Triple Crown

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

All of a sudden a sense of extreme danger overwhelms me, and I pull my mind out of my thoughts to look up and see a huge boy that I vaguely remember as being a career from Four standing in front of me. Hearing a rustling sound behind me to whip around, I see Luke get whacked over the head with a sword hilt by the sociopathic career girl from Four. I watch helplessly, held back by the career boy as Marcus and Adelaide both charge her and get daggers in their hearts. Instantly two gunshots go off, and I stop fighting, willing myself with all of my might to keep it together and not break down. My eyes land on Winston’s shadowy, dappled form crouching in the bushes, and I will him with all of my might to stay put. I don’t want to see another friend murdered.
“Well well Miss Lightning, it’s so nice to finally see you,” the career girl says to me after she’s turned away from Marcus’s and Adelaide’s bodies, a sick smile curling her lips. “Did you know that Hunter and I spent nearly eight days tracking you and Gates down? It took so long because you cover your tracks exceedingly well, but not even you are perfect, Miss Lightning, and eventually we found a mistake: a footprint that had to be yours. Once we found that, well, the rest was easy, and isn’t it nice that we got to take out other competition on the way?”
She gestures to Marcus’s and Adelaide’s corpses, nearly completely eaten by the dirt, and her psychopathic grin gets bigger when she sees the look of pure loathing on my face. Walking towards me, she stops when our faces are a fewe inches apart, and it’s my turn to smile slightly when I realize that she hates having to look up at me. However, despite the height difference, she stares me in the eye and whispers, all enjoyment and amusement gone from her face and replaced by a look of determination and hatred, “Did you know, Miss Lightning, that I have spent my whole life training to win the Triple Crown, and I will not let some unknown girl from Section Eight get in my way. You will not stop me from the having the crown of the Triple Crown, Miss Lightning. I may have lost in Hand-to-Hand Combat, but I will not lose again, because I do not lose, and no Lightning or spark is going to change that.”
I see her draw her fist and steel myself for the blow to receive a punch to side of the face that has me seeing stars for a few moments. After one more punch that satisfies her I am incapacitated for now, she turns to the career boy holding me and commands, “Hunter, stab Gates well enough that he will die eventually, but not so much that it is instantly fatal. Once you do that, Lightning’s yours.”
My eyes shoot open in surprise and fear, and I feel Hunter’s huge hand wrap around the back of my neck and guide me towards where Luke lays facedown in the mud. I think about possible escape plans: Hunter’s grip on the back of my neck is too strong that I can’t try to pull away without having my spinal cord snapped, so there goes that plan, and the psychopathic career girl’s close enough and fast enough that she could probably catch me even if I managed to get away. The only hope I have is to catch him off-guard and when the career girl isn’t close enough to re-capture me, hit him in a sensitive place or a pressure point, and take off to find Luke and hopefully save him before he dies. However, first I have to create a situation when the career boy could get off-guard or wait for a situation to develop that would put him off-guard, and neither one of those sounds particularly desirable.
“Well, Lightning, where should I stab him?” Hunter asks me, and I feel shivers run up my spine at the sheer brutality of his voice. Even if I didn’t know anything else about him, I would be able to know he was a career solely based off of his tone.
Hunter draws his blade and pokes Luke not very gently in various spots, clearly trying to make this as hard on me as he can. “I could stab him in the neck-” – Hunter’s blade pauses over Luke’s exposed neck, and I feel my breath constrict in my throat – “-but that would kill him too quickly, and that’s not what Marissa wants.” He says Marissa’s name with a certain fearful reverence, and I know that it must be the psychopathic career girl and that she also clearly has completely control over him.
I allow myself to take a deep breath of relief when Hunter moves his sword away from Luke’s neck. However, my chest tighten up again almost instantly as Hunter lowers the point of his blade so that it rests right over the backpack covering Luke’s heart, which I know Hunter would be able to penetrate easily. “I could stab him in the heart-” – Hunter pauses for effect, clearly liking the control he has over me – “-but again that would kill him too quickly, and that’s not what Marissa wants.”
Suddenly it hits me: the only way that I’ll be able to escape is if I turn Hunter on Marissa, and the only way to do that is to make him doubt her authority. “Did you know, Hunter,” I begin, hearing the unmistakable panic and stress in my voice and desperately wishing I could be calmer, “that, in the end, Marissa will kill you?” I feel him pause, and I know that I have to keep on talking if I want to give myself – and Luke – a chance at survival. “You heard her back there, when she was talking about no one getting in her way of winning. Well, Hunter, once you get in her way, she’ll take you out too. She doesn’t want to win as a team; she wants to win by herself, and have all of the honor to herself. Is that really what you want, Hunter?” Now it’s my turn to stop for a moment to let my words sink in, and, when I can almost feel the doubt radiating from Hunter, I continue. “Do you really want to work for Marissa and think that she’s going to let you live and that you’re going to win together, only to have her kill you right before you’re announced as the winners? Because that’s what will happen, Hunter; you and I both know that.”
I breathe a sigh of relief as Hunter releases me, and I whip around to find him with an expression of stony rage on his cruel, blunt, fair features. “I will not let her use me. If one of us wins, it will be me.” He then raises his blade, drops mine, which he had confiscated to keep me from retaliating, and takes off in the direction of his and Marissa’s camp, which I noticed wasn’t too far off the path and would relatively easy to infiltrate and possibly blow up.
Once he’s gone, I allow myself to smile, a great beaming grin that spreads from ear to ear. Even though I know I’m just caused mutiny and effectively have murdered someone else, I can’t help but be happy that my plan worked, and that I at least have a chance at saving Luke now. Speaking of Luke…
I turn to him, kneel down next to his lifeless form, and feel his neck frantically for a pulse. Luke can’t have died on me, he can’t have died on me, he can’t have died on me. He’d be breaking his promise of always if he did, and I get the feeling that he’s not one to break promises.
Though I find a steady pulse, I’m still incredibly worried about him, and bend down even further to whisper in his ear, “Come on Luke, come on Luke!” as I shake him violently, desperately trying to wake him.
Finally he groans, and, even though he seems to be in a lot of pain, I’m much more relieved because at least he’s conscious now. “Come on Luke, we have to go,” I murmur, grabbing his hand, slinging his arm over my shoulder, and attempting and succeeding to drag him to his knees.
“Luke, we have to go,” I repeat, hoping that I’m not going to have to carry him, two packs full of supplies, and all of weapons. However, as soon as the words are out of my mouth, Luke seems to wake up even more, and opens his eyes to look down at me in confusion. I note with worry that there’s a golfball-sized bloody lump on the side of his head where Marissa bashed him with her sword hilt, and I know that I’m going to have to disinfect it and drain in quickly to prevent infection or something worse.
“Lizzie,” he begins quietly, disorientedly raising a hand to touch the back of his head and wincing when his fingers find the lump, “what happened?” I see the confused look in his eyes and sigh internally when I realize he most likely has a concussion too.
“You got beaten up by a girl,” I joke feebly, trying and failing miserably to lighten the situation some. “She knocked you pretty good.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he replies, attempting to smile but giving me something that looks like a grimace instead. “I know a lot of girls who could kick my ass, you included.”
After giving him my best fake grin, taking the backpack off of him and slinging it over my free shoulder, and steadying him as he leans on me, I tell him gently but firmly, “Luke, we have to get out of here. I turned Hunter, the career boy from Four, on Marissa, the career girl from Four who beat you up, but there’s no telling which one of them’s going to win the fight, and I don’t want to stick around to see who does.”
Luke nods his head in understanding, and, with a few shaky first steps, we begin to move. I keep my free hand on my blade at all times, knowing that, even if Hunter and Marissa are occupied with each other, there could very well be other teams of champions laying in wait. All of a sudden I remember seeing Winston in the bushes, and my mind goes out to him.
“I hope that he’s safe, and a good couple miles away from Hunter and Marissa,” I think, and, for added protection, send out a prayer for Winston’s safety. I know that, if he’s alive, he’ll track us down and find us in the end, but I also know that waiting for him and not knowing when he’s going to arrive or even if he’s alive or not will be excruciatingly painful.
As though Luke has read my mind, which, while I can actually read his, he can’t do, he asks, “Lizzie, where’s Winston? I know he was with us when the careers got us, but where’s he now?” Luke glances wildly around, and, fearing that he’s going to lose his balance, I grab his arm with my free hand and hold onto him tightly.
“I don’t know where Winston is, but I’m sure he’s fine. He knew the careers were there before any of us did, so I’m sure he’s out of their way and coming to find us now.” I say the last part for my benefit as much as Luke’s, and our conversation falls into silence, the only sounds those of Luke struggling to keep upright and moving.
“Lizzie,” Luke starts, and I immediately know what he’s going to ask, “where are Marcus and Adelaide?” He looks over at me in confusion, and, when he sees the sad look on my face, he realizes what happened to them. “They’re dead, aren’t they? The careers killed them, didn’t they?”
I nod my head and sigh, thinking about how I had promised I would get Adelaide a date with Marcus for her fifteenth birthday. Instead, I got her killed. Boy, I’m not very good at keeping my promises, am I?
“We have to kill the careers then,” Luke says, a determined, cold tone to his, and I look over at him in shock. I’ve never known him to vengeful or want to stoop to someone else’s level to get even, but I don’t really know Luke very well, now do I? Apparently he sees the surprised look on my face, for he adds, “Lizzie, they killed our friends. Taking them out is the least we can do to avenge Adelaide and Marcus.”
“Luke, when did avenge and revenge become words in your vocabulary?” I ask him, still completely stunned by him revealing a darker, not-so-nice side of him that, to be perfectly honest, reminds me of me.
“Lizzie, I’m not nearly as innocent as you think I am,” he answers, a small, sad smile curling his lips. “If I was, I wouldn’t have killed people, now would I? Because I bet you that, before you saw me actually kill someone, you didn’t think I had it in me, did you? Well, Lizzie, I have it in me to do a lot more things than you think,” he ends, and I feel a shiver run up my back. When did he become so much like me? It’s a horrible change for the worse, since I need some stability and innocence around me amid all of this killing and death and loss of innocence. But, now that I look back, I guess Luke never was innocent to begin with.
Completely ignoring his comment – and everything associated with it – for now, I tell him, “Luke, we need to get back to the cave so I can patch you up,” and proceed to walk a little bit quicker. No gunshot has gone off yet, which means that Hunter and Marissa are still busy with one another, but I don’t want to be anywhere in the area when one of them finally dies and the other one is free to track us down.
“You always have to patch me up Lizzie. It’s funny, since, as the guy, I’m supposed to be the one who’s caring for you.” He smiles weakly and falls silent, all of his energy going towards keeping up with me. Though he’s not as shaky as he was a minute ago, I know that he would fall on his face if I wasn’t here, so I don’t dare let go of him or move towards or away from him any. The last thing he needs is to trip and give himself a concussion on top of a concussion.
“Luke, when you hang around me, you have to throw social conventions and gender stereotypes right out the window,” I murmur, keeping my gaze locked forward to scout the ground for anything that might trip Luke up. After a moment’s pause, I add, “I hate to break it to you Luke, but I’m not exactly your typical seventeen-year-old girl. I can kill someone a hundred different ways, no weapons needed – well, as long as I have my hands and feet, I have weapons – I can run a mile in a world-record four minutes and three seconds, and my dad is a hall-of-fame football player who holds every record related to the cornerback position.”
I hear Luke laugh weakly at my comment, and I can’t help but smile myself. He knew that I wasn’t ordinary a long time ago – according to him, he knew I was special from the moment he laid eyes on me – but I don’t think he knew the specific details of my abnormality until now. Of course, he’ll never know all of the details, but that’s best. It’s dangerous for him to know as much as he does already.

[Sonmi-451]

Wordlessly I help Luke over a large mossy branch blocking the path, and, once we are over, he looks over at me and says, “Lizzie, tell me about your family. You’ve told me about yourself, but you haven’t told me about them yet, and I want to know what my new family’s going to be like.” He smiles slightly, and I sigh internally. He really is on a mission to break my heart into a million pieces, isn’t he?
“Well, my dad Tom is six-eight, two-forty, turns fifty-one in about a month, and is in the best shape I have ever seen for a guy his age. I mean, he still benches somewhere around four hundred pounds, so he’s in nearly as good of shape as my brothers.” I shrug and smile sadly; I know that if I think about my family, I’m only going to get homesick, but if Luke wants to know, I can’t exactly deny him. The fact that we’re on national television and everything we say and do is being projected across the country means that I definitely can’t deny Luke.
“What about your mom and Gwillan and Gruffen?” Luke questions, looking over at me with pain clouding his gaze, then, when he remembers something, adds, “Oh, wait, you have another brother, right? He’s a lot younger, like thirteen years younger, right?”
“Timmy’s twelve and half years younger, but yeah, I do have a much-younger little brother.” I nod and force myself to smile at him, hoping to dear God that I at least seem somewhat sincere.
“Ok, cool,” he says in reply, and looks at me expectantly for a moment before I remember that he asked about my mom and Gwillan and Gruffen.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, my mom is a lot more interesting than my dad. Her name’s Amanda, she’s the same height I am – five eleven – and she has a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard that she completed in four years.” Luke’s eyebrows go up in shock, and I can’t help but smile slightly. “Yeah, my mom’s pretty smart, and so’s my dad. In fact, he got a doctorate in philosophy from ASU during the four years he played ball there. Anyways, after graduating top of her class – with her school paid for by a full-ride basketball scholarship – she went on to play in the WNBA for four years, the whole time doing neurobiology work too. My dad then proposed to her on the field right after winning his third and final Super Bowl, fourth Super Bowl MPV and third league MPV, they got married a week later, and my brothers were born in the following October.”
Luke nods again, a small grin creeping across his face. “It sounds like your parents actually had the happily-ever-after everyone wants.”
“Yeah,” I agree quietly, pursing my lips in thought as I think about how I’m never going to see my parents again. After a moment of silence, I add, “You know, my parents are the only couple I spend regular time around that fall more in love with each other every moment they spend together.”
“You know, I think I’d say the same thing about my parents,” Luke tells me, and it pains me to know that that means they most likely love him as much as my parents love me – as in they would be willing to give up their lives to protect him. “I guess our parents will have to meet sometime.” Even though he leaves off, “if we ever see them again,” the effect is the same as if he had actually said it: I instantly feel even worse and become even more homesick, if that’s possible.
After we walk in few long seconds of incredibly awkward silence, Luke breaks the quiet by clearing his throat and asking, “So, what about your brothers? Gwillan and Gruffen and Timmy?”
“Well, Gwillan and Gruffen are identical twins, play football for ASU, are favorites to win the Heisman together this upcoming season and really should have won it together this last season, are six-eight, two-forty, could kick your butt any day-” – I give Luke a grin to make sure that he knows I’m kidding, though it’s very true that Gwillan and Gruffen could his butt easily – “-are going to be juniors and are turning twenty-one October eleventh.”
“So they’re going to be old enough to drink then, huh?” Luke looks over at me curiously, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at the idea of Gwillan and Gruffen and alcohol.
“Don’t remind me,” I reply, shaking my head and imagining all of the things that are bound to happen when they start drinking. “They’re big enough idiots to begin with, and I’m sure a couple beers are not going to help that.”
Luke laughs slightly, and, even through the haze of pain clouding his gaze, I can see his eyes twinkling. “I’m sure they love you a lot though. I mean, based off what you’ve told me, they take time to personally approve, or, as you would probably say-” – he smiles at me – “-intimidate all of your possible boyfriends, and, even though you don’t like it, you have to admit that shows that they care.”
damn it, I hate it when Luke’s right. “Yeah, I know,” I reply, dropping my gaze to the ground. I then look back up and shrug as I say, “It just gets annoying, you know? Actually,” I begin, my empty hand clenching into a fist at the thought, “the most annoying thing that they do is date down three or four years – as in, my friends. That part seriously makes me want to kick their idiots, because it’s like, can’t you guys find someone your own age?” I shake my head and roll my eyes at my brothers, even though they can’t see or hear me. I’ve had an issue with my brothers’ dating habits for a while, and the longevity of those habits hasn’t helped my tolerance at all.
“In fact, did you know,” I start angrily, since the memory still annoys me to no end, “that when I became a freshman my brothers and I signed a contract that said I wouldn’t date up to their age if they didn’t date down to my age?” Luke opens his mouth to say something, but I bulldoze right past him. “They both proceeded to break the contract a week later, at which point I chewed them out – and the girls stupid enough to agree to date them – in about five different languages. My mistake was that I did so when my parents were home and got grounded for a week as a result.”
Luke laughs again, and, even though I give him a reproachful look, I can’t help but smile slightly myself. “Your language was that colorful, huh?” He grins at me, and I think that his smiles truly are contagious.
“Yeah,” I respond, nodding my head. “To be honest, I actually cussed a lot more freshman and sophomore years than I do now.” When I see Luke giving me a slightly skeptical look, I concede, “I mean, I still cuss a lot now, but back then I cussed almost all the time.”
Now it’s Luke’s turn to nod, and we walk along in silence for a few moments. I pause for a moment to give Luke time to get over a fallen mossy log blocking the path, then continue on. The sky has been getting steadily darker for the last few minutes we’ve been walking, and I want to get to the cave before nightfall. It’s hard enough walking with Luke when there’s light.
“Why did you stop?” Luke’s voice interrupts my thoughts, and I look up at him curiously, since I don’t know what he’s talking about. “Why did you stop cussing?” he elaborates upon seeing my confused expression. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, I idly wonder why I didn’t predict him asking this question.
“I don’t know,” I answer after taking a few moments to think. Looking up at him, I shrug my shoulder, since I honestly don’t know. “I guess I just... matured, and found that cussing casts a negative light on everything and makes you look bad and even uneducated. Obviously, I didn’t want to seem that way, so I stopped.”
