Triple Crown

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Luke! Luke!” I yell at the top of my voice, using my broadsword like a machete and slashing through the grasses in front of me. He has to be around here somewhere, I think to myself for the twentieth time. Even though I know that Luke wouldn’t leave me in the grasses – in fact, he could very well be in a different part of the grasses looking for me right now – he could have been taken by other champions or even by a nearby colossus, since there could very well be other colossuses besides the one Marshall found. The grasses almost make very good sound and scent blockers, since they’re so thick, so I can’t find Luke that way, and he’s not heavy enough to vibrate the grasses like Marshall and the colossus did. That means the only way I’m going to find him is by yelling and hoping he’s near enough to hear my call and then yell back.
“Lizzie!” I hear someone call, and my heart leaps as I recognize the voice as Luke’s. For a second I pause, my brow furrowing into a question mark as I wonder why on earth I would have a reaction like that to just hearing Luke. It then occurs to me that it just must be because I was worried about him and thought he might be hurt, and I force myself to believe that and not even think about the other possibility.
“Luke! Luke, I’m over here!” I shout, jumping up and down in the grass in an attempt to lead him to me. When I realize that the grass around me isn’t even moving and that my efforts are all in vain, I stop jumping and continue to yell. I shouldn’t start moving again, since I could be walking away from Luke without realizing it and lose him again if I do.
“Lizzie?” His voice is definitely closer now and definitely coming from the left, and a smile breaks out across my face as I run through the grasses towards him.
“Luke!” I cry when I finally see him, and, dropping my sword, I run to him and throw myself at him.
“Lizzie,” he murmurs in my ear, his arms wrapping around me tightly. He takes a few deep breaths and kisses my neck softly, and, as a palpable wave of relief rolls off of him, I realize how worried he was too. “Don’t do that to me again, alright?” He pulls back and stares into my eyes, his expression completely serious. “Don’t make me leave you, because I don’t think I can again, alright?”
“Alright,” I agree quietly, and kiss him lightly on the lips. I then just let him hold me for a few more moments, content with the fact that he isn’t asking any questions, until I remember that I have a promise to keep.
Pulling back and out of Luke’s arms, I turn away from him, pick my sword up off the ground, and allow myself an inconspicuous sniff at the air in an attempt to pick up Marshall’s scent. When I don’t smell anything except the grass and Luke, I shake my head and turn back to him. The grass really does make a good scent barrier.
“What’s the matter Lizzie?’ Luke asks me, his ice-blue eyes concerned as they focus on my face. I meet his gaze for an instant and am reminded that his eye color really is my favorite color on the planet.
“The thing that came out of the ground wasn’t really a monster,” I begin, to immediately concede, “Well, it was a monster, but it was a monster that Marshall Moore had tamed and was riding.”
I see Luke’s face darken at the mention of Marshall, but I brush past it for now. Luke’s going to have to get over the fact that he’s our one ally left eventually.
“Anyways, Marshall and I talked for a little bit, and, before I left to come find you, I promised him I would come back for him.” Luke’s expression gets even stormier, but I keep on talking. There’s no point in snapping at Luke now when there’s something so much more important to do.
However, just as I am about to continue, Luke interrupts me. “What did you talk about?” he asks me quietly, a dangerous undertone to his voice.
I meet Luke’s ice-cold gaze for a long second, wondering why on earth he’s so jealous when it’s over, when he’s the one marrying me, before replying truthfully, “Fear and honor.”
“Sounds like it must have been an interesting conversation,” Luke says lightly, but he’s not fooling me at all. The lethal tone to his voice is still there.
“It’s always interesting talking to Marshall, because he has lots of interesting things to say,” I murmur, staring Luke down. I give him my ice-cold golden glare for a few tense, silent moments until he drops his hostile gaze. I then turn away from him again and begin to march off into the grasses, trying to follow the path of flattened vegetation that I created walking towards Luke.
It’s a few moments before Luke calls from behind me, “Well, wait for me!” and I hear the swoosh of his footsteps on the grass.
“You actually want to come?” I ask him incredulously, looking over at him, when he catches up to me. “I thought you didn’t like Marshall.” Actually, that’s a lie: I know Luke doesn’t like Marshall.
“I don’t,” he begins, his expression hard, “but you are my fiancee, and I want to keep an eye on him around you.” Luke stares over at me for a moment, clearly trying to read me for a reaction, before looking away again.
A small smile briefly flits across my face, and I ask him, making my voice teasing even though I’m really not, “Jealous?”
“Very,” he replies, his tone honest and not at all taken aback by my question. “After all, there’s a lot for me to jealous of,” he adds quietly, and I glance over at him for a moment.
I can hear Max screaming at the top of his lungs, “Say it, say it! Damage control!” and I take a deep breath to prepare myself for the lies and deception about to come out of my mouth. “Luke, there’s nothing for you to be jealous of,” I tell him quietly as I meet him gaze, forcing my best fake smile onto my face and stiffening when Luke leans in to kiss me.
Luke immediately pulls back to ask me, a concerned look on his face, “Lizzie, what’s the matter?”
I want to tell him everything that’s the matter. I want to tell him about all of the lies I’ve been feeding him, and all of the things I’ve said that I haven’t meant, and about how I feel terrible for using him in such a way. I also want to tell him that not everything is a lie, that I’m not acting all the time anymore, that I do actually feel something for him… but I know that I can’t, and that’s what hurts the most.
After taking another deep breath, I force the fake grin back onto my face and tell him, as sincerely as I can muster, “I’m fine,” and kiss him, my hands knotting themselves in his hair.
However, Luke immediately pulls away from me again, reaches up to untangle my hands from his hair, and says, more insitently this time, “No you’re not. Now what’s the matter?”
I sigh, partly at myself for not acting well enough to convince him anymore and partly at Luke for being more perceptive than usual, and turn away from him. I will lose everything if I lose the ability to deceive Luke, so now I have to do damage control in our relationship too.
“Luke,” I begin, thinking that I can maybe tell him part of the truth, “I just feel bad that I don’t feel the same way about you that you do about me. I mean,” I backtrack, “I love you, to an extent, but not nearly to the extent that you love, and it hurts me to know that I’m not as loyal to you and don’t care as much about you as you do about me, because you are perfect for me, Luke. I guess there’s just something inside of me that hasn’t realized that yet.” My voice trails off and I turn away from him again and take a deep breath. Breaking down and crying will do nothing except make me look weak, and I think I’ve already made myself look weak enough.
“Lizzie,” he starts, and my eyes are drawn to his face by the sheer power and emotion of his voice, “it doesn’t matter that you don’t feel the same way about me that I do about you, it really doesn’t, because I will always feel this way about you.”
He pauses for a moment, then continues, “When I said I would be there always, I meant it, in every aspect that I can be there, which includes how I feel about you. I will never stop loving you, Lizzie, and I will wait till I die for you.”
He reaches a hand up to gently caress the side of his face, a small smile curving his lips that does not reach his incredibly serious eyes. “Besides, you have nothing to feel bad about. You’ve said that you love me, and that’s all I ever wanted to hear.”
His grin gets bigger now and finally warms the ice crystals in his eye sockets, and, when he bends over me again, I kiss him back this time.
“You really don’t have any competition, Luke,” I murmur as he pulls back, allowing my thoughts to wander onto the forbidden subject of Jackson for a moment. Instantly I jerk my mind away, because I don’t want to put myself in any more pain. I think I’ve had enough of masochistic for now.
“For the moment I laid eyes on you, Lizzie,” Luke breathes, his eyes locked on mine, “you never had any competition.” He raises a hand to my face again and gives me one last smile before turning away to gaze out into the grasses before us.
My heart is honestly going to crack if Luke keeps this up, I think to myself as I follow the path of downed grass blindly, not noticing or caring where we’re going.
My thoughts are interrupted by Luke’s voice. “You went this way, right?” he asks me, and I jerk my head up to see a continution of the trail of flattened grass.
“Yeah,” I reply quietly, then drop my eyes back to the ground and continue to follow the path when Luke starts walking again.
We’ve been walking for about a minute in silence when the iron tang of blood – most definitely human blood – fills my nostrils. I can’t ignore it, since it means that Marshall or another champion nearby has run into trouble with a different champion or with a colossus, so I freeze and ask Luke, “Do you smell that?”
Like I predicted, he sniffs the air and replies, “No,” to look over at me in confusion.
I think idly that I have no idea how he doesn’t smell, even with him being a human, because the scent is so strong, but I don’t voice these thoughts. Instead I just say quietly, “I smell blood, human blood, and it’s coming from somewhere nearby.” I refuse to let the concern and panic I’m feeling creep into my voice, and somehow manage to keep my tone completely calm and level.
I glance over to find Luke looking at me in shock and amazement, and I realize what must have happened: my hyperactive senses must finally be creeping him out. “You can distinguish between different types of blood?” he asks me, his tone dripping astonishment.
“Yeah,” I reply simply, shrugging my shoulders. There’s no point in lying now, since it won’t achieve anything; besides, I don’t know if I’d be able to make myself lie to Luke again, even if I had to. “There are different levels of iron in different types of animal blood, so the scent is sharper or milder accordingly.”
“Oh,” is all he says in response, absolute amazement still written all over his face. The air around us then lapses into silence, as neither one of us is very good at keeping a conversation alive, and it stays that way for a while as we walk.
Even though I probably shouldn’t be, I’m really worried about Marshall and the possibility that the blood I smelled is his. Despite the fact that he said the colossus he was riding is completely under control and won’t hurt him, I still have my doubts. After all, a creature that size could hurt Marshall without even trying.
Of course, there’s also the potential that Marshall came across other champions and got into a fight with them. I’d rather think that’s the case, because Marshall has a very good chance at winning any fight he gets into. In fact, the only fight he’s lost so far was the one against me, and you can’t really pin that loss on him, as no one has had a chance against me.
All of a sudden, an undeniably human cry of pain rings through the air. Fearing the worst, I immediately pick up my pace and note with concern that the stench of blood in the air has gotten more powerful.
“Be very quiet,” I whisper, loud enough for Luke to hear but not so loud as for my voice to carry through the grasses. “If there’s a colossus up there, we need to make sure we aren’t detected, because we’re toast if the colossus does find us.” Even though the colossuses are incredibly stupid and don’t have the best of senses, I have no doubt that one of them could rip Luke and I to shreds in an instant if it were to detect us.
“I thought you said Marshall had tamed the colossus!” Luke whispers back, doubt and distrust clouding his voice.
“I said he tamed a colossus,” I reply, my tone icy. I don’t like that Luke is prejudiced against Marshall; I mean, I trust Marshall and he hasn’t done anything to break that trust, so isn’t that enough for Luke? “For all I know, there could be tens or hundreds or even thousands of colossuses under the grasses.”
“Oh,” Luke mutters in reply, hanging his head low in defeat, and I can’t help but smile. Even though Luke is my fiancé and we are supposed to be supporting each other, I still am happy when it turns out I’m right on an issue we disagree on.
Another human cry of pain bursts out, and I tighten the grip on my sword. The source of the blood and the cries is right in front of us now, only separated from us by a wall of grass. I’m very nervous about what we’re going to find, since right in front of us is exactly where I left Marshall, and I have a sinking suspicion that the cries of pain I’m hearing and the blood I’m smelling are his.
“Get ready,” I tell Luke quietly, and he draws his knife in answer. Even though he was only doing what Max told him to do by getting away from the Giving Hands, I still wish that Luke had managed to grab a weapon before he cleared out. Our current situation – and every fight we might get into with other champions or animals of the arena – would be a lot easier if he had.
I turn to look at Luke, and meet his determined gaze for a moment before pulling the grasses in front of us aside and bursting through to see Nick Hill, standing in front of a dead colossus, put a sword through a kneeling Marshall’s neck.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Marshall!” I cry, and immediately a gunshot goes off. Nick raises the sword in his hand – which I recognize as Marshall’s blade – and points it at me with surprising confidence. I look into Nick’s amber eyes and see a wild desperation that scares me greatly. I grip my sword tighter and stare Nick down, forcing him to back away with the sheer power of my gaze. I hear a whimper from behind Nick, and I peer around him momentarily to find Sarah Mills standing there with tears welling up in her dark brown eyes.
“Why’d you do that Nick, why’d you do that?” she cries, dropping her gaze to watch the ground eat Marshall’s body. “You didn’t have to do that!”
“I had to do it, Sarah. He would have killed us if I didn’t!” Nick retorts, but I can hear doubt and guilt creeping their way into his voice. I look him over to find a bloody gash underneath his left eye and a long scratch on his right arm running all the way down from his elbow to his wrist, and I’m slightly pleased to know that Marshall didn’t go down without a fight.
“You didn’t have to put the sword through his neck though,” I murmur, my eyes locked on Nick’s and my hands balled into fists as I feel a wave of rage wash over me. “There are other ways to kill someone, you know. Other ways that are less painful.” I hear Luke step up to stand next to me, and I’m grateful for his silence. I think he knows that it’s best if I do the talking; after all, I am the one with the weapons and the real threat power.
“It was the quickest way,” Nick replies, trying to sound confident, to have his wavering eyes and trembling lip give him away.
“There are other ways, Nick. There are always other ways.” I take a step forward, hefting my sword in my hand. I know that Nick doesn’t stand a chance against me, that if it came down to it and he challenged me, he’d be dead within five seconds. However, I don’t want to traumatize Sarah anymore, since she reminds a lot of Abby, so slip my sword back into the sheath on my hip and settle for asking the many questions my tongue is dying to verbalize.
“How did you take out Marshall and his colossus?” I question Nick, forcing my voice into some semblance of calm. “I mean, even with the two of you, he and the beast could have taken you out easily, so you must have done something to weaken or incapacitate them.”
