Triple Crown

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

Smiling slightly at his exact quotation of my previously-said words – which I have done a complete 180 on in the last few minutes – I scoot over to give him room to sit or lay down next to me, then rest my head on his chest to have him pull me closer to him when he does.
I look down at the lengths of our bodies, marveling at the fact that they fit so perfectly together, as if I was made for him and he was made for me, and am incredibly taken by surprise when Luke gently picks me up and sets me down on his lap.
“I decided you were’t close enough,” he whispers in my ear for an explanation, and I smile slightly. I don’t think I ever actually could be close enough for him.
“I kind of figured that,” I tell him quietly in reply, and lean back against him to sigh in pleasure when his arms lock around me and he holds me against him.
A few moments go by in this contented silence until Luke shifts slightly and murmurs, “Lizzie, I’m sorry that I did all of this and didn’t tell you about it.”
I can’t help but smile as I reply, “Don’t be. To be honest, I’m really enjoying our honeymoon so far.” I turn my head so that I can look at him and give him a smile, and he smiles back at me and tightens his grip on me.
“Yeah, I’m not really sorry about it either,” he whispers in my neck, his lips brushing my neck, and a small grin flits across my face. Of course Luke’s not sorry about it; he has everything he could possibly want. After a moment’s hesitation, he adds quietly, his voice filled with longing and emotion, “I wish I could live in this moment forever.”
“Agreed,” I respond quietly, feeling him pressing against me on every line of my body and inhaling his scent into my nose with every breath I take and listening to his voice intently every time he speaks. In the last three months that we’ve been together, he has become part of every aspect of my life: he has become the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night, and he’s just gotten inside of me.
Occasionally when I close my eyes, what I see is him, as though his image has been burned on the back of my eyelids, and sometimes, when he’s away from me, I’ll get small but definite pangs of longing that pull at my heart and make me desperately want to have him standing right next to me. I don’t know what I’d do if I lived to see him die; I guess I’d probably want to kill myself. I think I finally understand even just a fraction of how Luke feels in regards to that and why he’s so opposed to me being the spark.
In the last three months, it’s as if Luke has stormed my heart, and captured a part of it permanently. I know that I will die loving him to some extent – hell, I might even love him more than Jackson right now – but what surprises me the most about me loving him is how quickly he crept up on me. It’s only taken him three months to claim a large part, maybe even more than half, of my love for himself. I guess that just shows how good Luke is at changing me, because God knows that Jackson did never and could never accomplish something of that magnitude; after all, it took Jackson almost nine months to get me to even consider him as something more than a friend.
“Lizzie?” Luke murmurs, his voice in my ear and his lips on the back of my neck tearing me away from my thoughts.
“Luke?” I reply with the same tone, then wait expectantly for him to tell me what’s on his mind. That’s one of the many things I’ve grown to love about Luke: he isn’t very good at – nor does he try very often – to hide his feelings and thoughts, so I almost always know what he’s thinking and feeling. It makes our relationship a lot easier for me, trust me.
Jackson, however, is incredibly skilled at hiding his emotions and thoughts, and I can’t read his mind either because he’s also very good at blocking that off, so my relationship with him is a lot harder than my relationship with Luke. Of course, my relationship with Jackson would be harder, even without that, because of all the baggage and mixed feelings we both have. That, and the fact that neither one of us really knows if we honestly love the other person.
With Luke, that’s not an issue at all; in fact, it’s almost an issue for me that I know he loves me as much as he does, because I feel terrible for not returning that love. Luke tells me every day, at least five times a day, that he loves me, and invariably there’s the word ‘always’ in his professions of love. If it were any other seventeen-year-old boy telling me that they will love me always, I would laugh, but I know for a fact that Luke actually does and will love me always.
It’s almost like Luke is far beyond his years emotionally; to be honest, it seems like he loves me with the same intensity that my parents, who have been together for fifteen hundred years, love each other. Seeing how much he truy loves me and discovering how much he’s willing to give me without any hope of it being returned is almost alarming; after all, knowing that he would give me everything – he’s already given me almost everything, his heart, soul and life included – if I wanted him to is slightly frightening. I don’t want to have that kind of power over him, because, like I told Kuro, I don’t want to rule or own anyone, but it looks like Luke isn’t going to give me a choice in the matter.
