Chapter 6 The Arena

Grace's Pov

Guards entered the pens immediately and started reading names off a list. When they said Julian’s name I felt my stomach drop. He stood up without a word and walked toward them. Other fighters followed.

Teresa was not called.

I was.

A guard pointed at me. “Observers. Move!.”

They took us down a different hallway this time. The air got warmer and carried a sharp smell like metal and sweat. We climbed a short set of stairs and came out into a viewing area behind thick glass.

Below us was the arena.

It was bigger than the training yard and built for real damage. The floor was packed with dirt, smeared with old blood and dark, dried stains.

Broken teeth and scattered fragments of bone lay near the edges, half-buried beneath the dirt.

Human skulls had been placed along the walls like trophies, their empty sockets staring up at us beneath the harsh white lights.

There were no seats for a crowd. Just the glass rooms for people like us and the gray coats who stood with tablets ready.

Blackwood was already there, standing with his arms behind his back. He looked calm and ugly, with a terrible face that looked like it belonged to a man who drank blood for pleasure and dreamed about murder.

The fighters were led into the arena through a metal gate. Julian walked near the front. His face showed nothing. He had the same controlled walk I had seen in the yard.

Then the crowd erupted.

“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

A sudden voice came from the speakers.

“YOU WILL BE SPLIT INTO TWO TEAMS. THE LAST TEAM STILL STANDING WINS. YOU CAN ONLY USE WEAPONS THAT SHOULD NOT KILL ANYONE.”

But the voice did not sound like it really cared if someone got hurt.

I pressed my hands against the glass.

The gate on the other side opened and the second group came in. They looked harder. Meaner. One of them spun a short metal rod in his hand like he could not wait.

A bell suddenly rang.

CLANG!

The entire arena went silent.

What happened next was fast and ugly. Bodies crashed into each other. Boots pounded against the dirt. Metal screamed against metal as the arena exploded into chaos.

Clack-shhhk!

A knife flashed beneath the lights.

One fighter lunged, driving the blade toward Julian’s stomach. Julian twisted aside just in time, but the knife still sliced across his shirt, leaving a thin red line along his side.

“Julian!,” I screamed in pain but he didn't hear me.

Another fighter swung a metal rod into his ribs.

CRACK!

Julian staggered, one hand dropping to his side. For a second, I thought he was going down.

Then he looked, eyes wild, face burning red with raw anger and grief.

Then he stood.

He moved slowly at first, despite the pain. Blood dripped from his wounds, staining the dirt beneath his feet.

He shot forward with terrifying, unpredictable speed, leaving the arena roaring behind him.

Hundreds of voices screamed from the upper levels, drowning each other out as fists slammed against metal railings.

“KILL HIM!”

“BREAK HIM!”

In the blink of an eye, he vanished.

Next he caught the boy's wrist, twisted it hard, and drove his elbow into the boy's face. The boy stumbled backward.

Julian followed with terrifying speed, his eyes dark with a savage hunger for blood. There was no mercy in his face, only the cold certainty of a predator chasing its prey.

His knife came up.

SHNK!

It buried itself into the boy's shoulder.

I wanted to look away but I could not.

Blood hit the dirt. Someone screamed and then went quiet. The gray coats behind us typed notes without looking up. Blackwood watched with that same thin smile he had worn in the pens.

Then the speakers crackled to life.

“THE TRIAL IS OVER! TEAM JULIAN IS THE WINNER!”

The arena erupted with cheers and shouting.

“WOOOOOO!” “JULIAN! JULIAN! JULIAN!”

Thousands of voices roared through the walls as people screamed, clapped, and slammed their hands against the glass.

But it did not feel like winning to me . Three of his people were down and not moving right. Julian himself was bleeding from a cut above his eye and holding his side.

The guards went in to clear the floor. Julian walked out with the others who could still stand. He did not look up at the glass. Not even once.

I stood there with my palms flat against the cold surface and tried to remember how to breathe.

This was what they made him do.

This was what he had become to stay alive.

The observers were told to stay in the glass room until the arena was cleared.

Then a girl’s scream tore through the arena.

“I LOVE YOU, BLACKWOOD!”

My face twisted with disgust.

She laughed breathlessly, like a fool.

“If only my eyes were guns, I’d have shot that bitch and watched boldly as her blood splashes across the arena.”

I watched the guards drag the ones who could not walk. Julian was still on his feet, but every step looked like it cost him. Blood ran down the side of his face and dripped off his jaw. He kept one arm tight against his ribs.

When they finally opened the door to our viewing area, I moved before anyone could stop me. I pushed past two other girls and reached the hallway that led down toward the fighter exit.

A guard stepped in front of me.

“Back with the others!,” He commanded.

“He’s hurt,” I said. My voice came out louder than I meant. “He needs help.”

The guard did not move. “Medicals will handle it. Return to the group.”

I tried to step around him. He put a hand on my shoulder and shoved me back hard enough that I hit the wall. Pain shot through my arm.

“Last warning!.”

I stayed against the wall and watched over his shoulder. Julian came through the lower doorway with the rest of his group. A woman in a gray coat pointed him toward a side room. He walked in without looking up.

Then the door closed.

I stood there until the guard ordered us all back to the pens. My hands were still curled into fists. The cut on Julian’s face kept replaying in my mind. The way he had held his side. The way he had not looked for me even once.

In the pens I sat on my mat and stared at the floor. Teresa came over and dropped a cup of water beside me.

“You can’t help him by getting yourself noticed,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”

I picked up the cup but did not drink.

“He was bleeding.”

“They all bleed.” Teresa’s voice was flat. “Some of them get up the next day. Some don’t. That’s the Cage.”

She walked away slowly, her shoulders slumped, like she had stopped believing she would ever be free.

I stayed sitting with the untouched water in my hands. Somewhere deeper in the facility Julian was hurt and alone, and the only thing I could do was wait in silence while the cameras watched me do nothing.

Later that night the pens were quieter than usual.

Most people had turned toward the walls and tried to sleep. I still could not. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the cut on Julian’s face and the way he had held his ribs.

A soft sound pulled my attention to the side door that the techs sometimes used. A woman in a gray coat stepped inside carrying a small plastic tray.

She looked younger than most of the other techs I had seen. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy knot, and her eyes moved around the room like she was checking for guards.

She stopped near a boy with a bandaged arm and handed him a clean wrap. Then she kept walking. When she reached me she crouched down and set the tray on the floor between us.

“Hold still,” she whispered.

I was tense. “What are you doing?”

“Your arm.” She nodded at the bruise the guard had left when he shoved me. “It will stiffen by morning if you don’t ice it.”

She pressed a small cold pack into my hand and followed it with two white pills and a tube of ointment.

“I’m not supposed to give these out,” she said.

“But that was a hard hit. And you looked like you might do something stupid if nobody helped.”

I stared at her. “Why do you care?”

She glanced over her shoulder.

“My name is Isabel. I used to think this place was doing important work. Now I just try to keep people from falling apart faster than they have to.”

She pushed the ointment closer. “Use it. And listen. Stay away from Blackwood when you can. He has taken an interest in you that might never end well.”

“What about the boy who was hurt in the trial? The one with the cut over his eye.”

Isabel’s face tightened. “Combat injuries go to a different wing. I don’t have access. But he was still on his feet when they brought him in. That is more than some manage.”

A radio crackled in the hallway. Isabel stood up immediately and picked up her empty tray.

“I have to go. Be careful, Grace. Valuable blood makes people dangerous, not safe.”

She slipped out the same side door. The lock clicked behind her.

I sat with the cold pack against my arm and the pills in my other hand.

I did not know if I could trust her.