Nick is about to open his mouth to reply when Sarah bursts out, “I found a plant in the plain beyond the drop-off, a plant that’s so poisonous it can kill you if you just touch it.” She looks over at Nick warily before continuing. “We spied on Marshall for a little bit, and I knew a creature that big would need a lot of the plant to die, so I gathered up a whole bunch of it and boiled it down into a juice of sorts. When Nick and I attacked, I snuck up behind the monster and threw a bunch of the juice in its face. It died instantly,” she adds quietly, and her voice trails off for a moment as she seems to drop into a haze of sorts.
Nick, who has seemed eager to talk for a while, immediately takes over the storytelling. “When the career – Marshall, you called him-” – Nick’s mouth twists into a grimace, as though he doesn’t think careers deserve names – “-saw how dangerous the plant juice was, he dropped his sword and said he would negotiate with us.”
I can picture Marshall setting his blade on the ground and putting on a perfect mask of civilized calm while being threatened with instant death, but I force myself to think about something else. Breaking down or losing my temper would neither one be productive at the moment.
“Sarah wanted to, because she didn’t want to kill him-” – Nick shoots a sidelong glance at the trembling girl next to him – “-but I knew that we had to kill him, that he would kill us if we ‘negotiated.’” There is more anger and cynicism in Nick’s voice than I thought was possible for a thirteen-year-old to possess, and it almost scares me to see how much the Triple Crown has changed him. “So I took his sword and put in through the back of his neck. ‘Course, you two saw that part,” Nick adds quietly, lowering his gaze, as I stare him down with contempt and pity. While I wish that Nick hadn’t felt pressured into taking such drastic measures, I know that I will have to take equally drastic measures, because I can’t let Marshall’s death go unavenged.
A sudden movement I see out of the corner of my eye catches my attention, and I look up to see Sarah fiddling with something in her jacket. Nick follows my gaze and turns to look at her too, at which point she murmurs, “You know, Nick, that plant juice didn’t taste bad at all.”
Immediately my eyes shoot open in shock, as I realize that the sudden movement I saw was her downing whatever was left of the poisonous plant extract, and I run towards her to catch her as she falls backwards. I know that it is too late, I know that she will be dead within a few moments, but I can’t stop myself from holding her to my chest and cradling her as her heartbeat slows and slows... and stops.
A gunshot, Sarah’s gunshot, goes off, and I lower her gently to the ground to let the dirt have her. As I stare down at her, what strikes me the most about her suicide is the incredibly peaceful, free expression on her face. In fact, she looks almost happy to be gone.
“Sarah!” Nick cries, squatting over her and reaching out a hand to touch the side of her face just before she completely disappears into the ground. He then stares at the spot where her body laid for a few moments before rising to his feet, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“I never... I never...” he repeats quietly, his eyes on the ground and his hands limp at him sides. “I never... I never got to tell her...”
I look up at him curiosity. What could he have wanted to tell her that’s eating him up so much?
“I never got to tell her... I love her,” he whispers, and I sigh internally at the fact that those had to be the words to come out of his mouth. He must know that saying – and truly believing – things like that is only going to make it harder.
“What did... what did I do?” he murmurs, shaking his head as his hands ball into fists. “I did this, I did this!” he screams in agony, and, for his sake and for mine, I avert my eyes, rise to my feet, and gesture for Luke to follow me into the grasses away from Nick. He deserves the chance to mourn in private, since I know there’s nothing I can do for or say to him that will help him right now. For now, it’s just best to let him cool off and become rational before we even attempt to talk to him.
“Why? Oh God, why?” No sound barrier could stop his tortured voice from following us through the grasses. At one point, his pain gets so unbearable to hear that Luke and I both clap our hands over our ears and keep on walking away from him. After all, if I stay with Nick and let the realization that I lost a decent friend in Marshall today fully wash over me, I would probably end up sounding like that too.
Luke seems to notice my distress, as I catch him staring over at me for a reaction three times out of the four I look in his direction, but thankfully he has the tact to say nothing. I think even just talking about what happened could make me break down.
After we walk in silence for at least a half an hour, far enough away from Nick to not be able to hear him anymore, Luke stops and murmurs, gazing over at me with concern in his eyes, “You know, it wasn’t his fault.”
“I know,” I reply, just as quietly. I know it isn’t Nick’s fault for killing Marshall, since I know that anyone, given the situation, background information and prior prejudices, probably would have done the same thing, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. After all, admitting that Nick really didn’t have a choice doesn’t bring Marshall back, now does it?
“I just...” I begin, knowing what I want to say but not knowing how to phrase it. “I just...” I repeat, “I just think that... I should have been there, you know? I mean, I told Marshall I would come back for him, and I didn’t come back in time.” My voice trembles, and I force myself to take a deep breath and swallow. I can’t break down, not now.
“Lizzie, it’s not your fault either,” Luke tells me quietly, his eyes locked on mine, and reaches out to find my hand with one of his. “You can’t take responsibility for something you couldn’t help. If you try, you’re just playing God and are going to make it a lot harder on yourself.”
“I know, Luke,” I begin with a sigh, “but I can’t help but feel like I should have been there, because I told him, Luke, I told him that I was going to come right back, and I just feel like I broke my promise by not coming back in time.”
“Lizzie, you kept your promise,” Luke tells me emphatically, reaching out to grab me by the shoulder and stop me from walking ahead, like I am about to do. “You did come back for him. It’s not your fault that Nick and Sarah got to him first; I mean, we didn’t even know they were around and we certainly didn’t know they were prepared to kill.”
I snort slightly in agreement, since I thought that Nick and Sarah would be dead within the first day and definitely thought that they wouldn’t be doing any killing.
“Lizzie, just let it go,” Luke murmurs, his eyes locking on mine. “You get so hung up on things and try to make them all your fault when really you couldn’t have done anything about them and all you end up doing is hurting yourself in the process.”
I retort, suddenly angry at Luke, “You’re one to talk. I know that, even if I was on the opposite side of the arena and fifteen miles away from you and it wasn’t your fault that we got separated, you would blame yourself for me dying anyways, and what would you accomplish there? Suicide?” I meet Luke’s gaze coldly, not feeling any remorse about what I said, as I’ve never had much tolerance for hypocrites. That’s why I hate organized religion with a burning passion.
However, instead of apologizing for what he said or being hurt, Luke replies, a while smile breaking out across his face, “What, have you never seen a hypocrite before?”
I don’t find that funny at all, so I respond, with a flat, unamused glare, “I’ve seen too many to find anything about them funny before. I mean, if you’re going to lead, if you’re going to have people follow you, it should be do what I say and do, not do what I say and not what I do.”
Here Luke nods in agreement, pursing his lips in thought as he stares down at me. “Yeah, I have an issue with leaders who are hypocrites too. I don’t have an issue with myself being a hypocrite-” – here the grin returns to his face – “-because I’m not the leader in this relationship. I mean, I’m perfectly content to follow you around all day long.” His eyes twinkle as he looks down at me and I can’t help but smile. His eyes and his beaming grin still take my breath away every time I see them.
“Did you know, Luke,” I begin, reaching a hand up to touch next to his eye gently, “that you have the most beautiful eyes?” I gaze up at his irises and marvel at the millions of shades of blue contained in them; they are truly a mosaic of blue.
“Did that colossus Marshall supposedly tamed hit you in the head somehow?” Luke asks me in reply, looking away quickly. I stare up at him in confusion, realizing that he’s uncomfortable with me complimenting him and wondering why on earth that would be.
“Luke, why are you just brushing my compliments aside?” I ask him directly. I’m not one for sugarcoating; besides, I’ve learned that you get your answer a much higher percentage of the time if you just ask your question outright.
“Because of you,” he replies, and now it’s my turn to wonder if he didn’t get hit in the head with something. When he sees my puzzled expression, he elaborates, “You are so beautiful and perfect and stunning that I don’t deserve to be complimented by you when I’m so ordinary. You’re an angel, a goddess even, and I’m a human. You are so far beyond me that you have no business telling me that anything about me is attractive.” He shakes his head and looks away, his voice bitter and his eyes clouding over with sadness.
“You honestly think that I’m that much better than you?” I ask him incredulously. I’m not better than Luke in any aspect, even physical appearance, so I have no idea how he just such a hairbrained opinion set in his mind. Unfortunately, because he’s so innately stubborn, it’s going to be hard to get that hairbrained opinion unset from his mind.
“Well here’s a newflash for you Luke: I’m not better than you in any way. Despite the facts that you are occasionally obnoxious, annoying and right-” – Luke and I both smile slightly at that – “-you are so innately good and just that I could never be better than you in any way.”
“Lizzie, I don’t know why you insist on painting yourself as the bad guy, like you’re less good than I am, because we both know – or at least I know – that’s crap.” Luke stares over at me, determination smoldering in his eyes and a smile on his face.
“Luke, what if I actually am the demon that I paint myself as?” I know I’m taking a big risk, that I’m only a few steps away from revealing that Lightning isn’t just a last name and that I’m not even human, but I know it won’t come to that. I just need to get it into Luke’s thick skull that I’m not as perfect or great as he seems to think I am.
“What if I actually am the monster under your bed, the killer on the street corner? What would you do then?” I meet his gaze coolly, smiling slightly at the puzzled expression on his face.
“It’s a moot point, since you aren’t,” he begins after a moment of regarding me carefully, “but I would love you all the same, because it doesn’t matter what you are or what you’ve done or where you’ve been. The only thing that matters is that I can go with you, wherever you’re going.” He gives me a genuine smile and I sigh. This is exactly the response I was hoping to avoid but knew he was going to say anyways.
“There are monsters everywhere Luke. How do you know that I’m not one?” I stare him down, daring him to come up with some logic that proves that I’m normal, that I’m not the monster I actually am.
“Because a monster doesn’t feel like you do.” He reaches a hand out and gently touches the spot on my chest where my heart is. “A monster can’t love like you do. A monster can’t smile like you do, or laugh like you do, or shoot me dirty looks when you think I’m not looking like you do.” My mouth twitches slightly at the last comment, and I make a mental note to myself that Luke is far more observant than I thought he was.
“A monster doesn’t have a conscience like you do, and doesn’t have a sense of right or wrong like you do. Lizzie, a monster doesn’t have a sense of humanity like you do.” He stares down at me unblinkingly, his eyes locked on mine.
“As long as you retain your ability to feel, and don’t give up what you believe in, you will never be a monster, even if you are actually what consider to be a monster. As long as you live by the principles you are willing to die for, Lizzie, you will never be a monster,” he murmurs, and, taken aback by the sheer power of his words, I force myself to swallow.
“So if I’m a vampire, but I retain the ability to feel, I won’t be a monster, huh?” I ask him, not fazed at all by his words. “Ask me one question then: what do vampires eat? Blood. So, if I go around sucking people dry, but I still can feel emotions like a human, I’m not a monster, right?” I get a sort of brutal satisfaction out of seeing Luke’s face crumple and his brows draw together in a concerned question mark.
“I don’t think that, if you retained the ability to feel like a human, you would go around killing people for food,” Luke finally answers. “I mean, murders and moral compasses don’t mix very well.”
“Does that mean we don’t have moral compasses, Luke? Well, I guess it’s just me,” I quickly amend. After all, Luke hasn’t killed anyone since Hand-to-Hand, and I’m the current kill leader. “But, since I killed people to survive, does that mean I don’t have a moral compass?” I turn my icy golden gaze on him, hoping to prove him wrong or at least unsettle him some, since I hate the idea that he might be right.
“Lizzie, that’s different. The vampires have other options; they can always kill animals for food. However, we don’t have that luxury of another option, because it’s either us or them, and I sure as hell hope that you aren’t actually thinking about it being them.” Even though Luke is completely serious, I can’t help but smile at his perfect paraphrasing of my opinions. Me or them has been the excuse to kill I’ve been using for a long time.
“I guess you have a point,” I finally concede, rather ticked at being beaten by Luke in an argument, especially an argument that questions who and what I am and what I believe in. Being right some of the time really is one of Luke’s incredibly few bad qualities.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

Luke has opened his mouth and is about to reply when, all of a sudden, I feel a subtle but definite vibration of the grass on my left calf. Not taking time to think about the possibilites – or think at all – I immediately lunge at Luke to tackle him and have us roll away from whatever is causing the vibrations. As I clamber off of him quickly, I hear a muffled sound of protest that quickly quietly when he sees the serious, worried look on my face.
Carefully I peel back the grass blocking me from the source of the vibrations and am not surprised but very concerned that I find two other champions who appear to be the two non-career boys from Six. I suddenly realize that, with Marshall dying, there are no careers left, and my eyes shoot open wide in shock for a moment.
“Are you sure you know how to track, John?” the shorter, obviously younger boy asks, his voice high and his expression frightening, concerned and wild.
“I’ve been tracking since before you were born, Peter,” the older, taller boy replies sharply, with a hint of boredom to his tone. I smile slightly at the fact that me, his quarry, is hiding in the grass mere feet from him and he doesn’t see me, yet he has the nerve to sound confident and almost cocky in his tracking skills.
“Who’s the most dangerous one left, John?” the little boy – Peter – questions, and I resist the urge to clap my hands over my ears at his high, squeaky voice, made even higher and squeakier by fear.
“That’s easy,” John begins, flashing Peter a look before continuing. “That Lightning girl from Eight. I mean, even though she’s from Eight, anyone could see that she’s a career all the way, and she’s definitely the most dangerous career too.”
“She didn’t team up with the careers though,” Peter says, his light brown eyes clouding over with doubt. “I saw her shoot down two careers in thirty seconds at the Giving Hands, and she wouldn’t be trying to kill them if she were actually a career, right?” I can tell from his tone that Peter isn’t trying to question John, he’s just pointing out facts. Because I know Peter isn’t doing it for my benefit, I’m happy that an eleven-year-old boy that I’ve never met who’s supposed to be killing me is basically defending me by doubting that I’m a career.