“You know I love you with all of my heart, right?” he whispers in my ear, and immediately warning bells sound in my head. Luke doesn’t adopt a tone like that or say something like that unless he’s about to unleash potentially devastating news on me and is afraid of my response. If it truly is devastating – as in, Abby is dead or Jackson went on a killing spree and eventually got himself killed – Luke actually does have a reason to fear my response.
“It’s not like you don’t tell me that five to ten times a day,” I reply, trying and failing miserably to bring some humor into the depressing air that has taken over our conversation.
“Lizzie, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” Luke begins, and immediately my heart sinks. I’m almost afraid of what could be so bad as to make Luke, who tells me everything, want to keep it from me.
“What haven’t you been honest about?” I ask tactfully, hoping to get a direct and not drawn-out answer. After all, there’s nothing I like less than having to have a whole five-minute conversation with someone to get a piece of information I could have gotten out of that person with one simple, blunt question. It’s just not a very effective interrogation tactic, and, when you have to question a large amount of people in a short amount of time – like I did when I was an assassin and gathering information for missions – it just can’t be used because it’s too time-consuming.
“Lizzie, while I’m not going to try to stop you from being with him or whatever,” Luke begins, and I can instantly tell – much to my dismay – that it’s something about Jackson, “but I feel like I should let you know that I get insanely jealous when I see you with Jackson.”
I almost laugh out loud at Luke’s annoucement, as he didn’t have to make a grand show out of telling me that for me to know it. The look in his eyes every time I’m with Jackson when I’m around him is a declaration all its own.
However, in order to not offend him and humor him, I stifle my laughter and tell him, my tone just as serious as his, “Luke, I know that, but I’m afraid I can’t stop seeing Jackson. I...” Here I pause, not knowing what to say about Jackson’s and my relationship. “I need him, Luke,” I finally finish, and I know that my words are true.
I really do need Jackson; he’s been such a major part of my life for the last almost year now – the last three months especially – that I honestly don’t think I could stop seeing him without going into incredibly painful withdrawals. It’s almost like I’m addicted to him, and I need him to be there to get me through the day. Of course, I feel the same way about Luke – I know I couldn’t quit him cold-turkey either – but the situation that I’m in actually isn’t that uncommon for an immortal.
We tend, much more than regular humans, to latch onto and get addicted to people instead of substances, which is almost cruel when those people happen to mortal. I guess it’s a good thing that Luke and I will be dying soon so I don’t have to experience time cutting me off from my opiate that is him after sixty or seventy years.
“I know,” Luke replies quietly, nodding his head slightly in understanding. “It’s almost like he’s your drug, isn’t it?” he questions, and I look up at him in surprise. He’s a mortal, so how on earth does he know what it’s like to be addicted to someone? However, I don’t get a chance to vocalize my question, because Luke continues, his voice filled with intensity and passion, “Lizzie, sometimes, when you’re not around or even right next to me, I get filled with such a powerful desire for you that I can’t even breathe for a few seconds, and I get incredibly edgy until I see you again. My mood goes down the second you leave the room, and it’s almost like I have withdrawals from you if I can’t reach out and touch you and hold you.” After a moment of silence, he adds quietly, “It’s almost scary to think what I would do if you died.”
“I try not to think about what I would if Jackson died,” I murmur quietly, for once allowing my mind to wander in that direction. If Jackson were gone, and my supply of morphine completely dried up, the first thing I would do, no questions asked, would be to track down Jackson’s killers and make them pay for what they did. I don’t know what I’d do after that though; maybe I’d spend the rest of my life trying to forget him, or maybe even trying to join him.
“I think you’d react in a similar way to what I would if I lost you,” Luke says quietly, and I nod my head in agreement. “After all, the feelings are the same, even if they are to different levels, and I’d think that they’d trigger relatively similar responses.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and am suddenly seized by a desire to stop talking about what would happen if we saw our loved ones die. “Luke, I want to talk about or do something happy,” I tell him, and, before he can respond, I turn to face him, wrap my arms around the back of his neck, and kiss him passionately.
After a few long, blissful moments, I pull back to leave a very stunned Luke sitting there with a pleased look on his face, and turn myself back around to curl up against him and rest my head on his chest. I then reach over and turn the lamp illuminating the room off, and whisper into the darkness, “Goodnight Luke.”
“Goodnight, Missus Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Gates,” he murmurs in reply, and I fall asleep as soon as the last word is out of his mouth.

