started to think about all the things Jackson’s done for me that I’ve taken for granted, and about all of the things that have happened to him, and I decided that I owed it to him and that he needed me to love him, so I told him I’d like to go on a date with him – as he’d asked me out to dinner – gave him a huge hug and left to go to soccer practice.
Ever since then, Jackson and I have had a very interesting relationship. We’re not really dating – in fact, I think we’re still friends – but we spend a lot of time with each other, between running track together and living near one another and doing football camps together and occasionally just going on a casual date, like to the movies or something. In this time, I’ve had other guys ask me out – it seems like I can barely go a week without a marriage proposal – but of course I’ve rejected them all, because the only boy that I would date is Jackson. Or was until Luke and I got whisked into an alternate dimension and had to kill other children and act in love to stay alive.
I don’t know how I feel about Luke, or what our real relationship status is, or what we’d do if we both made it home alive. But one thing I do know is this: there are three possibilities regarding me wanting to commit a double-suicide with Luke in the third round. Number one: that I don’t want to have to go home without him – since I know I have the best chance of surviving the third round – because I wouldn’t be able to face Luke’s family and friends and live with the fact that I came home and he didn’t when he deserved life so much more than I did. If this is the case, I’m a horrible person, the basest form of life, because this is pure selfishness and cowardice with no honor behind it. Number two: that I’m love with him, and I can’t bear the thought of living without him, which is not honorable, which is still cowardly to an extent, but is forgivable. Number three: that I want to defy El Nieve and show them that they do not own me, that I will not do their bidding and be their pawn and win the Triple Crown like they want me to, that I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. This is the only scenario in which I still have my honor, because I am dying in rebellion, for a cause, not out of fear of what life would be like after the Triple Crown’s over.
I desperately want to believe and know that my reason is rebellion, not cowardice, but I don’t know that, because I don’t know how I feel about Luke. The only way I can find out what my motive is is if I find out what I feel about Luke, for in that twisted, broken, tangled mess of the relationship I have with him lays the solutions to all of my problems. In that is the answer to whether I’m acting or not anymore; in that is the answer to what we’d do if we both made it home alive; in that is the answer to why I’m doing all of this, why I’m being suicidal when I don’t have to die, when I could just do what El Nieve wanted me to – win the Triple Crown – and come out unscathed. Part of who I am and who I could be sits hidden in how I feel about Luke, so I have to find out the truth, I have to figure out how I feel about Luke, otherwise I might lose part of myself to that eternal question, “I love him, I love him not.”
Of course, Luke’s already lost so much to me, and he’s willing to lose everything for me if he thinks he needs to and sets his mind on it. He’s lost these last four years of his life thinking about me, he’s probably passed up plenty of opportunities to do new and good things or date really nice girls that I’m sure he could learn to love because he’s been too focused on me. I, single-handedly, have stripped so much away from him: I took his heart the first time he set eyes on me, I took his mind through all of my debates and talks with him, I took his soul by taking everything else from him, and now I’m thinking about taking his life, even if to spare him pain and agony.
My God, it’s never enough for me, is it? I just have to keep on taking and taking and taking without any giving in return and no chance of returning any of the things I steal. You’d think that, in the end, I’d learn not to take things that aren’t mine, I’d learn not to keep on hurting people, but it seems like I haven’t learned those lessons yet, since my kill list keeps on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I think that the only time I can stop taking and hurting is when I’m dead, is when I’m at the top of my own kill list. Maybe then the people around me and I can finally know peace.
But, I guess I didn’t completely take Luke’s heart and mind and soul. I guess he gave them to me, more than I took them, because it’s not like I wanted to have his heart or mind or soul; hell, I didn’t even know who he was when he fell in love with me – and gave me his heart and everything else in the process. I flirted with him some, sure, because I always thought that we would have a meaningless relationship, maybe even two if he made the grade, like I did with many guys, like I did with all of his friends. But then Luke never asked me out, and I was puzzled by that. I was also puzzled by the fact that he looked at me differently than the other guys did, that he treated me differently – almost reverently – than the other guys did, that he wasn’t always talking or flirting or being annoying like all of the others guy were.
I found Luke refreshingly different, and I was a little attracted to him because of that, because of his different, nice behavior and because of the way he looked at me with so much care and emotion in his eyes and because of the way that he seemed to not want to date me – even though everyone wanted to date me – and because of his smile and his eyes. I fell in love with Luke’s smile the first time I saw it, because I saw how genuine and kind and warm it was, and I wanted that, I wanted that sincerity whether I admitted it to myself or not. His eyes soon followed, as I noticed and became entranced with their beauty one day in eighth grade Honors LA, and then I noticed how genuine and sincere his friendly gaze was too, and I decided then that Luke Gates’ eyes were the most gorgeous eyes I’d ever seen.
I guess you could have called Luke and I friends, albeit very distant friends. Even though I always considered Luke a potential boyfriend, just another guy to date, I did truly like him as a person. We didn’t interact very much, as we didn’t have very many classes together and, in the ones we did share, we seemed to sit all the way across the room from each other, but, when I did talk to him, I found out that he really was a good guy. He was nice, genuine, laid back, occasionally funny, always had good ideas and always wanted the best for everyone. On the rare occasions that we worked in groups together, Luke would always manage to make me laugh with quiet but very funny jokes, and he would always get this strange look in his eye when I laughed, the same one that he got up on the rooftop the night before Hand-to-Hand combat; I just hadn’t recognized it up until now. But I didn’t really know or care about that look in his eye and he never told me about it and we went our separate ways, meeting back up once or twice every year to do projects or accidentally running into each other in the hallway. When that happened – and our stuff went everywhere – Luke would always bend down and retrieve my fallen books or scattered papers before he would get his own.
I never really thought much of it, just told him, “Thank you,” gave him a small smile and left for my class, but, now that I look back on it, it’s a metaphor for what’s happening now: Luke’s too busy and worried about cleaning up my mess to deal with the one he’s in.
It’s amazing, you know, that I didn’t pick up on all of these little things Luke would do and say that suggested far much more than his outward indifference until now, knowing he loves me and looking back on it. But maybe it’s good that I didn’t know he loved me until now, because if I had known only six months ago, I might have gotten into a meaningless relationship with him, dumped him, broken his heart even more than I already have and permanently ruined our friendship, if I haven’t already. And then things now would be even worse than they already are, because Luke and I would have to pretend to be star-crossed lovers when not-so-secretly he’d hate me for hurting him and using him. I think that would be almost unbearable, to have Luke hate me but have to pretend I love him. Or maybe it’d be easier than having Luke love me, because then I’d know that I wasn’t breaking his heart every moment I was around him and I’d know that all of it was acting on both of our parts and I wouldn’t hurt him nearly as much as I do now. But we might not even be star-crossed lovers at all, if he hated me, because that was Luke’s idea, undoubtedly fueled by his feelings for me, and if he didn’t have those feelings, then that idea most likely would never exist or be put in action. So maybe it’d be better if Luke hated me, since I think – no, I know – it’d be easier on both of us. All we’d have to do was stay alive and if one of us killed the other, it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as it would now, because we wouldn’t really care about each other, we’d just care about our own lives. The lives of our friends and family wouldn’t be at stake, because there would have been no double-suicide attempt, because I would have undoubtedly killed him in the last round of Hand-to-Hand Combat.
Maybe if Luke hated me, for One-Person Survival, I would just kill him off, team up with Abby, take out the career champion pack and then kill any other remaining champions, and then, when it got down to me and Abby, I’d kill myself and make her victor. For Team Survival, Abby would undoubtedly choose me as her partner, and then it’d be like One-Person all over again, except, after everyone else was dead, I wouldn’t have to kill myself again.
And then, once Abby and I won, Abby could go back to Section Five and live the rest of her life in wealth and comfort, and I could go home, and just try to forget that the Triple Crown ever happened, and just try to forget that I killed Luke three times, and just try to forget the looks on his parents’ faces when I have to tell them, “Sorry, your son is not coming back. He’s dead, and I killed him.”
But, even if I didn’t care about Luke really at all, I don’t know if I could forget him completely, because every person you kill stays with you and never leaves you. They take a little chunk of your mind, heart and soul and brand it with their name and face, and then you can never forget them, no matter how hard you try to. Besides, I don’t know if it’d be possible to forget the looks on his parents’ faces when I have to tell them he’s dead, since he means so much to them as their only child.
So maybe it’s a good thing Luke doesn’t hate me, because then I’d have to deal with killing him and having his death on my conscience for the rest of my life. I mean, even if I didn’t feel the same way about him I do now, I’d still have to remember for the rest of my life that I killed three times a boy I knew and even dated. I don’t know how I feel about Luke right now though; that fact still remains a definite uncertainty. I don’t know if I’ll ever really find out exactly how I feel about Luke, but I know that I sure as hell have to try.

More added.

Two days before One-Person Survival is set to begin – and a day before more interviews – I manage to track down and steal a pen and some paper, which apparently there is a shortage of because of the rebellion in Section 4, the producer of basic materials like paper and pens. Making off with my find, I retreat to another, previously unknown storage closet in a completely different part of the eighth floor, light a fire in my hand, transfer it carefully to the floor, then sit in silence for a few moments as I tap the pen on my chin. I had come here meaning to draw and express my feelings through art, but suddenly all of my muse has left me, and a need to think by writing has swallowed my conscience whole. Not knowing what I’m doing, or what I even want to think about, I begin to simultaneously write and say aloud the things that I know to be true.
My name is Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning. I hate the name Elizabeth though, so I go by Lizzie. I am five feet, eleven inches tall and weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. I have long, straight golden hair a few shades darker than my eyes and feet two sizes too big for my body. I bench-press twice my bodyweight – three hundred pounds – and deadlift four times my bodyweight – six hundred pounds. This is because I have a condition in which my muscles are far tighter and therefore far stronger than they should be for their size. My condition also allows me to have a four-foot vertical, run a world-record four minute, three second mile, run a ten point six one hundred meter and a four point one three forty yard. My birthday is February 13, 1995, making me seventeen years old. I am an immortal shapeshifting wolf with a conditional mortality: I can die by ‘normal’ weapons, like swords and spears, but not by anything else. I can control the elements, and specialize in lightning and storm control. My whole human existence is an incredibly well fabricated lie. I am from and live in Elizabeth, Colorado and I go to Elizabeth High School, two places I will never see again. I have two twin twenty-year-old brothers, Gwillan Marshall Lightning and Gruffen Mitchell Lightning, born on October 13, 1991, and a four-year-old brother Timothy John Lightning, born on November 16, 2007, who are all shapeshifting conditionally immortal wolves also. My father is Thomas James Lightning, a college and NFL Hall of Fame cornerback as well as a shapeshifting lightning god who prefers the form of a giant golden wolf, and my mother is Amanda Michelle Grant, a doctor of neurobiology and another shapeshifting conditionally immortal wolf.
I pause for a moment, looking down at the paper in my hand critically. Is it really safe to be writing all of this down, to possibly have my secret revealed by a few careless seconds of writing? However, wanting desperately to keep on writing I tell myself that I will the burn the paper as soon I finish, then put my pen to the paper again and continue to put everything in my mind into existence.
I should be dead many times over. It would be easier on everyone – especially me –if I were. I am fighting for my life in the Triple Crown. El Nieve wants me to win the Triple Crown. I don’t want to. I am planning to die to save an eleven-year-old girl – Abigail Williams – who I barely know and a seventeen-year-old boy – Lucas William Gates – who loves me with all of his heart and to who I owe everything to. I am falsely in love with Jackson Lucas Carter, a fellow shapeshifting wolf who is a government experiment gone awry that I broke out of a government complex, when I really should be and want to be in love with Luke Gates, the aforementioned boy unfortunate enough to love me and be here with me in the Triple Crown. One of us is going to die in the end, and I fully intend for it to be me. Luke is too important to his family and friends for it to be him.
I have known Luke since eighth grade, and he has told me that he fell in love with me the first time I saw him. I have thought that he is incredibly unlucky because of that. I do not know why Luke and I are here, in the Triple Crown. It could just be bad luck. It could be that those stars Cassius talks about have a grudge against us. It could be that whatever God is up there is trying to teach me a lesson. It could be that whatever God is up there has brought me here to save a little girl’s life. The reason doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that I am here, with Luke and Abby, and that, by my own hand or by someone else’s, I am going to die. Leaving will be hard. I don’t want to say goodbye to all of my family and friends. But I have to, because Luke and Abby are more important than any of my fears of dying. When I die, I want to die as me, Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, not as El Nieve’s pawn. I want to die on my feet rather than live on my knees.
The beginning of Survivor Guilt by Rise Against pops into my mind and I smile slightly, thinking that Tim McIlrath would have a field day writing songs about El Nieve and the Sections, considering that he manages to write so many about all the problems with the United States.
I do not know how I feel about Luke Gates. I might love him, I might not. Luke loves me will all of his heart. Jackson loves me to an extent, and I love him to an extent. I love Abby with all of my heart. She loves me with all of hers. I like Maximus Knight, my Triple Crown mentor who is a fellow immortal and the last true Triple Crown winner, and he grudgingly puts up with me. I like Mitchell, my Triple Crown stylist, and he likes me, but I’m afraid he’s going to die because of me too, since he has made me Lizzie Lightning, the spark. I don’t like – maybe even hate – Mr. Rush, El Nieve’s Prime Minister, and he doesn’t like me very much either. Rush tries to mask the scent of death coming from him with specially enhanced, reeking carnations. That only makes me hate him and his carnations even more. He or one of his servants threw me one of his carnations as Luke and I walked off the stage after our victory interview after we won Hand-to-Hand combat. I started a fire in my hand and burned it, then told myself that sparks beat flowers every time.
I want to go home. I want to see my cute little brother and my annoying older ones and my happy parents again. I want to graduate high school. I want to go to Arizona State University on that full-ride, four-year scholarship for whatever sport I want to play that they promised me. I want to see my brothers win Heismans and then play in the NFL. I want to see my little brother grow up and become big. I want to see Luke Gates without pain in his eyes. I want to see Jackson Carter with Alexa Sweet. I want to see Abigail Williams happy and well fed with a family to love her. I want to see Maximus Knight truly happy, even if that means he’s dead. I want to see Mitchell survive and not die because of me. But the only way any of this can happen is if I die, because I am so many people’s problem.
I have single-handedly started a rebellion in the Sections surrounding El Nieve by attempting a double suicide with Luke Gates in the first round. Because of this, the lives of my friends and family – as well as the lives of Luke’s friends and family – are at stake. If I don’t convince all the Sections that I wanted to commit a double suicide because I loved Luke, not because I was defying El Nieve, my friends and family, as well as, will die. And it is entirely my fault, because I am the one who suggested the double suicide on the rooftop the night before Hand-to-Hand Combat started. It is my fault, but Luke may have to pay too.
I am an excellent terminator of things. I can kill in a thousand different ways, as I was trained and worked as an assassin for the United States government for nearly three years. As long as I have my hands and feet, I have weapons. I kill relationships and friendships very quickly too. I’ve probably already killed my relationship with Luke, and my relationship with Jackson is soon to follow.
I don’t like it here in El Nieve. Everything’s deathly white: the buildings, the trains, the cars, even the people. The only person I like here is Mitchell, since he’s not scarily white. Max and Abby and everyone from my world don’t count, since they’re not from El Nieve. I hate how El Nieve exploits the Sections by taking all of their goods and leaving them with nothing. The people in El Nieve live in comfort and peace and white, air-conditioned rooms while the people in the Sections crawl and toil and work all day so that those people in El Nieve can live like they do. I don’t understand why the Sections haven’t risen up before I came along. Oh, wait, they did, and the Triple Crown is their punishment, El Nieve’s way of showing how much power it has over the Sections and an effective method crushing all hints of rebellion. You’d think that the Sections, with superior numbers and materials, would be able to destroy El Nieve easily if they wanted to, but that is not the case, as El Nieve has many more weapons and soldiers than the Sections do.
Anger begins to flood through me at the unfairness of it all, and my hands curl into fists. Why should the citizens of El Nieve benefit when they haven’t done a day of work in their lives?! Why do the citizens of the Sections have to send the rewards of their hard work to people who don’t deserve them instead of consuming what they make?! Gritting my teeth, a stray lyric from Rise Against’s Re-Education (Through Labor) – “We all reap what we are due” – floats through my mind and I think idly that that might not apply to the current situation. However, knowing that I have to keep on writing or I won’t be able to ever get all of this stuff out, I force the pen tip back onto the paper and continue to spell out everything running through my head.
I don’t want to be the spark. I think Mitchell never really intended for it to just be a play off my name. I think he always intended for me to be spark of a revolution, and he must have always known that he would die for such blatant defiance and such a political message. I don’t know why he would knowingly commit suicide like that though. Or maybe I do. Maybe he’s gotten so sick and tired of sending two children off to slaughter every year that he decided he should try to stop it by starting a rebellion and die for his efforts. Or maybe Mitchell’s just sick and tired of all of the El Nieve bullshit he has to put up with twenty-four/seven, and he’s decided that there’s no other way out, that he can’t escape the scary-white people and their scary-white city by any other means except death.
I don’t want to be the spark. But I know I have to. Mitchell is going to die because of it, and I cannot let his idea, his crowning achievement go with him, because I know he would want it to live on. Besides, I have to give the people of the Sections at least a chance to die on their feet, to experience freedom even if it is in their death. As a firm believer in individuality and expression and having your own beliefs, I owe it to them.
When I die, the Sections will probably use me as a martyr. They’ll put my face on banners and posters and talk about me with bravado that I don’t deserve, all the while using my death to their advantage to help gain support for the rebellion. But I don’t have a problem with that. The knowledge that I might be helping someone beside myself by dying is enough to make me overlook the fact that my death will be exploited.
I wonder what will happen to Luke after I die. He’s the one good with words; he’s the one the crowd loves; he’s the one who can capture a nation’s complete attention every time he opens his mouth. He’ll survive on his wits and his influence if he doesn’t make it home before the rebellion breaks out, I’m sure. He won’t die though, no matter which side he chooses to support. I can’t think that he’d willingly support El Nieve, but he might side with them to survive if he thinks they have the best chance of winning.
I wonder what the emotional toll on Luke will be when I die. Will he actually commit suicide, like he keeps on threatening to, or will he just keep on living, only with a hole in his heart where I used to be? I know I mean a lot to Luke – I don’t think I know exactly how much I mean to him, since I don’t know if that’s even possible to comprehend – but I don’t if I mean so much to him that he would rather die than be without me. Actually, I do. Considering that he would die for the idea, not even the knowledge, that he was helping me, I think that he would kill himself without a second thought if I were to die.
So, no matter which one of us dies first, we’re both going to end up dead. If I die first, Luke will commit suicide because he can’t live without me. If he dies first, I’ll either take my own life because I won’t be able to bear the guilt or be executed by El Nieve for my defiant actions. So I guess the only person I can hope to save is Abby. If, in the third round, everyone else gets killed off except for me, Luke and Abby, Luke and I can finally rest in peace together and Abby can come out victorious and live the rest of her life in wealth and comfort and not have to work another day ever again.
I think of Abby, happy and wealthy and with healthy hands and a family to love her, and I smile slightly. If anyone deserves to have an easy life from now on out, it’s her. I think even Luke, blinded by his love and devotion for me, would admit to that.
So let’s do a kill count of all of the people that will eventually die or already have died because of my brash actions and me. The career champion from Two. Marshall Moore. Danica Roberts. Marcus Clay. Mitchell. All of Section Eight. Any number of fellow champions I’ll take out in One-Person Survival and in Team Survival. Possibly Gwillan Marshall Lightning, Gruffen Mitchell Lightning, Timothy John Lightning, Thomas James Lightning and Amanda Michelle Lightning. Possibly Jackson Lucas Carter. Any number of Section citizens who might die because of their notion of my attempted double suicide. Lucas William Gates. And, at the very top, in big bold letters, is me, Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning.
At least when I die, some of the madness will end. There will be more, with the Sections most likely rebelling and then using my face and my death to their advantage, but at least I will not cause any more madness in the lives of people I know and love. I will leave a large mark on a whole civilization, on a whole society, but at least my family and friends may finally be safe, if death has not already taken them by Rush’s orders.
Rush and I have an informal promise not to lie to each other. I don’t know if he has or intends to keep his side of that promise, but I have so far. After all, I don’t know if I could lie to him, since, some way or another, he would undoubtedly find out, and then everything would be that much worse. So I guess you could say that Rush and I have a… fragile relationship that is definitely not certain to exist tomorrow.
Tomorrow the interviews – in preparation for One-Person Survival, which starts in two days – begin, but I don’t want them to. I don’t want to get up on that stage again and hear an audience cheer for me that will, in a day, be screaming for my blood. It feels so wrong, to see them seem so happy to see me, so supportive, then, in twenty-four hours, forget all attachment they once felt for me and want to see me dead.
But I guess that’s the true irony of the Triple Crown. It’s an incredibly engaging, incredibly up-close, incredibly nitty-and-gritty form of entertainment that commands you to be very attentive and very engaged, but watching it requires you to distance yourself from the children on the screen and requires you to forget that those are real, living, innocent children who are killing each other for your amusement and requires you to forget everything – your mercy, your humanity, your individuality even – for the sake of entertainment, for the sake of amusement. It’s very much like the novel Fahrenheit 451 in that aspect, except I don’t think – or at least I hope – that the people of El Nieve aren’t as far gone that they have forgotten how to feel completely, like those in Fahrenheit 451 have. But, at least in Fahrenheit 451, they don’t have their children fight to the death on national television.
I wonder if this is what America will turn into if we stick to the path we’re on. Max has told this is America, or what’s left of it, and that El Nieve is about where Iowa used to be. On the victory tour, I saw for myself that Section Three is occupying what used to be Colorado and Wyoming as well as very beaten-down Rocky Mountains. I specifically requested to go to the ruins of Elizabeth while on the victory tour, and everything was gone. There were no buildings or homes or trees or flowers or even grass. There was no life there; there was no such thing as Elizabeth, Colorado anymore. All that was left was a large, windy, dusty plain with a large expanse of bare soil. I hope this doesn’t happen to our America, to the country I live in, because I’d like to think that our society couldn’t become so warped from its original, albeit somewhat flawed, democratic design. I’d like to think that, when this started to happen and people began to be used, people would stand against it and refuse to have the founding fathers’ ideas so manipulated and mutilated.
I wonder how it got to be like this here. Did it happen gradually over a few hundred or thousand years, or did a new ruling party suddenly take over and destroy all remnants of ‘all men are created equal’? I wonder if anyone here even knows what the Constitution is, or what a president is even. El Nieve probably wouldn’t want that discussed in the history books, because then Section citizens could start asking inconvenient and unpleasant questions about what the past was really like and could start to get it into their heads that they want a democratic society, not this oligarchy. I’d like to think that, if people knew what it was once like and how a great a country this used to be, they’d rise up and make it a great country again.
Suddenly I hear footfalls outside the door, and I freeze, trying not to breathe for fear of being found and pressing my ear against the door as I hope that whoever’s out there goes away soon. When the person passes, I allow myself a sigh of relief, and continue to write, thinking that I should probably finish up anyway.
If there is hope for this world, it lies in the Sections. Only there is the power and the drive to change and make things right. I only hope that when they rebel – if they rebel, which I think they will do – they find my death useful to their cause.
These are all things that I know to be true. If this paper is ever found, please return it – along with my body – to my family.
- Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning, aka Lizzie
I take a deep breath and let the pen fall out of my cramped hand onto the floor beside me. Looking down at the paper in my hand, I wonder what I should do with it. My gaze darts between the fire and the paper, but I rule that out immediately. No matter how dangerous it might be, this paper is the only existing record of my life, of me, and I’m not going to burn it, at least not yet. Sighing at the flagrant carelessness and stupidity of what I am about to do, I fold the paper up into a little square and stuff it in my shorts pocket, then glance down to make sure it isn’t visible and doesn’t cause any odd bulges in my shorts. I close my left hand, focusing on the fire, and it goes out without any sound. Looking around me, I have just placed my hand on the doorknob and am about to open the door and leave when I remember the pen.
I can’t leave it here; if it gets discovered and then traced back to me, I could be in serious trouble. With there being a shortage of pens, only El Nieve citizens are allowed to buy them and, even though I am a Triple Crown champion, I’m not allowed to even buy them, much less steal one. Of course, I’d get in trouble by stealing one even if there wasn’t a shortage, but I’d be even closer to that public execution if I was caught stealing in a shortage. Deciding that the pen could be useful later, if I can find a safe place in which to use it, I stuff in the waistband of my shorts and drape my loose shirt over the bulge in creates. I then look down and smile satisfactorily when I can’t see even the slightest hint of the pen’s outline.
“Thank God for big shirts,” I murmur with a smirk on my face, then open the door to have my eyes immediately assaulted by a torrent of white.
“Oh God, someone needs to put a dimmer on this place,” I mutter under my breath as I wipe my watering eyes on the back of my hand and shake my head, trying to get rid of the white spots that refuse to leave my vision. Cursing under my breath in a steady stream of mixed languages, I march down the hall, my smirk changed to a grimace of distaste.
Because of all this damn whiteness, I now have a headache, and, judging by a constant rumbling in my stomach that will not stop, I’m hungry too. Annoyed, I give a huff of displeasure, then try and remember if I can figure out how to get back to my room so I can get some food and some relief from the paleness around me.
Keeping my head glued on the white tile floor, I nearly run into someone. Looking up in surprise, I see Luke staring down at me with confusion that is soon overtaken by incredible worry.
“Lizzie!” he exclaims, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me along with him. Hearing my cry of protest, he glances over at me and tells me, his voice more than tinged with panic, “Lizzie, they just arrested Jackson for trespassing on Triple Crown property. They’re going to execute him!”
“What?!” Now it’s my turn to yell as I look at Luke in complete astonishment, hoping to dear God that this is just some kind of joke. However, I know all too well that Luke wouldn’t joke about something like that. “But, why? Before the victory tour, they were perfectly fine with him being here!” I’m about to add, “Hell, Max even brought him here!” when I think that Max might have done that of his own accord, not because of orders. And then it hits me: I know why they’re cracking down on Jackson all of a sudden.
“I didn’t act well enough to convince the Sections,” I murmur, my eyes shooting open in fear as I realize that this is only the beginning, that the rest of my family and friends are to follow – and so are Luke’s.
“Lizzie, what’s the matter?” Luke asks me urgently, gently grabbing me under the chin and making me look at him. I meet his incredibly concerned blue gaze and can hear my heart crack in my chest. How can I tell him that his family and friends are going to die?
“Luke, you know how Rush threatened us before the victory tour to get us to convince the Sections that we weren’t rebelling when we tried the double suicide?” I begin, seeing the realization flicker across his face and sighing. “Well, I guess I didn’t act well enough to convince the Sections, so now Rush is fulfilling his side of the deal.” I bury my head in my hands and feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I really, really don’t think I can deal with being responsible for my family and friends’ deaths too.
To my surprise, Luke doesn’t begin to despair, but instead grabs me by the arm and makes me keep on walking. In fact, he doesn’t even look surprised, but that might just be because he so focused on saving Jackson – if that’s possible. “Lizzie, we have to save Jackson. There’s no time to stay here and feel sorry for ourselves right now!”
As I stop in pure astonishment as his words, he apparently decides I’m moving too slow, walks back to me, scoops me up into his arms and continues to walk, his eyes set ahead in determination. However, as I look up at him in wonder, I see tears threatening to run down his face, and, not being able to look at this sad boy and know I’ve caused his sadness as well as ruined his life by taking it away from him, I just cling to him even tighter and bury my face in his shoulder.
After being carried down two or three long hallways, I decide I can’t bear to be touching him either and jump neatly out of his arms, catching myself just before my head is about to hit the cold white tile. Jumping to my feet, I then continue along beside him, keeping my gaze glued on my feet. A few more pale hallways go by in silence, and I finally get the nerves to murmur, “Luke, I’m sorry.”
Looking up momentarily, I find him staring at me and am captured by his crystal-clear ice-blue gaze. “Lizzie, don’t be. If I didn’t come up with that stupid star-crossed lovers idea-”
“-Then one or both of us would probably have been killed in Hand-to-Hand Combat!” I shoot back, not about to let him take any of the blame for this situation, which is most definitely all my fault. “After all, didn’t you see how easy it was to get to the final round? The Triple Crown committee gave that Edmund kid you fought in the round before the last armor with a hole in it, and a lot of the other people you fought had malfunctioning or broken weapons too, and some of the people I fought did too!” Actually, no one I fought had bad weapons or holey armor, as I guess the Triple Crown committee figured I didn’t need any help winning, but I need to come up with another example to help my argument “Luke, if you hadn’t come up with that star-crossed lovers things, we both would have been killed off and wouldn’t have made it to the final round. The Triple Crown committee wanted an exciting finish, a grand finale to Hand-to-Hand, so they kept us both alive so we could fight in the final round. I guess they didn’t really count on us trying a double suicide though,” I end lamely, smiling wanly at the memory.
“Yeah,” Luke agrees, with a smile just as halfhearted as mine flitting across his face for a moment. He grits his teeth for a moment, then adds, looking over at me, “You know, I really do hate it when you’re right.”
I laugh shortly, unable to keep the bitterness out of my tone, and ask him with a good deal of incredulity, “So you hate it that I’m right about you making the right decision and saving our lives?” I glance over at him, skepticism plastered on my face, and shake my head. Knowing Luke, he probably does hate me being right about him being right.
“Yeah, because I argued that I made the wrong decision, and I lost, and I’m not a big fan of losing.” He shrugs, darting his gaze in my direction and away again.
“None of us are Luke,” I murmur quietly, capturing and holding his gaze with my own for a few moments. I then look back down at my feet, only to jerk my head up in attention when I hear a muffled human sound of pain.
“Jackson!” I exclaim, brushing past Luke’s words of warning and taking off in the direction of the cries. Rush can hurt me all he wants, but I will not let him hurt Jackson.
After running down numerous winding white hallways, I finally reach the source of the sound: a solid white door that looks like any other door in this city. I test the knob, find it locked, then kick the door down, balling my hands into fists and preparing myself for a fight as I look around me.
There are clumps of soldiers – five at the most in each – standing off to the side and identical in their white uniforms except for the different-colored sashes around their waists. (Max told me that each color of sash represents a different skill or training, like swords or rifles or hand-to-hand.) In the middle of the groups is a raised five-by-ten-foot miniature stage, on which a very bruised and beaten Jackson, with his hands tied behind his back and his head hung low as he leans on the soldier keeping him upright, is about to be decapitated by a soldier with a black sash. I shiver slightly as I remember that a black sash represents a Protector, or a soldier trained to track down and get rid of anyone deemed different or rebellious. However, now is not a time for fear, so I force all emotions, thoughts and even physical feelings out of my body and charge the Protector.
I pull back and punch the Protector square in the face, breaking his nose, causing crimson to cascade down his face and onto his white uniform and knocking him unconscious. Then, with the Protector stunned, I take his knife and pistol from his belt, glance over at Jackson – who by this time has looked up and is staring up at me in amazement – to see him being dragged away to the other side of the room by the soldier supporting him and look back just in time to flip over me the orange-sashed soldier running at me. Smiling slightly as I hear the soldier’s head hit the cold white tile with a resounding thud, I then get the next soldier’s who’s run at me into a headlock and press the stolen knife against his throat just hard enough to create a tiny cut.
Looking out across the other soldiers, who are staring at me in fear and anger, I tell them, capturing each one of their gazes with my own, “Now, we have two options. A) You let Jackson go without another word, and I’ll let him go. Or B) You don’t let Jackson leave this room and I kill him.” I gesture to the whimpering soldier in my arms and poke him for emphasis. Fortunately none of the desperation coursing through me creeps its way into my voice and I’m able to keep my tone completely level and rational, even as I look around at the ten guns that hold the ten bullets that could very easily take my life. Giving them a falsely endearing smile that I hope lets them know I’m crazy enough to actually kill the soldier I’m holding, I add, “Choose wisely.”
I’m startled slightly when I see the Protector, who has just woken up from being knocked out, rise to his feet, wipe his bloody, bent nose on the back of his hand and consider me carefully, but I stare him down and refuse to let myself pull my gaze away, no matter how unnerving I find his pitch-black stare to be.
“Let him go,” he finally says, his eyes locked on mine the whole time, and the soldier holding Jackson in the corner pushes Jackson away from him, which causes Jackson to fall on the floor since he’s passed out. I then shove the soldier I’m holding away from me, and he gasps as he rubs his neck.
“Remember the deal: not another word.” I give the Protector one last x-raying look, walk over to where Jackson has fallen down, scoop him up into my arms, and walk out of the door with him, thinking idly that he’s the one supposed to be doing the carrying.