Luke nods his head in understanding again, and we keep on walking. The only sounds around us are the sounds of the forest: the chirps, hums and whistles of animals and the occasional rustling of leaves moved by wind, and I allow myself to wonder about Winston. Undoubtedly he got away from the careers and is following us right now, so he’ll catch up to us in no time. I push aside the nagging suspicion that maybe he didn’t get away from the careers in time, because we’ve been moving so slow that he’s had ample time to catch up, because it will do me no good to get worrying about Winston when it’s Luke I really should be worried about. If Winston got away from the careers, then he’s following us right now. If he didn’t, then he most likely died a quick, pain-free death, and that’s the most I could ask for.
Sighing, I tell myself that, either way, all I can do is just wait and see if Winston shows up sometime soon. Winston wouldn’t get a gunshot, since he’s not a champion, so that’s the only way I can tell what happened to him.
“Well, I’ve gotten to know the rest of your family pretty, but I still don’t know that much about you. Tell me about yourself.” Luke’s voice breaks the silence that’s fallen over us, and I look up at him in confusion. “Tell me about what you like – your favorite color, favorite food, favorite number – and the things you don’t like – maybe a mean first-grade teacher?”
I smile slightly and, as it strikes me that I don’t know that much either, I say to him in reply, “As long as you tell me about yourself too, alright?”
“Deal,” he agrees, a grin on his face, and shakes my hand to seal it. “So what’s your favorite color?” he questions, staring over at me and expectantly waiting for my response.
After a moment’s pause, during which time I realize that I don’t really know what my favorite color is, I answer quietly, “Blue. Not dark blue, or medium blue, but light blue. Ice blue, I suppose you could say. Like your eyes.” I shoot him a cautious look to find him so absorbed in my reply that he’s tripping on branches and stones in the path. I find his intense focus on me very disconcerting, and I avert my gaze to the ground in front of me.
It then occurs to me that it’s my turn to ask a question. “What’s your favorite color?” I ask Luke quietly, looking up for a moment and looking back down immediately when I see that he’s still completely absorbed with me.
“Gold,” he replies after a moment. “Not like the metal – the metallic sheen ruins the color in my eyes – but clear like amber, and lighter. Like your eyes.” The sheer power in his voice makes me glance up at him again, and this time, even though I desperately want to look away, my eyes are captured by his. I don’t dare avert my gaze, for fear of breaking the connection we have that I fear and love at the same time.
After a few intense moments go by in silence, Luke seems to come to his senses and asks, “What’s your favorite number?”
Smiling slightly, I tell him, “That one’s easy. Thirteen, because it’s my birthday and because everyone else hates it.”
“I don’t hate the number thirteen,” Luke says, quietly, and I look up at him to find the trace of a smile curving his lips.
“What, are you saying it’s your favorite number too?” I question, trying to make everything lighthearted. The thought of another few silent, passionate moments passing in between us scares the hell out of me, and I’m determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“Well, it is my birthday too,” he begins, “but it’s my favorite number because it’s your favorite number.” Instantly I drop my eyes to the ground, though it doesn’t help at all. I can still feel Luke’s gaze eating away at the side of my face and willing me to look up at him.
Why does he always have to say things like that, things that show how devoted and caring he is, when I least expect them and am not prepared to respond to them? It’s incredibly frustrating and makes me feel like an incredibly terribly person, because the fact that Luke makes little, offhand remarks like that all the time shows how much he cares and how much he loves me. It also reminds me – very painfully, I might add – how much I don’t feel the same way and how much I wish I did. Sighing, I shake my head and wish that I could run away from it all: Luke, the Triple Crown, this screwed-up relationship of ours.
All of a sudden, like clockwork, Luke asks me, “Lizzie, are you ok?” and I look over at him to find him gazing down at me in concern.
Even though I’m not really amused, I smile slightly at his predictability, since it’s the polar opposite of my unpredictability. Luke is always there for me to lean on and always steady and stable, while I’m all over the place; one second I can be slapping him and next second I can be kissing him. I guess it’s a damn good thing he’s one of the very few people who can actually keep up with me. So far, I’ve met only a handful of them: Luke, Max, Kodiak Johnson, my parents, my brothers to an extent... and Jackson.
As if I’ve been burned, I instantly jerk my thoughts away from him. Jackson – and my relationship with him – is another one of the things I can’t afford to think about right now. I force myself to think about the present, and, even though I’m uncomfortably aware that I’m blatantly lying to Luke, I give him my best fake smile and reply, “Luke, I’m fine.” When I see him looking somewhat skeptical, I swallow with difficulty and add, “Trust me, I’m fine,” and turn away from him abruptly so he doesn’t have a chance to ask any more uncomfortable questions.
After a few moments of him regarding me carefully, Luke finally concedes, “Ok. I’m just kind of worried about you, since all of this is enough to unhinge even the sanest person.”
Even though I know I should just nod my head in agreement to his comment, I can’t stop myself from blurting out, “It hasn’t unhinged you.” I then meet his gaze almost fiercely, as though I’m daring him to reply, because it’s not like I can take what I said back.
“No, it hasn’t,” he answers quietly, and all of a sudden I know exactly what he’s going to say, “because the only thing that can unhinge me is you.” I drop my eyes to the ground, made intensely uncomfortable by Luke’s statement. He always has to reply with something that either makes me feel like a horrible person or makes me incredibly unsettled, doesn’t he? And, like he also always does, Luke proceeds to elaborate, and I sigh internally. Well, now I’m going to feel like a horrible person as well as feeling very uncomfortable.
“Lizzie, you are my whole world, so, as long as I have you, nothing can faze me, but, if something happens to you and you get hurt or killed, I will lose it, I know I will. You mean so much to me that I couldn’t bear to know that I let you get injured or murdered on my watch, especially since I told you that I was going to be there always. I wouldn’t be able to deal with breaking my promise – and everything else it represents to me – to you, Lizzie.” He pauses for a moment, and, though I know it definitely won’t help and will most likely hurt the audience’s opinion of me, I can’t help but sigh out loud. Like I had predicted, Luke has gone off and made me feel like a horrible person again, and, you know, his tendency to do so became old the first time I noticed it.
However, Luke isn’t done yet, and he continues, stopping, forcing me to stop with him and staring down at me, “Lizzie, I don’t break my promises, especially the ones I make to people I really care about.”
Surprised by his words and the implication they carry, I ask him as I meet his determined ice-blue gaze, “Luke, are you promising to keep me safe?”
“Well, I thought that was implied, but yes, I am.” He looks me in the eye almost fiercely, as though he’s daring me to refute his promise, and it’s all I can do to not laugh out loud at the irony of it all.
“Luke,” I begin, reaching a hand up to gently touch the side of his face as I give him a small smile, “I think you need to worry about your own safety more than you need to worry about mine.” After a second’s hesitation, I add, “I mean, since you’re the one with all of the injuries, I think you need to focus on keeping yourself safe instead on keeping me safe. Besides, I can cover my own butt well enough, so you don’t need to worry about me.” I give him one last reassuring smile and turn away, intending to keep on walking, to be held back by a stubbornly immobile Luke clinging to me.
“Lizzie, you’re good enough to cover both of our butts,” Luke says, and I can hear the ‘but’ in his voice, “but that’s not my point.” I let myself smile slightly at his predictability as I brace myself to be made to feel like a horrible person again, since that’s what always happens when a ‘but’ is involved. “My point is that, if you ever need anything, or you ever find that you can’t cover your ass, I will always be there, always.” I feel my heart sink at the reminder that, while it’s an always for Luke, it’s only a sometimes for me, and, after I force myself to swallow, I grit my teeth. Saying something that would reveal the falsification of our love would definitely set Luke and I back some in our plan to stay alive. Well, Max’s plan to keep us alive against my will that I’m going along with for the moment because it can keep me alive long enough to let me die at the right time.
“Luke,” I begin, giving him a smile and gently caressing the side of his face as I can almost hear Max whispering in my ear, “Say it, say it.” “You don’t even have to tell me that anymore.” I then kiss him gently, and, before he can recover well enough to kiss me back and therefore delay us even more, I turn away from him and begin to march ahead, leaving Luke no choice but to follow.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“How’s your head feeling?” I ask Luke as I roll over to look at him. A few rays of sunlight creep their way leisurely across my face, and I smile slightly as I realize that means it’s not raining right now.
“Much better, thanks to you,” he replies, giving me a grin and then a gentle kiss. “Good morning, Miss Lightning,” he murmurs in my ear as he pulls back and wraps his arms around me. Our faces our now a few inches apart, and I rest my head on his shoulder and smile into his shirt, truly enjoying this quiet, honest moment that has no acting or faking involved. “Or should I say Missus Gates.”
All of a sudden I feel my stomach turn to ice, and I curse my stupidity. For a second, I allowed myself to forget about us getting married, and, like it always does when I forget something, it’s coming back to bite me in the butt. Removing my head from his shoulder to look up at him again, I give him my best fake grin and say, “Good morning, Mister Gates.”
However, I can tell that Luke sees the sadness in my eyes, because he leans forward and whispers in my ear, “Lizzie, I’m sorry for basically forcing you into marrying me.”
I know that the microphones – which they manufacture to be incredibly sensitive so they can pick up every last word and sound – undoubtedly recorded everything that Luke said. However, Luke and I already covered this topic and put such a spin on it that no one would think I’m acting, so this can be turned into a good higher-audience-approval opportunity if I make the most of it. After forcing myself to swallow and take a deep breath to I brace myself for lying to Luke and having him believe every word, I tell him, “Luke, I love you. You didn’t force me into marrying you.” I can see Max taking a deep sigh of relief in the background, and, as Luke leans in to kiss me, I hope to dear God that Max truly appreciates how much this hurts me and how much I just wish he and Luke had never come up with this stupid plan.
“You are so amazing,” he murmurs when he pulls back, his eyes locked on mine as he raises a hand to gently brush a strand of hair away from my face. I see the love and devotion in his gaze, the love and devotion that I don’t share, and I avert my eyes. I’m not worthy to look upon this pure, innocent boy and know all of the lies I’ve fed him and all of pain I’ve caused him and all of the pain I will undoubtedly cause him in the future.
With a small, incredibly sad smile on my face, I tell him, truthfully for once, “Luke, you’re the amazing one,” and give him a kiss on the cheek. I can’t force myself to kiss him on the lips, not with the thoughts of my deception of him so fresh in my mind. After a moment more of laying next to him in silence, his quiet satisfied and joyous and mine full of sorrow and self-loathing, I rise to my feet to walk across the small room of the cave and grab my bow and quiver of arrows.
I turn around for a moment to say to Luke, “I’m going hunting,” and, without waiting for a reaction or for him to say something, I climb out of the cave. I need to clear my head, I need to think, and there’s no better way to do that than go hunting.
All of a sudden it occurs to me that something horrible must have happened to Winston because he didn’t show up in the night, but I push the thought out of my head. I can’t afford to worry about Winston when I have enough to worry about with Luke. However, as I walk away from the cave, I can’t keep Winston out of my head, and I know that, to keep myself sane, I at least have to try to find him.
Sighing deeply at the stupidity of my actions and knowing that I’m probably going to worry Luke sick by taking so much longer than I would if I were just hunting, I nevertheless sniff the air inconspicuously. I need to pick up Winston’s scent if I’m going to have any hope of finding him. My heart races when the unmistakable, slightly musty but not bad smell reaches my nostrils, and, even though it’s probably a good five miles towards where the careers were last night, I take off running. Now that I’ve roughly located Winston, it’s not like I can leave him; I wouldn’t be able to, even if I wanted to.
After about a half an hour of running, I slow down and test the air again. His scent is much closer and much more concentrated here, but it’s intertwined with the sour smell of fear, which I know, whether the fear’s human or animal, isn’t a good thing. I pull my bow off of my back and draw an arrow, scanning around me for any signs of danger or a fight, and curse my stupidity when I glance down at my waist and realize that I forgot my sword at the cave. At least my lightning bolt’s in my pocket, so if worst comes to worst, I have a supersuit I can use that no one will be able to stop, much less destroy.
Even though I know that it’s an incredibly effective way to draw any hostile champions in the area towards me, I whistle and call, “Winston, Winston!” If Winston’s alive – and, though I hate to admit it, he might not be – and isn’t hurt enough to prevent him from moving, he’ll come to me.
A rustling in the dense bushes to my left alarms me, and I raise my bow to aim it directly into the leaves. As soon as whatever’s in there comes out, it’s dead. However, I don’t have to shoot anything, because it turns out that it’s an injured, bloody and limping Winston.
“Winston!” I cry, running towards him and dropping onto my knees to wrap my arms around him and hold him against me. I then give him a little bit of my energy, since the Triple Crown committee won’t be able to connect me to the healing unless I give him enough energy to completely heal all of his wounds, and just hug him. I didn’t know how much Winston meant to me and how much I missed him until this moment, but, judging by the tears streaming down my cheeks, I’d say I missed him a lot.
In his typical Winston fashion, he nuzzles me gently and gives me a lick on the cheek, clearly trying to comfort me even as he’s the one who really needs to be comforted and helped.
I smile at him through my tears and murmur in his ear, “Good boy,” as I gently stroke his blood-matted golden-and-black fur. “Don’t ever do that to me again, ok?” I ask him when I pull my face away, and he nods slightly, all of a sudden obviously in pain. He was probably in the pain the whole time, but only let it show now.
“Come on Winston, let’s go back to Luke,” I tell him as I sling my bow onto my back, put my arrow away, and pick him up as gently as I can, though a yelp of pain still escapes him.
I then proceed to carry him the five miles back to the cave, very aware of his labored breathing and the blood slowly oozing from the wounds all over his body. He will die if I can’t get him back to the cave and treat him soon; in fact, he would probably already be dead if I hadn’t given the little bit of energy I did, since just crawling to me most likely used up the rest of his life and would have killed him if I hadn’t been there to give him energy.
When I slide very carefully into the cave, I hear Luke exclaim, “Oh my God, what happened?” and I peer around Winston’s head to see Luke staring at us both in shock. “Lizzie, I thought something had happened to you, since you were gone so long,” Luke tells, and I can see where his hair is fluffed up from his running his hand through it in agitation. “Now I see that I should have been worried about Winston.” His voice fades into oblivion as he takes in the full extent of Winston’s injuries, and I can tell we’re thinking the same thing: that we have to act fast if we want even a chance at saving Winston.
“Luke, I’m going to need water and some food for him,” I tell Luke quickly, ignoring his comments because I don’t have the time to answer them. Every second counts when it comes to saving someone’s life.
“You got it,” Luke replies, then begins to scramble around the cave for the supplies I asked for. Gently I set Winston down on the stone floor, wishing that I had something to lay him on because the floor has to be incredibly cold, sit down next to him, and assess his injuries fully for the first time.
Winston’s whole body is covered in cuts and lacerations that could only be caused by a sharp object – like Hunter’s sword or Marissa’s daggers – and he has numerous broken bones and huge bruises from being kicked and punched. He most likely has a concussion too, though I don’t know how to check for one on a jungle cat, and very well could have internal bleeding too. If he does, there’s nothing I can do for him except let him die in peace, but I can’t think about that right now.
I have to focus on saving him, on the fact that I have a chance to keep him alive and that I’m going to take it, because I’m not letting Winston die on me. I will save him, I will. Of course, the last time I made that promise to myself, the person I was supposed to be saving – Abby – died twice under my watch, so maybe I just shouldn’t swear to do save someone again, since I don’t seem to be very good at it.
My thoughts are interrupted by Luke setting a jug of water and the completely ruined shirt of mine that I used to clean his wounds with when he nearly died on me, and I look up momentarily to give him a smile. “Thank you,” I murmur sincerely, grateful that there’s no stress or panic in my voice at the moment.
I then turn my attention back to Winston and, even though I’ve already seen how badly he’s hurt, I can’t help but feel a burst of panic shoot through me as I see his injuries again. However, I can’t succumb to panic right now, since I know Winston is as good as dead if I do, so I grit my teeth, rip a few strips of cloth off the shirt to dampen them with water, and begin to dab gently at Winston’s wounds.
After a few minutes, I realize no amount of dabbing is going to completely clean his wounds, so I pick up the almost-full water jug and pour it over him. I’m careful to not use any more water than is necessary, but also double-check to make sure that I rinsed off everywhere that he has wounds. Once Winston is completely rinsed off – and the second water jug is almost completely empty – I take the shirt I had originally tried to use to dab at his wounds and instead use it to soak up all of the water covering the floor. I then toss the dripping-wet shirt in Luke’s direction wordlessly, and he leaves the cave for a moment to squeeze the cloth out.
“Winston, it’s going to be ok,” I whisper in his ear as I bend over him and wrap my arms around his neck. “It’s going to be ok,” I repeat, more for his benefit than for mine, and, after a few moments of just clinging to him desperately and praying to dear God that I’m not going to break another promise, I come to my senses and begin to feed him little bits of jerky. When he’s finished with two strips of the stuff, I pour some water out into my hand and have him drink, since undoubtedly he’s at least partially dehydrated by now.
“You’re going to be ok, Winston,” I tell him after he drinks a few handfuls of water and rests his head back down on the floor. All of a sudden I realize that he might be cold from having water dumped on him, so I take the golden, water-repellant over shirt of the arena uniform off and drape it over him. “I’m not going to let you die, I’m not going to let you die,” I murmur in his ear as tears that I refuse to let fall well up in my eyes. With every eye in the nation trained on me right now, I can’t afford to do anything stupid, like cry.
I feel a hand rest on my shoulder, and I look up to see Luke staring down at me with a worried expression on his face. “We’re not going to let you die, Winston,” Luke says quietly, he eyes locked on Winston’s motionless form.
“No, we aren’t,” I echo as I rise to my feet. I look down at Winston’s immobile body and hope to dear God that it won’t remain immobile, that he will survive and get up and walk again, that I won’t let Winston down like I let Abby down.
“Lizzie, let me take care of him for a little bit. You need to take a break,” Luke tells me as he gazes down at me with an equally concerned expression. Clearly he’s worried that I’m going to psych myself out; well, his worries definitely are valid, since I think I might be on the edge of doing just that.