Sunlight invades my eyes, and I blink once or twice to allow my eyes time to adjust. As I stare at the white ceiling for a few moments, I suddenly realize that there’s someone next to me, and I roll over to find Jackson sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at me with a small smile on his face.
“Good morning,” he tells me softly, then finds one of my hands with his own and gives it a reassuring squeeze. However, that gesture does nothing to do the alarm that I’m feeling at him being here and not Luke, and I immediately straight up to regard him with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. It’s not that I don’t trust him, it’s just that... oh, right, I don’t trust him, or at least I don’t trust the person he is when he loses control.
“How long have you been here?” I ask him in reply, almost shocked and slightly disconcerted that Luke would let him into our bedroom on our honeymoon. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Luke didn’t let Jackson in and Jackson let himself in, but I’d rather not think about that.
“Since three in the morning,” he answers with a smile, and gently removes his hand from my own to raise it to my face and gently stroke my cheek. “It was amazing, seeing you so peaceful in his arms,” he murmurs, his eyes locked on mine. “You never were that peaceful when you were with me, awake or asleep.”
“Jackson,” I begin, but he bulldozes right past me as if I hadn’t said anything at all.
“I guess I can’t really blame you though; Gates is a lot calmer and a whole hell of a lot more peaceful than I am.” Jackson’s mouth twists into a bitter smile, and I feel like crying. He has to make everything so hard on me, doesn’t he? However, Jackson isn’t even done yet, because he continues, “Lizzie, I have never known a day of peace in my life, and neither have you, but I would gladly drop everything and try my best to be peaceful for you.” His gaze is glued on mine, and I can see the pleading look in his eyes.
However, I don’t let pity for him win out this time, and shoot back harshly, “Jackson, don’t you get it? You’ve lost; I’m Luke’s, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
“Lizzie,” Jackson begins, surprisingly not angry at all, with an even tone to his voice, “I haven’t lost yet, because I still take up a part of your heart. Just because you’re married to him doesn’t mean that you’re his, if you don’t feel that way in your heart, and I know you don’t. Lizzie, as long as I have that precious part of your heart, I will fight with all of my being to keep it, and even to take up more of your heart, if you’re willing to give it to me. As long as you give me even just the slightest chance that you might choose me in the end – in other words, as long as you give me something to fight for – I will fight until you are truly his or you are truly mine.”
“Jackson,” I begin, to immediately freeze. Since he’s right and there’s nothing I can say that will convince either one of us that he isn’t, there isn’t really anything I can say at all. I mean, how do you argue an issue you know you’re going to lose? After a few long moments, I finally look over at him and tell him, my eyes locked on his, “You know there’s a chance that you could lose me completely, right?”
“Lizzie, there was that possibility from the moment you set foot in this dimension,” he says softly, and I can’t help but lower my head slightly in admittance. “At least I won’t have completely lost you – as in you won’t be dead – if you choose Gates, and it would be a lot easier for me to live with you belonging to him than you belonging to the afterlife.”
“Yeah, I guess it would be,” I agree quietly, and a small smile curves Jackson’s lips.
He tells me, his grin insincere as he looks over at me, “However, you seem to be determined to leave me with nothing, and die as well as choose Luke.” His eyes are cold and hard and bitter as he stares over at me, his smile not even coming close to touching and melting them.
“Jackson,” I start, my eyes locked on his, “you know I don’t want this, that I don’t want to be married and seventeen or the spark who’s going to be inevitably consumed and destroyed, but you also know that I feel it’s my duty to be the Sections’ martyr, now that they’ve chosen me to be their martyr.”
“And you also know that I think – well, I know – you don’t owe these people anything. The only person you owe anything to is yourself, and you owe yourself the possibility to keep on living. You owe yourself a sense of self-preservation, Lizzie.”
“I guess it’s too bad that I don’t have one then,” I answer icily, and rise to my feet, intending to leave the room. I don’t want to be in Jackson’s company any more, if he’s going to insist on bringing the Triple Crown into every conversation and making it so that we can’t even pretend like everything’s like it used to be.
“Lizzie, it’s in your best interests – hell, it’s in my and Luke’s and everyone who cares about you’s best interests – for you get one really soon,” Jackson tells me, his voice pleading, and I turn my head to see him giving me the most begging voice he can muster.