More added.

“Lizzie!” I hear a voice exclaim as I walk out of the almost-execution room with Jackson in my arms, and glance up to see Luke running down the hallway towards me. Without waiting for me to say anything, he takes Jackson away from me and, looking down at Jackson’s numerous injuries, says urgently, “We need to get him medical help!”
“I know,” I reply calmly as I think that it’s ironic that I’m the calm one when I’m the one who just ran into a room of twelve armed soldiers, fought two, took another one hostage and negotiated for Jackson’s life while staring down the barrels of ten pistols. “Let’s get him back to our quarters. I can patch him up well enough to keep him alive until we can call the paramedics or whoever does the emergency calls around her.”
We then hurry – with me and my photographic, nearly perfect memory leading - along a maze of identical white hallways, and smile grimly as I realize that I truly have no idea where we are but somehow know how to get back. I breathe a sigh of relief as I we turn a corner and I see the familiar doorway that leads into our quarters, then turn around, motion for Luke to hurry, and open the door to let Luke into the living-room part of Section Eight’s floor. Sprinting down the white hallway towards my room, I rip the door open too, not caring if it comes off of its hinges or not, and watch as Luke gently deposits a purple, blue, black and red Jackson onto my perfectly white bed.
As I look down at Jackson and glance around wildly for medical supplies, my heart sinks when I remember that I don’t know where the medical supplies are, and, in desperation, drop to the floor to look underneath my bed. I nearly gasp in surprise when I see what has to be a first-aid kit, and quickly grab it, come back up and set it down on the bed. Popping the white clasp and opening it, I find bandages, rubbing alcohol, medical tape and white pills that I presume are for pain, and I almost start to cry in relief.
Blinking my tears away and turning to Luke, I command quickly, “Go get washcloths from the bathroom and dampen them, and bring two cups of pure water out with you too,” then turn my attention back to Jackson as Luke hurries away.
“It’s going to be ok Jackson, it’s going to be ok,” I murmur, just as much for my own benefit as for his, and stroke his cheek gently, knowing that I can’t and won’t let Jackson die here. I start when his eyes open, but instantly become concerned when I see that his golden gaze is clouded over with pain.
“Lizzie, come closer,” he tells me in a weak voice, and I lean down farther, so that our faces are probably two feet apart now. “Closer,” he repeats, his eyes locked on mine and a sheen of sweat covering his forehead, and I lean even closer still to feel Jackson reach up, lock his arms around me – as he’s still incredibly strong – and pull me down on top of him. “Let me hold you, please,” he says quietly, staring into my eyes and raising one shaky hand to gently caress the side of my face.
Even as my heart threatens to break, I force myself to keep my voice steady and tell him, “Jackson, I have to fix you up so that you won’t die.”
“But then?” he asks me, so much hope in his eyes that I can hear my heart crack into a million pieces, and I make myself smile down at him as I slide as gently as I can off of him.
“Then,” I confirm, nodding my head and holding his hand with both of my own. I hear a noise and look up to see Luke, his arms full of all of the things I told him to bring, staring over at us with a strange mixture of happiness and hurt on his face, and, ignoring his expression for now, gesture for him to come over. He sets the supplies on the small table next to my bed, and I immediately grab one of the glasses of water, read the label of the pill bottle in the first-aid kit to see that it’s essentially incredibly strong Tylenol, pour three into my hand, and give Jackson the pills one by one. After he’s swallowed all of them, I have Luke lift Jackson up so I can pull his tattered shirt off and attend to the wounds on his torso.
I inhale sharply when I see the numerous gashes and huge bruises covering his ribcage, but steel myself, grab one of the wet rags off of the table, and begin to gently wipe clean his cuts. I confirm grimly that Jackson has at least one broken rib, judging by the angle at which they’re sticking out of his chest and the groans of pain that escape him every time I touch his chest, but force myself to continue to clean the slashes in his skin.
After his gashes are clear of all initial dirt and grime, I get another washcloth, splash some rubbing alcohol onto it, grit my teeth in preparation for the screams I know I’m going to hear, and, as gently as I can, dab rubbing alcohol into his wounds to disinfect them. However, the only sound that comes out of Jackson is a small moan, and I look down at his face in surprise to see a drug-induced haze covering his eyes, and let a sigh of relief escape me as I know, even though he’s still conscious, that at least he’s not in unbearable pain now.
I disinfect and bandage all of the slashes on his chest and nearly begin to cry as I realize that this is all my fault, then look up to see Luke standing there and staring down at me with concern on his face. Not waiting for him to say anything, I take a step forward and fall into his arms, feeling him pull me closer to him and whisper comforting words into my ear. However, a sound from the bed pulls me away from Luke, and look over to see Jackson attempting to sit up and look at me.
“Lizzie…” Jackson begins in a low, pain-filled voice, and suddenly I remember that I promised Jackson he could hold me after I patched him up. I turn back to Luke, give him an apologetic look, and walk back over to the bed to have Jackson pull me down on top of him again.
I force myself to smile down at Jackson, even as I see Luke leave out of the corner of my eye with not-very-well-hidden hurt on his face, and murmur, “Well, you’ve got me Jackson. What now?”
In response, Jackson kisses me gently, wrapping his arms around me and pressing me to him, and, after a few moments, I kiss him back, thinking that he won’t remember any of this anyway. When he pulls away, he raises one hand and cups my chin, smiling at me as the haze covering his eyes becomes even thicker.
“You taste excellent,” he tells me quietly before kissing me again, now with more force and passion, and this time I don’t hesitate in kissing him back, wishing that something like this could happen under normal circumstances.
Jackson then kisses me – on the cheek, neck, forehead and lips – until he passes out because of the drugs, at which point I roll off of him so that I’m lying next to him with his arms still around me. I look over at him and smile slightly, gently touching his cheek and sighing.
It seems like the only times Jackson and I can have any romance is when one of us has just killed other children for the entertainment of millions of people or just cried for almost an hour straight or just went on a rampage or just nearly died, and I really, really wish that we could actually have a normal romantic relationship where disaster isn’t a catalyst for kissing. I think both of us deserve that, after all we’ve both been through, so why can’t we actually have it? Why isn’t it possible for me to share a passionate moment with Jackson when something disastrous hasn’t just happened? Other couples can do that, right?
But we’re not like other couples. According to humankind, neither one of us should exist, but we do, and neither one of us should be alive right now, but we are – although not for lack of trying on the humans’ parts – and neither one of us should be able to love, but we do, so, since we’re so much different, I guess our romance has to be different too.
And, of course, there are also the facts that Jackson loves another girl and I have to act in love with – and might not be acting anymore – another guy and that I’m going to die on national television sometime between two days and a month from now and that neither one of us can love the other as much as the other deserves and that I’m supposed to be distancing myself from everyone to make it easier to die and that both of us are so unbelievably lonely that we might end up taking our own lives soon. So I guess that both of us being in love with another person and one or both of us dying soon and both of us being unbearably lonely and me having to keep my distance from everyone makes for a distinctly different relationship, not the normal, happy one we’d like to have.
Suddenly I’m interrupted from my thoughts by movement to my left, and look over in confusion to see Jackson sitting up and looking over at me. “Lizzie,” he murmurs, clearly still under a drug-induced haze, and I smile at him, hoping that he at remembers something and has some idea about how he and I got here.
“Jackson, what are you doing awake?” I ask him concernedly, placing a hand on his forehead to make sure he doesn’t have a fever and feeling relieved when he’s healthily cool to the touch.
“You think loudly,” he replies quietly, staring into my eyes and raising a hand to touch my face gently. Then, without any warning, he rolls on top of me and begins to kiss me again, this time his hands snaking their way up into my shirt. My heart begins to pound and I force myself to blink away the memories of five days ago, then lay rigid underneath him and hope desperately that, so I don’t have to shove him off of me again, he stops before his hands get much higher. However, almost instantaneously, he starts in surprise and pushes himself up onto his elbows, then reaches down to my bared stomach and pulls something out of my shorts waistband.
After regarding the object in confusion for a few moments, he laughs slightly and mutters, “Pen,” as he tosses it carelessly onto the nightstand.
He then turns his gaze back onto me, looks down at my hiked-up shirt, and murmurs, realization flooding him even in his drugged state, “Oh God Lizzie, I’m so sorry,” at which point I push myself up to kiss him gently.
“Don’t be Jackson,” I tell him when I pull back, one of my hands caressing his cheek as the other pulls my shirt down. “You’ve got a lot of drugs in your system; you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
“I know perfectly well what I was going to do, Lizzie,” he answers evenly but not without a degree of anger, and I sigh inwardly, knowing that now he’s going to waste all of his energy being angry at himself. “I had every intention of taking your clothes off, then taking the rest of mine off, and then, well…” He looks away now, seeming more than a bit ashamed and angry.
“Well, Jackson, you didn’t, and that’s all that matters.” I give him a smile and cup my hand under his chin, forcing him to look at me and willing him with my eyes to understand and let go of it. “Now, where were we?” I say, then pull Jackson down on top of me and feel his arms wrap tightly around me as he kisses me with passion, and then I feel it again: that overwhelming hunger, and find myself kissing him back even more passionately, which causes him to smile through our kiss.
When he pulls back and rolls off of me, he looks over at me and grins at me, truly happy for once, and it almost kills me to know that tomorrow, Jackson isn’t going to remember any of this. “I want to hold you and kiss you and just look at you forever,” he murmurs, his gaze locked on mine as he raises one unsteady hand to gently touch my face and trace the outline of my features. “You are so beautiful and so wonderful and so amazing that I wonder how I could have ever fallen for Alexa with you around.”
Feeling my heart break into a million pieces as I know all of this is probably just the drugs talking, that he doesn’t mean any of it, I force myself to smile at him and say, “I know how. She’s beautiful and funny and intelligent and-”
Jackson cuts me off by saying, his voice tinged with amusement, “Oh, do you now? She doesn’t have curves like yours-” – he runs his hands over my hips – “-or a face like yours-” – he caresses my face gently again – “-or a brain like yours-” – he taps my head – “-or a taste as good as yours-” – he kisses my neck repeatedly, his lips working their way to mine – “-and she sure as hell doesn’t kiss as good as you do,” he murmurs right before he kisses me on the lips and rolls on top of me again, his hands running up and down my body as he kisses me fiercely, so fiercely that I think he might have forgotten the conversation we just had.
“She also doesn’t feel nearly as good as you do,” he adds when he pulls away for a moment, one of his hands resting on my hip and the other behind my head.
After giving me one last kiss that makes me want more, he rolls off of me and looks over at me, a reminiscent and bitter tone to his voice, “You’re just so much… better than she is, so why don’t I love you like I love her?” He gently strokes my cheek and I lean into his hand, desperately wishing that something like this could happen when he’s actually aware of what he’s doing. “Why don’t I love you?” he repeats, his gaze locked on mine in the low light.
“Jackson,” I begin, sighing greatly, “I ask myself the same question every time I see Luke, and I still don’t know the answer.” Pulling my gaze away and pursing my lips in thought, I add quietly, “I don’t know if I ever will.”
Jackson nods, then cups one large hand under my chin and pulls my head up, forcing me to look at him. “I love you some Lizzie, I do,” he murmurs, his hand rising to gently rest on my cheek. “But I don’t know if I could ever love you as much as I love Alexa, because I don’t know if I have much more heart to give away.”
And suddenly it strikes me: Jackson is to me as I am to Luke. The latter is perfect for the former, and the latter loves the former, but the former, though it wants to, doesn’t love the latter, or at least not as much as the latter loves the former.
“Jackson, you should get some sleep,” I tell him distantly, just wanting some time to think without any interruptions or distractions, as my mind wanders around and explores the exquisite irony of an analogy that explains my life – and the lives of Luke and Jackson – of late.
“So should you,” he replies, his eyes glued on my face. “Interviews are tomorrow, and One-Person Survival starts in two days. You need all the rest you can get.”
“It’s not like I’ll actually get any rest, not with my televised execution so close,” I shoot back, wishing that Jackson would just drop the topic, go to sleep, and give me time to think. However, instead of saying anything in response, he just rolls on top of me, gets his hips on top of mine so that my lower body is pinned, then holds my arms down with both of his.
“I’ll let you go if you say you’ll at least try to sleep,” he says, and I know that the drugs are talking now, since the Jackson I know wouldn’t do something like this… unless he was high. “Look at it this way Lizzie: you’re either spending the night under me or next to me, and I’d think next to me would be a whole hell of a lot more comfortable.”
I laugh weakly, make a feeble attempt to push Jackson off of me, and finally concede. “Fine, Jackson,” I sigh, and he rolls off of me without comment, even though I can practically feel the smirk on his face as he lays next to me with his arms around me.
“Good night Lizzie,” he murmurs after a few moments have passed in silence, gives me a gentle kiss and presses me to him, then lets out a long sigh and is instantly passed out.
I smile slightly as I raise a hand to touch his cheek, wondering why he can’t be this romantic and physical when he’s not full of drugs. Wiggling around a little bit, I get into a comfortable position, rest my head on his chest, and find myself falling asleep before I can get any thinking done.