“So she’s a rogue career,” John responds dismissively, shrugging his shoulders. “They’re not unheard of, you know. I mean, look at that Clay boy from Two. He’s a rogue career all the way, except he doesn’t seem to be interested in winning like Lightning does.”
“Why would they go rogue? Why would they break off from the pack, when it’s probably safer in the pack?” Peter stares up at John, and I can see the adoration in his expression. It’s not that different from the way people in El Nieve revere Rush, to be perfectly honest.
“Because they don’t like the pack, because they don’t want to have to cooperate with the other careers, even if only for a little bit? There are lots of possibilites.” Even though I don’t really like this John kid for presuming I’m a career, I do have to admit that he isn’t stupid. After all, if I actually were a career, I would break off from the pack for those exact reasons.
A few moments go by in silence, during which time John’s jaw muscles tighten even more and his face is taken over by a frustrated scowl, until John opens his mouth and adds, “And you’re wrong; I don’t think it is safer in the career pack. I mean, in the end, they all turn on each other and start trying to kill each other, so I don’t think that makes it safe at all. If I were a career, I get the hell out of there before that bloodbath started, because I wouldn’t want to be any part of that.”
Peter nods his head wordlessly in agreement, still staring up at John with exaltation in his eyes. A little more time passes in quiet, with Peter fidgeting under the weight of a question he really wants to ask that whole time. Finally Peter’s self-restraint breaks down and he asks John, “Who are you tracking?”
Immediately I perk up and listen to the conversation very carefully, as I’m rather curious about who John’s tracking too.
“Well, I don’t know who it is,” John admits, running a hand through his cropped brown hair, “but there’s definitely someone around here. I mean, look at these shoe treads. Those didn’t get there by themselves.” John gestures to where Luke and I stood, the outline of our feet still imprinted in the grass.
“In fact, I don’t think those were there when we came through here earlier,” John murmurs, his eyes shooting open wide in shock as he looks around wildly. Immediately I pull my head back, not wanting to risk him seeing me, to hear him say quietly, “I think that whoever I’m tracking isn’t too far away from us right now.” Peter gasps, only to be stifled by someone – presumably John – shoving a hand over his mouth.
“We have to be quiet, stealthy even,” John whispers in Peter’s ear, and I roll my eyes. Stealth isn’t really going to help them now; with my super-senses, I’ll be able to hear, smell and feel them all the time as long as Luke and I stay relatively close to them. “We don’t want the other champion around here to hear us, otherwise we could start a fight.”
“Why don’t we want to start a fight?” Peter asks John quietly in reply. “If we start a fight, we can take out the other champion. I mean, there’s two of us and one of them, so it should be easy, right?”
“What if that champion’s a career, or Lightning even?” John replies. “If it was Lightning, we’d both have arrows in our chests before we even saw her.”
I smile slightly at the truth of John’s statement and turn to look at Luke momentarily, who is nodding his head in agreement with John.
“True,” Peter concedes with an air of capitulation, and I can picture him dropping his gaze to the ground in defeat.
Apparently John actually feels bad about making Peter give up on his idea, because John quickly adds, “But that was good plan, and it would definitely work if we knew for sure that the other champion in here is a non-career.”
Suddenly a gunshot breaks the silence that has draped the rest of the grasslands, and I turn to Luke again and sigh, because I know what the gunshot is most likely firing for. Nick has probably taken his own life, just like Sarah did.
“Ok, we definitely need to move,” John murmurs, his tone incredibly worried and almost frantic as I listen to him hurriedly pack all supplies and zip up all packs. “Even though I know that gunshot could have been for someone in the rainforest or beyond the drop-off, I don’t want to take any chances.”
Since Peter and John will most likely be completely occupied with packing up and leaving, I decide that it’s safe enough for me to pull aside the grasses and watch them again. However, I have only been watching their frantic movements for a few moments when Peter looks right at me and goes completely white with fear and surprise.
“J-j-j-john!” he finally exclaims, yanking on John’s sleeve and pulling him around so that he’s looking right at me too. By this time, I’ve realized that my cover is completely blown, so I’ve drawn an arrow from my quiver, fit it into my bow, and rose to my feet calmly.
“Hey boys, how are you doing today?” I ask them, a mocking smile creeping across my face. “Now, if you let Luke and I get the hell out of here, I won’t put an arrow through either one of your hearts. Is that clear?” I look between the two boys, John as white as Peter now, and turn away for a moment to check on Luke, satisfied.
However, it isn’t even a second before I feel a slight change in the air behind me and whip around to see John coming at me with his dagger drawn and a desperate, wild expression on his face. Sighing, I put an arrow in his heart.
“You really should have listened to me John,” I murmur as a gunshot goes off and he falls to the ground to be eaten by the dirt.
Turning my attention back to Peter, I ask him, gesturing to the spot on the ground where John’s body lay a few seconds earlier, “You’re not going to be as stupid as him, right?”
Peter shakes his head violently and wordlessly in reply, and I smile slightly. “Good. When I was listening to you two, I always thought you were smarter than him anyways.”
Even though I probably should, I don’t really feel bad about killing John. After all, he was going to try to kill me in the most dishonorable way: when my back was turned. I mean, even I don’t kill people when their backs are turned, since I think that they should at least get a chance to fight back.
“W-w-w-why were you listening to us?” Peter asks me, and I turn back around from watching Luke secure all of our supplies – some of which were knocked loose when I tackled him – and brush himself off.
I realize immediately what he’s talking about, and reply, “Well, I didn’t really want to kill you without giving you a chance to fight back. I mean, you’ve lasted this long, so I think that you deserve a chance to fight back and live another day. I guess John had different ideas though.” My eyes drop to the spot on the ground where his body was eaten by the dirt, and I quickly look up again. I’m going to traumatize Peter – who happens to remind me a lot of Abby – if I keep on mentioning John’s death so casually.
“So you really weren’t going to kill us?” Peter questions, staring up at me in astonishment.
“I really wasn’t going to kill you. Anyways, I don’t really want to be the kill leader anymore, since it basically just singles me out as a target.” A bitter smile flits across my face, and I turn away from Peter again, feeling completely confident that he won’t attack me. After all, I just admitted that I wasn’t going to kill them unless they made me – like John did – and Peter probably doesn’t have a weapon on him anyways. I don’t intend to kill Peter, even now; I meant what I said about not wanting to be the kill leader anymore, and he reminds me so much of Abby that I don’t think I’d be able to anyways.
However, a millisecond later, I hear a fumbling sound and feel the air behind me change again, and I whip around to find Peter about to stab me in the back with a look on his eye that sends shivers down my spine: he’s burning with bloodlust. Quickly I grab his wrist and feel it crunch underneath my grip as he immediately drops the dagger and screams in pain; I must have broken his wrist, but it doesn’t matter because Peter’s going to be dead soon anyways.
I’m still very confused as to why Peter would want to kill me, so I question, staring down at him in shock and anger, “Why were you going to kill me?”
Suddenly Peter stops screaming and replies calmly, though the hate and bloodlust still covers his eyes, “It had to be done, because you would kill me in the end anyways.”
“Did you not hear what I said earlier?” I exclaim, grabbing his other wrist and shaking him like a ragdoll. “Did you not hear me say that I wasn’t going to kill you or John?”
“You would have killed us in the end,” Peter says quietly, his amber gaze so full of loathing and want for my blood that it sickens me. “Careers like you don’t keep promises. Actually, no one keeps promises in the Triple Crown.”
I sigh and shake my head, not in disagreement with Peter’s words but at the fact that he’s smart enough to realize and truly believe them. I mean, he’s only eleven, for God’s sake! He shouldn’t have to live in a world where no one keeps promises! However, I can’t let any of that emotion spill over into my voice, so, with a humongous effort to keep my voice steady, I reply, “I would have kept my side of the deal if you had kept yours.”
I then release him to take a step back and put an arrow through his heart before he can even take another breath. Turning away, I see Luke standing behind me with a sad, knowing look on his face and I sigh.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“He was eleven, Luke. Eleven,” I murmur, feeling the sadness well up inside of me and threaten to burst my heart. “Eleven and he already wanted to kill me, because he thought I would kill him.”
“No one gets out of the Triple Crown unscathed, Lizzie. No one leaves this place as innocent as they were going in,” he tells me in reply, then wordlessly takes a step forward to embrace me and hold me against him. “This place is forever: in you, in me, in that little boy. This place is forever,” he repeats, and I sigh.
Luke shouldn’t have to face life-or-death decisions on an almost-daily basis or think about a concept that big; Luke should be a normal seventeen-year-old boy focused on high school and sports and girls, not life and death and love and raw human desperation. But, no matter how much I want to deny it, I know he’s right: neither one of us will ever be anything approaching normal if we make it out of this alive.
“This place is forever,” I agree after a long few seconds, and he takes a step back to look down at me with a sad smile on his face.
“Lizzie, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his incredible blue eyes locked on mine, and instantly confusion overtakes me. After all, he has nothing to be sorry for.
“What on earth are you sorry for?” I mutter in reply, tearing my gaze away from his. His eyes are too distracting for me to form a rational, decent argument when looking into them. “I’m the one who just killed two people, including an eleven-year-old boy.”
“I’m sorry for bringing to your attention that this place is forever prematurely. I should have waited for you to say something about it on your own, since it’s a... touchy subject, I guess you could say.” The smile that flits across his face is bitter, sad, flat, a grimace more than a smile really, and it makes me wish that he hadn’t smiled at all.
“It’s fine Luke,” I tell him reassuringly and sincerely. “And I already knew this place is forever because I fall asleep to Abby dying every night.”
“I thought so, but I still think I should have let you bring it up,” Luke replies quietly, and, after a moment of silence passes between us, I start walking away from where I killed John and Peter and towards the rainforest
Luke follows me, of course, as I have a feeling he doesn’t want me out of his sight in case I try to do something stupid that breaks his promise of always. The air around us is completely for about a minute, the only sounds the ones of our feet trampling grass and our lungs taking in and pushing out air, until Luke opens his mouth to speak.
“Do you know what I fall asleep to, Lizzie?” he questions me quietly, and I turn around to look him up and down warily before shaking my head in response. I don’t like where he’s going with this.
“I fall asleep to you in my arms and thoughts – nightmares is a better word, I guess – of all of the things that could take you away from me, all of the ways you could die. I fall asleep to you dying, Lizzie, and it kills me to think about it and know that you could very well die, and that there might not be anything I can do about it. All I want to do is keep you safe and happy, but that’s proving to be very hard, considering our location and your refusal to cooperate with my efforts.” By this point, I’ve stopped – and so has Luke – and turned around, and a weak smile flits across my face at Luke’s last comment. All of a sudden Luke’s eyes light up like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time.
Surprised by his reaction to my halfhearted grin, I ask him, “What?”
“You have such a beautiful smile,” he says in reply, and raises a hand to gently touch the side of my face. “But I guess that’s to be expected, when the rest of you is so beautiful, so perfect, so stunning.” He stares down at me, his expression awestruck, and leans in to gently kiss me on the forehead.
“Luke,” I begin, made intensely uncomfortable by the look in Luke’s eyes and the raw emotion in the air, as I place one hand on his chest and push him away from me, “not now, alright?”
I see the hurt expression on his face and quickly amend, “When we get out of these grasses, and we’re not in any immediate danger of death like we are right now, then you can kiss me all you want, but not right now, alright?”
“Alright,” Luke agrees quietly, nodding his head and lowering his hand from my face. I see his boyish grin and twinkling eyes on the edge of my vision and know that I’ve done the right thing when he asks, “Wait, I can kiss you all I want, huh?”
I turn back around momentarily to find him standing there with a mischievous smile on his face and dancing eyes, and he exclaims, “Well, let’s get the hell out of these grasses then! What are we waiting for?”
I can’t help but smile at Luke’s enthusiam and, with renewed determination and my perfect inner compass, continue to lead us east and out of the grasses.
We’ve been walking for about twenty minutes when I smell the change in water content in the air and know with a smile that we’re getting close, because the air’s that humid only in the rainforest.
“You feel that?” I ask over my shoulder to Luke, gesturing to the air around us. “It’s getting humid, which means we’re getting close to the rainforest.”
“And the best part of the day for me,” Luke adds, a beaming grin on his face, and I can’t help but smile as I roll my eyes at him.
“You are such a seventeen-year-old boy,” I mutter, shaking my head and smiling. “Such a seventeen-year-old boy.” It then occurs to me that, in many ways, he really isn’t a seventeen-year-old boy. He’s far too intelligent, far too mature – most of the time – knows far too much, has far too much common sense, and is incredibly overdeveloped in terms of emotions. A normal seventenn-year-old boy can’t feel the incredible amount of love and caring that he does for me. The oddest part is that most of his overdevelopment and differences from other seventeen-year-olds are not caused by the Triple Crown; he had them before he came here. I guess that just means he’s one exceptional seventeen-year-old boy.
“It’s not bad that I’m seventeen, is it?” Luke questions me, his smile fading a little bit, and I shake my head no.
“It’s better than you being fifty or twenty-five even,” I reply, and his grin comes back in full-force to reach his eyes and make them sparkle again.
“Yeah, I know I don’t want to be fifty. Twenty-five might not be so bad, but fifty would be terrible,” he says in agreement, and I burst out laughing.
When I’ve regained control of myself enough to speak, I murmur, meeting his gaze and losing all frivolity in mine, “I really don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?” he asks, his eyes wary even as a small smile creeps across his face. But I guess he has reason to be wary, considering the responses I come up with to that question in the past.
“Make me laugh all the time when we’re surrounded by this.” I gesture at the arena around us, trying to encompass the whole Triple Crown in the sweep of my hand. “I mean, I think this is the most I’ve laughed ever, even though this is definitely the worst two months of my life so far.”