“Ok,” I concede after a few moments’ hesitation, and turn away from Luke and Winston to find myself facing the cave entrance. All of a sudden rage floods my system, and I know exactly what I have to do: I have to kill Marissa and Hunter. They haven’t killed themselves yet, because not gunshots have gone off, so that means they’re still out there and still can be made to pay for what they did to Winston. Luke won’t think anything of my leaving; he’ll just think I’m going outside for a little bit to clear my head. Besides, even if he did know where I’m going, I don’t think he follow me, because I think he would recognize that saving Winston is more important than stopping me. I am just about to leave when I realize that I’ve made a huge mistake again: I’ve forgotten my sword. After stopping and turning around, I cast Luke a cautious look over my shoulder, deaden the air around me so that no sounds I make will reach him for good measure, snatch my sword and finally leave, fully intent on butchering Marissa and Hunter as sadistically as they butchered Winston.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

It takes me only twenty-five minutes to travel the five miles to where I first found Winston, now that I know where to go and am filled with a determination to make Marissa and Hunter pay. Scanning my surroundings in search of a sign of a struggle, I follow the iron tang of blood to find a few flattened plant leaves, and, a few feet away, a couple bootprints and a whole hell of a lot of blood.
I am filled with even more determination and a twisted sense of excitement as I realize that Marissa or Hunter or both of them are nearby, because the person who lost that much blood must be close by. It’s not like that person’s going anywhere with half of their life-blood drained out into the mud, which means that, because I haven’t heard a gunshot yet, the other one is still around to finish the nearly-dead person off.
Silently I draw an arrow and fit it into my bow, glancing quickly around me to make sure that I’m not going to get ambushed. I then follow the trail of blood when I find no one waiting to jump me, and, after about a hundred yards of weaving through trees in a a dizzying pattern of in and out, I find Hunter laying, covered in gashes and bruises and his own blood, facefirst in a puddle of mud. Almost immediately, a gunshot goes off, and I turn away from Hunter, not wanting to see his body being eaten by the ground and also even warier now. If Hunter just died, Marissa must be around here, and she’s undoubtedly dinged up herself from fighting Hunter. After all, it’s not like he’s going to go down without a struggle.
“Lightning, looking for me?” a teasing, bitter voice behinds me asks mockingly, and I whip around to find Marissa staring at me in amusement from about twenty yards away, a bloody sword in one hand but surprisingly no visible injuries. When I raise my bow to aim my arrow directly at my heart as I give her a look of complete loathing, she just laughs. “You think I won’t be able to dodge that, Lightning? I mean, God knows I’ve got better reflexes than you do.”
I see her hand creep down to her belt and, realizing with a start what she’s about to do, throw myself to the ground just in time to avoid receiving a dagger to the heart. As I get back up, Marissa tells me, her expression still completely amused, “Not bad, but still not as good as me.”
I’m fed up with her teasing me, so I slip the arrow I drew back into the quiver on my back – but don’t sling the bow by my side onto my back – to ball my hands into fists and give her the most evil glare I can muster. I shoot back, “And why in the hell would I want to be like you?” When she doesn’t answer due to being taken aback to the point of speechlessness, I continue, “You, Marissa, are a sociopath incapable of feeling remorse and a psychopath who abuses and kills for the fun of it, so I’m going to ask you again: why in the hell would I want to be like you?”
“Well,” she begins, affixing me with a malicious, still amused stare of her own, “I can win this Triple Crown, and you can’t. You, Lightning, are a softie. You feel and you care and you’d rather be all high and mighty and clean than actually kill someone and cover your butt, which, to be perfectly honest, I don’t get. Either you die or they die, so why in the hell would you even think about it being you? Your life should be worth more in your eyes than their lives, so I’m going to ask you again: why in the hell would you want to die if you can live?” Her cold amber eyes lock on mine and ask me for answers. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I can give her those answers.
However, I don’t even have to think about my reply, because, before I can even take a moment to organize my thoughts, I find myself saying, “Because there are some things worth dying for.”
Instead of being rendered speechless again, like I thought she might be, Marissa begins to laugh, and I see what Luke means about hating my fake laugh, because hers is completely atrocious. “Aww, is Lightning getting all philosophical now?” she teases, her eyes glinting with pleasure at teasing me so spitefully. However, before I can shoot back another heated response, she says, “Oh, wait, I think I finally realized what this is about. You’re angry that I beat up that cat of yours, aren’t you?”
My hands ball into fists and I narrow my eyes at her as I hiss at her dangerously, “Don’t bring Winston into this.”
“Winston? You’ve named him now?” Marissa questions incredulously to laugh again when I give no reply. “You see, Lightning, this is what I mean about being a softie. You know, if you’re actually going around naming jungle cats and caring about little girls, you don’t deserve to be the Triple Crown champion.” My eyes shoot wide open as I realize that she’s talking about Abby, and the thought that Marissa killed Abby instantly shoots into my mind.
“Don’t bring Abby into this either,” I tell her viciously, then curse myself mentally for saying Abby’s name aloud, as Marissa will undoubtedly tease me about the fact that I have a nickname for her too.
“Abby; that’s what you called the little girl Williams, huh?” For once, Marissa doesn’t seem amused, and I’m instantly wary of her change in expression. My suspicions are proved correct when a truly sick and twisted smile breaks out across her face and she murmurs, her amused, pernicious gaze locked on mine, “Did you know that Abby begged for mercy when I found her and her camp fire a week ago? She honestly got down on her knees and begged me to not kill her, begged me to let her live. Of course, I don’t believe in mercy, so I put a dagger in her heart then and there.” I feel my lips curl up in a snarl, and, before I know what I’m doing, I draw an arrow out of the quiver on back, raise my bow, and fire directly at Marissa to have it pierce her heart.
Even though I’m completely stunned at what I’ve done, I still turn around, expecting to hear a gunshot and have Marissa’s body get eaten by the dirt, something I definitely don’t want to see. However, no gunshot goes off, and I turn back around to find Marissa lying flat on her back, breathing heavily and feebly trying to pull the arrow out of her chest. All of a sudden a wave of rage washes over me at the fact that she not only killed Abby but lied about her death to enrage me, and I walk towards her to stand over her and look down at her in distaste. I meet her amber gaze that contains as much loathing as it did when she wasn’t dying and small, bitter creeps across my face. Marissa will hate me to the grave; I guess that’s only fair, because I’ll hate her to the grave too.
“Marissa,” I begin, anger flooding me again, “when you die, and God with his wrath comes for you for all of the horrible things you’ve done to innocent children and innocent animals and not-so-innocent children, you do me a favor: you keep quiet.” I turn away from her to hear her gunshot go off, and, seized by a sudden inspiration, I begin to walk in the opposite direction, away from Luke and Winston and the cave but towards where Hunter died.
When I reach the spot on the ground still tinged red with his blood, I get down on my knees, close my eyes, and begin to pray. “God, please have mercy on this poor boy for getting mixed up with someone like her. Actually, God,” I backtrack as I realize that I shouldn’t just be praying for Hunter, “have mercy on us all for taking it upon ourselves to play god. It’s not our place to do what only you should do and decide who lives and who dies, so please forgive us all for doing so. And God…” I hesitate for a moment, not sure how to end my prayer. “…please make Abby comfortable, because you and I both know that she deserves it.” I then rise to my feet, wipe away the tears that have crept slowly down my cheeks, and begin to walk back towards the cave, saluting the spot where Marissa died as I walk past.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie!” Luke exclaims as soon as I slide into the cave, and something must be terribly wrong because his tone is very worried and very stressed. When I take a few steps towards him and ask him with my eyes what’s the matter, he murmurs, his voice falling, “It’s Winston,” and steps aside to reveal the cat.
“Oh God,” I cry as I run towards Winston’s lifeless form to sit down next to him. The numerous gashes all over his body have puffed up and are oozing pus, which means they’re all infected, and his breathing has become slow and labored. Though I’d rather do anything else in the world than admit it, Winston is dying, and there’s nothing I can do to save him; I’ve broken another one of my promises.
I tear my eyes away from the Winston to turn and look up at Luke. “Luke…” I murmur, and I can see the pain on Luke’s face as he stares down at Winston and knows that we might as well put Winston out of his misery.
“How should we do it?” he asks quietly in reply, and I can hear the wavering quality to his voice that means it – along with him – is about to crack. “I think that you shooting him would be the quickest, easiest and least painful way, but you decide.”
All of a sudden I remember something about a poisonous plant that can be ground up and fed to someone to kill them quickly and painlessly, and I realize that’s what I have to get for Winston. Wordlessly I stand up and head for the cave entrance, completely oblivious to anything that doesn’t have to do with getting that plant, to be stopped by Luke grabbing me by the arm and pulling me around to face him. Before he can ask the inevitable question of, “What are you doing?” I tell him, “Luke, I just remembered something about a plant that can put someone to sleep quickly and painlessly. Let me go find it.”
Luke nods and lets me go, and I leave in silence, not trusting myself to say anything without revealing how truly heartbroken I am. For a few moments after I climb out of the cave, I merely stand there with my head in my hands, trying to organize my thoughts and prevent myself from doing something senseless, like breaking down and bawling. I take a few deep breaths and force myself to swallow as I tell myself that Winston wouldn’t want to see me cry and that I am a concrete girl, that nothing, not even death, can break me.
“Lizzie, pull yourself together,” I murmur to myself as I shake my head in a feeble attempt to clear my mind and get rid of all thoughts of weakness. “You do not cry, you do not cry, you are a concrete girl, you do not get broken, you do not get fazed, you do not cry.” I clench my hands into fists and grit my teeth at the tears threatening to well up in my eyes, as though, by defying them, I can prevent them from falling.
“Are you really a concrete girl Lizzie? Because it doesn’t look that way to me,” a voice behind me says, and I whip around to find Marshall Moore standing about ten feet away from me with a small, sad smile on his face. “Denying that you feel won’t get you anywhere, Lizzie. The only way you’ll truly be able to block out your emotions is if you don’t feel at all.”
“And how can I learn to not feel?” I question him in return, cursing myself mentally when my voice is slightly shaky but brushing it off. Since Marshall’s already seen me get emotional, there’s not use in hiding it anymore.
“Well, you can die,” he begins, his eyes locked on mine, and I tell myself that I can’t let any of my plan to do just that show, “or you can find something to drown your feelings in. Alcohol and drugs are two popular ones, but I’d say that the biggest one of all is pain.”
I feel his words pierce my heart, and all of a sudden it hits me that that’s exactly what I’m trying to do: I’m trying to bury my emotions in my pain, I just haven’t been very successful so far. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing though.
“Look at all the past Triple Crown winners: either they’re completely drunk, high or stoned out of their minds all of the time or they’ve completely surrounded themselves with what they’ve seen and what they’ve done and all of the hurt they’ve felt. Either way, they’re all dependent on something to keep them going and keep them unfeeling – which I guess is the same thing for them. I mean, can you name one Triple Crown victor who isn’t like that?” Marshall asks me, his blue-green gaze demanding and yet sympathetic at the same time.
I open my mouth to answer and say, “Yeah, my mentor Maximus Knight,” when I realize that that’s not true, that he is dependent on something – his pain – but he’s just an excellent actor, far better than I could ever be. I think of the moments that I can count on the palm of my hand at which I’ve caught him off-guard and could see the unbearable hurt in the back of his eyes for a millisecond before he covered it up again. So, filled with my new revelation, instead I just murmur, “Oh Max, how could I be so stupid to think that you survived this without scars?”
Marshall nods his head and smiles slightly, pleased that I’ve realized it’s not possible to survive the Triple Crown without forever being changed. After a few moments of awkward silence, he pipes up and says quietly, his stare glued on mine, “You know, Lizzie, in my eighteen years, I hadn’t met anyone who would resist the lure of life being made easier or of getting to live at the price of their morals or beliefs being compromised or completely destroyed – in other words, I hadn’t met anyone willing to die on their feet instead of live on their knees – until I met you. You don’t need to or have to die; in fact, I’m sure that, if you wanted to, you could have already killed off all of the other champions and be the One-Person Survival victor right now. But, from what I’ve seen, you are willing and ready to give your life for what you believe in, for the thought that you could maybe help someone else by dying, and, you know, I really respect that, because I know that I don’t have that much courage or devotion to anyone or anything.”
Truly touched by Marshall’s words, I give him a genuine smile and tell him, “Thank you, Marshall, for all that. But, you know,” I begin, thinking about why I’d be willing to die for an idea or an ideal, “it’s really not that complicated, and it’s not an act of valor or bravery or anything like that either. It’s just getting your priorities straight and realizing that there are some things – thoughts, ideals, morals – that are far more important than you are, because those thoughts, ideals and morals affect all of humanity and therefore don’t deserve to be ended by your selfishness.” I then shrug, since it really isn’t that confusing or difficult or amazing in my mind, to have Marshall stare at me in complete amazement.
“Why do you say that something intangible, something that doesn’t really even exist, is more important than you are?” Marshall questions to immediately add, “I mean, you’re a living, breathing human being who has the possiblity to change the world in a million different ways, so how is something that you can’t even touch, something that doesn’t exist in this world, more important or worth more than you are?”
“Marshall,” I start, a small smile creeping its way onto my face and curling my lips, “these ideas that I’m willing to die for represent everything I believe in, everything I want to have happen, eveything that I am as a person, so they basically are me, in a sense. And, since they can reach a lot more people and spread their message a lot quicker than I could, their possibility to make a change and affect the world is a lot greater than my own. I mean, all I have to do for my message to get out and make a change in maybe millions of people’s lives is die, and that’s a pretty small price to pay for the chance to affect and help so many other people. In other words, Marshall, society and humanity are worth more than I am, so it’d be selfish and unfair of me to not try to help them by spreading ideas and ideals by dying.”
“So not only do you want to die for your beliefs, you actually feel obligated to die for them?” Marshall asks me incredulously, to which I nod my head, a smile creeping across my face, in reply. “Man, Lizzie, you’re taking devotion and public service to a whole new level!” At this comment, I burst out laughing, and, out of the corner of my eye, I see a small but incredibly sincere grin take over Marshall’s expression. In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve figured out that he only gets that look when he’s truly happy, so he must like me laughing.
All of a sudden it strikes me as odd that he would happen to be right there as soon as I popped out of the cave, so I ask him, having vague suspicions that he might have been spying on me, “Marshall, what are doing here? I mean, you don’t just happen to be waiting fifteen feet away from a cave entrance, so I have a feeling you knew I was down there and were waiting for me.”
“Guilty as charged,” Marshall replies with a boyish, flirtatious grin, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at him. While I really do like the mature, grown-up, intelligent side of him, I absolutely hate the promiscuous playboy he can often be.
“But… why?” Why would Marshall wait outside a cave for God knows how long to talk to a girl he feels attracted to but most likely can’t have and is supposed to be killing? I would think that that would just hurt Marshall even more.
“Because I had to say goodbye to you, Lizzie,” he tells me, more than a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. “I mean, I know we said goodbye when I let you go about a week ago, but I didn’t feel that all of that talk of mortal peril and Luke dying made for a very good goodbye, so I followed you so I could give you a proper goodbye.”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, my heart sinks, because I know he’s not going to have any better luck with timing today, with Winston dying and me out finding a plant to put him out of his misery.
“Well, Marshall,” I begin, smiling a fake smile that contains a lot of real sadness, “you’re not having any better luck today.” When I see the inquisitive, concerned look on his face, I elaborate, “You know that jungle cat that was with me when I blew up the supplies? The one I called Winston?” to have Marshall nod his head in confirmation. After taking a moment to breathe deeply and brace myself for the words that are about to come out of my mouth, I say, “Well, he’s kind of dying, and I’m kind of out finding a plant that will make him go quicker and less painfully.”
“Oh my God Lizzie, I’m so sorry,” Marshall instantly tells me, and, even though it’s just a scripted response, more of a social formality than anything else, I can tell that, for some unknown reason, he’s actually sincere.
“Thank you,” I reply and nod my head at him to see him visibly jump back from the step he was taking towards me. Clearly he had plans to take me in his arms and comfort me; unfortunately for him, that’s not on my mind at all.
My musings about him wanting to hold me are proven correct when, after a moment of silence, he murmurs almost shyly, “Well, if you want someone to lean on and talk to about it, you have me right here.” He then opens his arms so that I could walk into them if I wanted, and a smile breaks out across my face despite the situation.
“Marshall, if you want to hug me, just say it, because you’re failing miserably at persuading me to hug you of my accord,” I say to him flatly to have him blush and grin at himself in response.
“Lizzie, I want to hug you,” he tells me quietly, acting exactly like a bashful little schoolboy admitting he has a crush on a teacher. However, all of a sudden his mannerism changes, and all lightheartedness that the moment held disappears.
“Lizzie, I want to hold you in my arms so bad that it hurts,” he murmurs, his eyes locked on mine. “You know, I haven’t stopped thinking about you stripping down to your Spandex this whole time. Is that bad?” A small, sad and confused smile creeps onto Marshall’s face, and all of a sudden – like I do all the time when I’m around Luke – I feel bad that I don’t return Marshall’s feelings for me, even though we could never be together anyways.
“Well, I think Luke would say so,” I begin, and Marshall’s face immediately falls, “but I don’t.” Marshall looks back up at me in surprise and more a little bit of skepticism; I guess he might think that I don’t mean what I said.
“And why don’t you?” he questions me quietly, his gaze glued on mine with an intense, apprehensive yet hopeful look in his eye.
“Because you can’t help it, so it’s not like I should judge or punish you for something you can’t control. Trust me, Marshall,” I start when he continues to look doubtful, “I know what it’s like to be attracted to someone, even though you know that it’s useless because all you being attracted to that person will do is put both of you in pain. No one knows how that feels better than I do, Marshall. Hell, I don’t think even you know that feeling better than I do.”