I feel a pair of lips on the back of my neck and awake to see sunlight flooding the room and covering the white walls and tile. Rolling over, I find Jackson looking down at me with a small smile on his face and a peaceful, non-hazy look in his eyes.
“Good morning,” he murmurs, pulling me closer to him and giving me a gentle kiss on the lips. “God, I was right when I said you taste excellent,” he mutters happily when he pulls back, and suddenly warning bells sound in my head.
“You’re not supposed to remember that,” I say warily, my eyes glued on his face as I realize that, if he remembers that, he probably remembers everything from last night. “You were in a drug-induced haze, so you shouldn’t remember saying that. In fact, you shouldn’t remember anything from last night.”
“But I do.” He shrugs, and suddenly his expression becomes hard and angry, and his eyes lose their peaceful, contented look. “I remember rolling on top of you and wanting to take your clothes off against your will, then finding the pen in your shorts waistband, then you making up excuses for my behavior, then you pulling me down on top of you.” Here he stops, a longing look creeping across his face as he looks off into the distance for a moment. “And then you tried to come up with reasons why I loved Alexa instead of you, then I came up with reasons as to why I should love you, then I rolled on top of you and kissed you again, then I asked you, ‘Why don’t I love you?’ and you answered, ‘Jackson, I ask myself the same question every time I see Luke, and I still don’t know the answer,’ and then you added, ‘I don’t know if I ever will,’ then I told you I love you some, but I don’t know if I could ever love you like I love Alexa, because I don’t have much heart left to give away, then you told me that I needed to get some sleep, and I told you that you should get some too, but when you said you wouldn’t be able to with ‘your televised execution so close,’ I rolled on top of you and told you that I’d let you go if you agreed to at least try to sleep, then said that you were either spending the night under me or next to me, and that I think next to me would be a whole hell of a lot more comfortable, then you agreed to try to fall asleep, then I told you, ‘Good night,’ and kissed you and fell asleep almost instantly.” He pauses for a moment, looking off into the distance again, then drops his stare to my face again.
“You know, Lizzie, I think last night was the best night of my life, because I got to spend it with you,” he tells me quietly as he smiles at me, his gaze now locked on mine. After I give him a teasingly skeptical look, he adds, actually blushing a little, “Well, that and I got to spend a lot of it kissing you.” He then rolls on top of me again, clearly intending to do some more kissing, but instead groans in pain and rolls back off of me.
“Jackson, are you ok?” I ask him urgently, examining his ribcage to find that his bruises have grown and spread and changed colors overnight. Now the purples and blacks and blues have been replaced by greens and yellows, and, even though he’s still in pain, I sigh in relief when I see that his broken ribs have already mostly healed. Never underestimate the healing speed of an immortal body.
“Oh, I’m fine,” he answers, letting out a long breath as the pain passes. “Some kisses would definitely make me feel better though,” he adds, grinning mischievously at me.
I fake a huge sigh of resigning myself to some horrible fate, laugh briefly when I see the look Jackson’s giving me, then kiss him back as he wraps his arms around me and presses me against him. After a few kisses, he rolls on top of me again, either not noticing or not caring about the pain, and continues to kiss me, his hands moving farther down until they rest on my lower back above my hips. I feel that hunger overtake me again, and I press myself against him, wanting to live in this moment forever.
I’m a more than a little disconcerted when he pulls back and sits up for a moment, but smile and laugh when he bends down and whispers in my ear, “This is the best therapy session I’ve ever had.”
“Well, we’re not done yet, are we?” I ask him in response, and, when he shakes his head and grins, I pull him down on top of me again.
I feel his powerful arms lock around my back and his lips press against mine, and it’s almost like a reality check for me. While I’ve been thinking about dying and my crazy love triangle and the horrible state of my life, all Jackson’s been trying to do is keep me here with him. I’ve been so caught up lately in thinking about the future and what it holds that I haven’t truly realized the sheer physicality of Jackson and him lying next to me and kissing me until now, and I find it startling to see how much I’m physically attracted to him and how much he is to me. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it until now, but Jackson’s scent and feel and taste have gotten inside of me and become a necessity, something I have to have on a daily basis. Even though I’m supposed to be staying away from people to make it easier to die, I find it nice to feel that hunger rise up in me when I kiss Jackson and even when I just walk by him, because it means that I’m still me, that El Nieve hasn’t gotten inside of me and taken my individuality away from me yet.
However, the creak of a door opening breaks the charged moment, and Jackson immediately sits up and turns his back away from the door, clearly already thinking about the possibility and dangers of being discovered. My eyes shoot open and I sigh when I see who’s standing there as I realize that this makes everything a lot more complicated.
“Abby,” I begin, looking at her stunned expression and hoping desperately that I have enough speaking skills to explain this eloquently enough to at least keep some of her trust, “I lied to you, and I’m sorry for that. Jackson isn’t my brother.”
“Well I guess not,” she finally says after a few moments, her tone tinged with incredulity and a bitter amusement. Her deep blue gaze roves over the both of us, Jackson still partially sitting on top of me, and then resting on the gashes and bruises on Jackson’s chest, who is currently trying and mostly failing to give her his best smile. She tears her eyes away and looks back up at me as she tells me, “I always knew it, you know. Besides his eyes, he doesn’t look like you at all.”
I smile slightly at her response, despite the fact that I’m not relieved by Abby not seeming angry or sad, because I know that she could very well be internalizing it or wanting to talk to me when Jackson isn’t around. “How’d you get to be so smart Abby?” I ask her, hoping that my voice is as big-sister-like as it can possibly be.
“Noticing things doesn’t make me smart, Lizzie,” she replies, her unblinking stare locked on mine. “It just means I pay attention.” She looks back over at Jackson and her gaze again settles on the wounds on his chest. After a few silent seconds of her carefully considering Jackson’s injuries and me carefully considering this drastic change in Abby’s personality, she asks me, her eyes glued on mine again, “What is he then, if he’s not your brother?”
I glance over at Jackson, who has by this time gotten off of me and is sitting off to the side behind me, my eyes meeting his for a moment, then look back at Abby and answer completely truthfully, “I don’t know Abby. He’s somewhere between my best friend and my boyfriend.”
“Well, I’d say he’s closer to your boyfriend than your best friend,” she tells me, a smirk creeping across her face, and I grin at her, because I can tell by the change in tone and intensity that the Abby I know, the innocent little girl that reminds me so much of Timmy, has returned.
“Yeah, I think he is too.” I shoot Jackson a smile over my shoulder and feel his arms wrap their way and tighten around my waist.
“Well, Lizzie, I think you could definitely do a lot worse,” Abby begins, giving me a genuine grin as her gaze flickers in Jackson’s direction for a moment, “but you still have Luke, and you can’t say that you don’t love him at all, because I see the way you look at him, and it’s the way you looked at Jackson just now.” I shake my head ever so slightly, wanting desperately to deny what she’s saying but know that I can’t, and try to swallow to find that my throat’s sealed itself. I feel Jackson shift slightly in the way he’s holding me, and I know he wants me to deny it too, but I can’t and won’t lie to Abby, now that she has proof and that I’ve already broken her trust once, and I don’t think I can lie to myself much longer either.
So, instead of telling Abby she’s wrong and continuing the ruse that she saw right through the first time she laid eyes on me and that took me a month and five near-death experiences to see through, I just nod my head and say, “I know, Abby, but I don’t really know what he is to me either.” My gaze flickers to the painting on the wall of Luke and I smiling at each other, then drops to the little word printed underneath it: Always. That seems to be Luke’s personal battle cry as of late.
“Lizzie,” Jackson starts, shifting so that he can look me in the eye easily, “you don’t love him, do you?” I hear the apprehension and disbelief in Jackson’s voice and feel my heart crack into even more pieces, but know that, if I’m going to stop lying to everyone else, I need to stop lying to Jackson too.
“Jackson,” I murmur, raising a hand to touch his face gently and staring into his eyes, willing him to understand my situation, “I’m afraid I do, at least to some extent.”
He tears his gaze away from mine and I see the anger in his eyes, and I know I’ve really messed up this time. “You can’t Lizzie, you can’t love him! You love me, remember?” he exclaims, his eyes flashing dangerously and his voice full of pain.
“Jackson, I’m sorry,” I tell him finally, knowing that there’s nothing else I can say to him that would do any good, then sigh when he pulls his tattered, bloody shirt back on and leaves the room in silence. I then just sit there, shoulders slumped, and shake my head, knowing that it’s useless to go after him now; I have to wait till he’s calmed down enough to be rational.
“Why are you sorry that you love Luke?” Abby asks me as she approaches the bed and sits down next to me. She then looks over at me quizzically, and I wonder why she cares. Maybe it’s because she wants to see me with Luke, like she always thought would happen.
“Because I love Jackson, and, if I loved him enough, I shouldn’t and wouldn’t be able to love anyone else,” I reply quietly, my gaze on the white floor as an old phrase that I had always thought was stupid until now pops into my head. If you fall in love with two people, pick the second one, because if you’d loved the first one enough, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with the second.
“Well, maybe that means you’re supposed to be with Luke then,” Abby says quietly, and I smile grimly as my eyes fill up with tears that I refuse to let fall. She’s so predictable in what she says and does, being an eleven-year-old girl who still believes in happy endings.
“Maybe,” I answer, my voice cracking and trailing off into nothing, and I turn my head to the side to prevent Abby from seeing me teary-eyed.
I’m relieved when, after a few moments of silence between us, she rises to her feet and leaves the room without a word, and then just sit there, looking at the whiteness around me and thinking that this is all El Nieve’s and the Triple Crown’s fault, that none of this would have happened if Luke and I hadn’t been taken here to compete and then Jackson brought here for me by Max. I would still have a perfectly normal life in Elizabeth, with Luke just a distant friend and Jackson still somewhere between my best friend and my boyfriend, if it hadn’t been for El Nieve and its damn Triple Crown.
I’m torn from my thoughts by the door to my bedroom opening again, and I look up to see Luke standing in the doorway. After taking in my expression, he crosses the distance between him and me quickly, sits down next to me on the bed and wraps his arms around me to comfort me.
“Abby told me that you were crying,” he murmurs in my ear as he holds me against him, and I pull back for a moment to look up at him. What I see is the most selfless, loving person I’ve ever met, and I shake my head and sigh as I realize that he’s too good for me, that if he didn’t love me, he would hate me for the way I’ve used him.
That old word of wisdom pops into my head again, and this time I say it out loud. “‘If you fall in love with two people, pick the second one, because if you’d loved the first one enough, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with the second,’” I mutter, my eyes glued on Luke’s, and, knowing what I’m about to do is incredibly stupid from a logistical standpoint, I lean in and kiss him, then, in his shock, fall backwards onto the bed and pull him down on top of me. It takes him a few moments to realize exactly what’s happening, but, when he finally does, he tightens his grip on me and kisses me back gently but with so much passion that he makes Jackson and his intensity look casual by comparison.
After a little while, Luke pulls back, sits up and questions, his confused ice-blue gaze locked on mine, “What was that for?”
Smiling at his puzzlement, I sit up and give him a short kiss, then reply, “To be honest, I have no idea,” which causes him to grin too.
“You’ve never shown this much interest in me before,” he says quietly, his eyes glued on mine. “And before you say that you can change that if I’d like,” he adds, seeing me open my mouth with a teasing look in my eye, “I want to tell you that I like it. A lot.”
This time he’s the one who kisses me and pushes me down, and, as he pulls back for a moment before bending down and kissing my neck, I see something out of the corner of my eye: Abby standing in the doorway, watching us with a look of satisfaction on my face. She then sees me looking at her, and I give her a smile as she turns away and leaves the room, not really even caring that I just got bested by an eleven-year-old.
I then turn my attention back to Luke, who is currently kissing my cheek very slowly and deliberately, and find it surprising that I’m at least, if not more, physically attracted to Luke as I am to Jackson. It seems like his scent and feel and taste have gotten inside of me and become a necessity too, and that’s very interesting. I’ve only spent a lot of time around and truly gotten to know Luke in the last month, whereas I’ve spent time with Jackson every day for nearly a year, so it’s odd that I would have developed the same amount of physical attraction to Luke in a month as I have to Jackson in almost a year.
Luke’s lips meet mine as my eyes shoot open and I meet his gaze for one millisecond, which is long enough for me to see the passion and intensity in his stare. I then close my eyes and kiss him back, feeling that hunger – just as large as it was with Jackson – overtake me again as I wrap my arms around the back of his neck and pull him into me.
Luke pulls back, breathing heavily, and he sits up, gazing down at me with incredible surprise and pleasure on his face. “Lizzie,” he begins, his beautiful blue gaze locked on mine, “that should have been our first kiss.”
“I know,” I reply, a smile creeping across my face as his eyes twinkle down at me. Seized by a sudden silly idea, I reach up and mess up his hair, making it stick out wildly in different directions.
“What are you doing?” he asks confusedly after I’ve dropped my hand, and he attempts to look up at what I’ve done but instead just ends up looking goofy. After seeing me silently laughing at him, he stops, and waits expectantly for my answer.
“You have to have great sex hair if we’re going to keep up the ruse Luke,” I tell him, then start to giggle when I see his expression as he realizes what I’m suggesting.
To his credit, he just shakes his head, a look of shock that soon changes into amusement and exasperation on his face. “Lizzie, really?” he says, smiling despite himself, then bends down and pulls up my shirt just enough to show an inch of my stomach.
After answering, a huge grin on my face, his inquiry with “Really. I can be immature sometimes,” now it’s my turn to question, “What are you doing?” as I look down at my exposed front.
“Well, if I have sex hair, you at least get to have your shirt pulled up,” he answers, and, after recovering from my initial surprise at Luke returning my immaturity with more immaturity, I begin to laugh again.
“I thought you didn’t want anyone else to see my stomach,” I tell him after I’ve stopped chuckling enough to speak.
“I’ll make an exception, and give the world a gift for a little bit,” he replies quietly, and I see the intensity and desire in his eyes again as he looks down at my bared midriff. Then, without warning, he bends down and kisses my stomach gently, and I feel my heart begin to pound. I can almost feel the air around me crackle with emotion and passion, and I’m reminded that this moment certainly hasn’t lost its charge yet. However, what concerns me the most is that this is far more suggestive than anything Jackson did last night, and that Luke might want to actually earn his sex hair. But, thank God, he immediately sits back up without doing anything else, and I sigh audibly in relief, causing Luke to look at me quizzically.
“You alright?” he asks me, reaching out and gently touching my forearm. As soon as he sees my gaze dart down to my uncovered front, realization flashes through his eyes and he murmurs, “Oh, you thought I was going to…?”
I nod my head and give him a weak smile, still eying him warily, as not all of the emotion has left the air around us yet. “Lizzie, I promise I wasn’t,” he tells me urgently, taking my hand in both of his and begging me with my eyes to believe him. When I give him a skeptical look, he admits, “Well, since we’re both going to die soon, I’m not going to lie, I thought about it. But I definitely didn’t want to violate you, and I knew I probably would have, so I decided against it. I mean,” he begins, as I still have a mildly doubtful look on my face, “it wasn’t just because we’re both going to die; I wanted to – my God, I still want to – but I want you to want to too, otherwise it’d be me taking advantage of you.”
“Well, I admire your nobility and interest in my wants Luke,” I say to him, accompanying my words with a smile, “but, if it came down to it, I could very easily push you off of me, so you don’t really need to worry about me from that sense.”
However, instead of grinning back and returning the joke, Luke gets an odd, incredibly intense look in his eye and asks me rhetorically, “Oh, you could? Prove it.” He then lunges on me, positions his hips over mine so that my lower body is pinned, and holds my arms down with both of his.
“Luke, what in the hell are you doing?” I shoot back, wriggling and squirming to no avail. I stop fighting back and stare up at him, angry. What are he and his damn honor trying to prove now?
“I’m proving to you that you’re not stronger than I am, no matter how much you’d like to think you are,” he answers, his gaze locked on mine, and he pushes me into the bed harder, exhibiting his strength and control over me. He then bends down and whispers in my ear, “I could do whatever I wanted to you right now,” and I narrow my eyes at him when he sits back up. If he’s trying to creep me out and scare me a little, it’s definitely working.
“Luke, just get off of me,” I say, exasperated, but he doesn’t move. He just continues to stare down at me, his face unreadable, and I give him the most angry, annoyed gaze I can muster, thinking that the only thing he’s proving now is that he has a real talent for pissing me off.
Suddenly, without warning, he bends over me and kisses me almost violently, and I, not in the mood for this, begin to struggle again. I feel my heart rate skyrocket when I realize that, no matter how much I resist and fight back, I won’t be able to get him off of me from the position he has me pinned in. Through the kiss, I make muffled sounds of protest, and I breathe a sigh of relief when he finally pulls back. However, he instantly leans back in and continues to kiss me, this time with more force and passion, and, reading his emotions for a moment, see to my dismay that desire is what he’s feeling. I become even more concerned when he takes the time to move my arms and pin them behind my back in such a way that I can’t move them with his weight on top of me, and start bucking and screaming for all my might when his now-free hands touch the sliver of exposed skin on my stomach and begin to work their way up my shirt. This isn’t like what Jackson did, even the first time; no, this is so much worse, because now there’s no possibility to push Luke off of me, no way of stopping him or even an excuse for his behavior. However, the thing that scares me the most is that I don’t know if Luke will be able to stop himself, since, if he’s that full of desire, all of his logic and good nature might be thrown to the side long enough for him to do more than just feel me up.
However, I let out a huge sigh of relief when Luke sits up, breathing heavily, pulls his hands out from my shirt, and tells me, his gaze locked on mine with an intensity that isn’t completely free of lust, “You see what I mean?”
“Luke, for a second I thought you weren’t going to be able to stop,” I murmur, staring up at him and noting that his stare still is tinged with desire, and his eyes flash as he picks up on the hint of fear and hysteria in my tone.
“Oh my God Lizzie, I’m so sorry,” he begins, staring down at me with anger at himself tainting his expression. “I didn’t mean it, I really didn’t; I guess I just got… carried away.” His voice trails off into nothing and I sigh, thinking that it’d be a lot easier if he wasn’t so hard on himself all the time.
“Luke,” I start to say, trying to come up with some justification or explanation for his actions, trying to find some way to make it all into my fault and leave him blameless, but finding that I can’t, so I just close my mouth and stare up at him, shaking my head as I realize that I shouldn’t feel like I have to cover for him. I guess that’s another personality defect that I’m going to die with.
“Lizzie, I’m sorry,” he mutters dejectedly as he clambers off of me and off of the bed, his eyes on the ground and his head hung low.
“Luke,” I call after him, rising off of the bed, running after him and catching him before he can reach the door, then, knowing that this is, yet again, a completely idiotic action from a logistical standpoint, fling my arms around the back of his neck and kiss him.
For a millisecond he stands there in shock, but, his reaction time considerably improved from the last time I did something like this, he almost immediately wraps his arms tightly around me and kisses me back. He then, through our embrace, walks me back until I touch the wall, and begins to kiss me with an incredible amount of passion, which I would be glad of in any other situation. However, I know that he still is feeling a large amount of desire for me, and I know that this could turn ugly if I don’t break it up before the moment gets too charged. Pulling back, I get only a few short moments of free breathing time before Luke is trying to kiss me again, his eyes closed and his hands threatening to make their way up my shirt again. I quickly push him away from me and he opens his eyes, a confused expression on his face that is soon replaced by another apologetic and angry one.
“Oh God Lizzie, I’m sorry,” he says again, dropping his eyes to the white tile beneath our feet, prompting me to cup my hand under his chin and force him to look at me.
“Luke, I started it this time, so if anyone should be sorry, it’s me,” I tell him gently, my gaze locked on his, and, even though I know I’m pushing the limits of Luke’s self-control, kiss him lightly.
When I pull back, I look up at Luke to see him smiling down at me, his eyes twinkling as he finds my hands with his. “Lizzie, what has gotten into you?” he murmurs quietly, his gaze locked on mine. “This isn’t how you interact with me normally; this is how you treat Jackson, not me, and, while it’s a definite improvement, I don’t understand why. I know that I really shouldn’t try to understand why, that I should just take the fact that you seem incredibly enamored of kissing me now, but I can’t. I have to know why, Lizzie, because you give me too much to think about and puzzle over to begin with.”
“Luke,” I begin, placing a hand on his chest, “I don’t know why.” That’s not true, because I know exactly why: no matter how much I want to deny it for Jackson’s sake, I’m attracted to Luke, and I maybe even love him. Of course, I can’t tell Luke that, because, if I don’t actually love him, I’d just be breaking his heart even more.
“No, you know why,” Luke says quietly, his stare glued on mine, and instantly I feel my heart begin to pound. “You know, when it comes down to it, you’re not a very good liar Lizzie.” I sigh, realizing that there’s no getting out of this one.
“Luke…” I start, then shake my head as I find that I don’t know what to say. I seem to be having that issue a lot around Luke. “Luke,” I repeat, taking a deep breath and looking him straight in the eye, “I don’t know how I feel about you. I don’t know if I ever will actually know how I feel about you. But I do know that, on some level, I’m attracted to you. I just…” Here I stumble over my words, cursing the fact that my eloquence abandons me at the worst possible times. “I just… I didn’t want to tell you, because I don’t know if it’s serious or not, and, if it’s not but you think it is, I’ll just break your heart even more than I already have, and the one thing I don’t want to do ever again is hurt you, since I think I’ve already hurt you enough in this last month to count for five lifetimes.” I grin insincerely, not really amused but just feeling required to add a smile at my bad not-meant-to-be-a joke.
“Lizzie, it doesn’t matter that you’ve hurt me, because you haven’t done it on purpose.” Luke gently raises a hand and touches my cheek, giving me a genuine but sad smile. “Now that I’ve really gotten to know you, I know that you wouldn’t purposely hurt me unless you thought you had to, and I also know that’s not the case. So, it doesn’t hurt as much as it would if you actually meant to hurt me.”
“Luke, it still hurts you though. It doesn’t matter if I meant it or what connotation my actions carried, because they still hurt you. For us, for this situation, the ends completely disregard the means, because the ends are still the same, no matter what the means are.” I give him an almost defiant stare and shake my head, wishing that he could just feel sorry for himself and not argue against me and not make me feel even worse by doing so.
“Lizzie, you have it all backwards. To me, for you, the means completely disregard the ends. All that I care about, Lizzie, is why. I don’t really care what happens in the end, except to the extent that it affects me; no, what I really care about is why that thing happens, and that most certainly in our relationship. What I’m trying to say, Lizzie, is that the means completely disregard the ends.” Luke looks down at me, taking, as usual, my confrontational words and ugly glare in stride and completely ignoring them, and I grit my teeth. Why does he have to be so infuriatingly perfect?
“Luke, you’re the one who has it backwards. People and history don’t care about the means. They don’t care about what was supposed to happen, or what someone’s intentions were. No, all they care about is what actually happened. You see, Luke, history rends the question why completely obsolete, because it doesn’t bother to record why something happened. In the end, all it bothers to record is what happened. In twenty years, when we’re dead and more white people in this white city are watching a replay of our Triple Crown, they’re not going to bother to ask why I acted in love with you. All they’re going to bother to ask is what happened, how we died, who won. People and history don’t care about why, Luke. The nuances, subtleties, reasons, whys – they all get thrown out the window by time passing and people not caring. Luke, the only question that really matters in the end is what. What actually took place, what actually happened – those are things people and history care about, because those are the only things that actually affect this world and the people in it. You see, Luke, in the end, why doesn’t matter.” I take a deep breath, then stare up at Luke to see him with an amused look on his face. I give him a flat glare, thinking that he better have a good return argument if he’s going to act like my argument’s funny.
“Lizzie, what you don’t understand is that, without a why, there would be no what’s. People have to have reasons or motivations to do something, and if they don’t, then they’re not going to do it. I don’t care if history and people forget the why later on, because, in the beginning, all that matters is the why. Whys and reasons drive our universe, Lizzie. If there were no whys or reasons, nobody would do anything, and we’d still be living in caves and just living to survive. If it weren’t for whys, Lizzie, our society wouldn’t be as advanced or open or free as it is today. People and history may not care about or may forget the reasons, the whys, but the whys and the reasons are the only things that really matter, because the whys and reasons make the what’s happen and exist. Lizzie, in the end, the whys are far more important, because the whys cause the whats.” Luke meets my gaze calmly, his ice-blue eyes locked on mine as a small smile creeps across his face at my incoherent protests to his counterargument.
After a few moments of not being able to intelligently vocalize my thoughts, I finally sigh, give up and tell Luke, glowering, “Fine, you won this one,” at which point a larger grin breaks out on his face and he steps forward to kiss me on the forehead.
“Oh, Miss Lightning, you and your dynamic personality make my life very interesting,” he murmurs, smiling down at me, then wraps his arm around my waist and says, “Well, I smell bacon, and your stomach’s been growling for the last five minutes, so let’s go eat. Shall we?” He offers me his hand, the large, weathered palm up.
Like usual, I accept it, and give my typical response of, “We shall,” accompanied by a grin. We then cross the room hand-in-hand towards the door, but I stop abruptly just as we are about to leave, reach up to mess Luke’s hair up even more, and, with a smile on his face as he realizes what I’ve doing, he pulls my shirt up a little more.
“Well, I’d say we look… appropriate now,” Luke says quietly as he looks over me, a smile on his face, and pushes open the door to lead me out of my room and into the bright, cold whiteness of Section’s Eight floor. However, the joke has lost its amusement for me, because now the only thing I can think about is that, in a day, Luke, Abby and I will be forced to murder or be murdered again.

More added.

I pick at the minimal amount of food on my plate, my meager appetite being suddenly reduced to nothing. Deciding that I have to eat something – and seeing Abby’s, who’s waiting on us, eyes fixated on me – I grab a piece of toast and attempt to eat it, only to find that, in my state of mind, it has gained the flavor and consistency of a piece of carpet. However, I continue to nibble on the toast, since I know Abby will look away, which she does, and I then look around at the other people sitting around the table. Luke’s sitting next to me, with his arm around my waist and a peaceful, happy look on his face as he looks at me – he hasn’t taken his eyes off me yet – and the other male champion, Nick, is sitting directly across from me and gawking at me with an amazed, longing expression on his face. Catching a glimpse of him, I roll my eyes and immediately avert my gaze, not wanting to encourage any more staring. The girl, Sarah, is eating with her eyes glued on her plate, clearly trying to not think about the Triple Crown and the fact that, tomorrow, she – and the rest of us – will be out in the arena again. When my gaze settles on Max, I find that he’s doing peoplewatching too, and I smile slightly. Looking at him inconspicuously, I see that he appears to be watching Luke, and I turn my head ever so slightly to see that his stare is on Luke’s hair. Max’s eyes then flicker onto my wrinkled, pulled-up shirt, and I can tell that he’s taken the bait regarding what Luke and I did in my room earlier. I look over at Luke to see him staring down at me with a grin of his own on his face, our eyes meet, and we both start laughing, which greatly disconcerts Max.
He asks us, his gaze darting back and forth between us, “What’s so funny?” with a disgruntled, wary look on his face, as though he suspects that we’ve pranked him or something. Nick, whose expression has changed from awestruck to curious and slightly cautious, and Sarah are also both staring at us now, but Abby’s reaction is the most funny. She just rolls her eyes and continues to pick up dirty dishes, since she knows what we’re laughing about and that nothing actually happened, as I could hear her breathing and see her shadow under the door nearly the whole time Luke was in my room.
After I’ve stopped laughing enough to talk, I answer with a dismissive wave of my hand, “Oh, nothing Max. I’m just dating a really funny guy.” I then turn to Luke and smile at him to have him kiss me lightly on the lips.
“Oh yes, very funny,” Abby mutters under her breath as she approaches Luke and I, an incredibly sarcastic tone to her voice. My eyebrows shoot straight up, as I hadn’t know that Abby even knows what sarcasm is, and I get a huge grin as I watch her make her way towards us.
“What was that, Miss Williams?” I ask her, staring at her and wondering, if that’s what her original comment was, what her reply’s going to be.
“Oh, nothing,” Abby immediately answers, her tone bright and cheery as she gives me a beaming smile. Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes and shake my head at her, but a smile creeps across my face despite myself.
“Watch it Abby,” I tell as I elbow her playfully in the ribs after I’ve risen from my seat. Seeing her arms overflowing with plates and bowls, I grab my own, Luke’s and Nick’s, and mutter to her, “Here, I’ll help you with those.”
I’m about to follow Abby to the kitchens, my own arms now full of dishes, when suddenly a voice behind me pipes up, “You know, you don’t have to do that.” I whip around to find Nick staring at me with an almost insolent look on his face. “It’s just a waste of your time, since there are people for it – like her.” He jerks his head in Abby’s direction, who is currently giving him a glare eviler than I thought her to be able to produce. He then looks back at me expectantly, as though thinking I’m just going to say he’s right and set the dishes in my arms down immediately.
“You know what’s a waste of my time, Nick?” I ask him, staring him down with an icy golden gaze that I’ve perfected over the years and has been known to unhinge people with a single glance. When he shakes his head fearfully, his frightened eyes unwillingly locked on mine, I reply, “This conversation.” I shoot him one last cold look then follow after Abby, who is now beaming as though she’s just won the lottery.
As I’m leaving, I hear Luke say to the others, “And that, lady and gentlemen, is my lovely girlfriend Miss Lizzie Lightning.”

“Well, what do you think?” Mitchell asks me as he smiles down at me, gently touching my forearm and turning me so that I can see myself in the mirror.
I inhale sharply as I see myself, completely stunned by how amazing I look. Still going with the spark angle, Mitchell has now made me into an actual, live spark now. My dress is a golden-white color that shimmers and dances, the shadows drastically changing every time I move. The tiny yet incredibly luminescent light packs Mitchell has sewed into the dress that make it – and me – look like it’s glowing from the inside just add to the effect, and the golden-white accents of makeup that create incredible contrast and sharp angles on my face seal the theme.
Turning to look at Mitchell, I murmur, still partially stunned by my appearance, “It’s amazing. You’re amazing Mitchell.” Seized by a spur-of-the-moment idea, I wrap my arms around him and give him a warm hug, then, after a few moments of him standing there just radiating surprise, Mitchell wraps his arms around me and hugs me back.
After he’s pulled back, he says to me kindly, accompanying his words with a warm grin, “Well thank you Lizzie, but you’re the one who makes the look work. If your natural appearance wasn’t as stunning as it is, the whole dress design wouldn’t look right, and, of course, if your last name wasn’t Lightning, then I never would have come up with the spark theme to begin with.”
“Mitchell…” I begin, thinking of all the things that I want to say to him, all of the thanks I need to give to him, all of the confessions of fear and hurt and insincerity I think I owe him, but instead I just end up hugging him again and clinging to him desperately, not wanting to leave and face those scary white people and their scary white city again.
I feel his fingers brush my neck, and I glance down to see him fingering the wolf’s head pendant that Charlie gave me. “Remember your humanity, remember your individuality, remember your purpose. Remember this, Lizzie,” he tells me as his fingers curl around the wolf’s head, his brown eyes, usually friendly and welcoming, intense as they lock on mine.
“Mitchell, I could never forget myself,” I reply, returning his powerful gaze with one of my own. “No matter what happens, I will never take it off and I will never forget myself.” I close my fingers over his and give his hand a friendly squeeze.
It seems like no time at all until a soldier knocks at the door and tells me it’s time to go, at which point I hug Mitchell one last time. Then, with my head held high, my back straight and my mind determined, I follow the soldier out, knowing exactly who I am and that, no matter what happens, they will not break me.