However, like all of his other pleas for me to save myself, it doesn’t do anything to change my mind, and I tell him, “Jackson, it’s too late. I’ve already lit myself on fire.”

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“In two days we’re slated to die,” I murmur quietly as I stare up at the moonlight ceiling, my eyes searching the empty whiteness for answers to my own emptiness. It’s been a week since I last talked to Jackson and finally set it in his head that I’m going to die, and, while I miss him terribly, I know it’s best for us to both get our distance. It won’t do either one of us any good to interact and make this even harder on him and me.
“And there won’t be any coming back this time,” Luke whispers quietly, and I can feel his gaze on the side of my face. I can tell that he’s worried about me – I mean, when hasn’t he been worried about me? – but his worrying is pointless, since there’s nothing he can do about it except wait for us to die.
“It would have been kinder for the Triple Crown committee to not have revived the other champions. After all, who wants to live just to die again?” I reply quietly, and see Luke nod his head in agreement out of the corner of my eye.
A few moments go by in silence, until Luke finally pipes up and asks aloud the question that’s plagued both of our minds, “What are we going to do?”
“Well,” I begin, sucking in a deep breath, “you already know that I’m not going to pick you to be my partner – Abby needs me more than you do – but I guess you and your partner and Abby and I can still team up and work together.” I leave out the part about how, because Luke and I aren’t going to be on the same team, one of us will have to die, since I don’t think the Triple Crown committee is fond enough of us to let us both live a third time.
In fact, they might purposely kill me off just to try to do some damage control of their own, but I don’t want to bring that up right now. Hell, I don’t want to ever bring it up, and keep on trying to run from the truth as long as I can, but eventually the truth will catch up to me in the form of an arrow to the heart or a knife to the throat.
“Yeah, that will work.” Luke’s reply is just as feeble as my answer to his question, but hollowly dodging the truth is about the best both of us can do right now. I mean, it’s better than actually facing the truth.
A few more seconds go by in the depressed, sad silence that has become just as large a part of our conversations as actual words, and I sigh deeply. Even though I honestly don’t want to be the spark and I honestly don’t want to die so early in life and I honestly don’t want to leave my family behind and I honestly don’t want to be the Sections’ martyr, I also know in my heart that it’s my duty now, and I can’t turn my back on the Sections. The time for cowardice is past – well, there really isn’t a time for cowardice, but this sure as hell is one of the worst times for it – and it’s time to fulfill the destiny the Sections have put upon me and truly go up in flames like the spark I am.
“Lizzie, this isn’t the only option,” Luke says, and the bed moves slightly as he rolls over to face me directly. He then gently rolls me over to face him, and stares me directly in the eye. “You don’t have to die, you know.”
“Yes, I do,” I reply quietly, my mouth hard as I stare Luke down. “It’s too late for me to get cold feet and try to save myself. The fire’s already started, Luke, and it’s too late for me to get myself out of it.” After a moment’s pause, I sigh slightly and add, “Besides, it’s not like the Triple Crown committee’s going to let me live, even if I survive the arena. I’ve become too much of a problem for them to let me go on living.” I can’t tell him the whole truth, that I saw all of this in Rush’s mind at the wedding, so I guess I’ll just have to improvise and tell half the truth. I seem to be particularly good at telling Luke half the truth by now anyways.
“Lizzie, if you do everything they want you to do and win Team Survival like you’re supposed to-” Luke begins, but I quickly interrupt him.
“That won’t make a difference, Luke!” I shoot back, angry at what he’s suggesting and almost shocked that he still thinks there’s some way for me to save myself. Of course, he probably doesn’t actually believe that there is a way to stop me from dying in front of him but is so desperate that he’ll grab at and cling to anything he thinks could help at all. “I can’t make up for everything bad I’ve done by being good for three weeks in Team Survival! I’ve dug myself into a very deep hole, Luke, and there’s no way for me to get out of it now.” I sigh, seeing his hurt expression, and add quietly, “I’m sorry, Luke. I wish there was some way for you to be unaffected by this.” I raise a hand to his face and gently caress his cheek, then lean in to kiss him lightly on the lips.
However, when I try to pull away, Luke’s hand on the back of my head stops me, and, before I can react, he’s rolled on top of me and is kissing me for all he’s worth. Apparently he thinks that, if he shows how much passion he has for me, I’ll be convinced to stay. If I was affected by his passion enough to save myself, I would have never gotten myself into this mess to begin with.