Marshall’s lingering skepticism completely vanishes when he sees how sincere I’m being, but I’m not happy at all myself. Even though I’m relieved that Marshall’s finally decided to believe me, I can’t help but curse myself for my stupidity at mentioning Jackson, because the constant dull pain in my chest has grown to a sharp, stabbing feeling that feels like my heart is being pulled out.
“Lizzie, how do you know what that feels like?” Marshall asks me, and I sigh internally at myself. I should have never brought this whole issue up, because now I’m going to have questions to answer and will be reminded of Jackson and what me might have had every time I opem my mouth. “I mean, you have Luke, and I can tell that you love him, but I can gather from the way you talk that you still feel that way, so who else is there in your life that would make you feel that way?”
I hope Max is sitting down, I idly think as I take a deep breath to prepare for revealing part of the lie surrounding my relationship with Luke and Jackson. “Marshall, you know the guy Puck asked me about during interviews that I said was my brother Jackson?” When Marshall nods his head in response, the light of understanding instantly blooming in his eyes, I continue, “Well, Jackson’s not my brother.”
Marshall contemplates me curiously for a few moments before questioning the inevitable, “What is he then?”
“Marshall, to be honest,” I start, a small, sad smile curling my lips momentarily, “I don’t know what he is. As of now, he’s somewhere between my best friend and something more, because, while I am attracted to him and he is attracted to me, Jackson’s heart is with another girl and I’m engaged to Luke, so we can’t be anything more than best friends.”
“But if you were back home?” Marshall’s eyes are glued on my face, and, though I do the exact same thing to other people all of the time, I can’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable because of the close attention Marshall’s paying to me.
“If we were back home, we wouldn’t be in between best friends and something more; we’d be something more. Unless, of course, Jackson managed to win over the girl he really loves, who – did I mention this? – happens to be my ex-best friend.”
“Wow,” Marshall exclaims, his eyebrows going up in surprise. “It sounds like you have one very complicated life in terms of relationships. All of your problems make my issue with you seem downright trivial.”
We both smile falsely at that, and a few moments go by in silence, during which I think about the complete mess I’ve made by admitting that Jackson isn’t actually my brother, before Marshall breaks the quiet by speaking again. “Well, now that I’ve gotten to say goodbye, I might as well go and leave you to helping Winston.” He drops his gaze to the ground and nudges aside a fallen twig with his toe, clearly waiting for me to say something.
“Um, well, goodbye Marshall,” I tell him finally, hearing the sadness radiating from my voice and wishing that I could control my tone better; after announcing that I lied on national television and that Jackson is a romantic interest, not my brother, I’m going to need to lay it on thick so I can win back the audience and ensure that Luke and I don’t die anytime soon.
He looks at me, his eyes locking on mine, and he whispers, “Goodbye Lizzie,” and the sadness in his voice threatens to break my heart.
Sighing deeply and knowing that this isn’t going to help damage control at all but also knowing that I can’t just let him go, I tell him, “Come here Marshall,” and I open my arms for him to walk into.
His first few steps towards me are uncertain, as though he thinks I might lower my arms and not let him hug me at any moment, but, when he realizes I’m not going to do that, he closes the gap between us quickly.
Wrapping his arms around me, he lifts up up into the air for a moment, then kisses my neck gently and whispers in my ear, “You know, you really are intoxicating, addictive even, because now that I’ve gotten to hold you, I’m just going to want more.”
After a couple seconds of him just holding me, with a blanket of sad quiet draping the air around us, he clears his throat and murmurs in my ear again, “I don’t want to ever let go of you, Lizzie, because I know that when I let go, you’ll go back to Luke and then you’ll get married and then you’ll either die or I’ll die or we’ll both die and then I’ll lose you forever, and I don’t want to lose you. It would kill me to lose you, Lizzie, it would absolutely kill me.”
I hear the pain in his voice and feel a tear drip onto my shoulder, and I lock my arms around him desperately, wishing that I could do something to comfort him. “Lizzie, I know that if I let you go, I won’t ever get you back.” He then pulls back to look down at me, and, after just staring at me for a few moments, he says quietly, his tone dripping with hurt, “But I guess I have to let you go, because – even if I can’t – you have to move on and live your life.”
He sighs deeply and takes a few more seconds to gaze down at me and commit my features to memory before telling me, “Well, I guess this is it. Goodbye, Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning.” He wraps his arms around me one last time, gives me a kiss on the cheek, and turns and leaves without another word.
“Goodbye, Marshall Xavier Moore,” I whisper as I watch him go and wish that there was some way I could stop making all these broken people everywhere I go.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

It takes me only five minutes to find the plant, which I briefly think about ingesting myself before I remember – and curse the fact – that it won’t kill me and will only reveal what I really am to all of the other champions.
“Was the plant hard to find?” Luke asks me shortly upon me entering the cave, clearly not wanting the air around us to fall into silence and make each other’s company completely unbearable.
“Yeah,” I lie just as shortly, tired of faking but too weary to tell the truth. “I had to go about two miles away to find it, and even then I nearly missed it.”
“You know, Lizzie,” Luke begins, an almost amused tone to his voice that puzzles me greatly, “you really aren’t that good of a liar.” After pausing for a moment to look down at the shocked expression on my face, he adds, “Sound travels a lot better through the rainforest than you might think.”
“I’m sorry for not telling you,” I mutter, dropping my gaze to look at the floor. “I just didn’t think that you needed to hear it, or that it was really any of your business.”
“So someone hitting on my fiancee isn’t my business?” he questions, clearly trying to come off angry, but only sounding sad and tired and not at all intimidating. I don’t even bother to answer, since it would just be a waste of breath, and, after a few moments pass in silence, he asks me, “So, how do we give the plant to Winston?” and the strain in his voice becomes even more obvious. Luke really did become attached to the cat over the short eight days he spent with him.
“To be honest, I don’t know.” I shrug my shoulders and open my hand to reveal the leafy green stuff that looks remarkably like basil. However, if any hungry animal or champion found this and decided to try it, they’d be dead before the leaves even reached their stomach. “I guess we just… feed it to him.”
Wordlessly Luke nods his head and steps aside to let me get to Winston. I inhale sharply when I see how much his condition has deteriorated – he could be dead within an hour even if we didn’t give him the plant – but force myself to squat down next to him and say a few words of encouragement. “It’s alright Winston, it’s going to be alright,” I murmur as I look down at him and stroke the side of his face, and, as though he knows what the plant does, his eyes drop down to the plant and then dart back up to meet my gaze, and I can tell that he’s asking me to end it, that he doesn’t want to be in pain anymore.
“I’m sorry Winston; I should have been there,” I say as I feed him little bits of the herb and feel his heart beat slow underneath my palm resting on his side.
When all of the plant in my hand is gone and Winston is barely breathing, I bend down over him and give him a kiss on his cheek to have one tear trickle down the side of my face and drip onto his fur.
“Goodbye, Winston,” I whisper as I wrap my arms around him and will him to stay with me, to not leave me alone here with Luke in this lie we’ve created for ourselves. All of a sudden, I feel him move underneath me, and I pull back to have him lift his head and look pointedly between Luke and I. A word then pops in and out of my mind in a flash, and, after taking a second to figure out what happened, I look back down at Winston to find him dead.
I sigh, force myself to swallow, and bend back over Winston’s lifeless body to give him another kiss on the cheek. Sitting up again, I caress the side of his face one last time and give him a respectful salute, far different from the one I gave the crowd in Hand-to-Hand.
I then sit in silence, most of my mind completely blank, but a small part of it trying to figure out what word flickered into my mind and how it got there. However, I don’t get much time to think, because, after a few moments have passed, Luke pipes up and asks aloud the inevitable question, “Well, what do we do now?”
“Well,” I begin slowly, with my mind seeming like it’s stuck in concrete because it’s working so slowly, “we have to give Winston a proper funeral, but I don’t want to put him in the ground.” When I see Luke’s confused expression, I elaborate, “I don’t want to have all of the insects and little animals make a meal out of his body, because that would just be wrong in my mind.” Luke nods his head wordlessly in understanding, but I can tell from the way he’s looking at the ground and the fact that there’s a lingering hint of a cloud of confusion covering his eyes that he’s still perplexed.
My suspicions are proved when, a few moments later, he asks, “Well, what do we do with him then, if we don’t bury him?”
I think about his question for a moment, because I honestly don’t know. However, an idea soon pops into my head that seems to occur to Luke at the exact same moment. “We cremate him,” I say, and look over at Luke to find him about to say what I just said. Unlike I normally might, I don’t find anything funny about that coincidence, and instead just bulldoze past it to add, “Besides, that way we can scatter his ashes, and he can go places he didn’t go when he was alive. Hell, maybe his ashes and his mind can both go to paradise, since God knows he deserves it.”
I force myself to swallow and remind myself that I am a concrete girl, that I do not do stupid things like cry, and that the one tear I shed already was one tear too many. I will not cry I will not cry I will not cry. I will not break I will not break I will not break.
“I guess we need to start a fire then,” Luke murmurs, and I cling to his words like a life raft, since I know they can save me from my thoughts.
I spur myself into action, jumping to my feet and walking over to the packs to grab the matches and lighter out of them, and turn back around to find Luke waiting with Winston’s body in his arms. “Let’s go,” I whisper, and we exit the cave, Luke going first and being very careful so as to not drag any part of Winston in the dirt.
When I reach the outside, I think idly that it’s amazing it hasn’t rained yet today, and give a short prayer that it won’t start raining while we’re burning Winston’s body. I follow Luke wordlessly to a small clearing about a hundred yards away, and, as he sets down Winston’s body gently, I see a tear silde down the end of Luke’s nose and drip onto Winston’s fur. It pulls slightly at my heartstrings, but not nearly as much as it usually would, because I’m too numb to feel like I usually do right now.
Taking a deep breath to prepare myself for what I’m about to do and sighing, I pull a match out of my pocket, strike it on the bark of a nearby tree, and toss it onto Winston’s body to watch the fire run rampant across his lifeless form. When I realize that I can’t bear to see Winston burn so slowly, I take a few more matches out, strike them and toss them onto different parts of his body to have the fire grow expontentially larger, so much so that Luke and I have to take a step back so we don’t get singed.
I see movement out of the corner of my eye and turn my head to find Luke twisting his head away from the blaze. In my state of numbness, I think that I should have seen this coming, that I should have known that Luke isn’t tough enough to watch an animal he cared about somewhat get burning in front of him, but I brush it aside after a second. At a time like this, it’s a useless thought, and I don’t have time or space in my mind for anything useless.
It takes at least fifteen minutes for Winston to be completely reduced to ashes, at which point I elbow Luke gently and murmur, “It’s done. He’s gone.” Luke then turns back around to look at the dwindling blaze with the small mounds of ashes, and, as soon as the fire has completely died out, he steps forward, clearly intending to collect the ashes with his bare hands.
“Luke, that won’t work,” I tell him quietly, my gaze locked on the little piles of gray. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him looking at me curiously, and I add, “The ashes will just slip out of your hands. We need something to collect them in.”
Wordlessly Luke leaves the clearing and heads back towards the cave, but it doesn’t even occur to me to be curious about where he’s going. I’m too preoccupied with Winston and the word that slipped into my mind and my vague suspicions that Winston had something to do with the word slipping into my mind to care about anything else.
Winston clearly was trying to tell me something by lifting his head and so pointedly looking between Luke and I right before he died, and I have a feeling that the word that slipped into my mind the moment before he passed also has something to do with what Winston was trying to tell me. I also have a feeling that the meaning of Winston’s actions is locked up in that word, and that I won’t be able to figure out what he was trying to tell me until I discover what the word was.
Suddenly it occurs to me that Winston probably used up the last of his energy – and therefore quickened his death – by lifting up his head and giving me that look, and I know, with even more certainty, that I have to figure out what he meant. If it was so important for him to convey his message that he purposefully sped up his demise, it must be something he wanted me to know and therefore something I really need to know.
My thoughts are interrupted by a crackling sound to my right, and I look up to find Luke with both of the empty water jugs in his hand. I stare at him in confusion for a few seconds until it occurs to me that Luke must mean to gather the ashes in the jugs, at which point I step forward to accept the jug he’s silently holding out to me.
It takes us about five minutes to gather up the majority of the ashes, at which point I summon up a small breeze to whisk the remaining ones away, since I don’t want any part of him to be left here. Besides, the Triple Crown committee won’t be able to connect me and the wind, because there are enough small gusts in the forest for to it to have just been a coincidence.
After we have collected most of the ashes in the water jugs, Luke turns to me and asks, his eyes wetter than they usually are, “What do we do now?”
I am about to reply that I don’t know when, all of a sudden, I remember something my dad said to me once: “If and when I die, I want to be cremated, so that way my ashes can be tossed into the wind or dumped into moving water and I can go places I didn’t get to go when I was alive.”
“The stream,” I murmur quietly, then turn back to Luke to see him looking at me in befuddlement. “There’s a little stream not too far from here. Let’s dump his ashes into the water so he can go places now that he didn’t get to go when he was alive.”
“Alright,” Luke agrees quietly, and, when he says nothing else, I start to walk in the direction of the stream to have him follow me silently.
We don’t say anything to each other nearly the whole walk there, since both of us are too preoccupied with the pain of losing Winston to speak, and it’s only when it occurs to me, as we’re only a few hundred yards away from the water, that there could very well other champions at the stream that I open my mouth to talk.
“There might be other champions at the stream, so be on guard. You know as well as I do that they won’t care that we just lost a friend; in fact, they might go after us specifically if they think that we’re weakened.” I drop my left hand to close it around the hilt of my sword and shrug my shoulders ever so slightly to make sure that I still have my bow and quiver strapped to my back. I could probably fight off any champion coming for us with just my sword, but I’d still rather have extra weapons and not need them than not have extra weapons and end up needing them after all.
When we reach the stream, I glance quickly around us to check for any immediate danger, and, upon finding none, approach the water and wade in to stop when the water covers about half of my shins. The water – like everything else in a rainforest – isn’t cold at all, so wading in it is easy and not uncomfortable at all.
“Well? You coming in?” I ask Luke when I see that he hasn’t made any movements towards the water and is instead eying it with a certain degree of suspicion.
“Yeah,” he answers after a few more moments of staring at the water warily, and suddenly it strikes that he must be afraid of something in or about the river.
“Luke, what are you afraid of?” I question bluntly when he still hasn’t stepped any closer to the stream. Upon seeing him get a slightly embarrassed look on his face, I add, “I won’t laugh at you, I promise.”
“Well,” he begins, and all of a sudden a wave of terror emanates out from him to wash over me and nearly intoxicate me, “I’m afraid of being pulled under and hitting my head on a rock and drowning, because that nearly happened when I was a little kid.”
“How old were you when it happened?” Things that happen when you’re so little that you can’t really remember them can have a bigger effect on you than the things you can remember, and I have a vague suspicion that Luke may have been too little to really remember it.
“Three and a half, so I don’t remember all of the details,” he replies, and instantly my suspicions are proved correct. “I just remember slipping on a stone and falling and everything going black and then not being able to breathe.” After a moment’s pause, he adds, “I’ve had a fear of streams and rivers ever since.”
“Well, you’re going to have to overcome it,” I tell him, then, when he gives me an almost appalled look, I reassure him, “Luke, I’m right here, so I’ll catch you if you fall.” Upon seeing that his expression didn’t change at all, I finally break down and say, “Luke, do it for Winston.”
I give a small sigh of relief when Luke finally wades into the water, but, when he looks down for a moment to see moss-covered rocks beneath his feet and hesitates, I grab him by the arm and pull him towards me. “Luke, in the words of FDR, there is nothing to fear but fear itself. You’ll be fine, trust me.”
He nods his head wordlessly and doesn’t attempt to back out of the water, though he’s clearly still scared out of his wits, prompting me to take the jug containing Winston’s ashes from him and unscrew the lid. I nearly drop the jug I’m holding when I feel Luke let go of me, and look up to see him, pale but determined, holding his hand out to me.
I give him the jug, which is clearly what he wants, and watch him in amazement for a few moments before I drop my gaze to my hands and unscrew the lid of my jug.
“Well, what do we do now?” Luke asks after I’ve opened my jug. I look up momentarily to see him regarding me carefully, all fear gone from his expression.
“Now’s the hardest part of all,” I murmur. “Now we let Winston go.” I then dunk my jug underneath the water to watch Winston’s ashes get washed away by the fast-moving stream, and know Luke has done the same when I hear the definite splash of something entering the water.
When both of our jugs are empty and the last of the ashes are being carried away from us by the stream, I give Winston one final salute. After a moment’s hesitation, I blow him a kiss too and make him an unspoken promise that I will figure out what he meant by the look he gave me just before he died, then tell myself that this is one promise I will not be breaking. If it’s the last thing I do, I will figure out what Winston meant, and I will make his memory proud by doing so.
“Goodbye, Winston,” I hear Luke whisper to my right, and I don’t have to turn and look to know that there are tears sliding down his face.
After waiting a few moments to give Luke time to collect himself and give myself time to truly say goodbye to him, I break the silence that has blanketed us by clearing my throat and saying, “Well, let’s go back. We’ve done all that we can now.”
The walk back to the cave is as silent as the one to the stream was, but I don’t mind the quiet. It gives me time to think about the meaning of Winston’s look and what he has to do with the mystery word that popped into my mind right before he died.
It’s entirely plausible that I imagined the word, or that my mind created it and it wasn’t planted there, but I don’t think that’s the case. Because I am an animal, I can communicate with other animals telepathically, which means that I can send them mental messages and they can send me mental messages. My suspicion is that the word was a mental message from Winston that explains the pointed stare he gave me. This means that, if I dig far enough into my own mind, I will eventually be able to unearth the word. The only problem is, I don’t know how far I’m going to have to dig or how to even start digging.