I don’t pay attention during the other champions’ interviews, not even Abby’s, since it doesn’t really matter what they say anyways. All of El Nieve will be tuning in to hear Luke and me, the star-crossed lovers, and they don’t really care about anyone else, so I don’t either. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have listened even if someone else had cared about what the other champions were saying, because I’d be – and I am – too nervous and stressed out to pay attention. To add to the effect, Luke and I are going last and second-to-last, respectively, so I have to stay calm and sit through thirty other interviews, with the cameras invariably flashing back to me in the breaks between interviews, before I am finally called up to the stage.
Taking a deep breath, I smooth out my dress and give Luke a small smile as I rise to my feet, then cross the stage with my head held high. I hear murmurs starting in the crowd, undoubtedly caused by my dress, and can feel the millions of pairs of eyes on me – I look over to see Marshall Moore’s gaze fixated intensely on me – but the only pair of eyes I care about is Jackson’s golden ones, because I know that he will be watching just as intently as Marshall Moore is. Giving Puck my best fake smile, I sit down gracefully in the chair, adjust my dress ever so slightly, and look at him attentively, wondering idly what kind of questions he’s going to torture me with this time.
“So, Lizzie, I trust that you’ve been keeping busy these last few weeks?” Puck asks, that horrible eternal smile on his face, and I see his gaze flicker in Luke’s direction for a moment. Well, I guess I know now what the majority of El Nieve rumors have been about.
Playing along with the game and thinking that I can manipulate the crowd more easily if I act like the rumors are true, I reply, “Very busy,” and let my own eyes flit onto Luke, who now has a huge smile on his face as he realizes I’m playing everyone again, for a moment. I then find Max in the crowd to see him nod his head in approval and look back at Puck, thinking that sufficed as a very good answer.
“Well, word on the street is Luke isn’t the only guy in your life right now,” Puck begins as he leans toward me, his brown stare calculating and inquisitive as it locks on mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Luke sit up in attention, and I know he’s wondering about how rumors of Jackson and I got out as well. “Care to tell us a bit more about this blonde, golden-eyed mystery man in your life?”
I give Puck a friendly smile as I lie straight to his face, and very convincingly if I do say so myself, “Oh, Jackson’s just my brother.” Turning to Luke, I tell him with a joking air, even though we both know it’s a definite fabrication, “Don’t worry Luke, you don’t have any competition,” and the audience – as well as Luke – begins to laugh.
“Ok, good,” he says in reply, his eyes twinkling falsely, and I marvel at how Luke can act so amazingly well when it must be excruciatingly painful for him to play along.
“Well that clears things up.” Puck nods, his gaze still locked on mine. “So I take it that’s why you’ve been spending so much time with him?” He knows I’m lying, I could tell from a mile away, but he doesn’t say anything. Maybe it’s because he likes the act of deception as much as I hate it.
“Yeah. We’ve always been pretty close siblings.” I hear a small snort come from somewhere to my left, but I don’t even bother to look over, as I know its source: Abby and her knowledge that we’re a lot more than close siblings.
“Well that’s nice.” Puck still has taken his eyes off of mine, as apparently he’s still trying to figure me out, and I feel like I’m being x-rayed and examined from every angle. After a few moments of silence, Puck clears his throat and asks, “So, Lizzie, how will you and Luke face the challenge of One-Person Survival together?”
Instantly I freeze, not knowing what to do or say and even forgetting how to breathe for a few milliseconds. Searching the crowd desperately, I find Mitchell sitting almost directly behind Puck and take a few deep breaths to calm myself. “Well,” I begin, looking back at Puck, “I know at least one of us is going to die, and, if it comes down to a choice of which one of us is going to die, I want it to be me.” My eyes are now locked on Luke’s, and I can tell that he’s resignedly displeased with my answer; he knew I was going to answer with something like that, but he hoped I wouldn’t.
“That’s… very noble of you,” Puck tells me, his eyes full of tears. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief to dab at his eyes, and takes a few moments to collect himself before asking me another question; his remarkable acting makes me wonder if he was perhaps in a Triple Crown himself. “Well, I would like to personally congratulate you again on winning Hand-to-Hand Combat and would like to tell you that you have, yet again, taken the cake for wardrobe.”
As soon as those words are out of Puck’s mouth, I feel a strange, synthetic warmth covering me, and I look down to see that I’m on fire. Not literally of course – it’s the man-made stuff Mitchell showed me a while back – but it still gives everyone in the arena – including me – quite a shock.
“Now I know you’ve taken the cake!” Puck exclaims after he’s recovered from this surprise enough to speak. “I think Mitchell deserves a big pat on the back for this one!” Puck gestures to Mitchell and everyone in the arena rises to their feet to give him a round of applause.
However, even as I clap, my heart is filled with dread because I know that Mitchell has taken a big leap towards his doom. He’s turned me from a spark into a flame, and I know this transformation – and the message Mitchell’s sending – will not be lost on Rush.
But, instead of letting any of the things running through my head show, I merely give Puck a smile and nod my head in Mitchell’s direction, playing along with the dangerous game Mitchell has chosen to involve himself with. After the crowd has calmed down enough for Puck to talk, he says to me, “Lizzie, rumor has it that you can sing. Would you care to demonstrate?”
My breath catches in my throat in shock and anger, and I shoot Max a look. He must have told someone on the Triple Crown committee about this, because there’s no other way for them to have found out. My singing is one of the many things I wanted to keep private and one of the few I thought I actually could, and I don’t want El Nieve to ruin it, like the city has with so many other things for me. So I want to scream at the top of my lungs, “No!” and storm off the stage and not let this white city and its white people corrupt singing for me too, but I can’t do that, so I force a smile onto my face and answer, gritting my teeth at the abhorrent, awful lie the whole time, “Sure.” Rising to my feet, I accept the microphone from Puck and make myself take a few deep breaths, knowing that it wouldn’t help at all if I passed out onstage. Not caring if the song’s political or if Rush is going to hate it, I begin to sing, my voice gaining strength as I hear the song’s melody echo around in my head, “If it doesn’t break/If it doesn’t break/If it doesn’t break/If it doesn’t break your heart it isn’t love/Nah, if it doesn’t break your heart it’s not enough/It’s when you’re breaking down with your insides coming out/That’s when you find out what your heart is made of/And you haven’t lost me yet/No, you haven’t lost me yet/I'll sing until my heart caves in/No, you haven't lost me yet/‘Cause you haven't lost me yet.” I pause for a moment before adding, “From the song Yet, by Switchfoot.” I then hand a completely stunned Puck his microphone back and give the silent crowd one last final smile before walking off the stage to an eruption of applause and cheers.
I feel Luke’s eyes on me as I sit down in my seat off to the side of the stage, and turn to see him staring at me with an utterly shocked look on his face. “That was…” he begins, absolutely blown away, “incredible.” He shakes his head slightly in amazement, his gaze locked on mine the whole time. “Why did you never tell me that you were that good? I mean, that was just… incredible.”
He squeezes my forearm gently, giving me a kind smile, then, when his name is called, he leans over, kisses me lightly on the lips, and walks up to the stage, his eyes immediately finding mine as soon as he’s seated.
“Well, Mr. Gates, it’s nice to see you and Miss Lightning together,” Puck tells Luke, and Luke nods his head in agreement, smiling slightly as his gaze darts onto me for a moment.
“It’s great to be with her,” Luke replies, his ice-blue stare meeting Puck’s, and I realize how truly dashing and gentlemanly Luke looks in the black suit with hints of gold that Mitchell has him wearing.
“So, I think you knew I was going to ask you this from the moment Lizzie opened her mouth,” Puck begins, turning to me momentarily and smiling slightly, “but what do you think of Lizzie’s comment about that she would rather die than have you die?” Puck’s expectant gaze is now back on Luke as he waits for Luke to respond.
“I think – no, I know – that I couldn’t let her do that,” Luke murmurs, his eyes flickering towards me and back onto Puck. “I don’t think I could bear seeing her die in front of me, even if I knew that it wasn’t permanent and that she would be perfectly fine in the end, because I love her too much to let her go, even if only for a little bit.” I feel the iron claws of Luke’s voice sink into my heart and rip open huge gashes, and I sigh, wishing desperately that I didn’t have to feel like this every time he opened his mouth.
I see Puck getting teary-eyed again, and, even in my hurt mood, can’t help but roll my eyes at his over-the-top dramatics. It then occurs to me that he probably likes this, the talking and the acting and the spotlight, and I realize that Puck isn’t so much an interviewer as an actor, a comedian, a public figure that everyone loves. In fact, the fame and his love of acting are probably, even hopefully, the only things that make this job bearable for him. I know Puck’s smart enough and human enough to recognize that the children he interviews are real humans being forced to kill other humans for the entertainment of millions of people, so I’d like to think that Puck feels something for them. I’d like to think that he knows how sick and twisted the system is, and the only reason he works with the system is because he likes acting and he likes fame, not because he actually likes the Triple Crown. Of course, I could be completely off-base and Puck could just be another numb, brainwashed, almost inhuman citizen of El Nieve, but I don’t believe that he is, and generally my judgments of people are right.
After Puck has dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief and taken a few deep breaths to calm himself down, he tells Luke, a tremor of emotion running through his voice, “You are quite the gentleman, Mr. Gates. Lizzie is very lucky to have you.”
At Puck’s comment, I feel the remnants of my bleeding and torn heart free-fall out of my chest to settle somewhere in between my hips, and I sigh. I want to bury my face in my hands and cry, since I know how lucky I am to have Luke but I don’t even love him, or at least not as much as he deserves.
“Puck,” Luke begins, shaking his head and shooting me a warm glance and a furtive grin, “you’ve got it backwards. I’m the one who’s lucky to have her. She’s become my whole world, my reason to live, the thing that keeps me going from day to day, and I know that’s because she’s so wonderful and amazing that I just couldn’t help falling in love with her the first time I laid eyes on her.” His eyes are locked on mine, and he gives me an incredibly kind and loving smile that causes his eyes to twinkle.
Now what’s left of my heart is falling again to stop somewhere around my ankles, and I take a few deep breaths and clench and unclench my fists to calm myself down and prevent myself from breaking down and bawling. I then force myself to give Luke a smile in return and swallow a few times, trying to keep the rising tide of emotions boiling up inside of me from exploding out of me in one huge outburst.
Here Puck starts to cry – and I think these tears might actually be real – and a torrent of water begins to stream down his face and onto his perfect navy-blue suit. It takes a few minutes – during which time Marshall Moore is constantly winking at me and Luke is giving me his most dashing grin – to calm Puck down this time, and, when he’s finally situated with his handkerchief at the ready and his eyes, for the moment, clear of tears, he asks Luke, “Well, I think we’re almost out of time, so is there anything else you’d like to say, Mr. Gates?”
“There is, actually. It’s more of a question, but I figure that’s not going to be an issue,” Luke replies, and all of a sudden I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I think – no, I know – that whatever Luke’s going to say is not going to be good, or at least it’s going to affect me majorly.
Puck then nods for Luke to continue, and, like I thought he would, Luke walks over to me and helps me to my feet, a warm, caring smile on his face that can’t quite mask the hurt and longing in his eyes. “Lizzie,” Luke starts, his stunning ice-blue gaze locked on mine, “you’re it for me. You’re the love of my life, my soul mate if you will, and I know for certain three things about you and me. Number one, I want to spend the rest of my life with you; number two, I could never love anyone else as much as I love you; and number three, I hope to God that you say yes to what I’m about to ask you.” Luke pulls a small velvet box out of his pocket, gets down on one knee, offers me the beautiful silver-and-gold ring nestled in the red velvet of the now-opened box, and asks me, “Lizzie Lightning, will you marry me?”

More added.

For a few milliseconds I can’t breathe, much less think or vocalize a response. As soon as I’ve recovered enough to move, my eyes instantly find Max in the crowd, as I know this has to be his idea, and I see him waving his hand for me to continue and say yes. With my gaze darting back and forth between Max and Luke, I swallow and open my mouth, knowing that I have to say yes but that I truly can’t. I can’t marry Luke, not when it will hurt him every minute of every day to know that it’s all a lie and that I don’t mean it, but I have to, because I can’t cause my family and friends’ deaths by turning him down and reinforcing the idea that I am rebellious, not in love. I also know that it would break Luke’s heart even more than I already have to say no, and, even though I’m going to hurt him either way, I have to say yes, because at least no one dies then.
Giving Luke my best fake smile, I force myself to tell him, “Of course,” and look down as Luke, now with a beaming grin on his face that doesn’t do anything to hide the hurt in his eyes, slips the ring onto the ring finger of my right hand then kisses me passionately, his arms wrapping and tightening around me.
When he pulls back and we stare into each other’s eyes, Luke with weariness in his stare and me with calculation in mine, I ask him in a low, expressionless, quick voice almost without moving my lips, “What are you doing?”
He replies in the same manner, “Keeping us alive,” and puts on his best fake grin as he looks down at me, clearly trying to give the illusion of a happy, newly-engaged couple.
“We’re supposed to be dying, remember?” I murmur in response, also giving my best false smile to cover up our conversation.
“Change of plans. Max’s orders,” he tells me quickly, his gaze locked on mine. After a few moments of silence between us, he adds quietly, with tone and expression in his voice now, “I’m sorry.”
I snort slightly and, as I turn to face the screaming crowd, mutter sarcastically under my breath, “Because you have something to be sorry about.”
As Luke and I walk off of the stage hand-in-hand, giving plenty of fake grins and false laughs, I feel something run full-force into me at about stomach level and don’t even have to look down or hear the girlish squeals of delight to know it’s Abby.
Looking down to find her tiny, blond form clinging to my abdomen, I exclaim, with more than a tint of amusement to my voice, “You’re not even the one who got engaged!”
“Lizzie, you’re getting married, you’re getting married!” Abby screams, simultaneously jumping up and down in excitement and hugging me tightly. She then turns to Luke, with a gravely serious look on her tiny angelic face, and tells him, “You better treat her well.”
Luke laughs sincerely as looks down at me with a mix of caring and pain in his eyes, and he replies, “Abby, the only thing I have going for me is that I treat her well, so trust me, I’m not going to give up on that anytime soon.” He leans in and gently kisses me on the cheek, then wraps his arm around me and pulls me – with Abby still hanging onto my stomach – to him as my heart falls out of my chest and settles somewhere around my hips in guilt at knowing that I don’t feel the same way about Luke that he does about me.
Abby murmurs, tears actually welling up in her eyes, “You guys are such a perfect couple!” and I glance up at Luke and back down at Abby. If she knew the truth...
I can tell Luke’s thinking the same thing, but – thank God – he has the sense to cover for us by agreeing, “Well, she’s perfect for me. I don’t know if I’m perfect for her though.” My heart then free-falls some more to stop at about my knees, and I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down before giving Luke a perfect fake smile.
“Oh, trust me Luke,” I begin, reaching my right hand – the one with the ring on it – up to gently touch Luke’s cheek, “you’re absolutely perfect for me.” Even though I’m not lying, I still feel bad because I know I’m leading Luke on but that I have to so that I’m not responsible for the deaths of my family and friends as well.
I see that look in Luke’s eyes, the one that he had on the rooftop the night before Hand-to-Hand, and I know what he’s going to do before he even does it. Closing my eyes, I feel Luke’s lips against mine and kiss him back gently, hearing Abby say, “Aaaw!” as she hugs me tighter and loses herself in daydreams of true love. If she knew the truth about Luke and I, that it’s all an act for me but that it’s not for Luke, she’d probably hate me for breaking his heart and not loving him back.
When Luke pulls back and smiles down at me, I listen to Abby make a sound in her throat and I look down questioningly to see her staring up at me with happiness and maybe even vindication in her gaze. Giving me a smile of her own, she then tells me, “I knew you’d make the right choice.”
My eyes shoot open in surprise and, even though I think I know what she’s talking about, I ask her anyways, pulling away from Luke and squatting down to look Abby in the eye, “What do you mean?”
“You made the right choice,” she repeats, her gaze flitting between Luke and me, and now I know exactly what she’s talking about. “Luke’s kinder, funnier, gentler, handsomer and just better for you than Jackson,” she adds, and I feel my heart drop all the way out of my body and onto the floor.
“Abby,” I begin quietly, meeting her beautiful dark blue gaze and knowing that I’m telling the truth, even if the circumstances aren’t what Abby thinks they are, “I never had a choice at all.” I then rise to my feet, find Luke’s hand with one of my own, and walk off with him to leave a very happy and completely unknowing Abby behind.

“Tomorrow we’re dead,” I say quietly, rolling over to look at Luke’s face to find it made silver by the wave of moonlight creeping through the window.
“We were dead from the moment we set foot in this place,” Luke replies quietly, finding my hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. He then smiles at me and reaches his free hand up to caress my cheek. “But I will still always be there,” he whispers, his gaze locked on mine, and leans in to kiss me passionately, simultaneously pulling me to him and scooting towards me. He pulls back for a moment and murmurs, his eyes searching my face, “You are so beautiful,” and kisses me again, this time rolling on top of me and running his hands down my back until they reach the inch-wide sliver of exposed skin between the bottom of shirt and the top of my shorts.
I pull back and push Luke off of me for a moment, looking up at him apprehensively and almost fearfully as I realize that we could be very close to a repeat of earlier, except that his hands could go higher up my shirt this time.
However, instead of apologizing or saying anything, Luke just leans back and kisses my neck, his hands fortunately staying exactly where they are. I’m still kind of uncomfortable with his hands being there to begin with though, so I push him off of me again and tell him quickly, before he can kiss me again, “I’m going up to the roof.” I then slide out from under him, rise to my feet and head towards the door.
When I’m in the doorway, I turn around to see him nod and he catches my gaze for a moment, and he rises to his feet as well and says, “I’m going with you.”
I wait for him and start walking again when I feel his arm wrap around my waist, unfortunately right around the exposed skin of my back and side, but thankfully not any lower. An awkward silence overtakes the air around us as we stand in the elevator together, and I keep my gaze focused on the floor buttons to prevent from screaming out loud because of the hysteria at truly realizing what it means to be getting married for survival that has suddenly taken over me. Clenching my fists, I twist the engagement ring on my finger agitatedly and wish that I could throw it into a furnace and watch it melt into a puddle of metal, or throw it off a fifty-story building and never see it again, or give it back to Luke without a word. Swallowing and gritting my teeth, I look over at Luke to see him watching me concernedly, and quickly avert my gaze. The last thing I want to do right now is get asked and have to answer questions about if I’m ok.
Thankfully Luke has enough tact to see that I’m distressed and keeps his mouth shut, only saying quietly, “We’re here,” when the elevator door opens to let us out onto the roof.
Without saying anything – because I don’t trust myself to say anything – I cross over to the two chairs left from our last visit up here, even though I could have sworn that Luke and I left three up here, and collapse into one, biting my lip and forcing myself not to start screaming in anger and sadness and desperation.
“Lizzie,” Luke begins quietly, and I look over to see him staring at me with a look of apprehensive care in his eyes, “I know you’re upset, and that you’d probably prefer I didn’t ask why, but I have to, I just have to. So, Lizzie, why are you nearly about to scream?”
“Because I’ve realized that I have a paradoxical problem,” I respond quietly, dropping my eyes on the white concrete beneath my feet and searching the swirling patterns of ridges and shadows. I glance up for a moment to see Luke studying me curiously and expectantly, then swallow, look back down at the whiteness under me and continue.
“I have to marry you to save my family and friends and you and maybe even myself, but I can’t marry you because I can’t bear to be reminded every minute of every day by looking down at my hand that it’s all a lie, that I don’t mean it and you do. I think that I could bear everything else, that I could bear the Triple Crown and the situation with Jackson even, if I loved you anywhere near as much as you love me, but I don’t, so everything is made infinitely more painful,” My voice cracks and trails off into nothingness and I shake my head and sigh.
“You know, Lizzie, I wish I didn’t have to marry right now too,” Luke tells me, and something in his voice makes me look up at him and meet his gaze. He purses his lips in thought and takes a few moments to gather himself before adding, “I wanted all of this in the end – the relationship, the proposal on national television, you saying yes, basically just you – but I didn’t want it like this, with you not meaning it.” He pauses to take a deep breath, and I feel my heart shatter into a million pieces.
“You know, when I first saw you, I told myself that I would not have a relationship with you – even if you wanted one with me – if you didn’t mean it, if I was just going to be another one of you for-show boyfriends, but, of course, I don’t have much of a say in that now.” He laughs bitterly, and I swallow with difficulty. This is the exact thing I was trying to avoid and prevent from happening.
“But I’m going to marry you, I know that, because I have to keep you safe, and keeping you safe has been my ultimate goal this whole Triple Crown, although you seem determined to make that goal unattainable.” Now it’s my turn to laugh insincerely, and I glance up again to see Luke staring over at me with the hint of a sad smile on his face.
“I hate it when you laugh like that,” he murmurs, his eyes locked on mine, “because it means that something awful and not funny at all has just been said. It also means,” he adds, “that you’re not happy, and that’s all I want you to be, happy.”
After a few moments of me saying nothing due to preventing tears from running down my cheeks, he leans over, finds my right hand with one of his own, kisses me on the cheek and whispers in my ear, “I love you, Lizzie Lightning.” Suddenly I feel a tugging feeling and look down in surprise to see Luke taking the engagement ring off of my right ring finger.
“Could we maybe pretend, for even just a couple seconds, that this whole last month never happened?” Luke asks me quietly, and I nod my head wordlessly in a definite yes. Luke then gives me a real smile and pulls my chair closer to his, letting go of me completely when I’m right next to him.
After a few moments of silence, Luke holds his hand out to me and says, “Hi, my name’s Luke. I know yours is Lizzie, and I think we’ve talked some at school.”
I accept his hand and shake it, smiling despite myself at the incredulity of what we’re doing. “Well, it’s nice to see you Luke. You know, I think we even did a project together and I had to go over to your house once.”
“Oh, did we?” Luke’s eyes become falsely distant, and I can tell very clearly that he’s faking not to remember, because that’s what he would do if this last month had never happened and we were back in our own dimension. “I can’t remember,” he adds for effect, and I nearly burst out laughing my fake laugh again since it’s such a blatant lie. I know very well that every moment we’ve ever spent in each other’s company is imprinted on his mind permanently, as I know that he would never let himself forget anything about me, even the tiniest, most insignificant details, especially if it involved him.
Shaking my head, I murmur quietly, deciding that there’s no point in acting anymore, “This is so feeble, so obviously a lie, that’s it not even worth pretending.” I sigh and slide down in my chair, looking out across the city and wishing I could blot the sight out of my mind.
“I know,” Luke replies quietly, his eyes locked on mine as he looks over at me, “but it’s the best we can do, and I think it’s better than not pretending at all.” He then finds my hand, gives it a gentle squeeze and is clearly about to slip the engagement ring back on my finger.
“Luke,” I begin quickly and not without a note of desperation, causing him to pause and look up at me, “could I keep the ring off for a little while longer, please?” I meet his gaze and hope – for once in my life – that the hopelessness and despair I’m feeling comes through in my voice.
“Of course,” he tells me quietly in reply, not surprised at my request at all, and slips the ring back into his pocket. We then just sit in silence for a few moments, me staring out into the blackness dotted with lights and Luke gazing at me, until he pipes up and says, staring over at me, “You know, when I first came up with the star-crossed lovers idea, I thought that somehow it would make you fall in love with me, and everything would turn out fine, and we would both get to go home. Then I found out the star-crossed lovers thing made you angry, not lovestruck, and I killed someone, and now I know neither one of those fantasies will come true.” He pauses for a moment to regard the city, still partially white even in the darkness, sprawling out in front of him, and continues, “I do, however irrational it may be, hope with all of my heart every moment of every day that you’ll just fall in love with me, and that we’ll get to go home and spend the rest of our lives together, and that all of those fantasies I had about you and I will come true.” He purses his lips in thought again, and my heart goes out to him, even though tomorrow I’ll have to be killing him to stay alive myself.
“Why do you think you still hope for all those things, even though it is completely irrational?” I feel myself about to add, “and none of those things will never happen,” and decide not to. After all, one of them might actually be in the process of happening right now.
“I guess...” he begins, searching the landscape in front of him with a distant look in his eyes. “I guess...” he says again, and looks up at me to capture my gaze with his own, “I guess because I have nothing else to hope for, and I need something keep me going long enough to die at the right time.” I give a brief, grim smile here, as I know exactly where he’s coming from, and feel even more sympathy for him.
“Luke, I know what you mean,” I tell him quietly, meeting his stare evenly and forcing myself not to pull away as I see the hurt in his eyes. “Except I cling to the ideas that you, Abby and I are all going to come out of this alive, and that, when you and I go home, everything will the same as it was before we went here, and I’ll get to just forget everything that happened here and pretend that the Triple Crown doesn’t exist and was never part of my life.” I pause, not knowing if I want to continue but also realizing that part of me has to continue. “I also think about seeing my brothers win Heismans, and then seeing Jackson win a Heisman, and then maybe winning one myself, and then seeing my little brother Timmy grow up into a man, and that helps keep me going too.” I glance over to see Luke nodding, a slight smile on his face, and I’m instantly confused. Why is Luke happy? “Why are you...?” I ask him, gesturing in the direction of his grin, and it immediately gets bigger.
“Because I’m happy to see how much you care about them, your friends and family, and because I’d like to think that, even if you cared about me only a hundredth as much as you care about Jackson, you care about me to some extent.” He gazes into my eyes as he finds my hand with one of his own and gives it a gentle squeeze. My heart begins to pound when I see the desire and longing in his eyes and I take a few deep breaths, not allowing myself to pull away for fear of breaking the moment and the honesty that we’re both having with each other. Before I can do anything else or say anything in response, Luke has leaned in and is kissing me slowly and deliberately on the lips.
My first instinct is to push him away and exclaim, “Luke!” and tell him that he should at least give some warning before he does something like that. However, much to my surprise considering all of the things that have just been said and how much my heart aches right now, I’m enjoying it, and find myself locking my arms around the back of his neck and pulling him into me. Luke then draws back and looks down at me with happiness and an even larger amount of desire in his eyes as a small smile flits across his face.
“You know, Miss Lightning, for all that you don’t love me, you sure are an excellent kisser,” Luke tells me, smirking, and kisses me again, this time with more force and passion. I feel his hands work their way down my back to rest on the inch-wide sliver of exposed skin between my shorts and my shirt, and I think that it doesn’t matter if his hands go up my shirt, that it doesn’t matter if he finally earns his sex hair, because we’re dead anyways, because it doesn’t matter what a pair of corpses do because they won’t live long enough to do it again. His hands begin to move up my shirt again and I smile bitterly and defiantly through our kiss, almost hoping that he does a lot more than feel me up. However, as his hands are resting on my upper abdomen, he is suddenly pulled off of me violently and I look up to see a snarling yet familiar rage-filled figure.
Jackson.

“Jackson, what are you doing?!” I yell at the top of my lungs, throwing myself on top of him and trying to stop him from hitting Luke again, but it does no use and I just get pushed away gruffly without Jackson even turning to look at me.
“You don’t touch her like that, you don’t touch her like that!” Jackson snarls as he repeatedly punches Luke in the face, and I can tell – which only worries me more – from his tone of voice and the waves of anger just radiating off of him that he’s very close to, if not already having, a rampage again.
“Jackson, Jackson!” I scream, throwing myself on top of him again and this time succeeding in drawing his attention away from Luke. Dropping Luke’s lifeless body to the ground and turning away from it, Jackson pulls me off of his back to pin me against the hard white ground, his hands on my shoulders and a mosaic of emotions swirling through his eyes.
“Lizzie, Lizzie!” he mocks, pure rage and hatred taking over his expression now, and I feel a shot of pure fear course through me as I realize that he could very well want to kill me right now and, if he does, even with my shapeshifting and element powers, I won’t be able to stop him because he’s just as strong as I am. “You betrayed me Lizzie, you betrayed me for him!” he shouts, shaking me violently. “God damn it, you’re getting married to him! You should be marrying me, Lizzie, not him!” Jackson stops yelling to take a few deep breaths and seems to regain a little sanity, as some of the loathing and anger has left his eyes now, but he still hasn’t made any indication of getting off of me. “You know, Lizzie,” Jackson begins in a normal voice, his eyes – that still have rage and hatred hiding in them – locked on mine, “I think I’ve finally realized how Alexa could be it for Gwillan and it for me, when almost always only one person is it for one person. It’s because she’s not it for me, Lizzie,” he murmurs, removing one hand off of my shoulder and gently reaching up to caress my cheek, and I feel my heart fall about fifty stories, because I know exactly where he’s going with this. “Lizzie, you’re it for me,” he whispers, his eyes now full of hope and something else, that odd look Luke gets in his eyes sometimes when he’s talking about me or talking to me, and I begin to nearly hyperventilate. This is the worst possible thing that could have happened
“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening,” I tell myself out loud, feeling my chest rise and fall at an unnaturally fast rate, and look up at Jackson, desperately hoping against all logic that this is just some kind of sick joke and that Jackson doesn’t mean a single thing he’s said in the last few minutes and that Luke’s perfectly fine and that Jackson didn’t actually hurt him.
However, Jackson seems to not notice what I say and says quietly, staring down at me with incredible intensity and lust, “I want you, Lizzie Lightning. I want you so bad that it hurts,” then leans in and kisses me surprisingly gently. Removing his hands from my shoulders, he wraps his arms around me tightly and I get the feeling that, if he could, he’d never let me go. His lips find the sensitive skin of my neck and I inhale sharply, although that’s mostly because his hands are now creeping up my shirt and tickling my stomach.
All of a sudden I hear a clatter, and Jackson looks up to see Max running at him with anger and distaste on his face. Max then picks Jackson clean up off of me, hisses at him, “That’s not how you treat a lady,” and punches him straight in the face, so hard that Jackson is immediately knocked unconscious by the force of Max’s fist.
Not bothering to thank Max or check on Jackson, I instantly jump to my feet and run to where Luke is laying facedown in a puddle of his own blood. My heart is threatening to leap out of my chest as I pull him over, onto his back, and feel his neck for a pulse. Although it’s unlikely that Jackson could have killed Luke with a few punches, I know how powerful Jackson is, so if anyone could kill a person with a few punches, it’d be Jackson. However, there is a pulse, faint and flighty but there, and I let out a huge sigh of relief as I bend over Luke and hug him, thanking God a million times over that Luke isn’t dead.
Max comes up behind me and places one huge hand on my shoulder, causing me to turn around in surprise and wariness, as he asks me gently and concernedly, “Are you alright?” When I nod my head yes in response, he questions, gesturing to Luke, “Is he alright?” and I shake my head no, as I still don’t trust myself to speak.
“Lizzie, you have to heal him,” Max tells me urgently, his fiery, worried gaze locked on mine. “You have to give him some of your energy, otherwise he could die!” I see the fear in Max’s eyes and know that, if he’s scared for Luke’s life, then I should be to.
Nodding my head to show that I understand, I move so that I am directly over Luke and kneel down on top of him, placing both hands over his heart. I then begin to force some of the energy out of my body and into Luke’s through my hands, and, even as I get so lightheaded and exhausted that I’m about to fall over, I let out a small cheer at feeling Luke’s heart beat return to normal and seeing the bruises and cuts on his face disappear. In my dreamlike state of fatigue, I glance over to see Max dragging Jackson to his feet – Jackson heals incredibly quickly on his own, so he doesn’t need one of us to heal him – and marching him towards the elevator while giving him an incredibly stern talking-to, and for some reason this strikes me as funny, and I burst out laughing. However, the force of my chest vibrating is too much for me to hold, and I instantly fall forward onto Luke, and, even before I can get into a different position, find myself drifting off to sleep.