Luke is about to reply when huge vibrations spread through the grass, and the ground about fifteen feet behind us begins to shake. Luke looks over at me, fear in his eyes, as I realize that it must be a colossus, maybe even two based off the magnitude of the quakes behind us. My mind then immediately jumps to the conclusion that it must be the Triple Crown committee goading us, and, even though I don’t want to be herded into a grand finale, I don’t see anyway around it.
“Run!” I scream, and take off, sprinting through the grass mindlessly. Even though I wouldn’t actually die from getting eaten by a colossus, I really don’t want to have the experience in the first place.
I look over my shoulder momentarily to find Luke a few steps behind me and idly think that it’s good he’s a three-sport athlete; he wouldn’t be able to keep up with me or outrun the colossuses behind us if he wasn’t.
“I don’t want to get eaten Lizzie!” Luke yells to me, and I glance back at him again to find his eyes wide with fear as he feels the ground behind him shake. It’s probably a good thing he isn’t looking behind him, because the snapping colossuses, both female by their huge size, are only twenty feet from him at best.
“Run faster then!” I call back, and pick up the pace myself. If Luke gets eaten – and there’s unfortunately a very high possibility of that happening – I don’t really want to get eaten too; I’d much rather prefer to have another champion kill me.
All of a sudden, I don’t feel any grass hitting me as I’m sprinting, and I look up to find that I’m out into the clearing where the Giving Hands are. I see two other forms, coming from the other side of the clearing, also running towards the Giving Hands, and my eyes widen as I see the horde of jungle cats like Winston following close behind. Looking carefully at the cats with my sharp eyes, I realize that, while they are the same species as Winston, they are really nothing like him.
There is no intelligence in their amber eyes, only raw anger and hate and bloodlust, and it is clear that they want one thing and one thing only: our blood.
“[censored] great!” I mutter, and whip around to find Luke sprinting behind me with not two, but five colossuses on his tail.
“Oh, even better!” I snarl under my breath, then turn my gaze forward to find that I’m only yards from the Giving Hands and launch myself onto their textured golden metal.
The fingertips at the top of the hands are wide enough for Luke and I to be up there and high enough in the air for the colossuses not to be able to get us unless they can jump, which I have a feeling they can’t, so I know that’s where I have to go. Unfortunately, the other champions – two non-careers from Three, if I’m remembering right, who happen to be the only other champions alive at this point – also seem to have their minds set on getting to those fingertips too, and the fingertips are only big enough for two of us.
Even though the non-careers from Three are in relatively good physical shape if they outran a huge pack of rabid jungle cats for God knows how long, I know that I’m the best climber out of all of us, so getting to the fingertips first will be no problem for me. However, it could very well be a problem for Luke, considering his ineptness at climbing trees, which are much easier to scale than the Giving Hands.
I’ve climbed about halfway up the fingers that stretch forty feet into the air when I look down to find Luke struggling ten feet below me. Seized by a burst of panic upon seeing the colossuses only thrity yards from him and moving quickly, I yell, “Luke!”
He hears my name and looks up at me, his eyes meeting mine for a moment, then continues climbing, his expression filled with determination and resolve. Though he isn’t as fast a climber as I am, he’s gotten to thirty-five feet up in the air in the time it takes the colossuses to reach the hands, and I, now standing on the fingertips of the hands, forty feet in the air, sigh in relief when I see that he’s out of the range of the colossuses.
However, my relief is short-lived, because I turn around to find the boy champion from Three coming at me with a dagger in his hand and a desperate, wild and distinctly murderous look on his face. For a fraction of a second, I debate throwing him off of the hands to be eaten by the colossuses or the jungle cats, but then decide that would be too awful a way to die and put an arrow in his heart before he takes another five steps. A gunshot goes off upon my arrow’s impact, and he falls off of the hands anyways. I force myself to not listen to his body hit the ground and the shrieks of bloodlust that run through the cats as they set to ripping him to shreds.
“I guess that’s one body the dirt won’t get,” I mutter, and am nearly thrown off the hands myself when something huge collides with the hands.
Immediately I realize that it must be the colossuses trying to get at Luke, and, dropping to my hands and knees to give myself more balance, I crawl over to the edge of the fingertip to look down and see Luke hanging on about four feet below me by one hand.
“Luke!” I scream in horror, staring down at him in complete shock and helplessness. I know I need to get him up, otherwise the colossuses will knock him off and he’ll die, and the only way to get him up is to hang myself over the edge too.
I’ve never had a problem with heights, even forty-foot straight drops, but, as I dig my feet into the grooves on the fingertips and hang my whole torso over the edge, I begin to appreciate how far forty feet really is.
“Luke!” I cry again, catching his attention as I lower myself down so that I can reach him. “Give me your free hand!” I yell down at him, and he nods wordlessly in reply, his eyes full of terror tempered by the determination to live.
He reaches his hand up to me at the exact same moment the largest colossus, the one close to thirty feet than twenty in height, slams itself against the hands again, and I grab his hand just before his hold on the Giving Hands slips. Even though I’m incredibly relieved that I caught Luke and he didn’t fall off of the Giving Hands into the waiting mouths of the colossuses below, there’s still the minor issue that we’re both dangling off the side of the Giving Hands.
Taking a deep breath, I tighten my grip on Luke and begin to raise him slowly to the top by very carefully working my feet back in the grooves I’ve dug them into. After about a minute of agonizingly slow progress, Luke is finally lying on his stomach next to me on top of the fingertip, and I allow myself to sigh in relief.
“We did it,” I murmur. “We did it.” Rolling to look over at him, I find him sitting up already and beaming down at me with the most joyous, amazing smile I’ve ever seen.
“I don’t know how you save my life all the time like that, Miss Lightning, but I really do appreciate it,” he tells me, his eyes twinkling, and I pull myself up to have him kiss me passionately.
After almost three weeks in this death trap, we’re alive. We didn’t get eaten by colossuses or rabid jungle cats, we didn’t eat the wrong plant and poison ourselves, we didn’t die of thirst or starvation or infection, and we didn’t get killed by other champions…
All of a sudden, I feel the fingertips vibrate, not from a colossus strike, but from a human’s footsteps, and I look up to find the non-career girl from Three, the last champion alive besides ourselves, standing there with a knife in her hand and determined, murderous look on her face. I go to reach for my sword to find an empty sheath, and I realize that it must have fallen over the edge when I dragged Luke up. I raise a hand to confirm that my quiver – and all of my arrows – are gone too, and glance around wildly for my bow to see the non-career girl kick it over the edge.
“Oops,” she murmurs quietly, her jade-green eyes, burning with loathing and rage and bloodlust, locked on mine. “I guess you’re all out of weapons now, Lightning. I guess that means it’s your time to die.” A small, murderous smile curls her lips as she takes slow steps towards us, and, even though there isn’t really any hope left, I instantly rise to my feet and step in front of Luke. Even though I’m definitely a better hand-to-hand combat fighter than she is, she’s the one with the knife, and if she can get her blade into me and rip me up, it’s game over. My only hope is to get the blade away from her or somehow produce a weapon out of midair. My heart begins to pound as adrenaline rushes through me and my eyes narrow in determination, and all of a sudden, I feel something cool and distinctly metallic pressed against the skin of my chest.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

My eyes shoot open in realization as I remember the palm-sized lightning bolt in my sports bra, but I refuse to let the smugness I’m feeling work its way onto my face in the form of a smile. I can’t give away the fact that I’m not out of weapons, because I have to give myself time to get my weapon out. Casually I raise a hand to the neckline of my shirt and tug at the fabric, pretending that I’m nervous. Then, when the girl’s smile has returned and her eyes are as smug and sure as ever, I quickly reach down, pull the lightning bolt out, and flip it open to reveal the blade. Even though the supersuit would be a much easier way to get rid of the girl in front of me, I don’t have the time it takes to let the lightning bolt transform, making the switchblade my best bet.
“So you’re not out of weapons, huh? I guess I should have seen that coming,” the girl mutters, shaking her head and making her fire-red curls bounce up and down as she narrows her eyes at me. However, the murderous grin doesn’t fade from her face the whole time. “Oh well. It’s still your time to die,” she says, her voice low and menacing.
Despite the deranged, psychotic look on her face, I can’t help but roll my eyes at her. “I have survived nearly three weeks in this hell on earth. I have faced starvation, dehydration, deadly infections, wild jungle cats, poisonous plants, many other murderous champions and even those things!” I gesture to the colossuses below us. “So if you think that I’m going to let you kill me now, when I’ve lasted this long, then you’re mistaken.” I meet her gaze with an ice-cold, very unsettling golden glare of my own. “In fact,” I begin, a smirk starting to curl my lips, “it’s your time to die.”
I then charge her. Before she even knows what’s happening, I’ve slammed her to the ground, dug my knee into her chest, pinned her arms and legs down, and pulled the knife out of her flailing hand. Her head is now hanging over the edge, and the jungle cats, sensing the possibility of another feast, are looking up and licking their bloody muzzles.
The girl looks down for a moment, sees the cats, and looks back up at me, her expression now filled with panic and desperation. “I don’t want to be eaten alive, Lightning. If you’re going to kill me, just put a knife in my heart now.”
I raise the blade in my right hand, which happens to be the one I confiscated from her, and am about to do just that when it hits me that I don’t even know the names of the other two champions who survived nearly three weeks in this place too. Lowering the knife and staring down at her, I ask her, “What’s your name?”
After a moment of regarding me carefully and suspiciously, she replies, “McKenzie, McKenzie Lewis.”
“And the boy you were working with?” I jerk my head in the general direction of the jungle cats, and a sad scowl crosses her face.
However, despite her obvious turn in mood, she answers, “Sam Smith. Why do you care what our names are? We’re dead all the same.”
“You and Sam are survivors. Survivors deserve to be remembered,” I respond quietly, and a bitter smile curls her lips for a moment.
“Yeah, we survived everything but you.” She stares up at me, her green eyes locked on mine, and I see a small but existent amount of begrudgingly given respect in her expression.
“Oh, don’t feel bad,” I tell her. “No one survives me.” I then raise the blade and plunge it into her heart to see a peaceful look overtake her face as the gunshot signifying her death goes off.
I step away from her and turn my head to hear a grinding metal sound that means her body’s being eaten by the fingertip. When the grinding sound stops, I turn back around, no trace of McKenzie Lewis left on the metal.
Sighing, I shake my head and am about to bury my head in my hands, only to be interrupted by Luke’s joyous voice. “Now we can say we did it, Lizzie. Now we can say we survived the second round of the Triple Crown, One-Person Survival!” he cries in excitement, relief painted on his face, but the weight of the knowledge I have about the Triple Crown committee’s true intentions makes it so that I can’t bring myself to smile at him.
I know that the Triple Crown committee fully intends for it to be One-Person Survival, despite what they had Puck announce earlier, and there are two of us left. I stand still and rigid, forcing my face to be an unreadable stone mask of calm, and stare at the sky, waiting for the announcement that there’s been a mistake, that the rule change is revoked, that Luke and I have to kill each other anyways. I stand waiting for the announcement that will cause my suicide.
Luke’s face begins to fall when nothing has happened after thirty seconds, and he too realizes what the Triple Crown committee is up to. Quietly he walks to my side, finds my hand with one of his, and squeezes it gently, a gesture that I interpret as saying, “I’m not leaving you. I will be there always.”
I look over at him momentarily and give him a small smile, then whip back around when Puck’s voice breaks the stillness in the air again. “Miss Lightning, Mister Gates, I am terribly sorry to tell you that there has been a mistake. The rule change allowing two people to win One-Person Survival has been found, upon further review, to not abide with the policies of the Triple Crown. This means that only one of you can win.” He pauses for a moment, and I can hear him clear his throat – with difficulty – over the microphone. “I wish you the best of luck, and may the best champion win.”
I turn back to Luke and sigh. “We knew this was going to happen,” I murmur, and he nods his head wordlessly in agreement.
“So what do we do now? I can’t kill you, and you can’t kill me, so I guess we’re at a stalemate here again.” He stares down at me, his eyes locked on mine, and I notice how peaceful he seems, despite the fact that we’re about to die. I guess he’s happy that he’s dying with me.
“Well, we are forty feet above the ground,” I suggest, and let go of his hand to take a few steps forward and peer down over the edge at the now-scattering jungle cats and now-burrowing colossuses. We only have one knife left, since I left the one I killed McKenzie with in her chest, so, if we tried to commit a double-suicide that way, one of us would die before the other and the Triple Crown committee would get their one champion. That means jumping is the only way to effectively commit a double-suicide
Luke is by my side in an instant, and he says quietly, looking down over the edge with me, “I’m in. I sure as hell am not living without you, at least, and this seems to be the only way out.” He raises a hand to gently caress the side of my face, and I smile up at him. I sure as hell am not living without him either.
Not content with him just touching me, I throw my arms around the back of his neck and kiss him, pulling away after a few moments of feeling that overwhelming hunger for more. I then link hands with him again, and stare over the edge again with the feeling that this is just a challenge I have to face, and that I won’t be defeated by it.
“You know, Lizzie, it’s amazing that I’m actually able to keep my promise,” Luke murmurs, and I tear my gaze away from the ground forty feet below to look over at him. “I thought for sure that you and your fondness for nearly getting yourself killed would have made it impossible for me to keep my promise of always.”
I open my mouth to retort, but Luke, predicting my counter, quickly says, “It’s a very good thing your almost-suicidal nature didn’t actually turn suicidal until now though, because that way I get to die with you, and truly be with you always.”