My parents told me once that, with minds like ours, we never forget anything, and that any memory from any point in time can eventually be revealed if you dig deep enough into your own mind. I know this to be true, since I’ve done it during school with homework I didn’t bother to write down, but I don’t know how to do it now, because the word was in my mind for such a short period of time. I mean, I know that I will in the end find it, but I have no idea how long that will take or even where to start searching in my mind. I guess my best strategy is to go back to the exact moment when the word popped into my mind-
My thoughts are interrupted by Luke stopping abruptly in front of me, and instinctively I reach for my sword, thinking that there must be some sort of danger ahead. However, it turns out we’ve just reached the cave, so I remove my hand from the hilt of my blade and proceed to slide into the cave after Luke just as the first raindrops begin to fall.
Wordlessly I take the jug he’s holding loosely and, alongside the one I carried, set it out into the rain so that it can refill and we can have clean drinking water soon.
“Do you think we did the right thing?” Luke asks me quietly as I turn back around, and, for the first time, I find it almost unnerving the way he’s staring at me so intently.
“Luke, I know we did the right thing,” I tell him, then reach out a hand to touch him lightly on the arm in what I hope is a reassuring way. When he doesn’t seem to be convinced, I add, “Winston’s in a better place, a place where there is no Triple Crown. That in itself justifies our actions completely.”
Now Luke nods almost regretfully, as though he knows what I’m saying is true but doesn’t want to admit it, and I turn away from him. If I can’t convince him right now, then I might as well stop trying, because it would just be a waste of breath for me to keep talking.
Luke and I eat a silent dinner of roasted paoton meat that we found in one of the packs, fruit I gathered on the way back from the stream and water from the newly-refilled and purified jugs. We then just as silently put all of our supplies away and lay down against the tall flat rock to watch the sun set through the cave entrance. Even though I ‘ve probably only been awake for twelve hours, it feels like I’ve been awake for twenty, and I soon find myself fighting to keep my eyes open.
Luke apparently notices this, for he murmurs gently in my ear as he strokes the side of my face, “Lizzie, it’s been a long day. You can go to sleep if you want to.”
“That’s the thing Luke: I don’t want to go to sleep,” I reply softly, and he falls silent again.
Now that I finally have peace and quiet, I finally get to go back to the moment in which the mystery word popped into my mind so I can figure out what it is. Closing my eyes, I mentally take myself back to that second.
I’m covering Winston with my body and my hand is on Winston’s abdomen. I can feel his heart beat slow under my palm, and I get off of him when I feel him move. He raises his head, looks at Luke and then at me very pointedly, the word flashes through my mind, and, when I look back down at Winston, he’s gone. The word, the word, the word…
I put myself in the exact second the word flashed through my mind, and all of a sudden, with an audible gasp of surprise, I realize what the word is.
Always.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

It seems like I’m being haunted by that word ‘always’ and how it pertains to my relationship with Luke. No matter where I go, it follows me persistently: painted on my wall by an eleven-year-old girl, inserted into my mind by a dying jungle cat. However, what does that always mean anyways? I mean, it’s not even real for me; it’s just me doing what I’m told and acting to cover my butt. The fact that it’s real for Luke doesn’t really matter since I don’t return his feelings as wholeheartedly as I should. Me feeling a little something for him is rendered obsolete by the fact that we’re both going to die soon and that I don’t love him as much as he loves and that, while I want desperately an always with him, one in which no acting is required from me, I know it won’t happen. If the Triple Crown didn’t exist, and somehow I fell in love with him at home, then maybe we could have an always, but God knows we can’t have an always here. Nothing is permanent here, except for the Triple Crown.
My eyes shoot open even wider in surprise when I realize that Winston knew that I didn’t love Luke as much as he loved me, that most of it was just acting for me, and I begin to wonder why Winston would even suggest such a thing as an always for us, when he knew the truth about our relationship. Did Winston honestly think that, in the end, I would fall completely in love with Luke and everything would work out okay and we would make it out of the Triple Crown alive and together? I know Winston isn’t naïve enough to think that, so what on earth did he mean by always? Did he mean that Luke will love me always, or that we will always have the relationship we have now? Did he mean…?
I sigh in befuddlement and shake my head, trying to make sense of the thoughts running circles around each other in my mind. In the distance I hear Luke ask me if I’m alright, and I nod my head wordlessly and dismissively. And that’s when it hits me…
What Winston meant is that Luke and I will always, in some way or form, be connected if we’re not together because of the Triple Crown. We have both witnessed and done horrors that no other human will ever be able to understand or truly know what those things feel like, and that will bind us together for as long as we are both alive. We need each other to keep each other sane and whole, because right now, I am the only person who truly understands Luke and he is the only person who truly understands me. No matter what happens to us, no matter who dies first, hell, it doesn’t even matter if one of us kills the other, we will always be tied together by our experiences in the Hand-to-Hand Combat arena, and in this rainforest, and by the things that will happen to us in Team Survival. The other champions may know what it is like to have to either murder or be murdered, but I know for a fact that they do not know what it is like to have to deceive a nation – and the person supposed to be acting along with you – to save yourself.
That is the one thing that separates Luke and I from the other champions. While we all have to fight in the Triple Crown and we all have to kill or be killed and we all have to accept the fact that we’re probably not going to make it out of this alive, Luke and I are the only ones who know what it’s like to not only have to kill or die, but also to deceived and be deceived. Luke and I are the only ones who know what it’s like to have to be actors as well as assassins, and I am also the only one who knows what it’s like to hate yourself for not loving someone you really should love.
I really should love Luke more than I do, because I shouldn’t love Jackson at all, but, of course, it doesn’t really matter what should happen. It only matters what actually does happen, and all of the shoulds are completely forgotten in the result. I guess that essentially makes this another example of the means versus the ends.
It really doesn’t matter that I should love Luke as much as he loves me because I don’t, and that, the actual result, is all that will have an effect, is all that will ever be remembered, in the end. However, I would probably be acting a lot differently and might not even have any feelings for Luke at all if I didn’t feel that I should love him. Maybe the should, the motivation and driving force behind my actions, is the only thing that really matters, though it will undoubtedly be left out and eventually forgotten in time.
Shaking my head slightly, I think cynically that I really wish Luke hadn’t confused me so with all of his philosophical talk of the means being more important than the end, and that I could just continue believing wholeheartedly and stubbornly in the fact that the end is far more important than the means. Everything would be a lot easier now if he had just kept his mouth shut two weeks ago.
My thoughts are interrupted by Puck’s incredibly loud voice booming out across the forest and startling everything into an unnatural silence, and I feel a distinct vindication when I realize that I’m about to hear Marissa’s and Hunter’s names get read aloud. “Section Four: Marissa Evans and Hunter Knightley.”
“Twenty-three down, seven or eight to go,” Luke murmurs next to me, and my eyes shoot open in shock as I realize that he’s right.
However, I don’t have much time to be surprised, because Puck is immediately speaking again. “And your kill leader for One-Person Survival so far is...” He pauses for effect, and I roll my eyes and sigh, because I know that the name he’s about to announce is my own.
“Lizzie Lightning, with ten kills!” he shouts, loud enough for the people in the Sections to hear him even if his voice wasn’t being broadcasted from all of their television sets. Even though I know it’s his job, I can’t help but wonder why he sounds so happy about singling me out as a target and therefore increasing the likelyhood that I die.
Suddenly a burst of rage shoots through me, and I shout out at the sky, “damn it, would you stop announcing that?” For a millisecond I briefly debate adding, “You wouldn’t want to kill off your cherrypicked winner, would you?” but I don’t when I realize that it would do nothing except make the Triple Crown committee and Rush even more angry with me. No one except for Luke and I would hear it anyways, so it’s useless to say it if it’s going to be heard by anyone who doesn’t already know it.
“Lizzie...” Luke begins, and reaches a hand out to gently touch me on the arm, and, before he can finish his sentence with the inevitable question of, “Are you alright?”, I quickly and dismissively tell him, annoyed that he thinks every time I make an outburst or get angry that I’m alright, “Luke, I’m fine.”
In my anger I add coldly and sarcastically, “Hate to break it to you, but I get pissed off sometimes.” However, I instantly feel bad when I see the taken-aback, shocked and hurt look on Luke’s face, and, as I sigh at my own inability to resist Luke’s almost-pathetic nature, I tell him, “Luke, I’m sorry. It’s not right of me to take my anger at the situation out on you.”
“Lizzie, it’s ok,” he replies gently, a small smile spreading across his face as he raises a hand to gently caress the side of my face. He then leans forward and kisses me on the forehead, and, when he pulls back, I snuggle up against him and rest my head on his shoulder. I look over at Luke, up at the stars, and back over at Luke again, and the last thing I think before I drift off to sleep is that the stars must think our lives are completely insane.

Luke and I stay in the cave for two more days, during which time my bruises completely fade away and the lump that used to dominate most of Luke’s forehead vanishes. While staying in the cave, we don’t do anything romantic except sleep next to each other, since Luke’s too caught up with losing Winston to care about anything else and I’m too caught up with losing Winston to bring myself to act in love with Luke like I’ve been told to do.
Max and his orders of manufactured romance can wait for a little bit, I told myself once, and I know that I was completely justified in thinking that. I just lost an animal that I considered to be a very close friend, and no one has any right to tell me to act and dance and sing like I’m supposed to when I’m grieving.
Winston’s dying gesture of the pointed look he gave me and the word he inserted into my mind haunt me the whole two days, so much so that I often find myself muttering the word always subconsciously as I go about my daily tasks, something that I find completely disturbing. I try to shake it from my mind, and tell myself that I imagined it all, that Winston never put always in my mind and that Luke and I don’t have any kind of always, but I can’t convince myself of such an obvious fallacy. As a result, I am never able to get rid of the feeling that maybe Winston’s right, that maybe Luke and I will always be connected by experiences, no matter what else happens to us or who dies first or even if we turn on each other.
The thought that I might actually have an always with Luke Gates scares the hell out of me. To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to be connected to anyone, or be with anyone, because it will just make it harder to die, and I don’t need to make it harder on myself to leave this world. It’s already going to hurt a lot to begin with, and I don’t want or need to put myself in any more pain. Besides, I can’t have always, not in this place; all relationships, loyalties and bonds are dissolved and crumbled and broken, and even people’s humanity is destroyed in the end, so, in the end, Luke’s and my always would eventually follow that same path. The only thing that is permanent, that actually has an always here, is El Nieve, all of the emotions it inspires in people: fear, pain, hatred in the people of the Sections and reverence, numbness and raw bloodlust in the people of El Nieve.
The fact that I actually do love Luke to an extent scares the hell out of me too. Loving him, while it makes the acting part of the Triple Crown a lot easier because I don’t always have to act anymore, makes everything else a whole lot more complicated and difficult. Because Luke knows that I love him some but because he doesn’t know how much I love him, he can’t distinguish when I’m acting and when I’m not anymore, and it kills me to have Luke believe that the lies I’m telling him are true. And then, of course, there’s Jackson.
Jackson could think that everything I say to Luke is a lie, that I’m acting all the time, and he’d be happy now and furious later when he learns that not all of it was me acting. Jackson could also think that everything I’m saying is real, that I’m not acting at all, and then he’d be furious now and happy later upon learning that I was acting some, that I don’t completely love Luke and that I still do love Jackson some. The third possibility is that Jackson would actually be able to tell when I’m acting and when I’m not, and, if that’s the case – which I highly doubt, Jackson will most likely find it amusing and pathetic that Luke can’t see through my act, and then Jackson himself will realize even more exactly how dangerous and manipulative I am. The fact that Jackson might see how lethal I am doesn’t really bother me though, because he already knows what I am and he already knows a good deal about what I can do, so this would just be him discovering another weapon in my huge arsenal.
I know that there are most likely only two people on the whole planet who can actually tell when I’m acting with Luke and when I’m not. Those people are Max and, unfortunately, Rush. It would be a lot easier if Rush couldn’t tell when I was acting or not, because then I could actually fool him and maybe not incur his wrath upon my family. In fact, if it weren’t for Rush’s threat to harm my family, I wouldn’t be acting at all. If I didn’t think that I might cause my family’s deaths by not doing what I’m told, I would be singing Re-Education Through Labor at the top of my lungs and not having anything to do with Luke Gates. To be perfectly honest, my life would be a lot easier that way, because then all I would have to do is worry about stirring up enough feelings to cause a rebellion and then committing suicide by Triple Crown.
Unfortunately, my life isn’t that easy, because Rush can tell when I’m acting and when I’m not and he has threatened – and I know that he’ll carry out his threat – to kill my family, making me completely at his mercy and forcing me to do everything he commands, even though all of the things he commands me to do are against everything I believe in. I hate Rush, simply because he represents everything I’ve grown to oppose: oligarchy, inequality, loss of humanity and feeling, and, above all, repression. Of course, even if he didn’t represent all of those things, I would still detest him, because I’m not one to be fond of people who threaten my family. Rush also doesn’t seem like a particularly nice guy to begin with, so I’m positive I wouldn’t get along with him, even if he were President of Utopia.
Which brings me to the question that’s been haunting me for quite a while now: is there really such a thing as Utopia? Is there really a perfect society where everyone’s equal and healthy and happy? To be honest, I don’t think that such a place could ever be create or ever exist, because a perfect society would require perfect people, and there are no such things as perfect people. The only person that I truly believe was perfect died over two thousand years ago – well, it’s probably more like three thousand from this point in time – and I think he’s the only perfect person who will ever walk this planet.
Some people might say that I am perfect, being tall, beautiful, incredibly intelligent and with enough skills and resources to do absolutely whatever I want in life. Some people would also say that I have the perfect life: my parents have enough money that I wouldn’t have to work a day in my life if I didn’t want to, and I can get almost anything I want with my fame, influence and connections. Of course, all of those people have no idea that I’m not even actually human, that everything that they think they know about me is false. I’m sure that if they knew all of my secrets, if they knew everything I’ve seen and done and how my hands are completely stained with the blood of all of the people I’ve killed, they wouldn’t think that I had a perfect life anymore. In fact, they’d probably wonder how on earth I’ve survived my life and all of the horrors in it for so long.
My life has finally caught up with me though, and there’s no way for me to run or get out of this problem now. I’m going to be a victim of my own reputation; my death will be a direct result will be a direct result of my ability to kill mercilessly, which I find incredibly ironic. Maybe that’s God’s way of telling me I’ve killed too many people, and that it’s time for what I dealt out to come back to me. After all, what goes around comes around, and I guess, after seventeen years of killing and destroying, all of my killing and destroying is going to come back and get me.
But maybe it’s best that I’m only going to get away with seventeen years of destruction, because I know that, if I kept on killing for much longer, I would either lose the ability to feel by drowning my feelings in my pain or I would just lose it completely and become suicidal, and neither one of those options is very attractive in my eyes. I’d much rather just have God take his vengeance out on me now so that I don’t have to live to become a monster.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

After hearing some screams relatively close to us and then a gunshot, Luke and I quickly pack up and leave the cave. We don’t want to take a chance on being detected again, since the only true ally we have among the remaining champions is Marshall, and Luke probably wouldn’t want to work with Marshall anyways. I haven’t told Luke about my encounter with Marshall three days ago, since I know that would just be stupid on my part. I also know that I’m generating a lot of attention from the audience by keeping my relationship with Marshall secret from Luke, and Max would probably get really pissed at me if I stopped milking the crowd for all I’m worth by actually telling Luke about the thing with Marshall.
We stop after running about five miles away from the cave, mostly because Luke is getting tired, and, after a quick glance around, I climb up the tallest nearby tree and wordlessly motion for Luke to follow me.
After a few moments, he hasn’t climbed up next to me, so I glance down to see him shaking his head slightly and staring up at me in amazement. “How did you get up there like that?” he asks me, panting slightly, and I can’t help but smile. Even though Luke is in very good shape, he’s definitely not the runner I am.
“I’ve had lots of practice,” I tell him, shrugging. “Being able to climb almost anything very quickly is an essential skill for assassin. Now come on up next to me.” I scoot over a little bit, pat the tree branch next to me and give him a grin, knowing that I can charm him into almost anything and taking advantage of that fact.
“Lizzie, I can’t climb trees,” he says, and I look down at him in surprise. “I just... I never can figure out where to put my hands and feet, and I always end up falling.” When he sees the skeptical look I’m giving him, he concedes, “I mean, I guess I can get up there, it would just take me forever. It would probably take me ten minutes to just get ten feet off the ground, while it takes you about thirty seconds to get twenty feet off the ground.”
“It honestly takes you ten minutes to get ten feet off the ground?” I question him incredulously, thinking idly that a snail could probably move faster up a tree than that.
“Yeah, about that long.” Luke picks up on the shocked tone in my voice and answers very solemnly, causing my eyebrows to shoot up slightly when I realize that he’s completely serious. “Would you like to see me fail miserably at climbing a tree?”
“Well,” I begin, my tone becoming completely teasing, “I’d like to laugh at you failing miserably at climbing a tree, so give it a shot.” I give him a beaming smile and lean again the tree trunk. I’m going to be in for a lot of amusement if he really is as bad as he says he is.
“Thank you, Lizzie,” Luke replies patronizingly, and I burst out laughing. “I’ll do it if it makes you laugh though,” he adds quietly, his tone completely changed, and I look down to see him staring up at me with a small smile on his face and an intense look in his eye.
Instantly I feel uncomfortable, since those little comments Luke makes are just more reminders of our twisted relationship that I desperately wish we didn’t have, and I avert my gaze. After regarding me intently for a moment longer, he takes off the supplies on his back, tosses them up so that they are caught by a branch about ten feet off the ground, and grips a sturdy tree branch extending from the trunk at about his eye level. He then looks up at me expectantly, and I gesture for him to continue, a smile slowly spreading across my face.
This should be fun, I think as I smirk down at him and wait for him to begin his ascent up the tree.
Luke manages to get his whole body off of the ground before falling for the first time. Even though I know that I really should climb down the tree to see if he’s ok, I can’t help but laugh at him before I ask him, “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” he calls up, and I look down at him to find him lying flat on his back with leaves in his hair and an exasperated look on his face that makes me burst out laughing again. “Oh, you think this is funny?” he questions, giving me a flat look.