After a few long, passionate moments, during which time I’m overtaken by that hunger again, he pulls back and rolls off of me, breathing heavily.
“Lizzie, I can’t lose you,” he tells me desperately, his eyes locked on mine. “I can’t lose your smile, or your laugh, or your intelligence, or your wit, or even your cynicism, sarcasm and suicidal tendencies. You have become everything me to me, and I just can’t lose you. Please, Lizzie,” he murmurs, raising a hand to my cheek to gently caress my face. “I can’t lose you.” He then leans in and kisses me again, this time much more gently but just as passionately, and, almost regretfully, he pulls back to take a breath after a few seconds.
“Luke, I’m sorry,” I say, meaning those words more than I’ve ever meant them before, because I can see and know exactly how much me dying will kill him. However, there’s honestly nothing I can do now, as I am completely confident that the Triple Crown committee wouldn’t let me live, even if I did survive Team Survival, so, no matter how much I want to make Luke happy and erase the pain from his eyes, I can’t. I guess the only consolation to the imminent death I’m staring down is that my family and friends won’t be harmed, as I saw that in Rush’s mind too. As soon as the Triple Crown committee kills me and makes my death look like an accident, they’ll be done with the Lightnings permanently.
“Lizzie, there has to be some other way,” he murmurs, and I feel my throat close off in guilt and sadness when I see the tortured look on his face. I didn’t realize he would look this bad before I died.
“Luke, there isn’t. It’s done and over; either I die in the arena or they kill me afterwards and cover up my death, and you and my family and friends all get to survive. It’s better this way, Luke,” I tell him, my voice taking on its own measure of persuasion and desperation. “No one else has to die this way.”
“No one but the most amazing person to have ever walked this planet,” Luke whispers, his gaze locked on mine, but not even the hardness and determination in his expression can hide the tears welling up and threatening to overflow from his eyes.
“Luke,” I start, tears beginning to well up in my eyes at seeing him so close to crying, but he gives me no time to speak and instead cuts me off.
“Lizzie, you are my everything,” he murmurs fiercely, not taking his gaze away from mine, even as one tear trickles agonizingly slowly down his cheek. I resist the urge to raise a hand and wipe it away, and instead continue to meet his eyes. “If I lose you, I will have nothing left, except for my life, and what good is a life if I have no heart or soul to go along with it?”
“Luke,” I begin again, but don’t get any farther this time than I did last time. I guess Luke is incredibly determined not to hear me out.
“I would die a thousand agonizing deaths – hell, even a million or a trillion or however many I needed to – just to keep you safe and sound and not break my promise of always, Lizzie.” His ice-blue eyes, made even clearer by his tears, are locked onto mine and staring directly into my soul, and, even though his x-raying scan of me makes me rather uncomfortable, I don’t tear my gaze away, because I owe it to him to at least hear him out. “But here you are, determined to make me break that promise and not give me any choice in the matter, and I can’t help but wonder if there is something different I could have done, something else I could have said that would have convinced you to not be the spark and would result in us being alive in a month. I can’t help but feel like this is my fault, somehow, because I wasn’t devoted enough or didn’t make you feel loved enough to stay.” His voice cracks with emotion, but he doesn’t look away, and I do him the courtesy of not looking away either. “I hate to think that this was ever the only option, that it was your destiny to die and take my heart and soul with you. Lizzie, there has to have been some other way, some alternate option at one point or another that didn’t end in your and my deaths, and I can’t help but feel that I could have done something differently to make that other way happen.”
“Luke, this has nothing to do with you,” I tell him, not surprised but still hurt and touched by the fact that he is trying to take the blame for something that he couldn’t have done anything about. He’s very insistent on covering my ass when I make terrible decisions, that’s for sure. “If this decision was based off of the amount and devotion you’ve shown me, or even just slightly influenced by the love and devotion you’ve shown me, then I wouldn’t have made this decision at all. You’ve given me so much more love and compassion and understanding that I could ever deserve, especially considering the nothing I’ve given you.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I finish, “Luke, this has nothing to do with you, and there’s nothing you could have ever done that would’ve made a difference or even swayed me slightly. This stupidity of mine is all on me; you’re not even a negligible part of the equation.” I give him a tiny smile, hoping to have convinced him to stop beating himself up over the dumb decisions I’ve made that he truly couldn’t have done anything about.