After a moment of him staring down at me with love overflowing from his eyes, he tells me quietly, “Always, Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning. Always.” He then bends over me and we kiss again, this one much more gentle and reminiscent but still equally as passionate. The whole time I’m marveling at how much I actually want him, at how overpowering that hunger for more has become, and I find myself wanting to not jump and keep kissing him forever when he pulls back.
However, I soon recover, and stare over at him to ask, “You ready?”
He tightens his grip on my hand and replies with a smile, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“One,” I count evenly, my eyes locked on his as we take a step forward that leaves our toes dangling in the free air.
“Two.” He joins me in counting now, and we both tense our legs, preparing for the jump. Raising my right hand, I press two fingers to my forehead and give the air in front of me a salute, the exact same one I gave to the crowd when I was about to die in Hand-to-Hand Combat. Again, if I’m going to die, I might as well die in style.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

We are just about to say three when Puck’s frantic voice booms over the arena, “Stop!” After we both have stopped and taken a step away from the ledge, he continues, “The rule change has actually just been looked at further and deemed in accordance with the Triple Crown policies, so I give you your One-Person Survival Champions, Luke Gates with zero kills and Lizzie Lightning, your every day, overall kill leader and winner of the Assassin’s Trophy, with fourteen kills!”
“Lovely. Isn’t it great that they’re rewarding me for being the most prolific murderer out of us all?” I mutter under my breath as I glower at the sky. I don’t want to be rewarded for killing fourteen kids; if anything, I want someone to scream at me and tell me how sick and twisted I am for doing that, not have someone give me a trophy. Murderers – well, serial killers, in my case – don’t deserve trophies.
“Lizzie, you’re alive, and they’re all alive too,” Luke tells me gently as he cups his hand underneath my chin and tilts my head up so I’m forced to look at him. “That’s all that matters right now. You can get to beating yourself up for doing what it took to survive later.” He then wraps his arm around my waist and guides me away from the spot a huge helicopter that appeared out of midair (thanks to a cloaking device) – presumably the one that will take us away from the arena – is attempting to land on.
When the helicopter is completely stopped, taking up nearly all of the available space on the fingertips, and its rotors have slowed enough that I can remove my hands from my ears and not be in utter agony, Luke and I step towards the helicopter to have two men in white coats, doctors presumably, climb out and walk towards us.
“Congratulations,” the taller one tells us warmly, his shaved head glinting in the fierce sun. “Winning One-Person Survival – well, winning any round of the Triple Crown – is certainly very hard to do.”
“You sound like you speak from experience,” I say to the doctor, puzzled by his comment. He doesn’t seem to be like the vast majority of people from El Nieve; most people from El Nieve would probably be congratulating me on all of the people I killed, not on staying alive in a hellhole for nearly three weeks.
“I do,” he replies as a toothy smile spreads across his face. “I won – well, survived – the seventy-fourth Triple Crown. Lars Kiplinger, Section Five.” He holds a hand out for me to shake, which I do, and regards me curiously, as my want to ask him questions must be showing on my face, when I pull back.
“Why are you a doctor for the Triple Crown now?” I ask him as Luke and I follow him back to the helicopter. “I mean, with all the prize money you won, you didn’t have to work another day in your life, so why did you?”
“Helping people has always been a passion of mine,” he responds, his hands folded behind his back as he walks next to me. Glancing over at him, I guesstimate that he’s five-eight, five-nine at best, with a lean figure that couldn’t hold very much muscle at all. It makes me wonder how he won his Triple Crown. “I paid for medical school in El Nieve with part of my prize money, then, when an opening appeared for a Triple Crown doctor, I immediately applied and somehow was found qualified enough for the job. Although,” he says, dropping his voice to a stage whisper, “I think I really got the job because the Triple Crown committee just couldn’t resist the idea of a past Triple Crown winner caring for the current contestants.” He gives me a knowing smile, and I idly think that I’m liking Lars Kiplinger better with every second that I’m talking to him.
He looks over at me, sees my mouth open and me about to ask another question, and says before I speak, “Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why on earth would I voluntarily come back here, to work for the committee that seemed determined to kill me twenty-five years ago?”
A small smile curves my lips as I nod my head wordlessly in response, and Lars’ grin gets even bigger too.
“Well, I know how bad it is out there, I know how physically, mentally and emotionally taxing and altering the Triple Crown can be, and I want today’s contestants to know that someone knows what they are going through, and that not everyone wants to see them die.” I stare over at him in amazement, stunned by his incredibly noble and honest and therefore not El Nieve-motivated response to have him keep on talking, oblivious to my shock.
“I also want to make sure that the winner or winners aren’t so scarred that they can’t lead normal lives after leaving here. I guess you could say that I make it my goal to prevent the Triple Crown from taking the winners’ futures as well as their pasts and presents.” Now all trace of a smile falls off of his face, and I can see the loathing in his clear, medium-blue eyes.
Immediately, as though he is snapping out of a trance, Lars seems to realize what he’s saying and quickly amends, “But that is besides the point. Tell me, Miss Lightning, what did you find to be the most challenging aspect of the Triple Crown?”
Without even thinking I answer, “Killing other children.” After a moment’s pause, during which time Lars stares over at me expectantly, obviously waiting for elaboration, I continue, “Telling myself that it was either me or them, that one of us had to die, didn’t help all that much. I’ll still never forget the fourteen people I killed.”
I look up and gaze over at Lars for a long moment, wondering how on earth he could bear to work a job that made him remember the people he killed.
“Hmm,” Lars murmurs, and nods his head. When he notices me staring at him, a smile darts onto his face and he tells me, “Did you know that I am the only Triple Crown champion to win without ever recording a kill?”
“No way,” I say, but I can’t help but smile myself as I look over at him.
“Yes way,” he responds. “I got killed in the first round of Hand-to-Hand Combat – at least the career that killed me made it quick and easy – and I didn’t kill anyone at all in One-Person or Team Survival. I guess I was just so accustomed to running away and so squeamish that it was all I could do to kill an animal for food, much less another human being.” He laughs quietly, but it’s obvious that neither one of us are really amused.
I’m still confused as to how Lars won, if he wasn’t at all a fighter, so I ask him, “Well, how did you win then?”
“I was so much better at running and hiding and avoiding danger than everyone else,” he answers, chuckling again. “I was an excellent coward, I suppose you could say.”
“Well, you’re a live coward, and I guess that’s better than being a dead hero,” I say without thinking, and immediately wish that I hadn’t said anything at all, because I don’t believe those words for an instant.
“You really shouldn’t lie like that, Miss Lightning,” Lars tells me, his voice suddenly sharp, to lose all roughness in his tone when he gestures me into a back compartment of the helicopter with an apologetic smile.
“I’m afraid you two will have to ride back here, as a precaution. We don’t want any diseases you might have picked in the arena to spread.” He gives Luke and me one last warm smile before turning away, obviously about to leave.
However, I find what he said about the precaution very odd, so I ask him, stopping him with my voice, “Well, if you’re taking precautions, why aren’t you wearing head-to-toe protection?”
Turning back around, a small but sad smile on his face, he replies, “Because I have already been immunized against every disease you might have gotten in the arena.” He then leaves in the wake of those ominous words, shutting the air-tight door on the way out, and I collapse into a padded bench against the metal wall of the compartment we’re going to be riding in.
“What did he mean, he’d already been immunized against anything we could have picked up? How would he know what we might have picked up?” Luke questions, breaking the heavy silence that had been draping us like a blanket.
“He means that the Triple Crown committee picks what diseases they’re going to set loose in the arena,” I reply quietly, and Luke’s face immediately falls as he realizes the sick and twisted nature of that. Essentially, the Triple Crown committee is dedicing what other ways we can die, if we don’t get killed by animals or poisonous plants or the elements or starvation or dehydration or other champions. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though, not with everything else the Triple Crown committee has done.
Leaning my head back and closing my eyes, I find myself falling asleep against the metal wall before I can even register what’s happening, and the last thing I think before everything fades out is that Luke and I have two down, one to go. Unfortunately, the one left is the only one that really matters.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

I open my eyes to be invaded by a flood of white, bright light that makes me instantly close them again. I’m vaguely aware of a presence to my right, and, when my eyes have finally adjusted enough, I pull myself into a sitting position to look over and find Jackson watching me with a small smile on his face.
“Good morning, Miss Lightning,” he tells me, his golden gaze locking on mine. “How are you feeling today?”
I am about to reply, a smile on my face, when I move my arm slightly and feel something stuck in it. Glancing down, I find an IV in my left forearm and see that I’m in a hospital bed. It then strikes me, as I look down at my body, covered in one of those awful white hospital gowns, that I don’t seem to be as thin as I used to be. I raise a hand to my stomach to discover that my ribs have almost completely disappeared, like they were when I came here, and I realize that I’ve been out for a lot longer than just a day.
Jackson, reading my thoughts, murmurs, “You’ve been out for almost a week.”
“A week?!” I exclaim, suddenly angry at myself. I try to disconnect the IV from my arm to find that my fingers are too clumsy for such a task and mutter a few curse words in Spanish under my breath.
“You needed the rest and healing time, Lizzie. After all, you were in a hellhole for almost three weeks.” I turn to look at Jackson and find him regarding me carefully, almost worriedly, as if he thinks that I haven’t had enough rest and healing time.
“I guess I was, wasn’t I?” I mutter quietly, and a hint of a smile twitches Jackson’s lips. All of a sudden I remember what happened to Jackson two nights before One-Person, and I ask him, seized by a sudden wave of concern, “Are you ok? Are you completely healed from the Protector incident?”
“My God, you just spent three weeks in hell on earth and you’re worried about me?” Jackson says incredulously, his grin getting bigger as he looks over at me in amazement. “You really need to get a sense of self-preservation, Miss Lightning. I’m afraid your empathy’s going to be the end of you.” Even though there’s a light, joking appearance to his words, I can hear the underlying current of desperation and persuasion and warning, and immediately I realize that Jackson’s talking about my willingness to the be the spark.
“Jackson, these people have chosen me as their martyr, and I can’t deny them their chance at freedom now, when I know in my heart that it’s the right thing to do,” I tell him, hearing the pleading tone in my voice and detesting it. I shouldn’t have to beg to keep my opinions the same.
“Lizzie, you don’t have to die for them. You don’t owe them anything. I’m sure that, if you refused to be the spark, they would find another martyr in the next Triple Crown, and then their rebellion would get started again.” Jackson’s eyes lock onto mine powerfully, and I can tell that he’s trying – and failing miserably, because I have great mental defenses – to get inside of my mind and force me to agree with him.
I’m angry that Jackson would do such a thing, so I tell him quietly, making my tone menacing, “You know, Jackson, you really shouldn’t try to wage mental warfare when I’m so much better at it than you are.” I then send a shock through his mind and smile slightly when he curses violently and raises his hands to his head.
When he’s recovered from the pain enough to hear me out, I continue, “These people are owed at least a chance at freedom, so why shouldn’t I be the one to repay it? If I’m not a good enough martyr, and the rebellion doesn’t succeed, I’m sure you’re right, they will find another martyr after a couple decades have gone by and do this all over again. But right now, Jackson, these people want their freedom, and they’ve chosen me as their agent to get them freedom, so who am I to deny them that?”
“A person with a sense of self-preservation who’s logical enough to know that any rebellion against El Nieve will fail,” Jackson retorts, his gaze locking on mine again. However, he doesn’t try any mental tricks this time; I guess he’s realized trying to get inside of my head and sway me is a lost cause.
“Jackson, we’ve already been over this; I don’t have a sense of self-preservation,” I reply, a smile breaking out across my face as I see the annoyance flicker across Jackson’s expression. “I do have a sense of right and wrong though, and I know, with all of my heart, that this is the right thing for me to do, that it would be wrong if I didn’t be the martyr for the Sections. Jackson, I know that I have to be the spark,” I tell him, staring into his eyes and willing him to understand. “I also know that, as the spark, I will be consumed by my own flame, but that’s an inevitability that I can’t avoid, so I might as well embrace it. After all,” I begin, a smirk coming onto my face, “If I’m going to go out, I might as well go out in style.”
“You and your glorified visions of suicide,” Jackson mutters bitterly and almost venomously, shaking his head. “Do you know what it’s like to truly want to die?” Jackson asks me, his golden eyes hard as he stares me down. “Do you know what it’s like to know that killing yourself is the only way out? Do you know how desperate you have to be to want to commit suicide? Until you do, Lizzie, until death is the only way out, I don’t think you should even be talking about suicide. If you have other options, you should most definitely take them.” I feel the emotion of his words charging the air and I quickly look away. I had forgotten about his suicide stories and the time that he spent begging for death.
Even though I know that he’s probably right, that I shouldn’t kill myself unless that’s the only option left, his words haven’t shaken me. However, I feel that I should give him the illusion that they have, so I tell him quietly, “I’m sorry, Jackson. I won’t bring it up again.”
For some reason, Jackson seems to feel guilty now, because he immediately replies, all of the hardness and raw emotion vanishing from his face, “Oh, don’t feel bad, Lizzie. I really shouldn’t have brought it up like that.”
“You’re right though Jackson, I really shouldn’t be considering suicide when I have other options,” I murmur. “I just… I just feel like I’d be more use to these people and their cause of freedom alive than dead.”
“Lizzie,” Jackson begins, rising to his feet and walking over to me to sit down on the ege of the bed and cup my chin in his hand, “you will never be worth more dead than alive, because you are such an amzing, wonderful person that losing you would be a great loss for the whole world. You are worth too much to be lost to death, Lizzie.” His eyes lock on mine, and I can feel the emotion building up and crackling in the air again.
He gently removes his grip on my chin to stroke the side of my face, tracing the outline of my cheek with his thumb, and whispers, his gaze glued to mine in what appears to be amazement, “You are so perfect, Lizzie, that I don’t know how you could ever think that you would be worth dead than alive.”