“Lizzie, Lizzie,” I hear a voice calling gently, and, not very happy at being pulled from happy dreams of seeing my family again, awake grumpily and rub my eyes to see who has ruined my fantasy.
Much to my surprise, I am actually not on a bed, but in someone’s arms, and glance all around me to find that I am on a blindingly white elevator that’s going down. Looking up, I find Jackson’s intensely handsome smiling face looking down at me, and instantly I begin to breathe quickly as the memories of what happened last night flood my mind. Not wanting to be touched by Jackson, I roll out of his arms onto the cold white tile, but ignore the pain and immediately jump to my feet, my gaze locked on his warily.
“Get away from me!” I snarl, balling my hands into fists as I ready myself to throw punches if it comes down to that. I see the surprise that soon fades into hurt in his eyes, but I ignore it and remind myself that this is the guy who nearly killed Luke last night.
“Lizzie…” he begins, approaching me with his hands in the air and a look of complete shock and pain on his face, but I don’t want to hear his explanations, his excuses for what he did, because none of them will make any difference in the long run since none of them will undo his actions.
“Jackson, I don’t want to hear it!” I shoot back angrily, giving him a look of pure hostility as I run my hands over the wall behind me in an attempt to find the floor buttons or a door.
However, all of a sudden, I notice another, shorter figure standing behind Jackson and stare in amazement as Luke, completely healed and with no signs of the abuse that he suffered last night, steps out from behind him with a smile on his face.
“Luke!” I cry in surprise, and, despite not wanting to be anywhere near Jackson with the memories of last night so fresh in my mind, step forward and embrace Luke in warm hug to feel his arms curl around me as he lets out a sigh of relief. After a few long moments, I pull back to look up at him and ask concernedly, my eyes searching his face for any sigh of the fight he had with Jackson, “Are you ok?”
Luke, with a huge, beaming grin on his face, replies, “I’m fine Lizzie, thanks to you.” All of a sudden my heart falls through the elevator floor as I realize that Luke must now know my secret then, and, looking up at him, prepare to tell him everything when he adds, “Max told me how you fixed me up so well with special healing cream that I don’t even have bruises or anything.”
“No thanks to me,” Jackson murmurs quietly, and I look up at him in surprise. For all that Jackson hates Luke – and yes, he actually does hate Luke because of the intense jealousy he feels for him – he certainly sounds remorseful, for some unknown reason.
Shocking me even further, Luke then looks over at Jackson and tells him dismissively, “Oh, it’s no problem Jackson. No one got hurt, and that’s all that matters.” Turning to me, he then says, with more than a hint of a smile on his face, “Aren’t you proud of me? For once, I’m actually arguing for the ends, not the means,” and I give him a weak smile in return, still very stunned at all of the odd behavior being demonstrated by both of them. Jackson is almost never remorseful to people he strongly dislikes, and I can’t think that Luke would let go of something that severe so quickly. So there must be some other force at play here that’s powerful enough to keep both of their real emotions in check… Max.
“Max put you up to all of this acting, didn’t he?” I ask them both suspiciously, my gaze darting from one to the other as I walk all the way out of Luke’s arms to stand back and study them both warily. Max must have really convincingly threatened them to get these kind of results and cooperation out of them, especially Jackson.
Luke bows his head slightly and Jackson’s gaze wavers away from mine, and I know my suspicions are correct. Muttering to myself, “I knew it,” I turn away from them to face the cold white tile wall of the elevator and the cold white closed marble doors that will soon release me to the outside. Oh, wait… to One-Person Survival.
Glancing down at myself frantically, I find that I am still in my nightclothes and realize that I haven’t been dressed for One-Person yet, so that must be where we’re going. My hand instinctively flies to the wolf’s-head pendant around my neck and my fingers curl around the slightly warm, brown stone as I glance desperately around the elevator for a way out that will allow me to avoid the inevitable, looming specter of death that’s now staring me in the face and daring me to face it.
My gaze settles on Luke and I murmur quietly, staring him down and hoping that he understands how serious I am, “Good luck, Mister Gates, and may this crazy white city not get inside of you.” He nods his head and mutters a word of thanks before the doors on his side of the elevator open and a pair of hands with perfectly manicured pink-and-green nails drag him out onto that floor.
Now it’s just me and Jackson in the elevator, and, even though I kind of want to be watching him at all times to make sure he’s not going to do something crazy again, I whirl back around to grimace at the marble doors. Why is he here and Max isn’t?
“Lizzie…” Jackson begins quietly, reaching one cautious hand out to gently touch me on the shoulder and cause me to whip around to face him, “I can’t come up with explanations or excuses or reasons for last night. I know that nothing I can do will ever make it go away or seem like it never happened, so I just want to tell you that I’m sorry it happened, and that I swear on my honor as a Texan that nothing like that will happen ever again.”
I hear the constriction in his voice and look up in shock to see that his intense golden eyes are full of tears of remorse, and, even though I had sworn to myself that I would stay away from him and not let him get to me or guilt-trip me, I feel my heart go out to him and step forward to embrace him in a hug, which I know counts as an “apology accepted” and so much more.
His powerful arms then wrap around me and he sighs a sigh that’s one part unbelievable joy and one part unbearable sadness, and I glance up again to see that he’s even closer to crying now. “I don’t want to lose you Lizzie; I don’t think I could bear losing you, even though I know haven’t really been helping my cause much lately by doing all this shit.”
Resigning myself to the stupidity of what I’m about to do but realizing that something like this would have happened in the end anyways, I throw my arms around the back of his neck and kiss him, then see him close his eyes and kiss me back so passionately that he walks me back into the wall.
However, as soon as he feels me bump the white tile, he immediately pulls back like he’s been shocked and begins to profusely apologize, desperation and even more remorse in his eyes and voice now, “Oh my God Lizzie, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. There I go breaking my promise already-”
I cut him off by kissing him again, this time my hands creeping up higher to fluff up his hair, and, when I pull back to smirk at him and his complete and utter shock, I tell him, satisfied, “You really say I’m sorry too much.”
Jackson’s expression instantly becomes relieved and he gives me a genuine grin of his own, even though there still is a large amount of hurt and sadness in his gaze. In a very Jackson-esque manner, he replies, his drawl becoming a little more evident, “Well, I’d rather say it too much than say it too little,” and he kisses me gently on the cheek. When he pulls back, he just stares down at me with that look that’s somewhat calmed but mostly incredibly hurt and desperate, and my heart goes out to him again, even though I know that I can’t do anything for him.
“Lizzie,” he begins again, and I gaze up at him with what I hope is a comforting smile that doesn’t show any of the fear or desperation I myself am feeling, “I don’t want to see you die on national television, so, if it’s possible, please do win.”
I burst out laughing that fake laugh that Luke says he hates, and, based off his expression, Jackson doesn’t like much either. However, I just continue to laugh, because I know that I’m going to be crying if I’m not laughing. “I’ll try my best,” I tell Jackson as I reach up to gently caress his cheek and think I’m not the only one who needs to be worrying about surviving to have my thoughts interrupted by the slowly-opening elevator door.
Instantly Jackson and I jump apart. After all, I’m engaged to Luke and that I can’t be seen with any other guy, especially by the assistant stylists, because they like to gossip among themselves about the champions. Sure enough, I see the colors standing there expectantly, Kate with her hands on her hips and one perfectly plucked skinny eyebrow raised, clearly telling me to hurry up.
“Goodbye Jackson,” I force myself to say, even though I feel my throat clogging up and tears developing my eyes, and, in true Lightning style, even give him the salute I gave at the end of Hand-to-Hand that quite possibly directly caused at least some of this rebellion mess.
“Don’t forget Lizzie, you have to win for me,” Jackson tells me, his gaze locked on mine, and, as I see the pleading and hopelessness in his eyes, I know that I have to survive and therefore win, chiefly because it’d hurt him too much if I died.
“Jackson,” I start, giving him an incredibly sad small smile, “I’m a Lightning. I don’t lose if I have a say in it.” I then step forward and give him a hug, closing my eyes, breathing in his scent and letting it intoxicate me. “Goodbye,” I whisper in his ear as he murmurs the same word in mine, but, even as I feel the tears I refuse to let stream down my face well up in my eyes, I feel almost relieved, because at least I got to say goodbye to him this time. I then swallow with difficulty, put on as straight a face as I can manage, and turn around to be led away by Kate and the other two colors, who all, by this time, are about to cry too.

More added.

“Lizzie, you can win this, just like you won Hand-to-Hand,” Mitchell tells me supportively, laying one large, dark hand on my shoulder, which is currently covered with a shiny golden material on top of a black undershirt that is the uniform of this arena, and giving me a smile. However, his words of encouragement do nothing to change my bad mood, and I just shake my head, denying everything about this place.
“I don’t know if I want to Mitchell,” I murmur in reply, looking up to find him staring down at me with caring and compassion in his warm brown gaze. I see confusion creep its way into his eyes and I add, “Winning means killing more kids, and I don’t think I want to do that. I mean, I know it’s me or them, that if I don’t kill them, they’ll kill me, but I know it’s not worth losing my humanity or betraying my beliefs for survival. To be honest, I’d rather be dead, with my opinions and feelings and identity intact, than alive and stripped of all of those things. I know that I’ll kill in the end, that eventually I’ll become a hypocrite, but, right now, I really don’t want to and don’t think I even could.”
Much to my surprise, Mitchell just nods, his gaze distant as he gazes down at the white tile beneath our feet. “I think I know what you mean,” he says quietly when his now-intense chocolate stare meets my own. “And, you know, that desire to remain human, to die on your feet than live on your knees, that’s what separates you and Luke from the other champions. Yes, Luke,” he confirms upon seeing my confused expression. “I’ve been talking to his stylist Katrina and she says he feels the exact same way as you do: that he’d rather die as himself than live as a pawn of El Nieve and the Triple Crown. By the way,” Mitchell begins, and, as I hear the serious tone of his voice, I know it must be something important, “I know the truth about you and him, that your whole relationship is a fabrication to keep you two alive, except it’s not like that for him, because he actually loves you.” I feel my heart drop out of my body, hit the white tile floor, and shatter into a million pieces, as I know that this discovery of Mitchell’s has probably led his perception of me to change negatively. “But Lizzie, I don’t begrudge you at all for it. I know you didn’t want of this – I mean, who would? – and that you especially didn’t want the whole thing with Luke, so I can’t blame you for continuing the ruse for the sake of saving both of your lives.” He pauses for a moment to reach out and gently grab the pendant around my neck, his large brown fingers curling around the amber wolf’s-head. “Just don’t forget who you are and what you stand for and what this means to you, and, if you can, please don’t forget me either.” I laugh slightly at his last comment, because it’s not like I could ever forget Mitchell, not after all that he’s done for me.
“Don’t worry Mitchell. I promise I won’t forget anything of those things, and I don’t think I could forget you if I tried,” I tell him as I do my best to give him a genuine smile but probably just end up grimacing at him.
However, he makes no indication of the poor quality of my grin and gives me one of his own. “Lizzie, just go out there and do what you want to,” he says to me, his eyes locked on mine. “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose-” – I note sadly that he doesn’t say die – “-because, no matter what happens, you’ll go out in style.” Thinking of the Paramore song Fences and hearing the lyrics, “‘Cause this is your night/So smile/’Cause you’ll go out in style,” echo through my head, my mouth twitches and curves upward for a moment despite myself, which Mitchell, of course, catches on to.
“What’s so funny?” he asks me, looking almost concerned for my well-being, considering that, up until a few moments ago, I had been incredibly sad and retrospective with brief moments of being falsely happy.
“Just something you said reminded me of a song I used to like,” I murmur, dropping my eyes to the floor and looking up again when I hear the clanging of metal on metal to see the solid steel tube in the middle of the room that’s to take me up into the arena opening. Rising to my feet, I turn to look at Mitchell and sigh when I see the sadness in his eyes. “Mitchell,” I begin, wanting to tell him that I’ll be fine, that he won’t have to worry, that he won’t be seeing me die anytime soon, but finding that I can’t because I can’t lie straight to his face. So, all I say to him instead is, “Cheer me on, alright?”
He replies, with a weak smile on his face, “Of course,” then, in a swift movement, steps forward to embrace me in a hug. “As long as you give me something to cheer for,” he tells me, his eyes locked on mine, as he pulls back and gives me a gentle push in the direction of the tube to get me moving.
For the second time today, in the second of the two most painful goodbyes I’ve ever had to do, I respond, trying my best to put on a convincing smirk, “Mitchell, I’m a Lightning. I don’t lose if I have a say in it,” and the last thing I see before I’m whisked upwards by the one-person metallic elevator is Mitchell smiling and waving with the concern and pain on his face clear as day.

The first thing I think when I see the arena is, “This is no place for a spark.” Looking around me at the lush landscape partially hidden by the pouring rain dumping on us, I see that about three-quarters of the arena is a rainforest, with huge, hundred-foot-tall trees that could hide any number of horrors. The other fourth, where all of us champions are positioned, is a plain full of three-foot-tall grasses that I have no intention of going into, because all I can think of when I look at it is all of the dangers that could be lurking in them. I then turn my gaze to the huge gold crossed hands about forty yards in front of me, on and in which are any number of things that could be used to survive. My eyes flicker to the ground around me and rest on my feet, locked to the ground by a pair of unbreakable steel ankle cuffs that will pop open when the chime sounds to mark the official beginning of One-Person Survival, for a moment before scanning around for any sign of anything useful nearby. Unfortunately, it looks like all of the supplies are at the Giving Hands this year – Max told me the Triple Crown Committee chose hands as a source for supplies to show the generosity of El Nieve, at which I burst out laughing – which means that, if I want anything, I’m going to have to take the Triple Crown Committee’s bait and run straight into the bloodbath. Max specifically warned me to stay away from the Giving Hands so I don’t get killed on the first day, but he hasn’t seen me run a forty-yard dash and doesn’t know that I can get to the Giving Hands in about 4.1 seconds. Glancing around at the other champions, I see Luke directly across from me and Abby about three spots to my right, and I grimace slightly when I look over to find Marshall Moore standing right next to me on the left and winking at me.
“Hey Lizzie,” he calls to me, even daring to reach over and tap me on the arm, but I just ignore him. I will not give him the satisfaction of annoying me. “Would you care to team up? You can do so much better than Gates anyways, because you can get me.” Now I whip my head over to give him a toxic glare, not in the mood for his bullshit and about ready to punch him in the face, when the chime to signal the official start of the Triple Crown goes off.
Suddenly I feel myself forcing my legs to move forward as I see Marshall accelerating in front of me and, after the two seconds it takes me to catch up to him, I leap on top of him, tackle him and shove his face into the dirt, careful to jump and avoid his hands trying to drag me down as I continue to sprint for the Giving Hands, my gaze locked on a beautiful steel-with-gold-hilt broadsword and a basic but very deadly-looking wood bow with a silver quiver full of silver arrows. However, my line of sight on the weapons I want is blocked by a skinny but tall figure, and I don’t need the person to turn around for me to know it’s Danica Roberts.
Running up behind her, I tackle her and shove her into the dirt too, then grab the sword, the bow and quiver of arrows, two large packs filled with hopefully useful things, and begin to climb the wrists of the Giving Hands, since I know that if I can get to the top, I’ll have a clear shot at anyone two hundred yards away or closer. Luckily the Hands are grooved, so, even in the rain, climbing is relatively easy, and I get to the top just in time to turn around and shoot one of the careers who was clearly intending to take me out. I hear the gunshot go off that signifies his death and I turn my gaze onto the ground around me, drawing an arrow and taking out another career champion before he even knows what hit him. For now I avoid the non-career champions, as I know that the careers are a much bigger threat, and, by the time the remaining careers realize what’s happening, I’ve taken out four of the ten careers with arrows alone.
After I’ve made sure all of the champions have cleared out from the Giving Hands or are dead, I slide cautiously down the golden medal to land on my feet and immediately set the packs down and whip the quiver off of my back, expecting to see that I’ve nearly depleted my stock of arrows, to instead find the same number of arrows as I started with. Incredibly puzzled, I take an arrow out of the quiver to see another identical one slide into the vacant spot, and I smile slightly. A technologically advanced quiver that makes its own arrows will definitely be an advantage in combat. I then take off into the rainforest, deciding that I’d rather face the dangers that could be hiding in the trees than all of the the things that could be lurking in the grasses to my right.
As soon as I’ve cleared a tree a few hundred yards away from the forest edge for dangers and am about to climb up it, I hear Puck’s voice, magnified expontentially, announce in a somehow normal tone and echo through the forest, “Section One: Michelle Bach, Michael Smith and Raymond Morris. Section Two: Liam Nicholas. Section Three: Lissa Moors. Section Four: Katherine Sargent. Section Five,” he begins, and I stop climbing, even though I’m probably very vulnerable being only five feet from the ground, and my heart stops beating for a moment as I hope to dear God that I don’t hear Abby’s name get read, “John Mullins and James Armour.”
I let out a sigh of relief and feel my breathing return to normal as I whisper to myself, “She’s alive,” then continue up the tree.
“Section Six: Andrea Sparks and Georgia Lewis. Section Seven: Lyle Hutchinson, Claire Downs and Mitchell Evans.” My eyebrows go up in surprise as I realize that no one from Section Eight died today, despite the fact that I thought for sure that either Sarah or Nick would be taken down early. I know Luke wouldn’t have died so early, since he actually did what Max told us to do and ran from the Giving Hands, not towards them, but it’s still kind of a relief to know for a fact that he’s alive.
“Thirteen down, eighteen to go,” I murmur as I settle myself into a sturdy branch about fifteen feet off the ground that’s concealed by leaves so it can’t be seen from below. Taking off my bow and quiver of arrows to set them on the same branches the packs I grabbed are on and turning to the two packs– which are currently hanging on smaller branches at about my eye level – I am about to break into them and figure out if there’s anything useful in them when suddenly Puck’s voice breaks the freshly still air again.
“The kill leader for today – and overall – is...” he begins, pausing to build up the suspense, and I can’t help but groan, because I know the name he announces is going to be mine, “Lizzie Lightning, with five kills!”
At first I mutter bitterly to myself, “Lovely,” thinking that I’d rather have any other honor in the world than kill leader in the Triple Crown, since not only do I not want to have killed five other children, being announced as the kill leader – along with me taking out four of the careers – will make the other champions single me out as the one to get rid of, but then I realize Puck said five, not four. “Five? I didn’t kill five,” I exclaim to myself, my brow furrowing into a question mark at Puck – well, the Triple Crown committee – getting the numbers wrong. They don’t get anything wrong, much less numbers. However, they might just be exaggerating to single me out and make things more difficult for me and more exciting for the El Nieve audience that actually wholeheartedly believes in the ‘star-crossed lovers’ bullshit.
I can just see a news broadcast on the Triple Crown, which they actually do after every day to recap and talk about the most exciting moments, with a white reporter saying, “How will Luke react to the fact that his fiancée is a killing machine and has a good chance of killing him? What will Lizzie do about the fact that only one person can survive?”
Gritting my teeth and shaking my head, I force myself to think of different things, as I know that starting a tornado or a hurricane on top of all of the rain – which hasn’t stopped falling ever since One-Person Survival started, just reinforcing the idea that the Triple Crown committee and Rush are trying to tell me that this is no place for a spark – would not only give me away as more than just a ‘normal’ immortal to the Triple Crown committee but would destroy my hiding place, along with the rest of the rainforest, and force me to go into the grasses on the other side of the arena, which I have no intention of doing if I can help it.
My mind then goes back to the puzzle of Puck claiming I killed five other champions instead of five, and all of a sudden I realize he’s right. When I took out the career girl from Three – Lissa Moors is I think what Puck called her – I shot my arrow so hard that it went right through her and took out a non-career girl from Section Six standing behind her as well, whose name Puck said was Andrea Sparks. Oh well; at least Andrea won’t be tortured and eventually die at the hands of the career pack now, which is what most likely would have happened if I hadn’t taken her out.
I hate the careers, and not just because Marshall Moore seems intent on sticking his tongue in my mouth again. On the film that I watched of previous Triple Crowns, the career pack was always sadistic in its kills, just like the careers themselves. They made it out to be some kind of big game, and they always gave the audience good shows with their kills. Of course, all of the careers are from Sections One, Two, Three and Four, the Sections closest to El Nieve geographically and in terms of connections. El Nieve treats those Sections better than the others, so those Sections are closer in beliefs, ideals and mindsets to El Nieve than the rest of the Sections are, which means that citizens of One, Two, Three and Four are more likely to swallow the bullshit El Nieve spews out – including their mentality regarding the Triple Crown. It’s because of this that there are career champions to begin with, since, because of the El Nieve influence, the citizens of One, Two, Three and Four don’t treat the Triple Crown as a punishment. They treat it as a way to earn money, fame and glory, so specially chosen children, who have made it their lives’ goals to win the Triple Crown, train in academies – even though training for the Triple Crown is technically against the rules – then volunteer to be a champion if their names aren’t drawn.
It’s a sick and twisted process in my mind, since basically One, Two, Three and Four are raising their children to kill other children and most likely die, but it’s very effective in terms of who wins: for the last ten years, the victors have all been careers from One, Two, Three and Four, although, about fifteen years ago, non-careers from the other Sections won three years straight.
Despite the careers’ battle training and much larger size and skill, the non-careers do have one advantage on the careers: the non-careers know how to survive. All of the careers have had enough to eat and drink and clothes to wear and shoes on their feet their whole lives, so they don’t know how to scavenge or hunt or go hungry or thirsty or live on their own as an independent human like all of the malnourished, poor non-careers who have always had to go without. So, when it comes to the Triple Crown, not having to fend for yourself or know what it’s like to go without food or water for long periods of time is actually a bad thing. Unfortunately, One-Person Survival isn’t just about surviving the elements; it’s also about surviving the other champions, which puts the non-careers at a serious disadvantage, since most of them have never touched a weapon before in their lives, much less know how to use one. That’s why I have a definite advantage over all of them. After countless missions, quests and battles, I know how to survive on my own for long periods of time, and I also have considerably more weapon training and real-world experience than even the careers. Of course, this ability of mine to survive and fight – along with that little thing about me being immortal – made the Triple Crown committee kidnap me and make me fight in the Triple Crown to begin with, so I guess it’s a double-edged sword: if I didn’t have that skill, I’d be dead, but I also wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have it.
Shaking my head as I realize that there’s no point in me wishing that I couldn’t fight or survive as well I can because I can’t change that now, I turn to the pack hanging to my left and unzip it to find – thank God almighty – a waterproof blanket and jacket, along with a few dried strips of unidentifiable meat, what appear to be vitamin pills, matches, and an empty plastic gallon jug attached to a small vial with a dropper that’s full of a clear liquid which I presume must be for collecting and purifying water, since, knowing the sick and twisted minds of the people on the Triple Crown committee, the rainwater’s probably poisonous to drink if you don’t treat it. Slipping the jacket on and draping the blanket over my soaked lower body, I put the rest of the supplies back in the pack carefully and turn to the other backpack. Gently shaking all of its contents out onto my lap, I find, much to my surprise and amusement, a pair of waterproof pants that exactly matches the jacket I’m wearing, more of the mystery jerky, a lighter, some strips of dried fruit and vegetables, and another jug with vial for purifying water. As I pull on the waterproof pants and back the blanket back up, I suddenly realize how thirsty I am, grab the lighter, and flick it to start a small flame so I can see if there are any instructions written on the jug regarding the specifics of purifying water. Sure enough, there are a few small words written on the bottleneck, and, by the flickering light of the tiny fire, I read the writing out loud to myself.
“Fill the bottle, add two drops, and let sit for fifteen minutes. Vial contains fifty drops,” I murmur, smiling as I realize that means I have enough to purify fifty gallons of water, which should be more than enough to get me through these two to three weeks of One-Person. Keeping the lighter on, I carefully place one of the jugs in a concealed location where it gets a steady stream of rainwater, then turn back to my packs to fish out some of the unknown dried meat, sniff it warily, and take a cautious bite upon finding nothing off about its scent.
Although it’s dry and tasteless, I savor every bite of the one thin strip I pull out for myself because I know that I have enough supplies to survive for at least three weeks if I ration myself carefully.
In fact, since I’m feeling very happy and even slightly rebellious, despite the obvious message Rush and the Triple Crown committee are sending me with this arena, I give the air in front of me the same salute I gave to the crowd just before I tried to commit a double suicide with Luke in Hand-to-Hand and mutter, a smirk creeping across my face, “Thanks for the jerky Rush, it’s great. I really appreciate your favoritism.”
I can almost see Max banging his huge bald and tattooed head on the table in frustration at me and my very counterproductive behavior, and the image that pops into my head just makes me want to laugh even more. However, my amusement is instantaneously converted into wariness and my hand freezes in its motion towards the packs to get a dried fruit strip out as I hear the unmistakable crack of a twig being broken underfoot.
Sitting upright and straining my eyes in the darkness to see who’s there as one hand creeps to the sword buckled to my waist, I nearly sigh out loud when I see it’s just a very wet, very scared-looking lone non-career girl who’s now sitting down against the base of the tree I’m in and trying to make a fire but so far only producing a lot of smoke.
Wait, smoke! God damn it, she’s going to draw the career pack in our direction! Even if they can’t see the smoke through the clouds and rain still falling, they’ll still be able to smell it! Well, one thing’s certain right now: she’s dead, no questions asked. Whether I’m dead too will depend on whether the careers happen to look up after murdering the girl on the ground.
For a moment I contemplate the idea of shooting her now, putting the fire out, and climbing back up the tree before the careers arrive, but I might not get back up into the tree on time, since the careers could be only a few hundred yards away for all I know, and I think this girl needs to learn a lesson about not setting fires in the open so she won’t make the same mistake when it really matters in Team Survival, so I stay put and look around warily with my excellent night vision that comes from being a wolf in disguise, fully prepared to climb higher up the tree if the careers show up. I then add two drops of purifier to each of the water jugs, which are conveniently full, seal them both and place them, along with the packet of jerky strips, in the bags quietly as I keep one eye on the girl to make sure she doesn’t spot me up here, and, rising to my feet with my back to the tree trunk, I hang the bags up and set my bow and quiver on branches about five feet higher than the last ones, zip my jacket up, and place my hands on two sturdy branches so that I can pull myself up in a moment’s notice.
Sure enough, it’s not a minute before I hear more twigs being broken, this time clearly under the feet of multiple people, hear four joking voices, as one of them must have stayed back to guard their camp and supplies, and see the girl fifteen feet below me begin to panic and desperately try to put the fire out. Letting my curiosity get the best of me, I pause for a moment to hear what the careers are saying.
“Ooh, I hope it’s Lightning!” one girl voice, whose owner I’m positive is Danica Roberts, says, and, at the excited murmurs of assent of the rest of the career pack, I feel a wave of coldness slide down my body. They’ve already identified me as their main target. However, I don’t let myself remain frozen for very long and continue my ascent up the tree to move about five feet up so that, even if the careers did look up, they probably wouldn’t be able to see me through the darkness, rain and leaves.
“It wouldn’t be Lightning,” a male voice replies dismissively, and I wonder about who its owner is. “She’s clearly too smart and too well-trained to start such a smoky fire out in the open like that.” I feel my body turn to ice again as I realize who’s speaking: Marshall Moore.
“I hope we get rid of Lightning quickly. She’s our biggest threat,” a deep, sinister male voice murmurs, and I grit my teeth to stop myself from cursing out loud or punching something. There are four, probably five, incredibly well trained warriors that are all determined to kill me and are all unfortunately able to do so, which means that One-Person Survival is going to be a whole hell of a lot harder now.
However, I tell myself that I can’t panic, because panicking right now means death, and glance down to see the non-career girl abandoning her attempt to put out the fire, gathering up her small pack of supplies and taking off away from the careers. Unfortunately for her, the careers hear this and four of them take off running after her, with one of them – Marshall Moore – staying back to search the girl’s abandoned camp for anything useful. Finding nothing but the fire, he shakes his head, displeased but not surprised, sits down and warms his hands over the small blaze.
Looking down at him, I see three spears and a shield strapped to his back, at least five daggers hanging from his belt and a small water canteen tied to his belt as well. I’m completely shocked to find that he doesn’t have any food or fire-starting supplies on him. However, I then remember, with more than a tinge of annoyance, that the careers have a camp full of more food they could ever need for One-Person Survival, so many matches that they could lose three-quarters of them and still have enough to light a fire a night per career with some to spare, and piles of other supplies, like tents, flashlights, more waterproof jackets and pants than they could ever need, and even more weapons.
I find it more than unfair how the careers take almost all of the supplies at the Giving Hands and never want in either One-Person Survival or Team Survival. However, I guess they’re just doing what the rest of us are – surviving – and their sheer size, strength and skill let them scare everyone off or kill everyone – well, almost everyone – who goes for supplies at the Giving Hands.Then, after they have all of the supplies and a camp set up, they go hunting for six or seven hours at a time for the rest of us and return when they’ve killed someone or need food or rest. Of course, destroying the careers’ camp and all of their supplies would be an optimal way to level the playing field some, but there’s always that issue of the guard they leave behind with orders to kill anything that moves, so, if I were stupid or crazy enough to take the fight to the careers instead of hide in trees and let them turn on one another, I’d have to make sure I snuck up on the guard and shot him or her before he or she knew what was coming.
I am torn from my musings about how to take out the careers by a short scream, a gunshot going off in the distance, and the tromp of three pairs of feet returning, which means the rest of careers have finished with the girl. Glancing down, I see Marshall look up from the fire with a grim expression on his face, and I wonder about him. Is there maybe more to him than just the perverted douchebag I think he is?
It isn’t long before the other three careers return, and I press myself harder against the tree trunk to hopefully make myself less visible. “Did you get her?” Marshall asks them tersely, already knowing the answer but just wanting to confirm it.
“Yeah. Squealed like a pig too,” the menacing deep male voice replies with a laugh, and I look down to find that the voice’s owner is just as intimidating, at about six-four, two-fifty, with cruel features and a malicious glint in his eyes.
“Fourteen down, thirteen to go,” Danica Roberts pipes up as she settles down next to Marshall and gives him a flirtatious look under her eyelids. I see Marshall shake his head almost imperceptibly and I can’t help but wonder why. I mean, Danica’s not bad looking at all, and I’d think that her willingness would make her even more attractive in Marshall’s eyes, but maybe he’s just not in the mood or has the patience to put up with her right now. Looking down at the four careers, I realize for the first time that Marcus isn’t with them, and I’d bet that he isn’t the one guarding the camp either, which means that he’s broken off from the pack and is now out there on his own.
“There’s really only one to go,” Marshall murmurs, staring into the fire to have the blaze reflected in his eyes. He then tears his eyes away from the flames to look up and adds, like I knew he would, “Lightning. She’s the only one who’s an actual threat to us, since she’s the only one smart enough or capable enough to take us down.”
“So we find her and get rid of her quickly,” the career closest to me, a tall, stick-thin girl with sociopath written all over her face, chimes in, shrugging her shoulders like it’s no big deal. “Even if she’s as good as us – which I doubt – she can’t cover her tracks completely every time, and we’ll be there when she doesn’t.”
“What about that boy from Two? The one who refused to work with us? You don’t think he’s a threat?” the deep-voiced, huge, also sociopathic boy asks, looking across the fire at Marshall, and I wonder why Marshall’s the leader of the pack when the deep-voiced boy is so much bigger and could obliterate Marshall easily if he wanted to. However, then I realize that the deep-voiced boy also appears to be incredibly stupid, which means that Marshall’s the only one large enough to physically intimidating and smart enough to be mentally intimidating, making him the leader with no questions asked.
“Oh, Marcus Clay? He’s not as much of a threat to us as Lightning is, because he’s soft. You saw what he did when he fought Lizzie-” – I inhale sharply as my name rolls off Marshall’s tongue, almost disappointed when it sounds nice in Marshall’s even, clear voice – “-in Hand to Hand: he actually asked her to kill him. He’s not a winner like us, so we don’t have to worry about him more than we do anyone else, Terrell.” Gritting my teeth at the bluntness of Marshall’s words, I wish that they weren’t true but know very well that they’re incredibly accurate.
“Oh, you’re on a first-name basis with Lightning now?” Danica teases Marshall, an evil grin creeping across her face. “Because the last time I checked, she tried to bite your tongue off then butchered you.”
“Yeah, and she set a Hand-to-Hand record for fastest kill in Triple Crown history when she took you out,” Marshall shoots back, giving Danica a smirk of his own. “So I wouldn’t be talking if I were you,” he adds, turning away from her to look into the flames again.
“What do you see in her, Lightning?” Terrell questions Marshall slowly, making Marshall glance up to meet Terrell’s gaze for a moment. “I mean, you like her, that’s easy to see, but I don’t know why. She’s getting married and she seems like a bitch anyways.”
“Well, she’s still fair game for one,” Marshall begins, and I brace myself for all of the objectifying things he’s going to say about me. When he sees Terrell opens his mouth to say something to the contrary, Marshall quickly tells him, “It doesn’t matter that she’s engaged, because that can be changed. If we kill Gates in Team Survival, she’s not getting married anymore, because she doesn’t have a groom to marry.” After a few moments of contemplating what Marshall said, a look of realization finally creeps its way onto Terrell’s face and he nods his head in understanding, at which point Marshall continues. “And Lizzie’s beautiful – she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen – intelligent, actually not a bitch and hot-tempered at times. She’s everything I could ever want or need.” I see a longing, sad smile flicker across Marshall’s face and I feel my breath catch in my throat. I had no idea he felt anything more than a mere physical attraction to me, but now it’s clear he does.
“She’s weak though. You saw the way she flipped out when I killed that little girl – Abby, Lightning called her – in Hand-to-Hand,” Danica counters, and I see the jealous glint in her eye and the grimace on her face. I didn’t realize Danica felt anything for Marshall either; I guess I’ve just been out of touch with the careers, which isn’t surprising considering I go out of my way to avoid them.
“That doesn’t mean she’s weak. That just means she feels,” Marshall replies quietly, his gaze locked on the fire again. His mind is somewhere else, that part is obvious, but where is the question. Danica opens her mouth to respond, but Marshall, either seeing her out of the corner of his eye or just wanted to speak, adds, “All of us could do with a little bit of that sometimes.” For a few moments, an awkward silence falls over the careers and drapes them like a blanket, the only sounds the crackles and hisses of the fire.
“What are you going to do with her, when we catch her?” Terrell questions Marshall, his dark brown gaze as dumb as ever, and Marshall looks up to regard him with a cold curiosity for a couple seconds before replying.
“Kill her in the end, since she’s a threat to one of us winning, but, before that, I want to have a little bit of fun with her.” In the low light I see a smirk begin to spread across his face and I force myself to swallow, gritting my teeth as I resist the urge to leap out of the tree and beat him senseless for thinking the things about me that I know he’s thinking.
“What kind of fun?” Terrell asks, completely uncomprehending of what connotation Marshall’s words carry, and I smile when I see the stick-thin girl actually shake her head at Terrell’s ignorance and stupidity.
“Well, I bet you she hasn’t slept with anyone yet,” Marshall begins, his grin getting even bigger, and I feel a wave of cold that is quickly replaced by a torrent of rage sweep over me, since I know exactly where he’s going with this, “and I think I want to change that.” He then rises to his feet, gives the others orders to return to camp – which they follow, of course – but doesn’t stamp out the fire and head after them like he said he would.
Instead he sits back down in front of the blaze and gazes into the flames, clearly trying to drown his feelings in them. When he finds that he can’t, that the only way to truly drown feelings for any length of time is death, he sighs and sits up, scanning the dark forest threatening to swallow him up distantly and uncaringly.
“You know, Lizzie,” he murmurs, and I nearly fall out of the tree, as I first think he knows I’m there, but then see him addressing the bushes around him and realize that, while he’s talking to me, he doesn’t actually know I’m twenty feet above him, “I looked up that language you spoke, in Hand-to-Hand, since I have a thing, almost an obsession, for languages, and it turns out it’s Spanish, an ancient language that hasn’t been used in a couple thousand years. I then found – with a lot of effort, I might add – someone who could translate it, and I figured out what you said. ‘I have lightning in my blood. You can’t take that away from me.’ But you know, Lizzie, I don’t think you were really saying that to me,” he whispers finally, then stares into the fire for a few more quiet moments before rising to his feet, putting the blaze out and leaving, with only a few broken twigs and a warm spot on the ground to attest his presence.