“Yeah, I do,” I answer, smirking at him. “In fact, I think this is very funny.” I fold my arms across my chest and watch him expectantly, waiting for him to try to climb the tree again. I know that, even though Luke knows continuing to climb the tree will accomplish nothing except give him a few more bruises, he’s going to keep on trying to climb the tree, because he would do anything to make me laugh.
“I’ll be the one laughing when I actually get up there,” Luke tells me, and I roll my eyes. From what I’ve seen so far, I think that it might take quite a while for Luke to get up here.
“Luke, when isn’t quite the right word. If is a much better descriptor of your possibilites of climbing this tree.” I give him my biggest grin and begin to giggle again when he rolls his eyes at me, which causes him to smile, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be annoyed with me.
However, instead of coming back with some witty and funny response, he just calmly says, “We’ll just see, now won’t we?” and my eyebrows shoot up briefly in surprise. My smirk doesn’t go away though.
After a few moments of silence, in which neither one of us do anything, I tell him, “I’m waiting,” and, after giving me an unamused look that contains hints of a smile, he begins to climb the tree again.
This time he is able to get up to where his packs are, stand up, lean against the tree trunk, cling onto branches tightly so that he doesn’t fall and give me his best smile. “I proved you wrong, Lizzie. I got up the tree,” he calls up to me, and I shake my head as my smirk gets even bigger.
“No, you didn’t. I said you had to get up here next to me, while you are seven feet off the ground. You have thirteen more feet of climbing to do.” When his face falls, I burst out laughing again, and, after I’ve stopped giggling enough to look down at him again, I see him giving me the flattest, most unamused look I’ve seen out of him so far.
However, his unamusement soon turns to determination, and, as he tosses his bags farther up into the tree, he calls, “Well, you’ll be seeing me soon either way.”
I fold my arms over my chest and give him a skeptical look, which prompts him to start climbing again. He gets to about ten feet off the ground before slipping, and I am about to tease him about the fact that he’s not going to be seeing me soon when he catches himself with one arm and pulls himself up to rest only eight feet below me.
For a second he seems to not fully comprehend what just happened, since he doesn’t tease me at all, but soon the realization of what he did sets in and he asks me as he looks up at me, a smirk spreading across my face, “Hey Lizzie, you still think it’s if instead of when?”
However, Luke still has eight feet to go and plenty of opportunites to fall until he reaches me, so, until he completely proves me wrong, I’m not going to back down and accept defeat. “Yeah, I do,” I call down to him and smirk as I see, by the look on his face, that he’s accepted my challenge.
“I’m coming up there!” he yells, and begins to try to climb again to lose grip of the first branch he grabs. He falls two feet to land ten feet below me again, and my smirk gets even bigger as it becomes apparent that I was completely right about all of the opportunities for Luke to fall.
“You know, Luke, you really should shut and climb, because you’re going to jinx yourself by saying things like that,” I call down at him, and he rolls his eyes at me. He then climbs up the two feet he lost to sit eight feet below me and gives me his biggest, most beaming smile that oozes cockiness and says for itself, “I told you so.”
“Lizzie, you’re going to be having company very soon, so I’d scoot over if I were you,” he tells me, his eyes lit up with humor, excitement and determination, and all of a sudden I find myself thinking about how attractive he is. When I come to my senses after a moment, I shake my head wildly, trying to clear my mind of those thoughts. To be honest, I’m amazed with myself, as, while Luke is rather attractive, I’m not the one to think about it constantly. I’m almost scared too, because I have no idea what that means in terms of my feelings towards him.
However, I don’t let my astonishment and fear show, and respond, “I’m not scooting over until you prove that you can actually climb this tree and not get your ass kicked by it.”
To my surprise, he shrugs and says in reply, “Fair enough,” then begins to climb again. This time, I note with amusement, he is much more careful about where he places his hands and his feet, and, after taking about five minutes, he stops at about five feet below me.
“You scooting over yet?” he calls up, smirking, as he throws his bags higher up into the tree so that they land right next to me, and a smile spreads across my face. Even though I might want to deny it, I really do like this friendly, peaceful, playful time Luke and I are having together. It’s a refreshing break from murdering and wondering when we’re going to be murdered.
“Hell no!” I shoot back. “You still have about five feet straight up to go, which means that you still have ample opportunity to fall out of this tree. Like I said before, I’m not scooting over until you prove that you’re not going to get your ass kicked by this tree, and that means I’m not scooting over until you actually get up here.” I give him my biggest smile, which makes him shake his head at me in exasperation and amusement. I then burst out laughing, and, all of a sudden, I just feel a wave of incredibly powerful emotion that came from Luke sweep over me.
I stop giggling to stare down at him in amazement and find him gazing up at me with such care and love and compassion in his eyes that I have to avert my stare to avoid being overcome by guilt. The emotion still lingers in the air around me, and, even though I know that I’ve just felt the breath of a miracle, it still makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
A heavy silence drapes us for a moment before Luke breaks it by bringing back the happy, frivolous mood and saying, “Well, I’m coming up there right now,” to begin climbing again.
I give him my best fake grin but can’t bring myself to say anything teasing in response, as I’m still too stunned and overcome by what just happened between us to speak. Unlike anything that I’ve ever been able to do before, I could palpably feel the emotion in the air the moment before, and the huge amount of love and emotion that Luke directed at me scares the hell out of me. From a completely selfish, logistical standpoint, he shouldn’t feel that much or that powerfully for me. Now that I know how much he actually loves me, going off and being the spark and dying is just going to be harder.
I am so consumed in my thoughts that I don’t even laugh when Luke falls five feet to land ten feet below me again, which causes him to look up at me in surprise. “Lizzie, are you ok?” he asks me, his tone incredibly concerned, and I grudgingly admit to myself that he actually does have a reason to be worried right now. After all, if I don’t laugh at him falling and therefore proving me right, something must be wrong.
Shaking my head and snapping out of the half-stupor I was in, I blink a couple times and stare down at him to nod, smile and say, “Yeah. Sorry; I was just... thinking.” My voice trails off and it’s obvious Luke knows what I’m thinking about, because he nods his head in understanding and gives me a solemn smile.
“Well, what you should be thinking about is how I’m going to prove you wrong and actually climb this tree,” he tells me, a playful grin spreading across his face, and I’m incredibly grateful of the fact that he immediately recognized I don’t want to talk about it and changed the subject. I really do appreciate Luke’s intuition, tact and ability to read people, especially in times like this.
“Actually,” I begin, smirking down at him, “I’m wondering how many more times you’re going to fall. My guess is at least five, considering you’ve fallen four times already and still have the most difficult part of the tree to climb.” Luke rolls his eyes at me and shakes his head, but I don’t burst out laughing like I have before. I’m almost afraid that, if I do laugh, Luke will send another wave of emotions in my direction, a wave that I don’t want to feel again.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” he mutters, and now I do start giggling as I look down at his exasperated and amused expression.
“No,” I counter, shaking my head as he stares up at me in confusion. “I believe the term you’re looking for is ye of reality, because the reality, Luke, is that you most likely aren’t going to get up this tree in the next hour, and, even if you do, you’ll do it with lots of falls and be covered in bruises.”
“Well I really appreciate your confidence in me, it’s very encouraging,” Luke tells me with a straight face, and a smile overtakes my expression as I see his incredibly beautiful twinkling eyes.
“You’re quite welcome Luke. I’m here all week,” I answer, and now it’s Luke’s turn to laugh. “Actually, at the rate you’re going, we’re both going to be here all week,” I add after a few moments of thought, and Luke shakes his head as a grin creeps across his face.
“I don’t know why, but, no matter how annoying you get, I never can get mad at you,” Luke murmurs as he stares up at me, and I instantly avert my gaze when I see the incredibly passionate look in his eye. “Maybe it’s because you’re just so charming and perfect that it doesn’t matter what you do,” he tells me quietly, and I feel my eyes being drawn to his face by the sheer power of his voice.
“Luke, don’t start,” I finally say when I’ve overcome my shock at his words enough to speak. When I see him staring up at me with confusion and hurt in his expression, I shake my head and add, “Just don’t, alright?” I sigh at myself slightly as the realization of what I just did sets in: I just lost all patience with Luke’s proclamations of his love for me and therefore just partially revealed the true nature of our relationship to the audience.
Luke clearly knows what just happened too, because, even though his eyes are overflowing with pain and hurt and anger at himself, he quickly covers for me by asking, “Lizzie, what’s the matter?” and twisting his features so that he now appears concerned.
“I just...” I begin, and I know that I’m supposed to lie and say something like, “You don’t have to tell me that you love me all the time when I already know it,” which I guess wouldn’t be a lie at all. However, I can’t bring myself to even say that, so I mutter, completely truthful, “You really shouldn’t tell me that I’m perfect all the time when I’m never perfect at all.” After a moment’s pause, I continue, “I mean, that’s a really nice lie you’ve been telling me, but I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“Lizzie, I’m sorry,” Luke tells me sincerely, his eyes wide with surprise, “but I’m not lying.” I drop my gaze for a moment as I realize that I walked right into that one and I sigh. Luke confessing his love for me and making me feel like a horrible person is always incredibly fun for me.
“You are the most perfect person I’ve ever met; hell, I don’t have to meet all of the other people to know that you’re the most perfect person on the planet, so I don’t know you insist on deluding yourself that you are anything less. You are beautiful – no, you’re stunning, you’re as radiant as the sun – and you’re brilliant – you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met-” – I smile briefly and insincerely at that last comment, since I probably am the smartest person he’s ever met; I have a measured intelligence quotient of two-forty-three and am usually about ten steps ahead of everyone else I’m having a conversation with – “-and you’re caring and you’re athletic and you’re witty and you’re just...” His voice trails off for a moment, and I move my gaze away when I see the passion that causes me great pain blazing in his eyes. “Perfect,” he finishes in a whisper, and all of a sudden begins to climb at an amazing speed up the tree.
Within a minute, he’s next to me, and, as I give him my best fake smile, I make a great fuss of scooting over to make room for him.
“You know, this is probably the only opportunity I’m going to get to tell you I told you so,” he murmurs as he looks over at me with the hint of a smile on his face and the intensity still consuming his gaze.
“You might as well make the most of your opportunity then,” I tell him in reply, trying to sound exasperated but only sounding sad.
“That’s the thing, Lizzie: I don’t want to tell you that.” I look up at him in surprise, honestly stunned. Even though our playful moment vanished long ago, I thought Luke would at least want to rub his victory in my face, considering that I was the major naysayer who constantly told him that he wouldn’t be able to climb the tree.
I voice my surprise by asking, “Why not?” then stare over at him in confusion, hoping to dear God that Luke isn’t going to come back with some long speech about it not being nice and about how he has to be noble, otherwise I’ll find someone better. Him telling me he loves me all the time never was pleasant, and it’s been made even more uncomfortable by the knowledge that he believes I love him back when I really don’t.
“Because I know that you’ll have plenty of opportunities to tell me that later on – I mean, you already have – and I’m hoping that, if I’m nice to you know, you won’t use them.” He gives me a playful smile, though I can tell that he’s not completely kidding, and it’s all I can do to stop from sighing out loud in relief. I just dodged another bullet in terms of Luke causing me pain.
“Trust me, Luke, your act of kindness will not be forgotten,” I tell him, giving him a half-genuine smile and forcing myself to swallow when he wraps his arm around me and draws me to him.
I feel the emotion building up in the air and I realize that I need to reclaim the comic feel of the moment before it becomes too charged, so I quickly add, “It may be forgotten during the moments you fall out of trees, but it won’t be completely forgotten.” I give him a smirk and allow myself to relax a little when some of the emotion of the moment vanishes. However, I know I’m not completely out of the woods yet, so I keep on being comedic to prevent the lost emotion from coming back. “Actually, it will definitely be forgotten during the moments you’re getting your ass kicked by a tree.”
“I figured that,” Luke replies, shrugging as a smile creeps across his face, but the fact that there’s still some of the passion blazing in his eyes worries me. I don’t want to say anything else that might reveal something about the true nature of our relationship, but I know that I will if Luke starts pouring his heart out to me again. “But it’s still nice to know that you won’t completely forget it,” he adds quietly, and the intensity in his eyes instantly multiplies.
I jerk my gaze away, made incredibly uncomfortable by the incredibly powerful emotions Luke feels for me and not wanting to be reminded of the fact that I don’t feel the same way. However, I know that I really should take this opportunity to cover my ass and do some damage control, so I swallow with difficulty and force myself to say, “Luke, I will never forget anything you do.”
Luke gives me a wordless smile and leans in to kiss me, and, as I feel his arms wrap around my back and pull me closer to him, I think that, even though what I said is true, it doesn’t make much difference in how I feel about saying it. If I could – and, even though I can’t, I’m seriously considering doing it anyways – I would stop the acting right now, and immediately begin to confess to Luke all of the things that I’ve said to him that haven’t been true, or that I haven’t really meant, or that I haven’t really wanted to say. If I could, I would tell Luke about everything that I’ve said and done that I only said or did to forward the lie of our relationship, and then I would beg for forgiveness and hope to dear God that Luke understands that I didn’t want to say or do any of those things, and that it kills me to know that he wholeheartedly believes all of my lies.
If I could, I would tell him about all of the moments when I actually meant what I said, when I actually felt something for him, when I actually wasn’t acting, and maybe Luke would forgive me easier if he knew that I wasn’t acting all of the time, that I actually did mean some of the things that I told him and that I actually did feel something for him. Maybe Luke would be happy to know that I’m capable of feeling, that I’m not just a concrete girl, no matter how much I’d like to delude myself that I am, and maybe Luke would be happy to know that I can do something more than kill and destroy, that love is actually a word in my vocabulary.
My thoughts are interrupted by Luke pulling back, and I stare up at him in pain and confusion. I desperately want to reveal the lies that I’ve been feeding him, and I want to stop him from taking everything that I say as real, and I want him to see what I really am: a cynical, homicidal, incredibly dangerous ex-assassin who refuses to admit to herself that she can feel and that she can be broken. I also desperately want to tell him that not everything I said was a lie, that I actually meant some of the things that I told him, and I want him to understand how sorry I am for tricking him, and I want him to know how much it kills me to have him believe that the lies I tell him are real.
I want to be honest with him for once, but, as I have learned, honesty cannot exist in the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown itself is seated in the dishonesty of the people that run it and make everyone else believe that it is necessary and fair when it is really neither one, so why should anything about the Triple Crown, or that the Triple Crown has created, actually be honest too? After all, it has thrived for ninety-nine years on the policy of dishonesty and forgery of relationships and reasons and even champions – look at Max – so why it should change? It has a perfectly good, working business model in deceiving everyone and faking everything, so I guess I shouldn’t expect it change for me.
However, if I succeed in my mission of being the spark, it might all get burned to the ground, and then it would change for me and the fire I started. Changing the system or at least severely rattling the Triple Crown committee and El Nieve and reminding them that they’re not permanent, that this oligarchy that they have in place can be destroyed, is what I want to do by being the spark. I want to give the people of the Sections at least a chance to live on their feet and experience freedom, even if that freedom comes a few seconds before their deaths.
These people are done groveling and doing what El Nieve wants them to do and living on their knees. They want a chance to live on their feet, even if that chance comes at the price of their lives, so who am I to stop them from doing so? They have made me their spark, and they have created an environment that I can start a fire in, so, for their sakes, I need to take advantage of it and be their spark. I’m dead anyways, since both Luke and I can’t go home and I’m not going home without him, so what do I have to lose? The support of the crowd that will scream for my blood when it’s my time to die? The crown of the Triple Crown? None of that matters to me, because it is all useless. In the end, the crowd that loves me now will betray me and scream for my killer as I lay on the ground, helpless and waiting for death. If I were to win the Triple Crown, I would be forsaking everything I believe in as a person and losing everything that makes me me, and I would be violating the key principle that I want to die by of that it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
To me, living is not worth losing everything I care about, like my individuality, humanity and core beliefs, so I would much rather die as myself than live as the broken, beaten, worn-down creature I would be if I were to come out of all of this alive. Besides, if I come out of this alive, that means I havne’t done my job as the spark, and that I’ve failed the people of the Sections, which is something I definitely don’t want to do. They’ve been let down enough by El Nieve and their leaders who promised bright futures for all, so they don’t need to be let down by me too.
I am jerked out of my thoughts by the sound of Luke’s voice. “Lizzie,” he begins, staring down at me with worry on his face, and I know, before he even opens his mouth again, that he’s going to ask if I’m alright, “are you ok?”

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

I smile slightly at Luke’s predictability and answer, “Yeah, I’m fine,” then back against him and have him hold me tightly. After a few moments of silence, I realize that I need to talk to him about some of the things bothering me, so I murmur, “Actually, Luke, there is something that’s been bothering me.” However, as soon as I’m done talking, it occurs me that I actually can’t talk to Luke about any of the things bothering me, because they all have to do with the nature of our relationship. With an internal sigh, I find that I’m going to have to fake it and come up with something completely different from what I had originally planned on talking about.
I look up to find Luke gazing down at me expectantly, and I continue, painfully aware of the fact that everything I’m about to say is [censored] in terms of sincerity, “There was something Marissa said, before I put an arrow in her heart. She said that she killed Abby, and that Abby begged for mercy before she died. I mean, I don’t think that Abby actually begged for mercy, but I think that Marissa very well could have killed her.”
“Well,” Luke starts, staring at me with concern in his eyes as he holds me to him, “you can’t let it bother you either way, even though I know that sounds completely cold and callous, because then Marissa will be succeeding in her goal of psyching you out. You can’t let her get inside your mind and mess with you. I mean, I know it’s a lot harder than it sounds, but you have to just forget about what she said and not think about it. That’s the only way you can stop her from getting to you and having the last laugh.” Luke gives me a small smile and gently scoops me up to set me down in his lap, and I sigh as I lean back against him.