He then bends in over me and kisses me gently and sweetly – very different from the other kisses we’ve shared – and, when he pulls back after a moment, I scoot over to give him room to sit down next me, which he does.
Settling himself down, he wraps one long, muscular arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him, so that my head is resting on his shoulder. After a second, he seems to decide that I’m not close enough to him, and gently picks me to deposit me in his lap.
We sit in silence for a few long, contented moments, during which time I curl up against him and listen to his heart beat loudly and reassuringly. It’s amazing to think that, only a year ago, Jackson wished it would stop beating and end his pain every day.
Suddenly I remember that Jackson turned eighteen when I was in the arena, and I tell him as I look up at him, a smile breaking out across my face, “Happy birthday Jackson. You’re officially an adult now.”
“Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that,” he replies, a grin creeping across his face as he beams down at me. “Now what should I do with my newfound freedom?” he asks me, his hand finding mine. However, as soon as he touches my fingers, he instantly recoils, and looks down at my hand in shock, anger and horror.
I glance down too, wondering what on earth he could have encountered that would make him react the way he did, to find that awful engagement ring shining on my right ring finger. “I had forgotten about that,” I mutter, my heart sinking as I stare down at the ring with a combination of loathing and hate. It makes everything so much more complicated by existing. I roll off of him, intending to set the ring down on the side table next to my bed, to have Jackson rise to his feet and turn towards the door.
“Where are you going?” I exclaim in surprise, my gaze glued to his back as I will him to stop walking away.
Turning back to me, the angry, hurt look on his face shocking me, he tells me coldly, “I’m afraid I can’t be doing this with an engaged woman, Missus Gates.” He spits the last two words, and storms out the door, leaving a hurt, stunned and self-loathing me behind.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

I rip the ring off of my finger and throw it against the wall as hard as I can, grinning fiercely when I hear the metallic sound of the gold against the white tile of the wall.
“I hope it broke,” I mutter under my breath, then lean back against the pillows behind me and sigh. This was not what was supposed to happen.
Jackson was not supposed to get mad at me; he was supposed to be happy that I’m alive and didn’t get killed. Jackson was supposed to stay with me, and maybe kiss me some, but just be there for me and laugh with and at me. That stupid ring wasn’t supposed to get in they way; that stupid ring wouldn’t even be on my finger – and the engagement it symbolizes wouldn’t even exist – if it weren’t for Max’s determination to keep me alive and make me hate myself in the process.
All of a sudden, there is a clanging sound outside of my door, and I look up to see Luke, wearing the exact same awful hospital gown that I am, come into my room. There is a small bleeding hole in his arm where he detached the IV, and the iron tang of blood filling the air makes me want to crinkle my nose. I don’t like the smell of human blood, because it means that someone’s been hurt recently. Animal blood I don’t mind so much; after living only as a wolf for a month and therefore hunting and killing and eating animals raw, I became completely desensitized to animal blood. I guess it’s kind of ironic, with all the people that I’ve killed and all the blood I’ve spilled, that human blood still bothers me some.
“Luke, what are you doing?” I exclaim in surprise, quickly sliding out of bed and walking over to him, oblivious of the tubes in my arms that pop out when I get up, to look him over and make sure he appears to be fine.
In answer, Luke grabs me by the waist, pulls me to him, and kisses me urgently, his desperation and need overtaking the blood in the air and filling my nose. After a few moments, he pulls away to stare down at me, his expression relieved.
“As soon as I woke up, I couldn’t stand to be away from you, not even for a second, when I didn’t know if you were even alive or not, so I disconnected myself from all of the machines they had hooked me up to and came down here to make sure you were ok.” He gives me a smile and kisses me again, this one not nearly as long but equally as passionate as the first.
“Well I’m fine Luke; thank you very much for your concern though,” I tell him, giving him a grin of my own, then hear a dripping sound and glance down to find the disconnected IV tube hanging from my arm leaking drops of fluid slowly onto the floor.
“I probably should do something about that,” I mutter, and, in one swift motion, pull the needle out of arm and cast it aside. All of a sudden it strikes me that neither one of us actually has clothes on, and I am seized by an overwhelming to grab the sheet off my bed and wrap it around me so I’m not so exposed.
The same exact thought apparently occurs to Luke too, because he immediately drops his gaze to the ground and murmurs, a red blush rushing into his cheeks, “I’ll go find us some clothes.”
I can’t help but laugh after him as he departs, then walk over to where the engagement ring is lying on the floor and pick it up. Of course, it’s not broken; like the person who gave it to me, it seems to be determined to be a part of my life always.
Even though I sigh in exasperation and weariness, I still slide the ring on, and walk back to my bed to sit down and wait for Luke to return.
After about five minutes, Luke comes back with identical outfits of black shirts and black shorts hanging from his hands and a worried, discontented look upon his face. “Dress quickly,” he tells me, tossing the clothes at me. “Max wants to talk.”
Luke turns and leaves without another word, and I sigh. It’s obvious from the tone in Luke’s voic that, when Max says talk, he means yell at us for being so stupid as to try a double suicide again, and I don’t really want to hear that from Max. After all, he should be used to Luke and I being stupid and defying his orders by now.
However, I still do what I’m supposed to, and slip the clothes on quickly. Walking over to my door, I open it to find Luke with his hand raised, about to knock, and I can’t help but laughed at the surprised look on his face.
For some reason, Luke doesn’t share my sense of humor and instead mutters worriedly as we walk down the hallways side-by-side, “How can you laugh at a time like this?”
“What’s the big deal?” I ask him, confused. “I mean, I knew Max was going to yell at us for trying the double-suicide again, but I don’t really care and I don’t see how that’s such a big issue. I mean, it’s just Max.” I shrug and look over at Luke to find him staring down at his feet with a concerned, frightened look on his.
After a moment of silence, he looks up at me, captures my gaze with his own, and replies quietly, “It’s not Max we have to worry about.”
Immediately I realize what Luke’s talking about and my heart plummets to hit the floor with a thud that shoot pain through my body. Rush or another official from the Triple Crown committee is back to talk to us, and he or she is incredibly angry.
“Rush?” I ask quietly, glancing over at Luke and taking in his hung head and beaten posture. Clearly he thinks that we’re going to get news of our friends and family members dying, which I suppose is a definite concern for him. However, I have complete faith that my family and friends are smart and tough enough to get away from anyone sent to kill them, so I’m not worried about them. Well, I’m not worried about everyone except for Jackson, because it’s already been proven that he can be taken by soldiers.
“Yeah,” Luke responds tersely, his eyes on his feet and his jaw set as he walks. After a moment of silence, he looks up at me and says, “We are so screwed.”
“I guess we are, aren’t we?” I mutter quietly, shaking my head and dropping my gaze to the white tile floor. “But I don’t think that’s anything new, since we’ve been fully and completely screwed since the first time we set foot in El Nieve.”
“Good point,” Luke murmurs. “It doesn’t make knowing that we – along with everyone we care about – are going to die any easier though.”
“I don’t think there’s anything that could make that easier,” I say in agreement, then backtrack, “Well, nothing short of a loaded pistol.”
Luke gives feeble attempt at the laugh that lasts less than a second and does nothing but show how truly torn up he is, and our conversation falls into silence again. We walk down the hallway, which is very long and lined with thirty other doors most likely leading to thirty other rooms exactly like ours, for about another minute until we come across a closed door blocking our path.
Luke quickly steps in front of me and pulls the door open wordlessly, and I murmur a quiet word of thanks as I walk through to find myself in a room with four chairs and desk between them. Two of the chairs are already occupied, the one on the left threatening to break under Max’s huge form, and the one on the right threatening to run away from Rush and his incredibly sinister demeanor. My palms immediately begin to sweat when I smell the all-too-familiar aroma of carnations and death reeking from Rush, and it’s all I can do to not run back out the door and away from that horrible stench.
“Take a seat, Mister Gates, Miss Lighting,” Rush commands lightly, his tone pleasant and an amicable smile on his face, but I can see right through the act he’s putting on. He’s incredibly angry, and very ready to kill us right now, if we weren’t needed for the Triple Crown. The good news is that he doesn’t seem to be gloating at all, which most likely means that all of our family and friends are still alive, or at least haven’t been found by Rush’s men yet.
Even though I know that I really shouldn’t be taunting him, that it’s a stupid move on my part that can do nothing but hurt, I can’t help but reply with a smile, as I slide into my chair, “You know, Rush, I think I will.”
However, instead of getting visibly angry or yelling at me, like I thought he might, Rush merely tells me, with the tone of a schoolteacher admonishing a favorite or promising student, “You know, Miss Lighting, you really should watch your mouth. After all, if you have nothing nice to say, you should say nothing at all.” Rush gives me a beaming smile of his own as I size him up and glare at him, trying to determine what he’s specifically here to talk about.
Though it would be a quick way to get what I want, I don’t even dare to try to get inside of his mind and read his thoughts, because he undoubtedly has great mental defenses and I would only hurt myself if I tried to read his mind. Besides, I’m not sure that I want to know all of the things floating around inside Rush’s head.
After a moment of silence, during which time Max adjusts himself nervously and makes his chair groan in protest, Luke sits completely still and quiet, and I stare Rush down, trying to make him uncomfortable even though he has all of the power in this gathering, Rush says, with a hint of a smile on his face, “You know, Miss Lighting, you really have a knack for stirring up people and making them angry. If that is your goal, you are doing an excellent job with the Sections; you should give yourself a pat on the back.” Though his voice is still light-hearted, there is an underlying current of tension and anger running through it that I didn’t hear earlier, and I continue to stare him down for a few moments, still trying to read him before I reply.
“Yeah, I’m pretty good at causing rebellions, considering I’m so rebellious myself.” I flash Rush my best fake grin, and, even though I can tell that he doesn’t take the bait, he still smiles in reply.
“Indeed you are, Miss Lighting, indeed you are. You are quite a spark,” he murmurs, his pitch-black eyes, as unfeeling, calculating and venomous as ever, locked on mine. “And do you know what happens to a spark, Miss Lightning?” he asks me lightly, and immediately I know what he’s getting at. He’s going to try, like Jackson did, to discourage me from being the spark by trying to pull at my sense of self-preservation. I guess it’s too bad for him that I don’t have one.
Though I already know too well what happens to a spark, I am compelled by the tone of Rush’s voice to humor him and shake my head. Next to me, I can hear that Luke has almost stopped breathing, and I can tell that Max is very nervous and perplexed by Rush’s and my conversation.
“In the end, it gets consumed by the fire it started,” Rush finishes, like I knew he would, and stares deeper and more meaningfully into my eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he continues, “Miss Lightning, you will die one way or another if you continue on this doomed path of martyrdom. However, if you stop this foolish quest to help the Sections, you can and will live. All it takes to preserve the lives of your loved ones, as well as your own life, is your conscious decision to stop this spark nonsense.”
He pauses, clearly waiting for a response, and, when I don’t give one, he keeps talking, “However, if you do not decide to stop this spark nonsense, you will go up in flames, along with failed cause you’re representing.”
Instead of being intimidated by Rush’s threats, I actually laugh, and, after I’ve taken a few moments to become coherent enough to speak, I tell him flatly, “Rush, I’ve already made the conscious decision to go up in flames, like a true spark, and nothing you say can change my mind. My family’s-” – I glance around at Luke and curse internally when I remember that I have to watch my tongue around him, because he doesn’t know that I’m an immortal – “-fast and strong, and I have no doubt that they could get away from you and your men if they needed to. In fact, I’d go as far to say that they could eliminate any men you sent after them.” I continue to stare Rush down, finding his pitch-black gaze more than creepy but refusing to let that show. I can’t give Rush any edges on me, and I definitely can’t let him inside my head.
“Are you so sure about that, Miss Lighting?” Rush asks me calmly. He then opens his right hand, palm up, to reveal a small remote with one red button in the middle of it, which I eye suspiciously. The remote must be to something large and destructive, if Rush is so confident it in.
As though he’s reading my thoughts – which is an incredibly scary possibility – Rush elaborates, “At the push of this button, I will release five-” – his eyes dart onto Luke for a moment, and I can tell that Rush knows he has to watch what he says around Luke, just like I do – “-specially trained soldiers into your universe who have one goal and one goal only: to track down and kill anyone connected to you and your family. If you don’t want me to push this button,” Rush says, his smile turning into a gloating smirk as he sees the horror taking over my face as I realize that Rush has immortals at his command, “then I would suggest that you cooperate fully and don’t try any more of this spark business. That means no more suicide attempts, no more even slightly suggestive song quotes, no more martyrdom and no more sparks in terms of your attire; in other words, no more rebellion period. You are also going to marry Mister Gates quietly, with no controversy or scandal relating to your relationship with Jackson Lucas Carter; in fact, you are to behave as if you don’t even know who Jackson Lucas Carter is. From now on out, if you want to save your family and everyone you care about, you have to be a good girl and do exactly what you’re told. I know that behaving and obedience may be very hard tasks for you-” – he smirks at me as I glare at him – “-but, for the sake of your family and friends, please do try, Miss Lightning.”
I am about to open my mouth and protest when Luke speaks for me. “But, Prime Minister Rush, I can’t and won’t live without Lizzie, and she’s told me that she can’t live without me, so what exactly are we supposed to do in Team Survival? I mean,” he says, and I just hear the fact that he’s about to backtrack or further explain himself, “Lizzie and I can’t be on the same team for Team Survival-” – I wouldn’t be on Luke’s team, even if we were allowed to, because I’ve already sworn to keep Abby safe – “-because of the rule set in place banning champions from the same Section to be on the same team, so what are we going to do?” Rush regards Luke with a slightly amused expression, his eyes boring holes into Luke’s face, and I find it amazing that Luke didn’t lose his composure or stop talking because of the intensity Rush’s gaze holds.