However, it doesn’t work at all, because he immediately replies, “Lizzie, it still feels like I’m breaking my promise to you but not being able to stop you from doing this.”
“Luke,” I begin quietly, raising my hand to gently touch the side of his face again, “you can’t save me from myself, no matter how much you want to or think that you should be able to.” Luke and Jackson are rather alike in the aspect that they both want to take the responsibility for my stupid, life-threatening decisions, I think idly.
“I know, Lizzie,” Luke begins quietly, shaking his head slightly, “but I can’t help but feel like I should, like I’m responsible for you on some level.”
“Luke,” I start, a bitter smile flickering across my face for a moment, “if you want to take responsibility for me, you’re going to have a lot of disasters and bodies to cover for.”
“You didn’t kill and destroy by choice though, Lizzie; you were compelled to do so to save your family. And, you know, I don’t think you really chose to be the spark either,” Luke says quietly, and I’m confused. What does he mean, I didn’t choose to be the spark? Of course I chose to be the spark; even though Mitchell – and then the Sections – pressured me to be the spark, I still could have denied their wishes and not been the spark. “I think you were somewhat pressured into it, but, above all, I think you were compelled by something in you that you can’t control,” Luke tells me, and I meet his gaze almost warily. How can he know that, when the thought hadn’t even occured to me up until now? “Something inside of you – your honor or your feeling of duty maybe – drives you to help other people, even if you hurt yourself by doing so. It seems like your sense of self-preservation has been destroyed by the thing that drives you-”
“Or that I never had one to begin with,” I finish quietly, thinking of what Jackson said to me a week ago, and a wan half-smile flits across Luke’s face for a moment.
“Yeah, something like that,” he agrees. A moment passes in silence before he continues, “Whatever the reason is, all care for yourself and all of your natural instincts to avoid danger and pain and hardship are completely overridden when an opportunity to help others appears. It’s almost as if the thing that drives you to do all of this is instinctual, and a very powerful instinct at that, because I’ve never seen anything like this want of yours to be a martyr. It defies all logic, all natural human instincts, and it puzzles and frightens me, to be perfectly honest.”
After another pause, this one far more uncomfortable than the last, he continues, “I think that, if you thought you owed anyone anything, you would never feel like you had fully repaid them, no matter how small the thing you thought you owed them was. After all, you’re going through all of this because you think you owe the people of the Sections something, and because you want to help them. I guess one could say that you’re a very... determined supporter of democracy,” Luke finishes with a small smile, and I can’t help but think that he’s hit it right on the nose.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I agree absentmindedly, giving him my best smile as my mind wanders and picks at everything that he’s said.
It almost alarms me that he’s able to tell that I’m driven by something neither one of us can identify before I can; it’s like he knows me better than I know myself. Of course, he very well could, as half of the time I think idly that I can understand everyone’s mind but my own.
However, it still scares me that he can tell I’m pushed forward to these desperate measures by something unknown but powerful enough to override my instincts when even I can’t, because I don’t want him to understand me. When there are so many scary things you have to face when you try to, you don’t even want to understand yourself.
Suddenly a conversation my mom and I had about two years ago floats to the surface of my mind that I had never thought much of until now, and I let myself flash back.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Mom, is it normal for me to want to save everyone but myself?” I ask her, and she looks up from the magazine she’s reading to meet my eyes calculatingly. Her perfect long light-brown hair frames her face regally, and her intelligent, twinkling golden eyes that I was fortunate enough to inherit stare deep into my own.
“Yes, actually, it is,” she answers after a moment, then sets down the magazine and motions for me to come and sit next to her.
When I’m seated and looking over at her expectantly, she elaborates, “Lizzie, as immortals, we lack or have less of certain instincts than humans. One of those happens to be the sense of self-preservation, or us before them.” After a second’s pause, she continues, “Because we cannot die, we internally lack the fear of death that mortals do, so we don’t care as much for our own safety as perhaps we should.”
I enter her mind cautiously for a moment to see her thinking about when she and my dad found Gwillan and Gruffen, the dragon brothers they had been friends with for almost five hundred years and then had fallen out of contact with for five hundred years – not my brothers – dead. The most ironic part is that the dragons had been killed by their own carelessness: they had allowed themselves to be seen in their dragon forms by humans and had then been hunted down and killed.