More added.

I sit frozen in thought for a few seconds after he leaves as the knowledge of what I’ve actually done by letting Marshall go washes over me, and, when it all becomes too much for my tired and traumatized mind to understand, I just shake my head and try to prod my thoughts into some kind of organized pattern.
“Why didn’t I kill him?” I ask myself after a few moments of me trying to make some sense of everything that’s just happened, especially my actions – or lack thereof. I had a perfect, open shot with no one else around. I could have put an arrow through his chest, heard the gunshot go off, and that would have been the end of it. I would have had one less career to worry about later. Logic and the drive to stay alive say I should have killed him. So why didn’t I? Shaking my head and sighing, I lower myself into a partially comfortable sitting position on the branch and close my eyes, hoping to clear my mind and get a better understanding of my lapse of bravery and want to survive.
“I guess it’s because...” I begin, tapping my fingers on the branch and picturing the millions of people glued to their seats in their homes, clinging to every word I say and wanting to know why just as much, if not more, than I do. I know that I have to lie; that part’s a given, because it’s not like I can let them know the real reason of being moved by his words, and that I maybe even feel empathy for him, if such an emotion is possible for me at this point. “I guess it’s because...” I start again, feeling the tension and excitement in the air that’s affecting people a hundred, a thousand, a million miles away. I have no idea where the arena is; the Triple Crown committee builds a new one every year, and never reveals its location until after the Triple Crown is over. Of course, in the classic sick fashion of El Nieve, the old arenas are landmarks, tourist destinations even, where people can pay to go on tours and see where the deaths happened and even reenact battle scenes. Shaking my head as my hands clench into fists, I grit my teeth and force myself to keep on talking, knowing that making a confession this big – even if it is fake – could very well get the people of El Nieve, and therefore the betters who pay for gifts in the arena, on my side. “It’s because it wouldn’t be noble, to shoot an opponent with his back turned who didn’t get a chance to fight back. I can’t expect the same courtesy from the careers or any other champions, I know that, but I’d to preserve at least part of my honor so maybe I can die with some.”
I can almost hear the thousands of spectators in El Nieve, who gather at the stadium where the interviews are done to watch the Triple Crown unfold on a huge screen, cheering and applauding and maybe even crying, and I can almost see Max’s sigh of relief at me not saying anything rebellious or negative against El Nieve and the nod of approval he gives the screen he’s watching me on.
Speaking of watching, I glance around me to figure out where exactly the cameras and microphones that are recording me right now might be at. Undoubtedly there’s a few buried in the bushes Marshall addressed earlier, and some in the branches and trunk of the tree I’m in, and maybe even a few spy flies, or cameras with microphones designed to look like a fly, buzzing around me to get the best footage. What the Triple Crown committee, by virtue of its hundreds of employees and huge control rooms, does is follow every champion – they’re able to do so by putting thousands of miniscule trackers that report our positions constantly in our clothes, supplies, bags, even food – at every moment in time but only put the most interesting thing that’s happening, like a fight or an important or attention-getting conversation, on air for everyone else to see. Of course, there’s about a five-second delay between what’s happening and what’s being aired so that the Triple Crown committee can block out offensive or rebellious words or actions. For example, my little comment about Rush’s favoritism was probably muted or was not even on screen at all, since I bashed Rush and he is almost like a god in El Nieve and because people could figure out that the Triple Crown isn’t even or fair like they think it is.
Shaking my head at the incredulity and sickness of it all and hoping that I’m not on air anymore, I turn to my bags, pull out one of the water jugs, take a long sip to slake my thirst, and sit back to look up at the stars through an opening in the leaves above my head, as it’s finally stopped raining.
“‘Stars looking at our planet/Watching entropy and pain/And maybe start to wonder how the chaos in our lives could pass as sane,’” I sing to myself quietly, smiling slightly as I think of all of the times I’ve listened to that song. I know that Rush would absolutely hate the song because it exhibits optimism, truth, and belief in a higher power, but I don’t really care.
I don’t really care about what Rush thinks of my actions while I’m in here, because it’s not like he would kill me or my family when I’m in the arena, since I’m supposed to be winning and, if he were to kill my family, he would want to have me watching, because he wants to break me. Too bad I’m damn nearly unbreakable.
“‘I’ve been thinking ‘bout the meaning of resistance/Of a hope beyond my own/And suddenly the infinite and penitent/Begin to look like home,’” I continue to sing, tapping my feet to the rhythm of the song, which is currently running through my head. “‘I’ve been thinking about everyone/Everyone you look so empty.’” My voice gets louder and more confident, since I know there’s no one around that I can’t kill easily, and I smirk as the image of Max’s horrified expression, if he can actually hear me singing, floats across my mind. Probably I’m not on the air, probably not a word of my singing is going to be heard by anyone except for the animals around me and a few Triple Crown employees, but I don’t care. I’m going to sing anyways. I’m going to be that thrush or that huge prole woman that George Orwell talks about in 1984, and, despite the situation, I’m just going to sing for the hell of it, because it’s a lot better than crying or screaming or punching trees.
“‘But when I look at the stars/When I look at the stars/When I look at the stars/I see someone else/When I look at the stars/The stars/I feel like myself,’” I murmur, staring up at the little pinpricks of light dotting the skies and realizing that this is the first time I’ve been able to actually the see the stars in almost a month and a half. I wasn’t able to see them in El Nieve, with all the lights from the city, and, on the victory tour, I wasn’t really out in the Sections when it was dark enough to see the stars. It’s interesting how they look so close and so tiny, almost like you could reach out and grab them and hold them in your hand, none of them larger than a marble in diameter, when in reality they’re so distant and huge.
The only people, if there are any, who have touched stars were instantly burned alive the moment they made contact, but I wonder if they thought it was worth it, to do something so amazing, so liberating, so momentous at the cost of life. I think I’d find it worth it, the exchange of my life for the chance to touch a star and know what it’s like to be in the presence of something so huge and permanent. I guess other people feel the same way about fame or glory or power, but I don’t really care about any of those things so much that I’d give my life for them. I’d give my life for freedom, for the hope that the tomorrow I will never see is better than the today I live in, and yes, for the chance to touch a star, but I wouldn’t die for notoriety or power or glory. In fact, I don’t think I’d die for any material things other than the opportunity to touch a star, and even that wouldn’t really be a material thing in the end.
And here I am, staring death, in the form of El Nieve’s and Rush’s wrath, in the face and daring it to come at me with my rebellious words and songs and actions and salutes, and I think I need to figure out what I’m going to die for, because I sure as hell am not dying for nothing. Maybe I should die for the Sections’ future, for the idea that me dying can make their tomorrow better than their today is, by letting them use me as a martyr and put my face on banners and posters and use my death as an example or a rallying cry. Or maybe what I could die for is the hope that I won’t see tomorrow, that I won’t have to see Luke commit suicide and my family be murdered and Jackson destroy himself because he’ll come up with some stupid reason as to how my death is his fault. I guess that’s something to hope for, the idea that, while those things will undoubtedly happen, I won’t have to see them happen. It’s cowardly, with no honor or valor involved, but nothing about El Nieve or the Triple Crown is honorable, so I guess it’s just the norm at the moment.
Sighing deeply and shrugging my shoulders, I smile slightly as I think again of touching a star, then realize I really should be getting some sleep, since it won’t be every night that I’ll be safe and warm and fed and watered and mostly dry up in a tree. Looking around me, I see the water jug I got out sitting in the open and put it back in the pack it came from, since I don’t want to take any chances and have it maybe fall out of the tree overnight. A wave of tiredness suddenly hits me, and I yawn, forcing myself to keep my eyes open long enough to doublecheck all of my supplies, make sure everything is packed and secured, and pull the waterproof blanket out. I then wiggle around a little bit to get into a comfortable position, wad the blanket up into a ball, and stuff it behind my head in a makeshift pillow. I have just enough energy left to give the stars above me a respectful salute before drifting off into sleep with the words, “No place for a spark,” on my tongue.

A wave of sunlight invades my newly-opened eyes, and I mutter a few curse words in Spanish under my breath as I blink away the pain that the bright light caused. Glancing around me at my packs, I see, with an irrational sigh of relief, that nothing has been tampered with in the night, then look down to find no sign of another champion except for the ashes from the fire last night, and breathe another deep breath in satisfaction. I am alone, with enough food to last me at least a week and abundant prey around me, an indefinite supply of water as long as it continues to rain daily – though I can probably find water easily even if it doesn’t keep raining; it’s a rainforest after all, so there’s bound to be water somewhere – sufficient weapons and skill to take down anyone who comes near me, and plenty of trees to climb up and bushes to hide in; I’d say that I’m about as well-off and prepared as any other champion in One-Person Survival, including the careers. In fact, I’d say I might even be in a better position than the careers are, because I’m completely mobile, whereas they have to return to their camp periodically.
Pulling the blanket out from behind me, I stuff it back into one of the packs and take out a small strip of jerky, a vitamin pill and one of the water jugs. I swallow the pill with a swig of water from the jug, then chew on the dried meat slowly, being careful not to choke on the incredibly dry, incredibly tasteless food. After getting about halfway through the piece, I decide that this isn’t going to work, put it back in the package with the other jerky strips, and begin to scan for game on the ground that I can shoot.
Quickly spotting a small, pheasant-like bird about fifty yards away pecking at something on the ground, I pull out my bow and quiver and put an arrow in the the bird’s back before it can even squawk in alarm. After giving my surroundings one last cautious glance, I clamber down out of my tree to retrieve the bird, but, before I can even take a step towards the carcass, another creature has run out to get it too.
Gasping in surprise, I leap backwards a step to find myself staring into the angry amber eyes of a cat-like creature. I note the cat’s large size – it’s almost two feet tall and probably weighs somewhere close to a hundred pounds – incredibly long, sharp claws and saber-like fangs as I look the golden, black-spotted cat over and realize that I’m going to have to kill it to get my bird back, since it seems very determined not to go down without a fight. Slowly drawing another arrow as I meet its gaze unwaveringly and think that this would be a great time for the cat to recognize me as another animal, I am about to shoot it right through the heart when the rage disappears from its expression, it stops snarling, and it takes a few tentative steps towards me, the look on its face ashamed and almost apologetic now. I stare down at the cat in astonishment to watch it deposit the bird at my feet as its eyes flit cautiously up towards my face before darting back down to the ground.
Bending down slowly, my gaze locked on the cat’s submissive form, I reach a careful hand out as I murmur under my breath, “It’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you,” ready to pull back at any moment if the cat shows any signs of aggression. However, it doesn’t seem to know or care about the presence of my hand, so, knowing that I could very well lose a couple fingers if anything goes wrong, I stretch my hand out towards the cat a little more and touch it gently on top of the head.
Instantly it jerks its head upwards, and I prepare to feel intense pain, since I’m expecting the cat to bite my fingers off, to instead have it nuzzle my fingers for more. Looking down at the furry, golden, black-spotted form in amazement, I stroke the side of its face gently to hear a sound like a motorboat start up, and I smile when I realize it’s the cat purring.
I then see its beautiful light brown gaze flick onto the pheasant-like body at my feet and, despite the fact that I know I’m going to need to save all of the food I can for later, I tell it, my grin getting bigger, “Yes, you can have some.”
I’m even more surprised when its expression becomes happy, almost relieved, as though it knows what I’ve said, even though it can’t have. However, I then catch myself and remind myself that, for all I know, it can understand me perfectly, because I don’t have nay knowledge about it except for the fact that it appears to be a larger, stockier, more dangerous and apparently more social version of a cheetah, and, just as I am about to turn to the ashes of last night’s fire to start a new one, I hear a gunshot go off somewhere in the distance. That means the careers are a good ways away, since, even with my supersonic hearing, I didn’t hear any sign of a struggle, so I’m safe for starting a fire for at least a little bit. However, I then realize that I have to clean the bird out and, taking one of my arrows out to use as a knife, I cut the bird open, pull out its internal organs, take the skin with the feathers off, and throw both to the cat to have it devour them in a few quick gulps. Briefly debating climbing the tree to go get the matches and lighter, I decide that I don’t want to deal with it and will just – while sending out an electromagnetic wave to scramble the camera and radio feeds around me, of course – start a fire in the palm of my hand. I know that I’m taking the risk of being discovered and that I’m going to have to use matches and lighter from here on out to reinforce the notion that the jumbled feed was just a fluke. However, I also know that, if I do so, the Triple Crown committee will never be able to prove that I had any connection with the down cameras and microphones, even if they have suspicions. I send out a jolt of energy that should disable all transmitting equipment around me, even if only for a few seconds, snap my fingers to start a fire in my palm and quickly transfer it to the ashes on the ground to make it look like I started it there.
Looking up for a moment, I see the cat watching me closely, its eyes glued on my hands with an incredible curiosity, and I reach out to rub it gently behind the ear and get it purring again. Turning back towards the small blaze, I pick the bird up, pull out the arrow I used as a knife to gut the bird earlier, stick it through the carcass, and rotate the skewered bird slowly over the flame to get it fully cooked. After about five minutes of doing so, the flesh showing now a dark brown and my mouth watering profusely from the delicious smell, I finally pull the bird off of the fire and slide it carefully off of the arrow to set it down on a large green leaf I pulled off of one of the bushes moments earlier, burning my fingers a few times in the process but not really caring. Forcing myself to ignore the rumbling in my stomach for a few moments, I rise to my feet and stamp out the fire, knowing that I can’t risk detection by the careers, since I might not be able to climb fast enough to get away from them. I then turn back to my roasted bird to find one side of it being gnawed on by the cat.
Barking at the cat sharply, “No, no, bad!”, I see it immediately let go of the poultry and back away guiltily as an ashamed look creeps across its feline face. However, I instantly feel bad as the cat cowers, its frightened eyes fixed on my face submissively, and, sighing, throw it the chewed leg and wing, since I probably won’t eat them now anyways.
All of the cat’s remorse disappears as soon as it sinks its teeth into the meat, and I shake my head, smiling despite myself at the cat’s amusing behavior, and it’s then that it strikes me: the cat needs a name, as I can’t keep on calling it ‘the cat.’ Looking it over carefully as I eat my section of the bird, which happens to taste almost exactly like chicken and doesn’t seem to be poisonous in any way, a stray line from 1984 – “Freedom is the freedom to say two and two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” – pops into my mind and I know exactly what I’m going to name the cat.
“Winston Smith,” I murmur quietly when I pull back from eating my section of the bird, my gaze locked on the cat’s curious one, and I’m even surer that the cat’s male. “Winston Smith, it’s nice to meet you,” I say to the cat, louder this time, and, smiling, hold out one greasy hand to the cat, as though for Winston to shake it, to have him lean forward and gently lick my fingers with his rasping sandpaper tongue.
“Well aren’t you sweet,” I say to the cat, my grin getting bigger, and stroke the top of his head after he’s done cleaning my hands to hear his motorboat-like purr start up again, nearly as loud as a motorboat this time. As though confirming what I’ve said, he gives me one last lick before closing his eyes and leaning into my hand, completely caught up in the moment and enjoying being petted.
After a few moments, I pull back, only to gain use of my hand to eat the rest of my bird, then wrap the leftovers in the leaf I set it down on earlier. As I tell Winston to stay put, I climb the tree to pack up all of my supplies, including the extra meat, in the packs, toss one over each shoulder, buckle my sword back on, and climb back down the tree to find Winston standing there and waiting for me obediently.
“Good boy,” I tell him, giving him a smile and quick ear rub, then, looking around me to make sure that every trace of my existence has been gotten rid of, begin to walk west, farther into the forest and away from the plains of grasses behind me.
Looking over, I see Winston padding along silently beside me, his ears twitching and his nose to the air as he scans the surrounding for any sign of danger, and suddenly a wave of relief floods me. For some reason, even though he wouldn’t be much use against the career pack, having Winston around comforts me greatly, and I reach over to give him another ear rub, which he eagerly leans into and purrs his approval of.
“Good boy Winston,” I murmur almost subconsciously as he continues to purr even after I’ve pulled my hand away, and a pang of homesickness runs through my heart as I remember my two Rottweilers, Mike and Ike, who, despite being a completely different species, are very similar to Winston in terms of personality.
Both Mike and Ike are very sweet, despite their intimidating, incredibly muscular appearances, and complete attention hogs that would do about anything for a belly rub or a dog biscuit. I did 4-H dog training with them for two years, Mike for showmanship and Ike for obedience and rally, and won state in all three classes both years I competed with them. Mike, Ike and I had and still do have a very strong bond, and they could tell what I wanted them to do without me having to say a command most of the time and were already very well trained even before I started 4-H, so dog training was, like many things were for me, incredibly easy and very rewarding. Many of judges that judged me at fun matches and the county and state fair took extra time to talk to me after the event about possibly showing in AKC shows, as both of them are AKC registered, but I never really pursued their suggestions, with my plate already being very full of almost every sport under the sun. However, I did have a lot of fun winning with them, and now have quite a collection of ribbons, medals and even a belt buckle given out to the county grand champion from my days as a dog trainer – well, actually just a showcaser of my already-trained dogs – through 4-H.
Sighing, I look over at Winston again to see him staring at me, his amber gaze almost concerned, and I can’t help but smile and squat down to look Winston in the eye and have him come up and nuzzle me. “Don’t worry Winston, I’m fine,” I tell him quietly as I stroke his face, his nose only a few inches from mine. However, a loud crack of a stick being stepped on that’s probably two hundred yards away from Winston and me breaks the quiet happiness of the moment and sends me into an almost panic to get up the nearest tree. My sweaty hands scrabbling and clawing at the branches, I don’t stop climbing until I’m at least twenty feet up in the air and in a thick patch of leaves that would make it impossible to see me from above, the side or below, then look over to nearly fall out of the tree at seeing Winston sitting next to me in the tree and nonchalantly licking his paw.
Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I whisper to Winston, amazed at how he climbed the tree so quietly, “How on earth did you get up here?” to have him pause for a moment as he listens to my words with a cocked head, lean forward, lick me on the cheek, then return to licking his paw as though nothing abnormal has happened.
“Well, I guess that’s an answer,” I murmur, shaking my head and smiling at the sheer personality of the cat sitting next to me. Winston’s very interesting and very unique in his behavior, that’s for sure.
However, I instantly fall silent when another stick is broken, this one probably only fifty yards away, and look over at Winston as he cocks his ears and sniffs the air, an intent look now on his feline face. Daring for a moment to stare out of the foliage concealing our hiding place, my wildly roving gaze falls on a small female figure, clearly scared, looking over her shoulder and back in front of her desperately, which means that she’s definitely not a career. It’s not hard to tell that she’s hoping to dear God that she isn’t being followed and won’t be found by the career pack, and instantly my heart goes out to her, because she reminds me a little bit of Abby, even though this girl is older and bigger. I also feel bad for her because I know that eventually, whether it’s today or in a week, she’s going to be tracked down and killed by the career pack, and, even before I know what I’m doing, I’ve pulled out an arrow and am about to loose it straight through her heart.
Shaking my head, I lower my bow and look down at my hands in shock and horror, wondering how on earth I could even think of doing such a thing, much less almost do it. However, I then realize that it would actually be merciful for me to end her life right now and save her the pain and humiliation of being tortured on national television, and, raising my bow again, swallowing with difficulty and then hoping that God will forgive me for doing this, let fly an arrow straight at the girl to see it hit her in the middle of the chest and hear a gunshot go off almost immediately.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference,” I mutter to myself, my breath catching in my throat as I watch the ground swallow the girl’s body with a fascination not unlike watching a train wreck.
Turning away when her corpse has completely disappeared to see Winston staring at me in alarm, I say to myself, louder this time, “Accept the things I can’t change. Well, let’s see… Accept the Triple Crown: never going to happen. Accept that I have to kill or be killed: already happened.” My eyes flicker towards where the girl died for a moment, then dart back to look at Winston, who currently seems to be very worried about my mental state of being. “Accept death, either in this round or the next: already happened too. Accept that I can’t save them all,” I begin, a heavy sadness suddenly filling my chest as I think of all the champions I’ve already killed and all of the champions I undoubtedly will kill, “never going to happen either.”
Forcing myself to take a few deep breaths and swallow, I murmur, giving Winston a small smile to comfort him, “The courage to change the things I can. Well, I can’t change the Triple Crown or anything about it, so what can I change?” I sit musing for a few moments to be interrupted by Winston giving me another lick, this one on the nose, and I nearly fall out of the tree in surprise.
“Damn it Winston, you’ve got to stop doing that!” I exclaim, not out of anger but out of being startled, and he gives me a guilty look as a way of apologizing. Smiling despite myself at the cat’s very human-like behavior and personality, I tell him as I give him an ear rub, “Thank you.”
“So, what can I change?” I ask myself again, shooting Winston a sidelong glance to make sure he’s not going to try to lick me, then, when he’s preoccupied with chewing on his foot, continue to think out loud. “Things I can change, things I can change…” Searching my mind for anything at all, I’m disappointed but not surprised when I come up with nothing, but then it his me: if I can’t change anything around me, then I have to change something inside of me. “I can change my attitude, I can change my opinion of the Triple Crown, I can change my purpose.” I feel the weight of my words hit me full-on, and I realize that my purpose can’t just be leaving this world and its corrupt nature behind, that I need to have a non-selfish reason for my actions that will benefit people when I die. And that’s when I think of the people in the Sections, exposed to so many horrors by El Nieve, and I know, even though it’s a one-way ticket to an even faster death, that my purpose has to be rebellion, because I owe it to the beaten, abused people watching me.
Rising to my feet and climbing down the tree suddenly enough to startle Winston and make him give a small cry of surprise and protest, I put two fingers to my head and give the sky a salute and a nod as I tell it, “Thanks for the wisdom God,” then take off moving again, the new goal of surviving and representing the Sections filling and overtaking my mind.