“Well, I don’t know. I guess you two will just have to be on different teams. Isn’t that sad?” he says maliciously, his lips curling into an evil smile, and it’s all I can do to not leap over the table and strangle Rush here and now. It’s not like it’d be any less than the son of a bitch deserves.
Luke, like I knew he would, has far more self-control than I do and doesn’t even flinch at Rush’s words. Instead he replies quietly and respectfully, “Yes, sir,” and sits there staring down at his hands. However, Luke really isn’t that good of an actor, and I can tell that he is really shaken up about the Team Survival situation. I guess it’s almost a good thing that that rule is in place, because I would hate to have to tell Luke that I can’t be on his team because I’ve promised to save Abby. That would shake him up even more than being stopped from teaming up with me by the rules.
“You two may leave now,” Rush tells us curtly, and I rise to my feet, turn away from him and am about to walk through the door, my hands still balled into fists, when Rush’s voice stops me.
“Miss Lighting, please do rethink your goal of going up in flames,” he says, and I can feel his eyes boring holes into the back of my head as the scent of death and flowers in the room becomes almost overpowering again. “It would be a pity to lose such a... talented family like yours to your pride and stubborness.”
Gritting my teeth, I act like he hadn’t even spoken and continue walking away from him and his carnations and his stench of death, the whole time telling myself that everything is lost if I let him inside my head. Unfortunately, I think he might already have a permanent residence there.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie!” a relieved voice exclaims as soon as Luke opens the door into my hospital room for me, and I look up to find Jackson rising to his feet from his seat on the edge of my bed.
“I was so worried about you,” he tells me as he closes the gap between us with three huge steps and crushes me to him, his arms locking powerfully around my back. He kisses my neck gently, then whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry. I really was an ass earlier.”
It takes me a second to respond, my mind bogged down by all of the thoughts floating around about what just happened and Rush and my family and my future. “Jackson, you don’t have to tell me that you were an ass; I figured that out on my own,” I reply numbly, not returning his embrace but merely standing there, rigid.
Jackson laughs, but his laugh is short-lived when he feels that I’m not responding and pulls back to peer down at me concernedly. “Lizzie, are you alright?” he asks me quietly, and raises a hand to gently touch the side of my face.
“I would prefer that you not touch my fiance like that,” an angry voice says curtly behind me, and my mind dimly registers that it’s Luke talking. Oh, Luke. Right. I had almost forgotten he’s with me.
“Can it, Gates. Fighting right now isn’t going to do anything. Can’t you see how shaken up she is?” Jackson pulls away from me to gesture at my almost pathetic stance. My head’s hung low and my eyes search the floor as I idly think that it would be great if they could both just disappear and make everything easier on me. That would even better – in fact, that would be exponentially better – than both of them shutting up and trying to console me. After all, I don’t want to be consoled; I just want to be left alone and given time to think, or at least clear my mind and maybe get rid of this disconcerting numbness that’s taken over my body.
“You still don’t have a right to touch her like that,” Luke shoots back, his tone considerably less confrontational but still hard and jealous. Obviously he doesn’t like the fact that Jackson thinks that he can disregard the fact that Luke and I are getting married because it’s not a real marriage, in the sense that it wouldn’t be happening if Luke and I hadn’t become a camera couple and weren’t so desperate for survival. Well, weren’t so bullied into compulsive survival by Max. Speaking of Max, I wonder what he’s going to have us do for Team Survival, with that rule in place...
As my mind jumps around randomly, I suddenly remember what Jackson said to me earlier and a brief shot of anger shoots through me. “No,” I murmur quietly, and both of them stop bickering to look over at me in surprise and relief. I then look up at meet Jackson’s gaze, and feel the anger welling up inside of me as the events of fifteen minutes ago become even clearer in my memory. “Luke’s right, Jackson; you really shouldn’t touch me like that, since Luke and I are getting married soon.”
I then turn away from Jackson, whose expression is now stunned and hurt, and walk over to Luke to throw my arms around the back of his neck and kiss him passionately. I hope I’m driving the same amount of blades into Jackson’s heart that he has into mine; after all, he’s hurt me so many times that I think it’s time I finally start evening that gap out.
“Lizzie,” Jackson whispers, his voice full of pain, and I can hear his throat constrict. He doesn’t continue, and I act like he hadn’t spoken, as I’m completely focused on using Luke as a weapon of revenge in the twisted back-and-forth relationship Jackson and I have.
However, Luke isn’t as blind as I’d like him to be, and he pulls back to murmur in my ear, “What is this about, Lizzie? I know that you and Jackson have history, some of it not so good, but you really shouldn’t purposely hurt him like this. It’s not good for you, and, while I normally wouldn’t care what you do to Jackson as long as you’re not kissing him, this affects you as well as him and I don’t want it to negatively affect you.”
I pull back to stare up at him for a fraction of a second as I drudge a memory of something related to this out of my mind, and burst out laughing when I finally uncover the whole memory.
“What’s so funny?” Luke and Jackson ask the same time, and it’s a few moments before I’m coherent enough to reply.
“I just remember this one episode of The Big Bang Theory where Leonard lied to Penny’s date to sabotage their relationship and Sheldon tells him, ‘My mother says that every time we deceive for self gain, we make Jesus cry.’ It was so funny,” I finish quietly when I see that neither one of them are laughing.
Instead, Luke is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and Jackson is staring at me with hurt completely clouding his eyes and covering his expression. Jackson undoubtedly heard Luke’s and my conversation, Jackson being a wolf and having the ears of one. However, he probably didn’t even need to listen to our conversation, because he probably figured out that, as soon as I turned my back on him and kissed Luke, I was getting back at him for all of the times he had hurt me. Apparently that knowledge doesn’t do much to ease the pain he’s feeling though, because I can almost see tears welling up in Jackson’s – Jackson, the wolf who got his name for being unfallible – eyes, and I can tell that he would probably be crying if Luke and I weren’t here. Of course, I can’t really blame him, since that really was nasty of me to get back at him like that.
Immediately my heart is filled with guilt, and I turn away from Luke to walk towards Jackson and embrace him. “Jackson, I’m sorry,” I murmur into his chest, and I’m slightly reassured when Jackson’s arms wrap around me after a few moments.
With a sigh, Jackson tells me quietly, “Oh, it’s ok Lizzie. I guess it’s no more than I deserve.” He then proceeds to kiss my neck softly, and every other thought I formulated and add-on to my apology that I was going to say vanish from my mind under his touch.
I can hear Luke grind his teeth together and shift from foot to foot agitatedly, but I ignore him for now. The only way that I’m going to be able to effectively deal with Luke and Jackson is to work with one of them at a time, and just forget the other during that time. I’m only going to drive myself crazy if I try to focus on both of them at the same time.
“Lizzie,” Jackson begins when he pulls back, and I stare up at him to meet his haunted yellow gaze and be reminded of all of the horrors he’s seen and experienced. The scars on his back are an incredibly compelling testament of that. “I’m sorry for all the things that I’ve said that I shouldn’t have said, and all of the times I’ve been tactless and an ass and hurt you, and I’m sorry for not treating you and loving you like I should. I am the luckiest guy in the world, because I have you, and I’m sorry that I haven’t made that clear at times. Lizzie, I meant it when I said that you are it for me.” He pauses for a moment, his eyes still locked on mine, then continues, “Everything I felt for Alexa just... vanished in the moment I saw you standing there and realized how much you truly cared about me, and how much I truly cared about you. It was you all along, Lizzie; I was just too stupid to see it.” His mouth twists into a bitter, angry smile that makes me wish he hadn’t smiled at all. Fortunately I don’t have to see too much of it, because he keeps on talking, “Lizzie, I need you so bad that it kills me to watch you out there, fighting for your life for the entertainment of all the sick bastards in El Nieve, and I don’t know what I’d do if you died, I really don’t. I think that I might kill myself if you got killed, especially now that I know that, if you die in Team Survival, you’re dead permanently. I couldn’t live without you, Lizzie, and I know I’ve got pretty stiff competition-” – his eyes flicker in Luke’s direction for a moment before returning back to me – “-but please, don’t rush off into this marriage, and just give me a chance. While I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you again, I can promise you that I will do all I can to be the best for you that I can, and I promise that I will always be there for you, Lizzie, no matter what you need.”
“Jackson,” I begin, clearing my throat and staring up at him as I fight back the urge to sigh. I don’t need another boy espouting always for me; I already had one too many of those to deal with before Jackson decided to join the club. “Would you be willing to be my friend, and nothing more, and support me, if I chose Luke over you?” I turn my head to look at Luke and find him watching us with a startled, concerned look on his face.
When Jackson, lost deep in thought with his brows drawn into a question mark, doesn’t answer after a few moments, I step out of his arms and ask him again, “Well, would you? Will you truly be there for me, always, no matter who I choose?”
“I...” he starts, holding my gaze for a moment longer before dropping his eyes. “I don’t know,” he ends quietly, staring at the floor with a worried, perplexed look on his face. He then looks back up to say, “I don’t know if I could bear to see you with him and know that I gave you up, that I could have had you but didn’t, that that could be me beside you and married to you and that you could be Missus Lizzie Carter, not Missus Lizzie Gates. I don’t know if I could bear that, Lizzie,” he whispers, his tone almost pleading, as though he’s begging me to not test it and put him through that.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he adds, “I do know one thing though: I will always love you. I don’t know if I could ever stop loving you romantically if you chose Gates over me, but I do know that I will always love you, always.”
“Oh, Jackson,” I groan, walking over to the bed, collapsing onto it and burying my head in my hands. “You’re making this so hard.” I see Luke get a slightly pleased look on his face out of the corner of my eye and add sharply, “And you’re not helping either.”
“Well, what are we doing?” Jackson asks, looking over at Luke for a moment before staring at me quizically and concernedly.
“You are both so... good and right and determined to make me happy that you’re instead just making me feel like a horrible person. It would be so much easier right now if I had never known you as anything more than the quiet, nice guy in my grade, Luke-” – I meet his gaze for a moment before turning to look at Jackson – “-or if Alexa had actually realized how lucky she is to have a great person like you willing to do anything for her, because then we wouldn’t have this mess, where you’re still stuck on Alexa-” – Jackson opens his mouth to deny, but I quickly interject – “-Jackson, I know you haven’t gotten over her that quickly, so don’t even think about saying that you have.”
Jackson drops his head in capitulation, and I continue, gesturing to Luke, “And you love me with all of your heart when I haven’t done anything to make you love me and don’t return your feelings as strongly as I should, and then you,” I look back at Jackson again, “don’t feel as strongly for me as I do about you-” – I see Jackson open his mouth to protest again and I hold up my hand and say, “Jackson, I don’t think you really love me any more than you did two months ago; I think that you’re just fooling yourself that you love me because you’re afraid of losing me and somehow think that saying that you love me will keep me alive.”
Again, Jackson lowers his head slightly in defeat, and I keep on talking, “So I guess what it all comes down to is that you are two lovestruck boys who, from a rational, logistical standpoint, love the wrong people and I am the one cynical, suicidal, concrete girl stuck in the middle of it.”
“Lizzie, you’re not concrete,” Luke tells me immediately, like I knew he would, and I smile slightly and am about to retort when Luke adds, “If you were concrete, you couldn’t be the spark, because you couldn’t catch on fire in the end, and you yourself know you’re going up in flames.”
“Just because I’m the spark doesn’t mean I’m not concrete,” I reply, meeting his gaze. “I can still catch on fire if I don’t feel.”
“I doubt that,” Jackson suddenly pipes up, and I turn my head to glare at him. Why on earth would he take Luke’s side on anything? Oh, right, because he doesn’t want me to be the spark and kill myself. “There has to be something there, you have to have feeling, for you to want to catch on fire.”
“I don’t cry or feel pain though. I’m concrete in that sense,” I shoot back, idly thinking that this is the worst possible time for Jackson and Luke to team up.
“Just because you don’t cry doesn’t mean you don’t feel pain,” Luke responds. “You feel pain just as acutely as the rest of us, you just don’t admit that you do.”
“Luke’s right,” Jackson adds, and I give him the evilest stare that I can manage. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to do anything, because he keeps on talking, “Denying that you can feel and not feeling at all are two completely different things. Trust me, I know,” he finishes with a small, bitter smile, and I think of all the horrors that Jackson’s gone through. With all the things that he’s survived, if anyone has a right to call themselves concrete, it’s him. “You never can actually stop feeling, Lizzie; you will always have emotions, no matter how vehemently you try to deny them or what you try to drown them in. It’s like what Marshall said: you’ll never not have emotions, but you can deny your emotions or drown them in something, like alcohol or drugs or pain.”
I am about to ask Jackson how he knows what Marshall said to me in One-Person when I realize that he must have watched the footage, either live or during the week I was out. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I finally admit, dropping my eyes to the ground, then look up when I hear the footsteps of someone leaving the room to see Luke walk out the door.
“Where’s he going?” I ask Jackson, staring after Luke’s form as it retreats down the hallway. There’s some sadness, bitterness and anger to his posture, but that’s not anything new; that’s how Luke always feels when he’s forced to deal with Jackson and I.
“He said he wants to give us some privacy,” Jackson murmurs, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
“And what do we need privacy for?” I stare Jackson down, not daring to try to read his mind because I know that he undoubtedly will be expecting that and will stop me from doing so. I’m not making much progress in reading him from his facial expression though, as Jackson has learned to be completely impassive so as to not give anything away.
“This.” He crosses the gap between us in three strides, pulls me off the bed, and crushes me to him as his lips find mine. At first I try to push him off of me, since I’m still angry about what he said to me and don’t want to kiss him right now, but find that resistance is useless and stand there rigidly, waiting for him to stop on his own. During that time, I think idly that Luke is as good of a people-reader as any mind-reading immortal I’ve ever met, because he read Jackson’s expression and knew that he had to clear out.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

After a milisecond, he realizes that I’m not kissing him back, and pulls away to stare down at me, his expression perplexed and concerned. “What’s the matter Lizzie?” he asks me, raising a hand to gently touch the side of my face.