“I know Luke,” I mutter as I look out through the leaves and branches in front of me for answers. “I just... I just...” I shake my head, not knowing what to say or even why I’m talking about the lie I’ve made when I don’t have to. “I just... You know, Luke,” I begin, looking up at him and capturing his gaze with my own, “I feel bad for Marissa, that she has to be so twisted and bent and broken and sociopathic that she has to make up lies like that. I mean, I don’t like her – I never liked her, and she never liked me clearly – but I feel bad for her. I mean, if all she can do is hurt people, then that’s awful. I can’t even imagine how bad that would be, to know that your only purpose in life and your only major skill is killing and destroying. I really hope that that never happens to me, that I never lose everything except the ability to hurt and kill and destroy. If that happens, put an arrow or a blade in my heart, Luke, because I don’t want to live to see myself become Marissa. I don’t want to live to see myself become a monster.”
“Lizzie, you will never become a monster, never,” Luke tells me, and it’s all I can do to not laugh my fake laugh at how mistaken he is. “You are too good and right and just to ever become anything like Marissa. You will never be her, Lizzie, you never be her.” I smile slightly and shake my head, finding it bitterly amusing that Luke is so blinded by his love for me that he can’t see how truly dangerous I am.
“Luke,” I start, staring up at him, “I don’t think you realize that I’m not that far from Marissa right now. A few more years as an assassin – hell, a month more of this even – would turn me into her, no questions asked.” I pause for a moment, not knowing how to continue. “Luke, I’m not nearly as good and just and perfect as you think I am. You’re blinded by your love for me, and, you know, I really wish that you weren’t, because I can’t stand you not being able to see me for what I really am, even if what I really am drives you away.”
“Well, Lizzie, what really are you then?” Luke asks me quietly, his gaze locked on mine, and I smile slightly and bitterly.
“I’ve already answered this question, Luke: I am inherently dangerous.”

Luke and I stay up in the tree for a few hours, waiting for whoever – or whatever – killed off the other champion to either pass by or go in the opposite direction. When we hear no footsteps and find no signs of other champions passing through after about four hours of waiting, we decide that there’s most likely no one nearby and that we should get moving again to throw off anyone who is nearby.
We then continue to walk east, towards the clearing with the Giving Hands where One-Person started, and also towards the long grasses. I shiver involuntarily as I think of the grasses. I can handle forests and deserts and oceans and almost any other type of terrain or environment, but something about the grasses just sets me on edge. Every time I look at them or think of them, all that pops into my head is all of the dangers that could be hiding in them, even though I know that, from a statistical standpoint, there are probably more dangers in the rainforest and trees. I don’t find the rainforest and trees nearly as intimidating though, so I fully intend to stay in the rainforest, which is a terrain that I know and can thrive in. The grasses are unknown, and any number of things could be in them, so, since I don’t know much about them, I intend to avoid them. Luke, however, might have different ideas
“Lizzie?” he asks me as we walk through the forest, and I turn to look at him.
“Yeah?” I question him in reply, kicking a loose branch out of my way as I feel the moss underneath my feet squish as I walk.
“Do you remember what was on the other side of the arena, to the right of where we were in the clearing with the Giving Hands?” Instanty my heart drops, because I know that this has to be about going into the grasses, but I nod my head in reply and hope to dear God that it isn’t about going into the grasses.
“Yeah, a plain of tall grasses that drops off to the west.” That’s another reason I don’t want to go into the grasses: I have no idea what is beyond the drop-off. I also have no intention of finding out, despite the fact that it sounds like Luke might want to.
“Well, don’t you think that we should go in there, and see what we can find?” he suggests, and I force myself to keep quiet and let him talk. I can persuade him to not go into the grasses after he finishes telling me why we should. “I mean, pure statistics say that, since the rainforest covers so much more of the arena than the grass plain and whatever is beyond the drop-off, there are more champions in the rainforest, so I think that we’d be safer in the grasses. I know that we might not know them as well, and that there might not be any trees for you to climb and hide in, but I think we’d be able to make it. After all, you have every edible plant under the sun memorized, and undoubtedly there are animals down there that we can hunt and eat, so I think we’d be able to survive.”
He pauses for a moment, and I am about to open my mouth and argue that we should stay in the rainforest when he adds, “And, if it turns out that the grasses are worse than the forest, we can come back here.” He looks up at me now and asks, “So what do you think? Should we try our luck in the grasses?”
I really want to tell Luke that no, we shouldn’t try our luck in the grasse, because they are undoubtedly far more dangerous and far harder to hunt and gather and live in than the forest, when it occurs to me that doing so would reveal to Luke that I’m afraid of the grasses and the things in them. I can’t let Luke think I’m afraid, since I’m supposed to be the tough one out of us, so I swallow my fear and tell myself that I am a concrete girl, that I do not feel fear, that there is nothing for me to fear. The thought that I have survived so much worse than the worst that could be in the grasses calms me some, and I say to myself that I can’t let myself get killed by something in the grasses, because no one would benefit from me dying against my will at the hands of the arena.
Filled with a blazing determination to go into the grasses and prove that I don’t feel fear and that I can’t be beaten by the arena, I nod my head and say in reply, “That sounds great. And you’re right: from the number-of-champions standpoint, is probably is a lot safer.”
However, it’s not the champions I’m worried about. I still can’t get rid of the nagging fear at the back of my mind that there’s something in the grasses I need to stay away from, that there’s something in the grasses that could kill me, but I force myself to ignore it and keep walking. For all I know, Luke could be right: the grasses could be a lot safer and lot easier to survive in than the forest, even though there probably aren’t nearly as many places to hide in.
“Well, we’re already headed there now, so let’s just keep on walking,” Luke says, and I nod my head wordlessly in reply. Luke stares over at me curiously for a few moments, clearly knowing that something’s on my mind and that I don’t want to talk about it, before dropping his gaze to the ground in front of him.
After a second more of looking over at Luke and smiling slightly at his ability to read people’s emotions and act accordingly, I do the same, and my eyes falls on a basil-shaped leaf a few feet in front of me. All of a sudden I realize what it is, and I stop abrupty to bend down and pluck a few leaves from the plant.
Luke looks down at me questioningly, and I hold the plant up for him to see. The realization of what it is floods him after a moment, and I murmur quietly as I rise to my feet and tuck the leaves inside a pocket of my waterproof jacket, “In case we need to put any more friends to sleep.”
Now it’s Luke’s turn to nod wordlessly, and I look over at him to see pain welling up in his eyes as he scans the ground in front of him. Even though he didn’t know Winston as well as I did, Luke took Winston’s death a lot harder than I did. Of course, that probably has something to do with the fact that he actually is a lot more emotional than I am, because he feels so much more than I do.
Three years of being an assassin greatly lowered my capacity for emotion, and me telling myself that I am a concrete girl and that I do not feel helps block out most of the rest of what I actually do feel. The Triple Crown effectively preventing us from feeling by making empathy such an expensive commodity also gets rid of emotion rather quickly, since no one of us champions can afford to pay the price of feeling. Well, except for Luke, because he’s probably the only champion still alive that hasn’t killed anybody yet.
I have no doubts that, if it came down to it, Luke would kill to save himself or to save me, but for now he’s been loyal to his unspoken promise to himself of not becoming a murderer. Unforunately, that’s a promise that he can’t afford to make in the Triple Crown, and it’s a promise that he will break in the end. In fact, all promises made earlier in the One-Person will eventually be broken, because desperation always wins out over loyalty and commitment and every other emotion in the end.
Desperation is the emotion that is left if you strip away everything else. It is the emotion of the dying, the broken, the beaten, the downtrodden. Desperation is the emotion of the Low, the underpriviledged and beaten down. It is also the core feeling of rebels, and last-minute actions, and one-night stands, and basically everything necessary and spontaeous. Desperation, I have learned, is the one true human emotion, because it is the only emotion that can be ever-present, no matter what you’re feeling at the time. Well, it and pain. I suppose an argument could be made for pain being the one true human emotion, but desperation, in my mind, is so much more human.
Desperation personifies the injustice and degradation that all humans either practice or experience or fight against. Desperation is present in everyone, perhaps even if everyone all the time. Desperation is what drives people to do those crazy things that everyone else reveres and hates and loves them for. Desperation – and the things it causes – incites such strong emotions in other people that it really is the core emotion, from which all other feelings stem.
Working as an assassin taught me that, where there is unbridled rage, or fanatical love, or pure loathing, there is also desperation. I worked as an assassin because I was desperate to keep my family and my life, and I hated myself every day for the three years I worked as an assassin because of it.
I hated myself because I was too cowardly to stand up against the government, even though standing up would only get me hurt or killed. I hated myself because I bowed down and let the government walk all over my family and I, and I hated myself even more for not truly embracing and believing in and being willing to die for the principle that it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, because my family and I really were living on our knees. All of our personal, constitutional freedoms had been stripped away, because if we said or did anything against the government, we would be killed or revealed as immortals, and everything we believed people have a right to have had been stripped away, so I don’t know why I didn’t stand up for my family and put an end to all of it – by having the government end me – right then and there.
I know now that I didn’t step forward and embrace death because I was afraid, and because I was desperate to survive. Back then, my beliefs didn’t seem nearly as important as my life, even though I know now that they are much more important than any one person’s life, so I was willing to have them be violated if it would keep me alive. I was a coward because I didn’t possess the bravery and guts – which I really should have possessed – to stand up against the government’s tyranny and stand for everything I cared about and be severely punished or killed for my efforts.
Of course, any other person – includng Luke – would argue that what I did was right, that my life was and is more important than my beliefs, that I was justified in being a coward. But I know the truth now: my life is far, far, far less important than my beliefs, because my beliefs can have a far greater effect on the word than my life, and that I was not justified in being a coward because there is no viable reason for cowardice and no case in which it can be justified. To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised that my parents don’t hate me now for not doing what was right and standing up, like I know they would have done in the same situation.
Even now, when they read my mind occasionally and find that I’m thinking about those years, the worst three years of my life up until now, they tell me that it’s ok, that I did what I had to to survive and that it’s all over now, because I’ve proven to the government that they can’t mess with the Lightnings. I can’t help but imagine how bitter those blatant lies must taste coming out of their mouths, because honor is one of the things that we immortals value incredibly highly – nearly as highly as our beliefs and our family – and is one of the things that I gave up by laying down and being a coward. I guess maybe the only reasons that they put up with now are that I’ve sworn to never be a coward again, and that I truly know how much more important beliefs and principles are than individual lives.
To be perfectly honest, I think my brothers are the ones that drive my parents crazy the most now. While I might attract a lot of attention from the media for being such a good athlete and therefore attract a lot of attention from young, single actors and musicians and other famous types, my brothers are the ones who date down, as in down to my age, which drives me as well as my parents crazy. I can’t stand it when they start flirting with some of my friends, so much so that I’ve come to call them pedophile pair straight to their faces. True, they’re generally good guys who are very intelligent and handsome and kind and know how to treat a girl right, but it still drives me crazy to see them flirt with girls my age – girls that I go to high school with – right in front of me. It’s probably a good thing for them that I’m not going to graduate early and go to ASU a year early, because then they would have to tolerate my revenge against them dating down for two years.
Once I graduate and go to ASU, the first thing I plan to do is find my brothers, meet other guys their age, and then flirt with those other guys. It’s an eye for an eye the way I see it, since that way I can make my brothers suffer the same way they’ve made me suffer. Of course, it will also teach them to not mess with me, because it will exhibit my incredibly-fine-tuned skills of revenge and will show them exactly how dangerous I am in the art of mental and emotion warfare. It will also serve as good blackmail material, as in I can hold the threat of flirting with guys their age in front of them when I want something out of them. I suppose they could do the same thing to me, but I know that they know that it wouldn’t be nearly as effective as me doing it to them, because I would simply chew them out or kick their butts in punishment, whereas they cannot do either one of those things effectively to me.
Unfortunately, my whole plan to blackmail my brothers is being seriously jeopardized – well, completely destroyed – by the fact that I’m not going to make it out of the Triple Crown alive. That reminds me: I wonder what my family is doing right now with my disappearance, or if they even know that I’m gone. There is the possibility that, with this whole switching dimensions deal, no time has passed in Luke’s and my universe and that, if we were to go home, we would arrive back in the exact same second we left. There is also the possibility that the same amount of time has passed in our dimension as in this one, and that our parents – especially Luke’s parents, since they’re probably not used to having their child disappear on them like I used to do when I was an assassin all the time – are freaking out and looking for us frantically. There is also the potential for more or less time to have passed in our dimension than in this one, which is the scariest possibility in my mind. A day or a year could have passed in our dimension in the time that we’ve been here, and, while missing a day would’t be so bad, I’d hate to miss a whole year or two or three or however many have passed in our dimension because of being here.
I mean, I’d hate to miss out on the opportunity to run in the Olympics, and maybe win a gold medal or two, and I’d hate to miss seeing Mitt Romney get his butt kicked by Barack Obama in the presidential race, because no sane person is going to elect a Mormon corporate raider to be President of the United States, and I’d hate to miss Gwillan and Gruffen win Heismans, and I’d hate to miss any of Timmy’s birthday parties. I’d hate to not be a part of the family anymore, I’d hate to fade out of view and disappear and cease to be a part of their lives anymore. I think that leaving my family and not getting to be there for them and see them succeed is the thing that scares me the most and gives me the most reservations about dying.
The idea that I won’t be able to grow up and have the great life I’ve been promised also gives me a lot of reservations about dying, because I want to go into the world and make a name for myself and win those gold medals and break those world records and maybe even help people while I’m doing so. I want to make a whole bunch of money playing professional sports and getting testimonial deals from winning the Olympics and give it all away to charity. I want to make a change in the world, and if not in the world as a whole, then at least in a few people’s lives. I want to help people, and give them the same great life I have, since God knows they deserve it more than I do. Hell, even though living forever would break my heart, maybe I want to live forever so I can help people and change the world forever. I just want to make a difference in my world, in my home, in the people around me.
However, fate or God or whatever decides what happens in the universe has conspired against my dreams of causing change in my world, and has instead slated me to die in a completely different world. But perhaps this is God’s way of helping me create the change I aspire to, because I’ve been placed in a world where hundreds of thousands of people are desperately seeking change and have given me the opportunity to be their element of change, to be their catalyst, their firestarter, their spark. Perhaps this is God’s way of giving me my dying wish of change by allowing me to bring in and represent and start the people’s of the Sections dying wish of change.
So I guess I can’t really complain about not getting to fulfill my life’s dream, because I have been given the opportunity to cause so much more change than I ever could in my world. Unforunately, getting to fulfill my life’s dream comes at the cost of that dream becoming my dying wish, but, as I have learned over and over and over again, there are many intangible things worth dying for, and change happens to be one of them.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Well, here we are,” Luke announces quietly as we walk out into the clearing with the Giving Hands and the remaining twenty-eight ankle cuffs. Luke glances around for a few moments, and a small smile flits across his expression as his eyes fall on the upturned ground where I dug up the cuffs and land mines.
“I can see where you got your grenades from now,” he tells me as he looks over at me, and I grin slightly and nod my head in reply.
Walking over to one of the holes in the ground, I squat down and run my fingers through the dirt, all trace of a smile falling off of my face as I think about how many people died because of me blowing up the careers’ supplies.
Terrell died in the explosion, so that’s one. The career pack fracturing as a direct result of me destroying the supplies probably caused the non-careers to be hunted more extensively, because none of the careers were the slightest bit immobile anymore and they didn’t have to go back to their camp at a specific time. That means I can add any non-careers that died at the hands of the broken-up careers to my kill list, and I can also effectively add Marissa, Hunter, Adelaide and Marcus to my list too. Marcus and Adelaide would have probably never teamed up with us if I hadn’t blown up the supplies, and they would have been able to evade the career pack if it was hunting them easier than a completely-mobile group of two careers. If the career pack hadn’t fractured, Marissa and Hunter might have fought and killed each other in the end anyways, once all of the non-careers had been eliminated and the career pack started to break apart on its own, but it’s directly because of me and my inflammatory remarks towards Hunter about Marissa’s true intentions that they turned on each other and Hunter died. Of course, I was the one who actually put an arrow through Marissa’s heart, so she’s definitely on my kill list.
So that makes six people dead as a direct result of my actions in blowing up the careers’ supplies. I don’t regret what I did in the slightest, because I know that I leveled the playing field and made it easier on everyone besides the careers, but I do wish that not as many people had to die because of my actions. I don’t mind that Terrell, Marissa or Hunter died, since they might have died at my hand in the end anyways, but I do mind greatly that Marcus and Adelaide and that non-career Grace Thomas died, because I didn’t want them to die. I mean, I don’t even know anything about the Thomas girl except for her name and the fact that she died, but that doesn’t meant that I don’t feel bad about causing her death. She was probably just a small, terrified little eleven or twelve-year-old who tried to outrun the careers but found that there was no outrunning them, that her death was imminent.
The sound of Luke’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I’m grateful for it, even though I don’t hear what exactly he says. Slowly I rise to my feet, and, when I see him looking at me expectantly and quizzically, I realize that me must have asked me a question, and I nod my head wordlessly in reply.
“You sure you’re ok?” Luke asks me as he stares down at me in concern, and I nod my head again as a small smile creeps across my face. If I ever don’t hear what Luke says, there’s at least a fifty percent chance that it was him asking if I’m ok or not, which I find nice partly because it shows how much he cares for me. However, what I find the best about it is that I can answer wordlessly, mindlessly and easily; after all, the things that I like the best are the most predictable, easy and easily manipulated. I suppose it’s rather unfortunate that a question my fiance asks me happens to be one of those things.
When Luke doesn’t seem convinced at all, I assure him, “I’m fine, Luke,” then turn to the grasses in front of us and say, “Well, we’re at the grasses. Now are we going in or what?” Even though I’ve told myself numerous times that there’s nothing to be afraid of in them, that statistically they’re safer than the rainforest, that if I’ve survived this far, I’m not going to get killed by the arena, I can’t help but get a shiver run up my spine as I stare into the tall, waving sea of green and wonder which one of us is going to die in there first.