More added.

“Winston, get up here!” I hiss at the cat as I peer out of a hole in the leaves to look down at the career’s camp and have him climb up the other twenty feet to stand next to me at sixty feet above ground.
In typical arrogant career fashion, all of the supplies are stocked up in one massive pile in the middle of a wide-open clearing, with the tents pitched to one side and a very-bored looking Terrell sitting outside of them and in front of a campfire with a spear in his hand, apparently guarding. From where I am right now, in a tree about fifty yards away from the clearing and two hundred yards from the supplies, I could put an arrow through Terrell’s chest before he even knew what hit him, but, since my aim is to eliminate the careers’ supplies and level the playing field, killing him wouldn’t accomplish much. Seized by a sudden inspiration, I rise to my feet slowly and stick my head out of the leaves, knowing Terrell isn’t going to be able to see me in the near-darkness and that I have the speed advantage even if he does, and scan the landscape around me to find, probably a good two miles away to the west, the moonlit golden glimmer of the empty Giving Hands and the smaller, darker thirty-two sheens of the open ankle cuffs used to hold us in place until the gunshot sounded to signify the start of the Triple Crown.
“Wait…” I murmur, my eyes locked on the metallic shimmers as I concentrate and try to remember what Max told me about the cuffs once. “There’s not just cuffs there,” I whisper as realization floods my body. Max, after drinking too much wine at one of the dinners on the victory tour, pulled me to the side and, after breathing enough alcohol fumes in my face to nearly intoxicate me, insisted on telling me that there are small land mines attached to the cuffs, so if someone somehow pulls hard enough on the cuffs to pull them out of the ground – since, with the angle they’re strapped on your ankle, that’s the only way to get out of them – that person will be blown sky high by the land mines. He also told me that the land mines are never deactivated because they don’t have to be, since the Triple Crown committee assumes that no one is going to mess with the cuffs after being freed of them. However, I think I’m going to have to prove them wrong, because the land mines are exactly what I need to get rid of the careers’ supplies.
If what Max told me is correct – and, while it might not be, I desperately hope it is – the land mines work exactly like hand grenades, with the cuffs being the pin to activate the explosive, so, if I can figure out how to pull the cuffs out and, if I do succeed in pulling the cuffs out, how to delay the explosion so I don’t get blown up with it, I can have a supercharged grenade at my disposal that I use to destroy the careers’ supplies.
Struck with my new idea and with a burning determination to get started and get it to work, I climb about fifty feet down the tree I’m in, leap down the last ten to land perfectly on my feet and begin to take off towards the clearing with the Giving Hands, cuffs and possibly existing land mines. Finding no trouble on my way, as apparently the careers are hunting in a different part of the arena, it takes me about fifteen minutes, because of the supplies on my back and having to wait for Winston to catch up, to reach the edge of the forest and find the golden and darker metallic sheens of the Gving Hands and the cuffs in front of me. My eyes pass over the tall grasses on the other side of the clearing and I shudder involuntarily, as they look even more suspicious and dangerous in the darkness. Shaking my head, I force myself to not think about the things that might be hiding in the grasses and make myself take the few steps to the nearest cuff, even though it means going closer to the grasses. Not daring to take my packs, quiver and bow off, despite my back aching incredibly badly, I kneel down over the cuff to hear a sound next to me and look up in surprise and fear to find Winston standing there and staring at me curiously.
Sighing in relief, I wave my hand at him as I tell him, “Go guard,” and he pads off to stand a few feet away and stare into the darkness intently.
I then turn my attention back to the cuff in front of me and dig my fingers into the wet ground, pushing dirt away from the cuff and the land mine that hopefully is under it. After about a minute of creating a nice little hold, I touch something cold and metallic below the cuff, and my heart races, since I’m almost positive it’s a land mine. Pulling the cuff up – as it has been released from the mechanism holding it to the ground, I find a small canister attached to the steel manacle and I smile slightly. Even though Max was so drunk he was reeling, he was still right about the land mines.
“Thank you Max,” I whisper and blow the night sky a kiss for him, since I know that his little slip-up may help me win by letting me destroy the careers’ supplies.
After brushing more of the dirt off of the cuff and mine, I set the contraption very carefully in my bag, thinking that, while the mine’s not supposed to go off unless it’s detached from the cuffs, I don’t want to take a chance and have it explode on me and blow me up with it. I then dig up five other cuffs, since I want to have a few to experiment with so I can get everything perfect when I actually have to use it, and, with all of them secured in my packs, call for Winston to follow me and run back into the forest, not wanting to be near those evil-looking grasses and the dangers they might hold any longer.
After climbing twenty feet up a tree about a hundred yards away from the last one I was in and three hundred yards away from the careers’ camp, I wait for Winston to arrive, and, when he does, pull out the rest of the pheasant-like bird, toss him about a fourth, and eat the other three-quarters myself. I then pull out one of the water jugs, take a few long drinks from it myself, then pour a little bit into my cupped hands and hold them out to Winston for him to drink from, which he does. When he’s laid down and is licking himself profusely, I settle into a realtively comfortable position and lean back again the tree trunk, feeling the tree’s grooves under my fingers and tracing them absentmindedly as I think about the other champions.
All of the careers, including Marcus, are undoubtedly alive, as Luke and I are the only ones strong or skilled enough to kill one of them and Luke probably hasn’t taken the time to kill any of them yet, but I can’t say for sure that anyone else is alive. I’d like to think that Luke is smart, strong and fast enough to, if not kill the careers, at least avoid them and survive, but I can’t count on the fact that it wasn’t his gunshot that went off earlier, since the careers could have stumbled across him when he was offguard and killed him. I most certainly can’t say that that gunshot wasn’t Abby’s either, since it very well could have been, as, even though she’s definitely smart enough, she’s not strong or fast enough to evade the careers, even if she had a thirty or even fifty yard advantage. However, despite the odds against it, I’m still hoping desperately that I don’t hear Abby’s name announced whenever Puck decides to read aloud the names of those killed today, since, even though it doesn’t really matter if you die this round, I desperately hope Abby hasn’t yet.
I am startled out of my thoughts by Puck’s hugely magnified voice breaking the stillness of the rainforest air, and, realizing this is the recap of the dead, I cross my fingers and hope to God that Abby and Luke are still alive.
“Section Two: Lea Pennington,” Puck says solemnly, and I can just imagine his stern but internally glowing face as he reads these names out loud, as he has to love hearing himself talk aloud to so many different people. I think the name he just read must be the girl I killed, since I vaguely remember, from interviews, a girl named Lea being a skinny, non-career from Two, which matches the appearance of the girl I shot earlier. “Section Five,” he begins in the same somber voice, and my heart begins to race as I pray that I’m not about to hear Abby’s name be announced, “Abigail Williams.”

I feel my heart free-fall out of my body and the twenty feet out of the tree to hit the ground below with a resounding thud that rattles me internally and sends me into a panicked state of denial.
“No, no, she can’t have died, she can’t have!” I whisper fiercely, feeling tears well up in my eyes and balling my hands into fists. After a few moments of telling myself vehemently that she isn’t dead, that Puck and El Nieve are lying like they like to do, I stop the act of pretending I don’t know she’s dead and instantly all of my sadness is converted into pure anger at El Nieve, that it would take her life away before it had even begun just for the sake of the most brutal form of entertainment.
Not even bothering to climb down at all, I merely fall headfirst out of the tree to catch myself by sticking my hands out at the last second and rolling neatly to jump to my feet, completely unharmed but so full of rage that I can barely contain it. I walk the few feet over to the tree trunk and begin to punch it for all I’m worth. My knuckles break open and bleed after the first few strikes against the incredibly hard wood, but I keep on hitting the tree, turning all of my anger against El Nieve and its twisted system and twisted people outward and almost convincing myself that the hardwood in front of me is Rush himself, the epitome of El Nieve’s sadistic streak. Somewhere in the distance I hear a cat yowl in protest and feel a body hit the ground next to me, but I ignore it, knowing that it doesn’t matter right now, that the only thing that does matter right now is gettting all of my rage out and then figuring out a way to punish El Nieve for what they’ve done to Abby.
I could start a few hurricanes – all of them Category Five, of course – and let them loose in El Nieve after One-Person Survival ends, or I could start one in the arena, kill all of the other contestants, destroy the whole arena, break out and then go on a rampage that will eventually end with me dead and most, if not all, of El Nieve and the Sections annihilated.
Just getting rid of everyone and everything would be too quick and too easy though. El Nieve needs to suffer, needs to be obliterated slowly and painfully, needs to have its perfect hierarchy torn apart, with all order and alliances lost in the panic and desperation of surviving against the odds. El Nieve needs to get a taste of its own medicine, and its sick and twisted people need to learn what it’s like to be the underlings, to be the low, to not know if thy’ll survive today and see tomorrow, to have to work constantly for almost no results and send their children off to die on national television. That is the only way Abby’s death could ever be avenged, and I know exactly how that is to be accomplished.
I have to fight against El Nieve in the arena, stir up the Sections and get them to rebel and put the citizens of El Nieve in their rightful place at the bottom of the hierarchy of society, even though it will undoubtedly result in my death. But it doesn’t matter if I die in the process of rebelling, since I am a corpse either way. I will either die in the third round saving Luke and Abby, or I will die after, in direct defiance of El Nieve, and I think I’d rather die on my own terms, with a purpose in mind and not for the entertainment of those twisted white people and their twisted white city and their not-so-white but even more twisted Prime Minister. Luke and Abby are dead too, no matter how much I want to deny it, because eventually, when El Nieve realizes that the Triple Crown is causing rebellion instead of stopping it, it will eliminate everything and everyone relating to it, including the other champions.
We are all dead, no matter what we do or how this ends; as Luke so bluntly put it the night before One-Person started – was that really only two days ago? It seems like ten years at least, with all that’s happened – we were dead from the moment we set foot in this place, so we might as well go out in style, and show El Nieve that, no matter what they do and no matter what horrors they make us go through, they cannot get inside our minds and kill our spirits, that they cannot make us into perfect copies of Winston Smith. Speaking of Winston Smith…
Breathing heavily and finally stopping my barrage of blows on the tree, I look over to see Winston looking up at me with concern in his eyes, and he takes a tentative step towards me, clearly wondering if I’m stable enough to be approached.
“It’s ok Winston, it’s ok,” I tell him, squatting down and reaching out a hand to stroke the side of his face. The sight of my swollen, bloody and bruised knuckles sends a lot more than a twinge of pain running up my arm as I realize how bad I actually hurt myself, and Winston seems to notice my grimace, because he moves his head back to regard my hand for a moment before licking it gently. I feel a wave of relief wash over my battered knuckles, and I watch in amazement as the skin heals before my eyes under Winston’s tongue.
“So you have healing saliva,” I murmur, a smile spreading across my face despite the circumstances as I look down at my hand, miraculously completely healed, then look back up at Winston, who’s staring at me with a satisfied expression on his feline face. “Well, that’s useful,” I add, and I swear I see him nod in agreement and flash his teeth at me in what I think is supposed to be a smile. “You also can understand me.” My eyebrows go up as Winston nods and smiles again, his amber eyes twinkling in amusement at my shock. “My God, what can’t you do?” I ask him, shaking my head in astonishment at his amazing faculty of skills. I see his eyes darting down to my mouth and back up again, and I understand exactly what he’s trying to tell me. “Well, you can’t talk, but you can communicate, so I can still understand you,” I say to him and give him a smile of my own to have him nuzzle my hand gently with his wet black nose, clearly wanting attention.
After pulling my bow and quiver off of my back and setting them to the side, I tell him, “Oh, come here you,” and fall backwards and stretch my legs out to lay flat on my back with the wet spongy dirt a mattress underneath me to have Winston pad over, lay down next to me, rest his head on my shoulder and give me one last lick on the face before curling up and falling fast asleep. As I look over at him and smile, the thought that we’re very exposed out here in the open like this flits through my mind, but I ignore it for now, thinking that, if anyone does happen to stumble upon us, both Winston, with his incredibly long, sharp fangs, superior speed and strength, and claws like daggers, and I, with my bow, arrows and nearly-perfect aim, will be able to take care of the intruder easily.
Staring up into the blackness of the tree above us, I grin in pride at my choice of hiding spot, since I’m not able to see any of my supplies hanging from the branches twenty feet above me, then glance over at the tree trunk to see a mess of blood smearing the wood. When Winston and I leave in the morning, I’ll have to get rid of it so no one will know we were here unless it rains overnight. In fact, now I get to thinking about the rain, I’m very surprised that it hasn’t rained in the last day and I haven’t come across any sources of standing water, considering that it’s a rainforest and therefore is supposed to be very wet.
As if on cue, thunder crackles in the air and it immediately starts to pour on Winston and I, forcing us to get up and vacate our spot on the ground – with me initially forgetting but then going back for my bow and arrows – for the dryer interior branches of the tree. After we’ve settled down in our spot and are both huddled underneath the waterproof blanket, I pull out the two half-empty water jugs, perch them on an exposed branch for about three minutes, which is all that’s needed to fill them up. I then add one drop of purifying liquid to each and tuck them back in the packs to fall asleep with Winston’s head in my lap and thoughts of Abby dominating my mind.

The smell of smoke pulls at my senses and jerks me out of my dreams of Abby screaming while I watch helplessly, and I sit straight up, blinking my eyes and shaking my head to try to regain my orientation. Startled awake by my sudden motion, Winston raises his head to look up at me in concern, but I ignore him for the moment, and peer down to see, my view partially blocked by the leaves concealing me from sight, a shivering, drenched, frightened non-career boy sitting in front of a meager fire and trying to warm his hands up over the tiny flame. Shaking my head at his stupidity but thinking that it doesn’t matter, because it will only get him killed, I am about to lean back and try to go to sleep again when I remember that the careers’ camp is no more than an eighth of a mile from here, which means that they’ll spot that fire quickly, if they haven’t already. Staring down at the boy again, I realize, as my heart sinks to settle around my stomach, that I have to kill him to keep me undetected and prevent him from being tortured. Drawing an arrow from the quiver on my back and sighing heavily, I raise my bow to aim it straight at the boy’s heart and loose the arrow to turn away and hear a gunshot go off almost immediately.
“At least he died quickly,” I murmur, not feeling reconciled at all, but feel a smile creep across my face despite what just happened when Winston, who was perched next to me on a branch and watching the ground where presumably the boy’s body was being swallowed by the dirt, leaps over to me and nuzzles my hand gently, his caring and understanding amber eyes meeting my own.
“Good boy,” I whisper, gently stroking the side of his face and feeling him vibrate underneath me as he starts to purr. I then dare to look back down and find no trace of the boy I killed, not even a spot of blood, and the fire he started put out by the rain, and I sigh again. However much I want to tell myself that I could have not shot him and it all would turn out fine, that the careers would make his death swift and wouldn’t find me, I know very that’s not true. The careers would drag out his end for the cameras, and would find me by sending someone up to climb the tree, since undoubtedly they’re looking everywhere for any othe champions by now, or just by looking up and happening to see my shadow, and then I would be dead too, because they would either shake the tree enough to make me fall out of it or just use their superior supplies to their advantage and wait me out.
Suddenly the notion of the careers seeing or smelling the leftover smoke, coming over here and finding me strikes me and makes me want to move to be safe, so I turn to Winston and tell him, “Come on, let’s go.”
I then pull the two packs off of the branches they’re hanging from, sling them onto my back, and begin to climb down the tree in a sort of frenzy, my eyes darting all around me to make sure that the careers aren’t already near. Winston follows me down, looking a little alarmed but still staying next to me, and, when I’ve made sure that the coast is clear, begin to take off away from the careers’ camp, intending to find a nice, desolate location where I can experiment with my land mines and ankle cuffs and turn them into hand grenades.
After running about five miles away from my previous location, I’m satisifed that I’ve lost the careers, if they ever came to begin with, and drop my packs on the ground to pull out one of the six ankle-cuff-land-mine combinations I dug up. Taking a seat on the ground, leaning on a tree trunk, I examine it closely, knowing that I’m going to need to have an understanding of how exactly it works if I’m going to make it into a hand grenade.
The mechanism that would trigger the land mine is very simple: if the ankle cuffs are detached from the land mines, the land mines blow up. It’s the same system that grenades work off of, except that there appears to be no way to delay the land mine’s explosion after the cuffs are pulled away, like there is in a hand grenade. There also seems to be no way to trigger the mines except by pulling the cuffs out, which is another major problem, since the way the cuffs are attached to the mines looks like it would make the cuffs very difficult to deattach and I might not have the strength to pull the cuffs that hard.
Sighing, I try to pull the cuff away from the land mine and find, much to my surprise, pleasure and wariness, that the cuffs are actually rather easy to unattach from the explosives, which means that, if I had pulled any harder on the cuffs at the beginning of One-Person, I could have blown myself up. Suddenly I realize that the mines being easy to activate makes everything so much easier, and a plan pops into my mind. I know how exactly to blow the careers’ supplies up without detection.

Peeking out from behind a tree to peer into the clearing at the careers’ supply camp, I find an even more bored-looking Terrell still guarding, the look on his face one of complete disinterest as he loosely holds his spear and leans back against the lone tree in the meadow. Taking one of the mines out of the pack on my left shoulder, I loosen the cuff up enough that it should be dislodged and the mine should explode upon contact with the ground or with a tree. I then take a few steps back, wind up my arm, run forward, and send the now-grenade flying towards the left of the career camp – and away from me – to see it hurtle through the air and, with a huge bang, quite a bright fire and even a small mushroom cloud, explode in the trees about two hundred yards away from the career camp.
I hear Terrell cry out in surprise and jump to his feet to run in the direction of the explosion, and I smile slightly as I murmur to myself, “Guard distracted and grenade proven. Now comes the fun part.” I then set down all of the goods on me, including my bow and quiver of arrows, except for the pack containing the other five cuffs and land mines, in preparation for going into the clearing and actually getting rid of the supplies.
Turning to Winston, I tell him emphatically, “Stay put,” since there’s a relatively high risk of this going wrong and me being blown up with supplies, and I don’t want Winston to go with me. Despite snorting in protest, he gives me a sad look that seems to say, “Be careful,” then lays down next to the pack, bow and quiver, his eyes on me the whole time.
I am about to go towards the supply pile when, all of a sudden, the ground directly in front of my feet begins to move, and I leap back with a cry of surprise, wondering if the Triple Crown committee has finally had enough of me and is going to have the arena get rid of me. However, instead of swallowing me up, the ground parts to reveal a small metal plate, on which a small cloth-wrapped package about the size of my fist rests. Bending down over the object, I reach a wary hand out to prod it and make sure it won’t blow me up or poison me upon contact when a memory of the old Triple Crown footage I watched comes into my head and I realize that this must be a gift from Max and the betters who want me to win. Picking up the thing and unwrapping the cloth warily, I gasp when I see what it is: the supersuit disguised as a small gold-and-black metal lightning bolt that my brilliant ex Troy made for me for our one-year anniversary almost a year ago. I can’t believe I forgot I had this on me when Max kidnapped me, but that doesn’t matter now, because I have it back and now can outsurvive anyone.
By holding the lightning bolt to my chest and willing it to transform, I can be covered in a head-to-foot black-with-gold-trim metal suit, complete with tiny heat-seeking missiles, numerous flamethrowers, rocket boosters in my feet to allow me to fly and even machine guns that pop out of the forearms of the suit, in about fifteen seconds. Because my ex is a complete whiz with technology of any kind, he made it so that all of the suit’s metal can come out of or collapse into the palm-sized lightning bolt by giving the metal the ability to shrink or expand exponentially depending on which is needed. My ex also designed the lightning bolt to be a switchblade when it isn’t a surpersuit, an extra feature that I originally found funny but now find incredibly useful. I don’t know how much money it cost Max and the betters to send me such a gift, since I don’t remember, in any of the other Triple Crown tapes I watched, any other champion getting a gift that actually belonged to them originally, but I’m just grateful that Max was able to send it to me, because my chances of survival have just increased to about fifty percent, even with five careers after me.
Slipping the lightning bolt down my shirt and into my sports bra – in case something goes wrong and I get caught by the careers – and forcing myself to ignore Winston’s worried expression, I jog into the clearing warily, sending cautious glances all around me to make sure that the other careers haven’t arrived yet. When I reach the supply pile, I slide the pack off of my back and pull the homemade hand grenades out to place four unloosed ones around the perimeter, then walk back over to where I first reached the pile and slip the pack back on. Backing up to stand about fifty yards from the mountain of stuff, I turn my attention to the last mine in my hand, loosen the cuff enough that it will be dislodged upon impact, throw the grenade as hard as I can straight at the top of the pile, and turn away to sprint for my life.
However, I’ve only covered about five yards before I hear the first explosion go off, and the next thing I know I’m lying on my stomach with my face in the grass with something wet and warm running down the side of my head. Reaching an unsteady hand up to touch the liquid, I hold my wet fingers to my nose to smell the sharp iron tang of blood, but I smile anyways, because I know I’ve succeeded. My hand then falls to the wolf’s-head pendant around my neck, and the last thing that drifts through my mind before I black out is that the playing field is finally even.

More added.