Grabbing his hand harshly and pulling it away from my face, I ignore his question and ask flatly, “Are you done?”
When Jackson replies, “Yes,” with more than a little bit of concern and suspicion, I step away from him, pull back my arm, and punch him as hard as I can in the jaw.

A horrible cracking sound rings out through the air, and a wave of excruciating pain runs up through my fingers into my arm. “Holy crap” I exclaim, turning away from him and nursing my hand, which feels like it’s on fire. I probably broke two or three fingers punching Jackson, but it will all be worth it if I at least hurt him some too.
Looking over my shoulder for a moment, I see Jackson cradling his jaw with his face contorted in pain, and I smile slightly. Good. I achieved what I was aiming for. However, to my dismay and horror, it’s only a moment before Jackson loses the painful expression and drops his hands from his jaw to reveal it looking the same as it did before I punched, no marks or bruises or anything.
I then remember that Jackson heals incredibly quickly as a result of the experiments done on him, and I murmur, “damn it! I didn’t even hurt him!” Snarling and balling my hands into fists, I turn away from him again and try to fight off the pain almost blinding me.
However, I can’t stop myself from dimly hearing Jackson say, “Lizzie, let me see your hand,” and fight back feebly when he wraps one arm around my waist and makes me sit down next to him on the bed.
“Let go of me!” I mutter and try to pull away, but Jackson ignores my protests and instead takes my injured hand in both of his. Immediately I feel the bones beginning to heal, and I begrudingly allow myself to sit still while he heals my hand for me.
“You know, you actually did hurt me,” Jackson says, his eyes on my hand. “I’m pretty sure you stress fractured my jaw on your punch; you have quite on arm on you, Lizzie.” He looks up momentarily to give me a smile, and it shocks me to see that he’s not angry at all. Instead, he seems to be almost amused, maybe even sad and apologetic. “You should have punched higher up though; that way you could have broken my nose and made me bleed so you could prove you actually hurt me.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I reply acidically. “I’ll remember that the next time I punch you in the face.” I refuse to let his calmness and niceties get to me; I am determined to stay angry at him for what he originally said and about immediately healing when I punched him.
“Is there going to be a next time, Lizzie?” he asks me quietly, looking up to meet my gaze firmly, and, even though I can feel that my hand is completely healed, he doesn’t release it.
“If you keep on being an ass like this, there will be!” I shoot back, staring him down and trying to show him that I’m serious. However, my plan to stay angry at him when he’s being nice about me punching him in the face is failing miserably, so I might not be succeeding in intimidating him when he can tell that I’m not really mad at him anymore.
“I’m sorry about that Lizzie; that last comment before I left really was completely tactless,” Jackson tells me, and I sigh when I hear the sincerity in his voice. He really isn’t helping me in my quest to keep being angry at him. “And I’m sorry about all of the times I’ve lost it and kissed you against your will. I know there’s nothing I can do to really make up for that, and I also know that, while I’ll try to be on my best behavior and not do that again, I can’t guarantee that I won’t, but would you possibly consider forgiving me?”
“Oh, Jackson,” I sigh, pulling my hand out of his grip and dropping my head to my lap. After a moment, I look back up and begin, “You’re just... so unpredictable that I don’t know if I can be with you. I mean, I know that you never mean to hurt me, and that you never mean to kiss me against my will, and you never mean to say hurtful things to me, but you can’t stop yourself sometimes, and I don’t like the person you become when you get overwhelmed by emotion. I like the person you are right now, when you’re calm, because that person is incredibly caring and kind and gentle and sweet and an all-around great guy, but I don’t like who you become when you lose control of yourself. I mean, I know that I do things that might provoke you and make you lose control, and I really appreciate you not losing it when I punched you in the face, because I know that was definitely provocative, but I don’t know if I can deal with who you are when you get angry. I didn’t fall in love with who you are when you lose control, and those moments when you become that person can ruin times like this, when you’re perfectly calm and sweet and gentle and the person I did fall in love with. I’m not afraid of you, Jackson, even though it might almost be smart for me to be, but I don’t want to be around you when you lose it, because I don’t like – hell, I might even downright hate – who you are when you lose it. I’m sorry Jackson,” I end lamely, and we then sit in an incredibly uncomfortable silence for a few moments.
Abruptly, Jackson rises to his feet and turns away from me, but I stop him with a dismayed cry of, “What are you doing?”
“Well, if you don’t want to be around me, then I might as well leave,” he says quietly, and his eyes lock on mine for a moment, long enough for me to see the overwhelming hurt in them.
“Jackson, I didn’t say I don’t want to be around you, I said I don’t want to be around the person you are when you lose control,” I tell him desperately as I rise to my feet and close the gap between us with a step. “Jackson, I love you,” I murmur, right before I throw my arms around the back of his neck and kiss him.
It takes a half-second for him to reply by wrapping his arms around me and kissing me back, and, after a few long, blissful seconds in which I was filled by the overwhelming hunger for more, I pull back because I’m running out of breath.
“I love you so much Lizzie,” Jackson whispers, his eyes locked on mine and a small smile on his face, then leans in to kiss me gently on the neck.
All of the residual anger I was still feeling for him melts away under his touch, and I close my eyes to enjoy the moment. My peace is short-lived, however, because immediately the thought occurs to me that I won’t get to have another moment like this ever again, and I lock my arms tighter around Jackson. I don’t want to let him and everything I feel for him go, even though I know that I have to. After all, I’m getting married, and I don’t think the Triple Crown committee is very happy with me right now anyways because I revealed the true nature and Jackson’s and my relationship.
Jackson must have felt me grip him tighter and sensed the change in my emotions, because he pulls back to stare down at me with a concerned golden gaze and ask me, “Lizzie, are you alright?” After a moment’s pause, he adds, “Well, compared to normal for this place.”
“Jackson,” I begin, meeting his eyes, “I don’t want to lose you, and I know I will when I marry Luke. I don’t want to let you go, and pretend that I don’t know who you are, like Rush has told me to do. I want you to be there, by my side, and I want people to know how much you mean to me, and it makes me sad to know that that’s not going to happen. I mean, I don’t even think you’re allowed to come to the wedding.”
“Well, you’re the one who chooses who to invite, aren’t you?” Jackson asks me, interrupting my profession. “I mean, you’re the one getting married, after all. It’s not Rush is marrying Gates, although I think I’d like to see that.”
I brush past Jackson’s partially snide comment to answer with a small, sad smile, “No, I’m not actually. The wedding’s being thrown by Rush – and unofficially the Triple Crown committee – in Rush’s mansion, and they’re taking care of all of the details, including the guest list, and I can guarantee you’re not on it.”
“Oh,” Jackson replies lamely, at a loss for words. After a long moment of silence, he says, “Well, I want to be there for you, so do you know of any way I can sneak past security and crash your wedding?” He grins down at me, and I can’t help but have the corners of my mouth twitchly slightly.
“Well, I guess you could always shift into one of the guests – Rush himself, even – and get in that way.” I shrug, trying to hide my revulsion at the idea of Jackson even looking like Rush, even though he’d still be Jackson on the inside. Jackson and Rush are so far apart in my mind that I don’t even want to think about them crossing paths at any time or being remotely similar in any aspect.
“Well, if I do that, I can guarantee you I’m not going to be Rush. I hate that guy almost as much as you do, since he was the one who ordered the soldiers’ attack on me.” Jackson’s tone is bitter and angry; he has every right to be. I nod slightly in understanding, though my understanding is due to my suspicions about Rush being the instigator of the attack against Jackson being confirmed.
“You could be Max or Mitchell,” I suggest. “I’m sure they would have no problem with helping smuggle you in to the wedding.”
“But what would we tell them?” Jackson questions, bringing my train of thought to a grinding halt. “I mean, they don’t know that we’re shapeshifters, so what would we tell them as an excuse? That I had an incredibly realistic mask made?”
“That actually would work. I mean, have you seen some of the masks being made for the Triple Crown? I’ve seen people dressed up like Luke and I in El Nieve and, if I didn’t know that they were people wearing masks, I would think I was looking in the mirror,” I reply, a smile breaking out across my face as I realize that Jackson will be able to come to my wedding after all.
“But what would we say for the height and weight change? I mean, isn’t Mitchell a little shorter and thinner than I am and Max a little taller and a lot heavier than I am?” Jackson stares down at me, and I can tell that he isn’t completely sold on the idea as masquerading as Max or Mitchell. I can’t say I blame him; after all, even though I’ve acted as many people when I was on assassin missions before, I never really liked becoming someone else, as I always found it incredibly disconcerting.
“Actually, Max is your height exactly, and we could just say that we used pillows or something to make up for the extra bulk.” The details about what we’ll tell them for the excuse as to why Jackson looks so exactly like Max don’t really matter; all that matters is getting Max to play along with it.
“Alright, that works. That means we have all the details sorted out, so all that’s left is to tell Max our idea and hope that he’s willing to play along.” I hear the apprehension in Jackson’s voice and know that he thinks Max won’t like it and won’t be willing to go along with it. Of course, Jackson might have had contact with Max once, so Jackson has no idea what Max is really like. I, on the other hand, think Max would be happy to help smuggle Jackson in and crash my own wedding, because I know Max has sympathy for me and my situation.
“I’m sure Max will, Jackson. After all, the Triple Crown ruined his life too, and I have a feeling he’s never quite forgiven them for that.” I find it sad that Max has been a slave of the Triple Crown since he was eighteen, or from the time he won, and I find my chosen option of dying a lot more appealing than what Max did. Of course, Max didn’t choose to stay around with the Triple Crown to save his own neck; no, he stayed around to save his family and friends, though they’re all long dead from old age now.
That’s another thing that’s good about me dying at seventeen: I won’t have lose all of my mortal friends to diseases and accidents and old age, because I have some really good mortal friends that I definitely don’t want to see die. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how my parents keep on making mortal friends, even after more than two thousand years of having all of their mortal friends grow old and die around them. I mean, I would think that, in the end, it would just get too painful to keep on losing people while you never age to keep on getting close to mortals.
But I guess my parents have decided that they might as well get close to mortals, because there aren’t that many immortals to be friends with. The only immortals that my parents were friendly, up until we met Nymeria, Kodiak and Jackson, with were a pair of dragon brothers, Gwillan and Gruffen – yes, they named my brothers after them – who my parents met in about 1000 AD and lost contact with in the early fifteen hundreds. I guess if your immortal friendship options are that limited, you might as well be friends with someone who will eventually die than not be friends with anyone at all. One of the major things that I’ve learned from my parents’ experiences is that being an immortal can be very lonely.
“Lizzie,” Jackson begins quietly, and I snap out of my reverie of thought to look up at him, “should we go ask Max if he’s willing to go along with our plan?”
“Yeah, after I tell Luke,” I reply, and, when Jackson scowls in response to the last part, I tell him, “He has a right to know. After all, it is his wedding too.” Stepping away from Jackson and out of his arms, I walk towards the door, hoping that Luke didn’t go too far when he left earlier.
“Yeah, but he’s one of the people who actually wants to happen,” Jackson mutters, his expression still dark and stormy, and I whirl back around, stunned and angry.
“Jackson, do you honestly think that Luke wants this to happen?” I ask him, staring him down and forcing him to answer with the sheer power of my gaze.
Jackson, however, seems undaunted by my intensity and questions in reply, looking rather shocked himself now, “Well, why wouldn’t he? He’s getting you, and you’re all he’s ever wanted.”
“Jackson, he doesn’t want this wedding any more than I do, because he doesn’t want this fake relationship that we have. He wants it to real, Jackson, and, in his eyes, this fake relationship, in which he knows that I don’t love him and wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t being forced by Max as a way of keeping me alive, is worse than not having me at all. In other words, Jackson, he would rather have never kissed me than live this lie we’ve created.” I hear the bitterness in my voice and wish that I could keep it out; after all, I have no reason to be bitter with Luke, he’s the one who should be bitter with me.
I notice Jackson staring at something behind me and turn around at the same exact moment that a familiar voice says, “And there, Lizzie, you have it all wrong.”
I find Luke leaning against the doorframe, his hands folded over his chest and a small smile on his face. “While I wish that we wouldn’t be getting married right now, I wouldn’t rather have never kissed you than have the relationship we do today, because there is some truth to our relationship. You’ve told me yourself that you love me some, even if it isn’t as much as you love Jackson-” – Luke meets Jackson’s gaze over my shoulder for a moment – “-and that makes it all worth it, to know that I have captured just a fraction of your heart. Even though I would like to have you completely in love with me, with no feelings for Jackson or anyone else whatsoever, I know that’s not going to happen, so I’m perfectly content to settle with taking up a part of your love, because God knows that’s better than the nothing I had a few weeks ago.”
He gives me another smile, his eyes twinkling, then asks, “So, what is it you and Jackson have planned that you want to run by me?”
“Um,” I start, my brain feeling like it’s stuck in drying concrete, “we were going to sneak Jackson into the wedding dressed as Max, and we were wondering-” – I shoot Jackson, who is currently looking incredibly hostile and not happy at all, a glance over my shoulder and quickly amend, “well, I was wondering if that was alright with you, with it being your wedding too.”
“Of course that’s fine with me, Lizzie. Jackson’s important to you, so if you want him there, then I’m all for him being there.” Luke gives Jackson a completely sincere, warm smile, which Jackson doesn’t return, of course.
However, I don’t even get time to roll my eyes at him, because Luke walks to me, grabs me by the arm and tells me, “We have interviews and a victory to get ready for,” then marches me out of the room before I have time to respond.