Luke seems almost taken aback by my question about the grasses, but he nods, then gestures for me to go first and says, “After you.”
I was really hoping Luke would volunteer to go first, since it’s not like I can be a guide for the grasses anyways, but I guess that, if anything does come at us, I’m going to be the first one to die. As I steel myself for entering the grasses and take my first step into them, I think that maybe dying first is a good thing, because that way I won’t have to see Luke die.
After not being bitten by anything or having anything jump out at me, I take another hesitant step into the grasses. I hope Luke doesn’t pick up on my odd behavior and interpret what it means. Though he undoubtedly will, at least I know he’ll have the tact to not say anything about it.
Luke and I have reached the middle of the grasses when I feel a vibration that means we’re not alone in them. Turning to Luke, I ask him quietly, “Did you feel that?” and curse my stupidity when he shakes his head no and looks at me in confusion. Of course Luke wouldn’t feel anything; since he’s just a human, his senses aren’t nearly as strong as mine, so he won’t pick up on things like a vibration running through the grasses.
“What did you feel?” he questions me in reply, and I shake my head wordlessly. I can’t tell him what I felt, otherwise he’ll think I’m crazy and the Triple Crown committee might get a better idea of what I really am, if they haven’t gotten one already.
“Just keep your weapons ready,” I tell him tersely in response, and reach up to pull my bow off of my back when I realize that a sword would be a lot more effective for fighting in here. Since the grasses are too tall and too think to see anything farther than five feet away from you, a bow would absolutely useless. I would be overwhelmed and probably dead before I even got a chance to shoot.
“Alright,” Luke murmurs in reply, and I hear him draw the dagger I gave him. I originally found it discarded by the side of a path in the rainforest during one of my hunting expeditions. It was completely covered in dried blood, but, since it was a perfectly good blade, I picked it up, washed it in the stream and gave it to Luke. Of course, when I gave it to him, I left off the part about it being bloody when I found it.
The vibrations are moving the grass more and are coming closer, and, as we take a few wary steps forward, I hear Luke cry out in surprise and I realize that he must have just felt the grass move. My suspicions are confirmed when he asks me quietly, “What does that vibration mean?”
Not bothering to turn around or look at him to answer, I reply just as quietly, “It means we’re not alone in here.”
Luke doesn’t say anything for a little while, causing a tense, nervous silence to drape over us, and we keep on edging slowly forward. While I don’t want whatever or whoever is in here to come up on and surprise us, I’m not so fond of the idea of coming towards our company either.
Luke finally breaks the silence he created by questioning shortly, “Animal or human?”
I answer just as shortly, “Could be either. Hell, knowing the Triple Crown committee, it could even be the grasses.” I’d like to think that it isn’t the grasses, that I haven’t freaked us both out for no real reason, but the Triple Crown committee does have a sick sense of humor. I definitely wouldn’t put it past them to scare us just for the cameras.
I see Luke nod wordlessly in reply out of the corner of my eye, and I note with a small smile that his incredibly tight grip on his dagger doesn’t relinquish at all. I guess my theories about the Triple Crown committee doing all of this just to scare us didn’t set him at ease at all. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since they didn’t set me at ease at all either.
One thing is certain: whatever is in the grass with us is coming towards us, which disconcerts me greatly. If it was just the Triple Crown committee trying to frighten us, the source of the vibrations mostly likely wouldn’t be moving towards us. This makes me suspect that we actually do have company, and, whether it’s an animal or another champion, it’s most likely dangerous. Suddenly a thought strikes me that scares me even more than the possibility of the thing coming towards us being some kind of huge beast: the vibrations could be coming from the grasses themselves, and we might be walking right into a trap where we get swallowed by the ground or eaten by the grasses.
Immediately I stop, forcing Luke to halt behind me. “What it is?” he questions quietly as I peer into the grasses in front of us. The source of the vibrations is definitely coming towards us, and, best I can tell, it seems to be below us too, which makes me even more worried. I could very well be right about the ground – or something in the ground – trying to eat us.
All of a sudden I feel the ground shake, like something is bursting out of it, fifteen feet in front of us, and I tell Luke quickly and non-negotiably, “Go.” I know that I have a better chance of killing whatever just came out of the ground; I also know that Luke is more likely to get killed by whatever just came out of the ground, and I don’t intend to test that.
However, instead of obeying me, Luke replies tersely, “No,” and tightens his grip on the dagger in his hand.
Turning to him with anger blazing in my eyes, I snarl at him murderously, “Lucas William Gates, you will get your ass out of here right now.”
Even though Luke seems taken aback by my words, he stays stubbornly put, and repeats like an insolent five-year old, “No.”
Whatever came out of the ground in front of us is absolutely huge and is approaching us now, based off of the way the ground is shaking as the creature moves. Urgently I turn back to Luke and tell him desperately, “Luke, there is a very high possibility one of us is going to die at the hand of whatever the hell that is.” I gesture to the grass in front that conceals whatever creature just came out of the ground. “Let’s not have both of us die here, alright?”
After pausing a moment to make sure he understands, I command him sharply, “Now get the hell out of here!” and give him a sharp shove in the other direction.
Luke, seeing that he has no choice but to obey me, walks slowly away from me and the creature, his desperate, pleading eyes on me the whole time. Quickly I tear my gaze away from him and force myself to take a few deep breaths and think about anything but him. Feeling bad about what I said to him and becoming preoccupied with his expression as he disappeared into the grasses will do nothing except increase the possibility that I get killed. Trust me, that probability doesn’t need increasing.
Staring at the grass in front of me and tightening the grip on my sword, I wait for the creature to break through the wall of vegetation separating us as I idly think that I might literally meet my maker in a few seconds or minutes. I just hope God lets me go quickly and easily and, presuming the creature has teeth and claws, that I don’t get mauled too much in the process.
Suddenly the grasses in front of me begin to shake violently, and I lift my sword and raise a hand to finger the pendant hanging around my neck. This is it; this is my chance to stare death in the eye and be defiant till the end.
The grasses are pulled aside, and I nearly drop my sword upon seeing the creature in front of me. It’s huge, twenty feet tall at least, with humongous feet – tipped with foot-long, razor sharp nails - that are like a stunted cross between a lizard’s toes and dog’s paw. Its body is large, heavy, ungainly and covered in and maybe even made out of dirt, and its front legs are far longer than its back ones. Its skull is relatively small and rounded, which suggests a smaller brain and therefore a smaller intellect, but it has huge jaws filled with huge, sharp teeth that could rip me to shreds in an instant. Besides its small, mean, beady black eyes and slits of nostrils, it has very few distinguishable features; for example, I don’t even see where the thing has ears. However, it’s not the creature’s alarming appearance that surprises me, but the person sitting on the creature’s back.
“Marshall?” I exclaim in shock, and instantly the creature’s eyes lock onto me. I don’t even think it knew I was there up until now.
“Lizzie?” Marshall calls down, equally surprised, and quickly leaps off of the creature’s back to slide fifteen feet down its side to hit the ground. After dusting himself off quickly, he takes a few steps towards me, a smile breaking out across his face.
“What are you doing in here?” he asks me, his eyes twinkling. “I thought you were a forest girl, a tree-hugger.”
“Well, what are you doing riding that?” I gesture in the direction of the creature – which is still staring at me like I’m something to eat – then look back at him for an explanation.
“In Section Three, we get these creatures all the time in the field, and every Section Three kid I’ve ever met knows how to tame and ride one. They’re called colossuses, and, while they’re huge and incredibly strong, they’re very stupid and actually pretty peacful most of the time.” I nod my head in understanding as I think idly that I must have caught this colossus during the time it isn’t peaceful. “I found this one burrowing in the ground underneath the meadows beyond the drop-off-” – He gestures to the west – “-so I caught him and told him who’s boss. Now I can do whatever I want to him.” Marshall smiles slightly as he looks over at the creature, who has lowered itself into a laying-down position made incredibly awkward by its long front legs.
I regard the colossus for a few moments before asking suddenly, “What gender is it?” Marshall looks over at me in surprise, but answers nonetheless.
“It’s a male. You can tell because he’s not nearly as big as the females,” Marshall tells me, and my eyes shoot open wide in shock.
“The females are even bigger than this?” I exclaim as I scan the creature up and down. He’s twenty feet tall at least, and he probably weighs upwards of fifteen tons.
“Yeah,” Marshall replies, seeming surpised by my amazement. “Some of the bigger females I’ve seen can be one and a half times this size.”
“Oh,” I reply lamely, and a smile creeps its way across Marshall’s face.
“Yeah, those females can be humongous. Even I wouldn’t want to mess with one of them.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, and now it’s my turn to smile.
“What, is Marshall Moore actually afraid of something?” I tease him, and he looks over at me abruptly, all trace of a grin fading from him face.
“I’m afraid of a lot of things, Lizzie,” he tells me quietly, his eyes locked on mine. “For example, I’m afraid of losing you.”
I tear my eyes away to stare at the ground. Marshall’s habit of expressing his feelings and thoughts so openly and honestly discomforts me greatly.
A few moments pass in silence before Marshall breaks the quiet. “Speaking of which, where is Gates?” he asks me, and I look up at him momentarily.
“I told him to run,” I answer quietly. “I thought there was a high possibility that I was going to die anyways, and I didn’t want to have Luke stick around and die too.”
“He actually listened to you and ran?” Marshall questions incredulously, an appalled and derisive edge creeping into his voice. “That dishonorable son of a bitch! Everyone knows that you always stay with and try to defend a woman, no matter what she says or how hopeless it might be!”
Shocked and angered by Marshall’s accusations, I quickly jump to Luke’s defense. “After he wouldn’t leave from me just telling him, I actually pushed him away from me and made him run! It’s not Luke’s fault! Besides,” I add, my outrage fading slightly, “there’s a point when honor becomes suicide, and I didn’t want Luke to find that point.”
“I still think he should have stayed with you,” Marshall mutters, but, upon seeing the murderous look on my face, he quickly backtracks, “but I guess it’s good that he knows how to follow orders, your orders in particular.”
I smile slightly, and Marshall smiles too. He really is an enjoyable, nice person once you get past the outside layers of jerk and douchebag.
After a few more moments pass in silence, during which time we both observe the colossus root around in the ground with its huge claws, Marshall breaks the quiet by speaking. “I actually named this guy, just for you,” Marshall tells me, and a grin breaks out across my face.
“Well, what did you name him?” I ask him in reply, tearing my gaze away from the creature to look Marshall in the eye for a moment. The passion and longing that I see in his eyes disconcerts me greatly, so I look away just as quickly.
“Titus,” he murmurs, and I can feel his stare on my cheek. “It seemed a grand enough name for a grand enough creature.”
“I think you should rename him Caesar,” I say quietly, my gaze locked on the colossus. Cassius’ speech to Brutus, in which he mentions Caesar being like the colossus of Rhodes, had just flashed through my mind, so, considering that the creatures are called colossuses, I think Caesar is a very appropriate name.
“Alright,” Marshall agrees, and I see him nod his head as a small smile creeps across his face. “Caesar it is then.” He takes a few steps towards the colossus to lay a hand on the huge creature’s forehead. It looks up momentarily, then returns to its digging when it finds only Marshall.
Marshall turns back around and takes a few steps towards me, his eyes locked on mine the whole time. He stops when he is about two feet away from me, and he tells me quietly, “You know, Lizzie, I can’t help but be happy that Gates isn’t here.”
Immediately I tear my gaze away, not wanting to hear him or see him or be around, because I already know exactly what he’s going to do and say.
“I get you all to myself now,” Marshall murmurs, and he takes a step towards me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him raise a hand, then feel his fingers run gently across my cheek. “You are so beautiful,” he whispers, taking half a step towards me so that the distance between is about six inches. “So beautiful.”
After a moment, he withdraws his hand, and it’s all I can do to not sigh out loud in relief. However, Marshall apparently isn’t done yet, because he continues to speak.
“Lizzie, is it wrong to feel attracted to you, when I know that there is no chance for us to be together?” he asks me, and I am compelled by the pleading tone in his voice to look up at him. “Is that wrong, Lizzie?” he repeats, staring into my eyes, and I am struck by the desperation in his gaze.
Like it always does, my eloquence vanishes when I need it the most, so I am forced to scrounge around my mind for an answer. After a few moments of drawing a blank, I murmur quietly, “‘The heart is something you can’t control/ We either choose to follow or be left on our own.’”
“What’s that a quote from?” Marshall asks me, his passionate air lost in his confusion. I sigh slightly in relief, because my eloquence might actually come back to me, now that Marshall’s done being intense for the moment.
“Rise Against says that in their song Voices Off Camera,” I tell him in reply. By interrupting his passion with befuddlement, I really did dodge a bullet; after all, I don’t really want this meeting to be anything like the last one, because Marshall cried at the last one.
“Huh,” he exclaims quietly. “I listen to a lot of music – I mean, a lot of music-” – I can’t help but smile as his emphasis on a lot – “-but I’ve never heard of Rise Against before.”
No, Marshall, you wouldn’t have, would you? I think to myself, a hint of a bitter smile flitting across my face. It’s not like he would have heard a band from a different dimension.
However, I know I have to come up with a plausible-sounding excuse that covers my ass as well as the Triple Crown committee’s, so I just shrug and tell him, “Well, they’re kind of underground, and not very big, so I don’t even know if their music has made it out of Section Eight yet.”
Marshall nods his head wordlessly in understanding and stares over at me. I can feel his gaze beating down on my cheek and willing me to look over at him, but I resist the urge. I don’t want to see the passion blazing like a fire in eyes, or the overwhelming emotion in his expression, because that will just make everything harder.
“I guess you kind of answered my question with that quote of yours,” Marshall begins, and, as I hear the ‘but’ in his voice, my heart falls, since I don’t really want to talk about this anymore, “but I still can’t help but feel like it’s wrong for me to feel this way about you, that I should be able to go five minutes without thinking about you and wanting to touch you and hold you and have you be mine. Is it wrong that I wish Luke would just disappear, and I could truly have you all to myself? Is it wrong for me to want, at this exact moment, to step forward and take you in my arms and kiss you? Is it wrong for me to be completely and utterly infatuated with you?”
I feel his words pierce my heart and rip millions of tiny holes in it. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to break Marshall’s nose, I want to break Luke’s nose. However, instead of doing any of those things, or even saying anything in reply, I merely sit down and sigh. Marshall then lowers himself down next to me, his eyes on me the whole time.
After a few moments of staring at the ground and sitting in an awkward but very emotional silence, I finally murmur, “You really are on a mission to make everything that much harder for me, aren’t you?” I look up at Marshall to find him staring down at me with a wan half-smile curving his lips and his blue-green eyes full of passion and pain.
“I’m not on a mission, Lizzie. I guess I’m just hurting you without even trying,” he answers quietly, and my heart sinks as I hear the hurt and self-loathing in his voice.
“Marshall,” I begin, raising a hand to gently touch the side of his face and drawing his eyes onto mine with the power of my voice, “don’t blame yourself for making everything harder on me; trust me, Luke’s got you beat in that department a million to one.” A small smile flits across my face, and I’m slightly relieved when Marshall returns it. “Besides, if I wasn’t so [censored] up, you wouldn’t make anything harder on me at all.” Now all trace of a grin falls off my face as I realize that what I just said is irrefutably true.
However, Marshall seems determined to argue against the facts. “Lizzie, you’re not [censored] up,” he tells me, and, when he sees the incredibly skeptical and disbelieving look I’m giving him, he backtracks, “Well, you’re not any more [censored] up than the rest of us are. This place, it does crazy things to your mind.” He gestures at the arena around us, and I nod my head and purse my lips together in what is supposed to be a grin. “But trust me Lizzie, you’re not crazy, or at least you’re not abnormally insane for the situation.” I smile slightly, somehow feeling a little bit better and infinitely grateful to Marshall for making me feel better.
“You’re a great guy, Marshall,” I tell him as I give him a smile. “Thank you.” I gently touch the side of his face again, then rise to my feet and wordlessly offer him a hand to help him up. Of course, since he’s a strong-willed, eighteen-year-old gentleman, he refuses my hand politely, and instead pulls himself onto his feet in one fluid movement.
We stand in silence for a few moments, our conversation being dead and neither one of experts at reviving it, until Marshall finally breaks the quiet. “So what do we do now?” he asks me as he gazes down at me, his blue-green eyes locked on mine. Though my favorite color is undeniably the ice-blue of Luke’s eyes, the incredible mix of azure and emerald that is Marshall’s eyes has to be my second-favorite.
“Well,” I start, “I have to go find Luke, since he’s probably worried sick since I haven’t come back and he hasn’t heard a gunshot. I don’t want him to give himself an ulcer worrying over me.” I smile slightly at my weak joke that isn’t really a joke at all. I know that Luke would undoubtedly actually give himself an ulcer worrying over me.
“Yeah, you probably should go back,” Marshall agrees, the hesitation and jealousy loud and clear in his voice.
Feeling like I can’t just leave Marshall here, that I at least owe it to him to come back, I tell him as I gaze up at him, “I’ll come back for you though.” After a moment, I add, “I promise,” and offer my pinky to him.
“A pinky promise? Really?” he asks incredulously, a teasing grin lighting up his eyes and taking over his expression
“Hey, you don’t break the pinky promise,” I tell him with a mockingly serious tone, somehow able to keep a straight face while saying it. Upon seeing the very skeptical and amused look Marshall has, I lose my straight face, and we both dissolve into laughter for a few moments.
When we’ve both stopped giggling enough to talk, Marshall reaches out and curls his large, tan, calloused pinky around mine, then looks up at me, all frivolity gone from his expression. “You promise?” he murmurs, his gaze locked on mine.
“I promise,” I tell him just as quietly, then stand on tiptoe and give him a kiss on the cheek. “I promise I will come back,” I repeat, and turn away from him to leave, filled with a determination that I will not break that promise.