I open my eyes to find myself staring at a canvas ceiling, and suddenly everything that happened with the grenades and the careers’ supply camp comes flooding in. Sitting straight up, my head instantly begins to spin, and I blink a couple times, trying to rid myself of the vertigo that has taken over me.
“Well look who’s awake,” I hear a familiar voice say, and my heart soars as I think it’s Luke. A smile creeps across my face, and I wipe my watering eyes on the back of my hand to see the amused face of Marshall Moore swim in front of me. “That was quite a stunt you pulled with the land mines,” he tells me, smirking, as I frantically scoot backwards to find myself hit something hard covered by something a little bit softer. A tree trunk behind the cloth side of the tent, I think vaguely, my eyes locked on Marshall’s as all of the things he said about me under that tree only last night – or at least it was last night when I blacked out – come into my mind and make me even more wary. “I would find it very impressive if it didn’t destroy nearly all of my supplies.” His intense blue-green gaze has become slightly angry now and all trace of a smile has disappeared from his face as he towers over me and stares me down. “Now, before I kill you, I want to ask you a few questions. If you answer them truthfully, you may live longer.”
With my wits finally about me, I shoot back, not intending to answer any of the questions he asks me, “What, you’re not going to have any fun with me now?” When I see his confused expression, I add, “I heard all the things you said when you were sitting around the camp fire with the other careers, since I had a perfect place to spy on you from twenty feet directly above you.” Now it’s my turn to smirk as I see the displeasure, though it lacks any surprise, cross his face.
“I knew you were up in the tree,” he mutters, causing my eyebrows to go up in shock, since I thought – well, I thought I knew – I was pretty well hidden and wouldn’t be visible, especially with the low light.
“Then why didn’t you tell the others and kill me then?” I ask him in response, hoping to seem confrontational but actually just curious. I make myself not think about his addressing of the bushes right now, since it will be easier to kill him if I avoid the idea that he might actually be a deep, decent person.
“Because then I wouldn’t be having the fun I am with you right now,” he replies, smiling at me, and all of my aggressive act is dropped when I see the intense look on his face and begin to get creeped out. Taking a few steps towards me, then squatting down in front of me, his eyes locked on mine the whole time, he murmurs, “You know, you are completely at my mercy right now,” and reaches a hand out to touch my leg high enough up to be considered suggestive. His whole demeanor then changes and he loses the passionate air to tell me, though he doesn’t remove his hand, “Well, before the real fun begins, I have a couple questions for you.”
“And I have more than a couple for you, although nearly all of them are demands,” I reply, my gaze darting to his hand and back up to his to make it clear I want him to remove it. However, he merely smirks and slides his hand higher up my leg, and I inhale sharply, thinking that he’s going to punched, even though he does have a spear on his back and a dagger on his belt, if he doesn’t pull back soon.
“I imagine you do,” he responds, his mischievous grin getting even bigger, “but, considering that I’m the one with the weapons, I think you should listen to mine first.” He then gives me his most charming grin as he sits down next to me, his hand still on my leg and his blue-green eyes twinkling in amusement as they lock on mine, and I scowl at him, hating that he’s right. When I sit looking at him expectantly for a few moments to have him stare back at me, I wave my hand impatiently for him to continue and he starts to action. “How did you get to be such a good fighter?” he questions, looking down at me and, even though he probably has a clear view down my ripped shirt, keeping his gaze on my face.
Shrugging, I answer, “I worked as an assassin for three years,” since it’s the truth. He doesn’t have to know everything else about me working for a government of the past to kill other shapeshifters and immortals.
“You say worked, yet they don’t let you quit being an assassin.” Marshall stares over at me curiously, and I internally curse myself for making a mistake like that, since I need to reveal as little about my past in the arena – and therefore to the Triple Crown committee – as I can.
“No, they don’t,” I confirm, then add, “so I turned on the agency I worked for and destroyed it.” I get a slight smirk as I glance over at him to see a very surprised and almost afraid expression on his face.
Clearly not wanting to comment on this accomplishment of mine, he asks me, getting a solely curious look now, “How old are you?” He then slides his hand down my leg a little, and, even though I’m relieved to have him pull back, I can’t help but yelp in pain when he hits a spot that must have gotten injured when I blew the careers’ supplies up. “Oh, shit, I forgot about that,” he exclaims, quickly removing his hand completely and jumping to his feet to cross the room and pull what appear to be salve, bandages and medical tape out of a pack sitting next to the tent entrance. He then walks back to me, helps me up, and commands, “Take your clothes off.”
“What?!” I cry, about ready to slap him. I thought he wanted to ask me questions before he got to this point!
Waving the supplies at me, he tells me, “I need to bandage you up!”
However, I don’t intend to let him touch me, so, after shooting him many wary looks, I strip down to my sports bra and skin-tight spandex, snatch the bandages out of his hand, and sit down to set about the task of fixing myself up.
“You can’t do those yourself,” he says flatly as he looks down at me, his arms folded across his chest and his gaze downright denying.
“Yes, I can!” I shoot back, wrapping one severely bruised part of my leg up and attempting to tape it in demonstration to have to stop because of the incredible pain.
“No, you can’t,” he repeats obstinately, with the air of telling a small child something obvious, and kneels down to take the supplies out of my hand. When he sees me looking at him with an air of extreme suspicion, he tells me, almost exasperated, “Just trust me, will you?”, and, as I am about to shake my head no, I see the sincerity in his eyes and drop my gaze in what both of us know is a yes. He then lifts my leg up, rests it on his outstretched knee, unravels the pitiful bandage on my thigh, and, incredibly gently, massages some of the salve in his hand into the deep bruises. I inhale sharply, due to the combination of him touching my exposed leg so high up, the pain of him touching the bruises, and the almost instant relief that the salve provides, but the pain relief finally wins over and I relax slightly as I feel all of the hurt being drawn out of my leg by the ointment.
“This is amazing,” he murmurs quietly, and I look up at him in surprise and curiosity. He meets my questioning gaze and explains, “Your femur was fractured yesterday – I could see the bone fragments trying to work their way out of your skin – but it doesn’t seem broken at all now. In fact, you just seem to have deep bruises, and even those have healed faster than should be possible.” He looks down at my leg and gently touches the bruises, which, even though they continue to be spectacular and very painful, are a little healed from even when our conversation began. The reason that I’m healing so fast is that, because I’m an immortal, my body is much stronger and much more able to fix itself than normal human bodies, but, of course, I can’t tell Marshall that; in fact, all I can do is hope that he doesn’t figure it out on his own.
As he looks up at me again, he gives me a smile that assures me he’s still completely clueless and jokes, “It’s almost like you’re Superwoman, and you’re invincible!”
“Yeah,” I agree halfheartedly, returning his smile with a weak grin of my own. To be perfectly honest, he’s not far off the truth with that Superwoman thing.
Our conversation lapses into silence, the only sounds to break the air those of Marshall properly bandaging my leg. After he’s done so, he sets it back down and says quietly, “You’re going to have to stand up now so I can bandage your stomach,” and helps me to my feet to walk around behind me and wrap his arms around my waist so he can reach my stomach. When I start and try to pull away, he holds me against him and murmurs to comfort me, “Shh. I’m not going to do anything, I promise.”
I turn partially around to find him giving me a small, sincere smile, and I decide to continue to trust him for now, though I’m fully prepared to jerk away at a moment’s notice. When I turn back around, he begins to rub salve into the bruises and cuts on my abdomen, and I sigh as the pain is again drawn out of my wounds by the medicine. After a few moments of us standing in silence as I let Marshall heal me, he runs out of the supply of salve in palm but doesn’t remove his arms to get more, and instantly I’m wary, because I know – or at least have an idea – about where this is going.
“You know, Luke Gates is a very lucky guy,” he murmurs in my ear as he holds me to him, then, without warning, kisses my neck. Standing frozen in shock and almost fear for a few moments, I turn around when he pulls back to find him giving me another one of those incredibly sincere smiles that makes him look handsome in my eyes, and turn back around and hold still to have him wrap up my stomach with an expert hand.
“All of your ribs – every one of which was broken yesterday – are healed too,” Marshall murmurs in amazement as he finishes bandaging my stomach, his fingers gently tracing the outline of my perfectly healed ribs through the bandage. “This is amazing. It’s almost like you really can’t be hurt, because your body heals itself almost immediately every time you are.”
I don’t like where this is going, because this could very well lead to my secret coming out and me having to erase Marshall’s memory. I definitely don’t want to do that, since I want Marshall to remember this relatively nice, mostly non-hostile conversation we’ve had, so I pull away from him and turn around quickly so that I’m facing him again and ask him, “Can I put my clothes back on now?”
I then bend down to grab the pile of garments off to the side, my eyes on Marshall the whole time in an attempt to read his reaction. Fortunately, he still seems to be completely ignorant, as there’s no sign of suspicion or realization in his eyes or on his face, and I allow myself to breathe again. I won’t be discovered today.
“Well, I’d like you to keep them off,” he begins, a mischievous smirk taking over his face again, “but I guess you can put them back on.” I can’t help but smile back at him, since I know I walked right into that one, and slip my black undershirt, golden overshirt and black pants, and matching black waterproof jacket and pants, with all of the layers having holes in them. I then sit back down to have him lower himself to the ground next to me, and look over at him, expecting him to continue the questioning.
“Oh, where were we?” he asks aloud, and, when he remembers, questions me again, “How old are you? I think that you have to be eighteen, maybe even nineteen with the couple months we’ve been here, since you just look and act older than the rest of us. In fact, if I didn’t know the age limit was eighteen, I would think you were older, twenty or twenty-one maybe.”
“Actually, Marshall,” I begin, grinning slightly at his presumption that I’m older, since it happens everywhere I go, “I turned seventeen about four months ago.”
“Are you serious?” he exclaims, completely shocked. When I nod my head yes, he tells me, “That’s crazy, because I turned eighteen about four months ago, and I thought there was no way in hell that I was older than you.”
“Well, you are,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders and smiling at his mix-up. When I went down during Spring Break in March to visit my brothers at ASU, I was actually asked what I was drinking a few times by a few unknowing adults.
“I would have never guessed that,” he tells me, shaking his head in amazement. We then sit in a semi-comfortable silence for a few moments, at which point Marshall pipes up and says, “Well, now it’s your turn.” When I look at him in confusion, he elaborates, “I asked you two questions, so now you get to ask me two questions. An eye for an eye, I guess you could say.” He shrugs his shoulders and looks over at me expectantly, a small smile on his face – that makes me kind of uncomfortable – as he gazes down at me.
“Hmm,” I murmur after pulling my eyes away from his, as I find his intensity discomfiting, tapping my finger on my leg as I ask myself how on earth I’m going to pick any two questions to ask Marshall Moore, when I could probably ask him two hundred about his complete turnaround in behavior and still want more answers. “What happened to Terrell?” I finally question, forcing myself to stare over at Marshall to find him watching me intently, and the discomforting thought that he could still want to have fun with me flits across my mind.
“He’s dead,” Marshall answers shortly, not really seeming sad or even like he feels any emotions at all besides a small amount of disappointment.
“Did you kill him for letting me blow up the supplies?” I ask, thinking that, with the fragile structure of the career pack, Marshall very well could have, and maybe just for the reason that he doesn’t want any competition for the position of leader.
“No, I wouldn’t have done that,” he replies, shaking his head. “I mean, Terrell was dumb, way too dumb for his own good, but he was loyal, and he was a good fighter. I might have broken his nose for letting you blow up the supplies, but kill him? Nah. He was still useful, so I wouldn’t have gotten rid of him.” Marshall shrugs again, and I feel a cold shiver run down my spine as I realize that this is how the careers win every year: by teaming up, planning, then murdering one another in cold blood when someone loses usefulness.
“Then how did he die?” How could he have died, if he wasn’t killed by a fellow career? Did he get hurt in the explosion, then finished off by an opportunistic non-career who happened to stumble across him in his weakened state?
“The explosion that you set, the one that blew up the supplies and gave you those lovely bruises, killed him,” Marshall tells me, and instantly my heart falls through my body to hit the ground beneath me with a resounding thump that rattles my whole being. “Lizzie Lightning, the kill leader with eight kills,” Marshall jokes feebly, attempting to give me a friendly smile but just making me feel even worse about what I did. “Oh Lizzie, don’t feel bad. You came up with an ingenious plan to decrease our chances of survival and executed it to near-perfection. That’s nothing to feel bad about, especially since it worked.” He lays a hand gently on my arm, clearly trying to comfort me, and I wonder why on earth he’s being so nice to me and taking such good care of me when he’s just going to kill me in the end.
When I see him looking over at me expectantly, I realize he’s waiting for me to ask the second question, and I clear my throat hastily to question, even though I know there’s a lot better things I could be asking, “Why are you rejecting Danica? She’s not as dumb as Terrell, she’s not bad-looking, and she’s willing. I’d think that that last factor would make her exponentially more attractive in your eyes,” I add, and Marshall smiles sadly.
“I know this may sound shocking,” Marshall begins, his grin becoming insincere, “but I actually don’t want to have a one-night stand with a girl I may end up killing, no matter how willing she is and no matter how much of a sexually driven eighteen-year-old boy I may be.” After a few moments of sitting in an awkward silence, the whole time me wishing I hadn’t asked because it’s going to be a lot harder to kill him after finding out he’s actually a likeable human being, he adds, looking over at me with that passionate fire in his eyes again, “You know, I was just bluffing about all the things I was telling the others I would do to you. I mean, I don’t think I could even kill you, much less rape you and then kill you. Well, if I were to win One-Person, and I were to pick you to be my team mate – which I would, of course – and Gates were to get killed in Team Survival, and we were to win, I would most certainly get down on one knee and pour my heart out to you and propose to you in the arena itself right after we won, but I don’t think I could anything to you, not even touch you against your will anymore, because you deserve better than that. Hell, you deserve Gates, and I know I’d just be a poor substitute, but, if you wanted to…” Here his voice cracks, and he looks at me with such passion, intensity and even desperation in his eyes that I couldn’t tear my gaze away if I wanted to. Swallowing with obvious difficulty, he clears his throat and then finishes, “I would try to be him for you, and I would hope and pray and want with all my might that I could be good to you, and make you happy.”
I force myself to look away, not being able to bear the sight of him so hopeful and apprehensive in front of me.
“Lizzie,” he begins, reaching a hand out to gently touch my arm and pulling my eyes back onto his with the sheer willpower of his voice, “I’m sorry for all of the things I did to you in Hand-to-Hand and earlier. I’m sorry for pinning you and trying to French-kiss you, I’m sorry for touching your leg too high up, I’m sorry for holding you against me and kissing your neck when you clearly didn’t want that. I’m sorry, Lizzie; I’m just not very good at this whole nice-guy-romance thing.” He shrugs his shoulders and gives me a small, sad smile, his beautiful blue-green stare locked on mine. All of a sudden, he seems to remember something, and rises to his feet to cross the tent and grab two large packs – my two large packs – my bow and quiver of arrows, and my sword. “Here,” he says, offering them out to me. “Since I’m going to let you go, I might as well give you your supplies back.”
For a few moments I am too stunned by the kind gesture to do anything except stand there and stare at him blankly, but, when I do come to my senses, I tell him sincerely, with a smile of my own, “Thank you,” and slip the packs on, strap the sword around my waist, slide the quiver on, and heft the bow in one hand. All of a sudden something strikes me as amiss, and I can’t stop myself from bursting out and asking, “Where’s Winston?”
“The jungle cat?” Marshall questions in reply, and I nod my head. “Oh, he stood there and growled at me for a few minutes when I went to go get your other pack and sword, but finally he backed off and ran into the jungle, so best I know he’s fine.”
I let a sigh of relief escape and murmur, as a heavy load removes itself from my chest, “Thank God he’s alright.”
Suddenly Marshall gets an almost bashful look on his face, which I could have never seen him having up until now, then asks me shyly, giving me a small, sheepish smile, “Lizzie, can I ask for one favor before you go?”
“Sure, what?” I reply, wondering what on earth he could be wanting that makes him act like this.
“I just…” he starts, fumbling over his words and blushing, if that’s even possible for him to do. “I just…” he says again, having no more luck with articulating his request this time either. Finally he bursts out, clearly getting fed up with his inability to communicate, “Can I have a kiss? Just one, nice one?”
As I resist the urge to laugh out loud, not at his want but at the difficulty he had in telling me it, I answer, smiling geuninely at him, “Of course,” then lean forward to give him a short kiss on the lips.
For a few moments after I pull back, it seems that all Marshall is able to do is stand there and blink his eyes, as though he has no idea what just happened. However, he soon does regain his functionality and tells me, giving me a radiant grin of his own, “Thank you, so much.” He then steps past me to lift up the side of the tent for me to leave, and looks at me expectantly, although there is more than a bit of sadness in his eyes.
I nod my head at him, adjust the supplies on my back, and am about to tell him goodbye when I see, out of the corner of my eye, that there’s no ring on my right ring finger. “Marshall, where’s my engagement ring?” I ask him, knowing that he probably didn’t take it, but that Danica very well could have. Instantly my hand flies to my neck, since if Danica took the ring, she probably took my necklace too. However, I allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief when my fingers find the wolf’s-head pendant. El Nieve hasn’t taken the one thing that keeps me sane, that represents who I am. Yet.
Marshall looks at me blankly for a few seconds before exclaiming, “Oh, shit. Umm…” After dropping the tent flap, he runs his hands over the numerous pockets in the waterproof jacket he’s wearing, and, after a few seconds, pulls a small golden ring – my engagement ring, to be exact – out of his breast pocket. “Here,” he says quietly as he gently takes my right hand in his own and slides the ring on, his fingers closing over mine for a moment before he pulls away. “Lizzie Gates,” he says out loud with the hint of a smile, appearing to be considering the name. “It has a ring to it. Sure, not as much of a ring as Lizzie Moore would-” – here his grin breaks out to spread from ear to ear – “-but it does have a ring to it.”
All of a sudden something strikes me as odd, and I can’t help but question him, “Marshall, why do you do that?” Upon seeing his confused expression, I elaborate, “Why do you go from being perfectly serious and intense to joking around and pretending and being a douchebag sometimes even just like that?” I snap my fingers to indicate the quickness of his change in behavior, then look at him expectantly.
After a few moments of silence have passed between us, he answers quietly, “I think it’s because I’ve been acting for so long that I can’t tell the difference between reality and pretending anymore.”
I feel goosebumps run up my spine at his words and turn away from him, thinking that him turning out to be a decent, normal human being is going to make everything a whole hell of a lot harder. “What are you going to tell them, about letting me go?” I ask him after turning back around to face him again, knowing that he can’t actually tell them he let me go, since that would be completely unacceptable.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs indifferently, not really seeming to care. “It doesn’t matter what I tell them, because they’ll always stick with me.” Upon seeing my skeptical expression, he adds, “No matter how good of warriors they are, no matter how physically strong they are, no matter how many ways they can kill someone, they will always be sheep, and they will always need a shepherd.”
I nod, thinking that I’ve finally learned why the careers stick together like they do when there’s really no apparent reason for it. “You know, Marshall, you were right about me not talking to you when I told you I have lightning in my blood,” I murmur after a few seconds have passed in silence, and, seized by a sudden spontaneous idea, tell him sincerely, “Goodbye,” step forward to embrace him, and, like I did in the arena during Hand-to-Hand with Abby, I get the ominous feeling that, when I let go, he’s going to die.
“Goodbye,” he echoes hollowly after just holding me for a little bit, then, as though he’s remembered something, starts slightly and tells me urgently, backing away to look me in the eye, “Terrell was bragging yesterday, before the explosion, about how he hurt Luke. Terrel just said that he stabbed him good, so I don’t know where the wound is, but I can presume it’s pretty bad, and that Luke will most likely die if you don’t find him and help him.”
After swallowing with difficulty as the full extent of Marshall’s words set in, I nod my head in understanding and set my jaw, determined to find Luke, because he is not going to die on me. However, just as I am about to walk out, I feel something cold and metallic in my sports bra, which I hadn’t noticed up until now because of the excruciating pain I was in, and the realization of what it is comes flooding in. Unzipping my jacket and sticking a hand down my shirt, I pull the black-with-gold-trim lightning bolt out to first sigh in relief and then set my packs, quiver, sword and bow down. I will the suit to cover me from head to toe, which it does, then put my supplies back on, feeling infinitely more protected and almost invincible now.
“Holy shit, that is sick!” Marshall exclaims, his face lighting up like that of a child’s who has just walked into a candy store. Reaching a hand out, he taps the black metal covering my arm with one oustretched knuckle and shakes his head in amazement. “That was a gift, right?” he asks, looking at me in amazement.
Telling the suit with my mind to lose the helmet and visor for the moment, I grin despite myself and answer, “Well, it was mine before the Triple Crown, but I guess my mentor rounded up enough money to convince the Triple Crown committee to let him send it in.” Suddenly a wave of sadness washes over me, and, activating the rocket boosters so that I am levitating a few inches above the ground, turn away to leave. However, I find that I can’t go without saying goodbye again, and turn back around to tell him, “Goodbye. I hope we don’t see each other again.”
“Why not?” he asks in confusion, his blue-green eyes clouding over with hurt the same way Luke’s do.
“Because if we do, one of us will have to die.” I then have the helmet and visor cover my head again, mentally command the rocket boosters to increase their power, and depart up into the sky without saying another word, the whole time thinking I can’t turn around without this whole mess getting even more complicated.

“Luke!” I exclaim to myself, spotting him lying motionless through the miniscule electronic magnifying scope my suit projects for me onto the visor of my helmet. My first instinct is to fly to him immediately, but I know that that might scare him, so I force myself to find a small clearing to land in so I can go to him on foot. However, as soon as I have landed, despite the rain that’s been pouring for probably two hours now, I hear a rustling in the bushes to my left, and scrabble to draw the sword I’ve just set down in order to let my suit collapse. I then see a golden, black-spotted form bounding towards me, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Winston!” I cry as I squat down to have him throw himself onto me and knock me over. “Winston,” I repeat as I look up at him from the flat of my back, this time with less urgency, and raise a hand up to stroke his spotted face. He then gives me a gentle lick, and his eyes dart between my supplies and the forest in front of us where Luke lays dying. “Well, come on then,” I tell him, and, when he clambers off of me, slip the metallic lightning bolt I had been clutching into my pocket and pick up all of my supplies to let him lead me – I presume – towards Luke.
All of my questions of how he kept up with me while I was flying are immediately vanquished when I see how quickly he can move through the underbrush. As I sprint after him, I mutter to myself, “I guess he was just trying to slow me down earlier, for some reason.”
However, all of my thoughts of Winston purposely delaying me earlier are discarded by us stumbling upon the area where Luke lays. Seeing a small tuft of blonde sticking out near a tree about twenty five yards away, I run to him, heedless of the rain dumping on me and, despite my waterproof jacket and pants, getting inside my clothes and soaking me to the bone.
“Luke!” I cry when I reach him, seeing how cold and wet he is and the large, blood-soaked rip on the side of his ribs that must be where Terrell stabbed him and immediately stripping off my waterproof jacket and pants as well as the golden top layer of the arena uniform to drape them over him.
“Lizzie,” he murmurs, a weak smile spreading across his face and his ice-blue eyes locked on mine. When he sees me taking my clothes off, his grin gets slightly bigger and he jokes, “Man, if I knew dying was going to be this fun, I would have done it a long time ago.” He then raises a hand to gently caress my face before his arm slumps to his side because he doesn’t have the strength to hold it up any longer.
At his joke, my eyes widen, and, not being able to stop myself, I slap him on the cheek and give him an angry glare.
“What was that for?” he exclaims, reaching up to touch where I backhanded him with a look of shock on his face.
“For saying you’re going to die!” I shoot back, staring him down to make sure he knows I’m displeased with him. Then, knowing I’m probably confusing him greatly, I bend down over him and kiss him passionately to feel his arms wrap around me.
When I pull back, he asks again, this time with a much milder and happier tone, “What was that for?” as he gives me another weak grin that looks more like a grimace than anything.
“For everything else,” I tell him as I give him a smile of his own and gently touch the side of his face. However, our small romantic moment is broken by the reality of Luke dying in front of me setting in, scooping him up into my arms and looking for a place where we can go hide and I can treat him.
“Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be doing this?” he questions, attempting to and failing miserably at lightening up the situation.
“I’m not the one who’s hurt,” I answer in reply, not even bothering to look down at him as I scan the landscape all around us almost desperately for some bushes we can stay in, even just a rock we can hide behind. He doesn’t say anything in response, and I’m grateful because I know he won’t be wasting energy on talking to me. Suddenly my eyes pass over a small hole in the ground, and I look closer to see that there is a cave, though it doesn’t look big enough for Luke and I to fit in it, nestled in between a few short leafy plants. Whistling before I head towards the opening so Winston will follow, I gently set Luke down to lean him up against a tree trunk, then walk back over to the cave to pull aside the plants and find that the entrance is bigger than I first thought it was and that the cave itself is actually quite spacious.
“Whoa!” Luke exclaims, and I turn around to see Winston looking at Luke curiously and leaning forward to try to sniff him while Luke scrabbles around him for a weapon or anything he can use to discourage Winston.
“Luke, it’s alright, Winston’s nice!” I tell him quickly, hoping to dear God that he doesn’t aggravate Winston and get himself ripped up even more. When I see Luke’s confused and still very wary and frightened expression, I add, “The cat’s with me. He won’t hurt you.”
Luke lets out a sigh of relief himself, even though he doesn’t look completely comfortable with Winston’s presence, and pushes himself up with much effort to ask me, “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“Yes: stop talking, relax, and conserve your energy,” I answer without turning around, pushing aside the plants hiding the cave entrance to slip inside and see how big it really is. Glancing around me at the solid, grey-colored, dry-looking rock, I reach a hand up to touch the ceiling and find that it is completely dry, without a hint of water or dampness to it. As I drop my packs, quiver, bow and sword off to the side, I smile in satisfaction, thinking that this is going to work perfectly as a makeshift hospital, when I realize that there is a flaw to my plan: I don’t have anything to treat Luke with.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, hoping that I remember at least some of the plants they told me had medicinal properties. Racking my mind, I sigh in relief when I realize that I have retained all of the information they told us about plants and animals in training, but I find, with surprise, that they didn’t mention anything about Winston’s species, which I think is odd because they covered every other animal I’ve encountered so far. Though I didn’t remember it at the time, the bird I killed a few days ago is called a poaton, and, from what they told us and from what I gathered, is basically the jungle version of a pheasant. The trees I’ve been spending nights in, as nearly all of the trees in this rainforest are, are called ‘inmortal’ trees, which is Spanish for immortal, since they can live thousands of years if they don’t have an untimely death. I think it’s funny that no one in El Nieve or apparently all of the Sections knows any Spanish when even their country has a Spanish name, El Tiempo.
I wonder why they call their country ‘the time’. If you ask anyone in El Nieve, they’d probably say it’s because this is the most miraculous time the country’s ever seen, and that they might as well celebrate it, but I think that maybe, though this reason would have been unconscious if it existed at all, it’s because the original rulers of El Nieve – the people who most likely named the country in the first place – knew it was only a matter of time before the system backfired and the Sections rose up against El Nieve.
I wonder how the Sections are doing, with their attempts to rebel against El Nieve and El Nieve cracking down on them. One, Two, Three and Four may not be experiencing much change, since they are the Sections closest to El Nieve and therefore least likely to rebel, but Five, Six, Seven and Eight – especially Eight, because of the salute they gave Luke and I and because that’s where I’m supposed to be from – may be suffering greatly right now for their efforts to free themselves of El Nieve. Of course, the rebellion is doomed if Fix, Six, Seven and Eight don’t get help or support from One, Two, Three and Four, but I think the people of Five, Six, Seven and Eight know that, and I think that they’ve decided they’ve had enough of living on their knees and would rather die on their feet, now that I’ve stirred them to make a choice.
Again I think about what they’ll do with my death. Undoubtedly they’ll at least use it as an example and tell others that’s what will happen to them, that’s what will happen to their kids, if they don’t rise up and stop it, but they might even make me a martyr, and paint my face on banners and posters and use me as their symbol, their inspiration, their light in the darkness. Even when I’m dead, I could be a spark for rebellion; in fact, to the Sections and to the rebellion, I’m worth more dead than I am alive. Those thoughts, no matter how dark and depressing they are, are one of the reasons why I’m determined to die, if not during One-Person, then most definitely during Team Survival, with words of encouragement and rebellion the last things I say. I want to make my mark on this world, and go out in style, so I figure that I might as well help someone while I’m at it.
However, just as I am about to tear myself away from my thoughts and return to check on Luke and make sure he hasn’t contracted some disease yet, the sound of something hitting the ground next to me does it for me, and I look over to find Winston standing there and staring at me with a pleased expression on his feline face and a sprig of some brilliantly green plant hanging from his jaws.
“What do you have there?” I ask him, bending down to take the stem out of his mouth and examine it closely. When I realize what it is – a pain reliever and bacteria and virus killer with all-around healing properites – I wrap my arms around Winston and murmur in his ear, “Thank you.”
In response, he gives me a lick on the cheek, and I laugh to hear something – or someone, as the case is – adjust their position to listen better. Agilely clambering back out of the cave to stand in the pouring rain again, I find Luke staring at me with a small, happy smile on his face. However, the glazing of pain in his eyes and the obvious shivers racking his body concern me greatly, and I know that I have to get him into the cave and out of the rain if I intend to keep him alive.
“I like it when you laugh,” he tells me as I pick him up, his body limp and unresisting as I carry him. Another thing that troubles me is how much lighter he feels; even with his and my waterlogged clothes on, he probably doesn’t weigh more than one-ninety, which is ten pounds less than he weighed completely dry three days ago.
Ignoring his comment, I ask him, “You haven’t eaten or drank in three days, have you?” to have him shake his head in reply. “God damn it Luke, you have to take better care of yourself!” I exclaim, making my number-one priority, as soon as I get him into the cave, to get some water and nutrients into him.
When we reach the cave opening, I lower Luke down to set him right next to the entrance, climb down into the cave myself, then lift him carefully through the opening to rest him against a large flat rock and adjust the layers of clothing covering him. Turning to my packs, I pull out one of the water jugs and have him drink as much as he can hold in little sips, and, once he’s finished with the water, get out three vitamin pills and have him swallow all of them. I then peel the layers of wet clothes off of him to reveal the blood-soaked hole in his arena uniform and, as I lift his torso up with one arm, strip the golden top shirt and black bottom shirt off so I can reach his injury more easily.
“Oh, we’re doing that now?” Luke jokes weakly, a pain-tainted smile creeping across his face as he reaches up and tries to pull my black top off. He gets about halfway done before he has to quit, and I finish the job for him to leave me in my sports bra and black pants of the arena uniform, thinking that he might as well get something he wants while he tries to die on me.
After giving him a smile and tossing my shirt to the side, the bandage Marshall made coming off with the shirt, I fix my attention on his wound to inhale sharply when I see how bad it is. However, Luke clearly doesn’t seem to notice my reaction to his wound, and instead raises his hands to feebly try to pull me down on top of him. “Let me hold you, please,” he begs, his eyes as well as his voice pleading with me, and I can’t help but be reminded of when I treated Jackson a week and a half ago.