“Anyways,” she starts again, shaking her head slightly, as if to clear the disturbing image from her mind, “because we don’t care for own safety, we are far more invested in the safety of the people around us than humans are. It’s almost ironic: we care more for the humans than they care for each other.” Her mouth twists into a slightly bitter smile for a moment, as we have always been hated by humans simply because we’re different and more powerful than they are, before she continues. “Well, I believe that answers your question; is there anything else you would like to know?” Instead of waiting for me to say anything, she simply enters my mind to see if there is anything else, and, when she finds nothing, quickly exits.
Rising to my feet, I give her a smile and say, “Thanks Mom,” before turning and leaving for the solitude of my room. After all, having everyone in your mind at the same time can be very annoying and almost maddening.
“Well, I guess that solves it,” I say quietly, shaking my head slightly at my own stupidity. How could I have not thought of that conversation before now, especially considering that it was a very important conversation?
“What?” Luke asks me, and I turn my head to look at him in surprise. When I delved into my memories, I completely forgot he’s here with me.
However, I quickly recover from my surprise to answer, “I just remembered a conversation I had with my mom a while ago that kind of explains why I’m driven to help everyone around me by putting myself in danger.”
“And why are you driven to mortal peril to help everyone around you?” Luke meets my gaze, and I can see the disapproval in his eyes. No matter what my answer is, he won’t like it. I can’t say I really blame him though; no matter what reason I give, it undoubtedly still looks like suicide to him.
“I don’t fear death,” I answer simply, shrugging my shoulders. It’s true, although my answer, without the knowledge that I can’t die, makes me seem far more noble than I actually am. “Therefore I’m not limited by that fear and can do so much more than people who do fear death.”
“So basically you care nothing for your mortality, right?” Luke questions, his tone dubious, and I shake my head. In truth, I respect and want mortality more than anything else on this planet, and I would give up everything I have for the chance to be mortal.
Of course, Luke can’t and won’t ever know that, so, even though it kills me to be lying so blatantly, I immediately backtrack from the shake of my head and tell Luke hollowly, “Yeah, I guess I don’t.”
“I still don’t understand why you don’t fear death though. I mean, death is the final ending, the way to leave this world, and there’s no coming back once you die, so why do you not fear or at least not want to go?” Luke meets my gaze curiously, his ice-blue eyes locked on mine, and I shrug my shoulders again.
“Death just doesn’t seem that bad to me,” I reply truthfully. “After all, it is the final escape, if this world gets so terrible that life isn’t worth it. Besides,” I add, “what if it’s not the end? What if it’s just a beginning?” After a moment of silence, I continue, “I’d like to think that dying is like having a door opened, and that there are so many more things you can do after you die when you don’t have a body to limit you.”
“Where do you think you go when you die?” Luke asks me quietly, and I shrug again.
“I don’t know,” I respond just as softly. “I mean, I hope it’s not just a lonely expanse of whiteness that you have to sit in for forever, and I don’t think it’s the whole heaven-and-angels-and-huge-gold-gates thing either, but I honestly have no idea.” A second goes by in silence, and I add with a wan half-smile, “I guess we’ll find out pretty soon.”
“Yeah, I guess we will,” Luke agrees ruefully, and a long expanse of time passes in between us with neither one of us speaking. The silence feels like it could go on forever, perhaps in the way everything is silent forever after you die, but Luke will have nothing of that, and pipes up to say, “You lacking a fear of death still doesn’t explain why you care about helping othr people so much. I mean, you could be the most fearless person in the world – you could be invincible even,” Luke adds, and I can’t help but think about Kuro, with him essentially being a god, “and not want to help people, so there’s something more to it, I think. There’s something else inside of you, something even more powerful than your disregard for mortality, that drives you to use that disregard to help others, and I don’t know what that is.” Luke meets my gaze calculatingly, and I think idly that he really is getting good – almost as good as I am – at x-raying people.
“I guess...” I begin, rolling onto my back to stare up at the ceiling and purse my lips in thought, “I guess I just care about other people, maybe even more than I care about myself, and I think that it’s right, that it’s my duty almost, to help someone if I can.” I shrug again, then roll back over to meet Luke’s gaze again.
“You are the ultimate public servant, Lizzie,” he tells me quietly, his eyes locked on mine as a small smile curls his lips. “You would give everything you have to help people you’ve never even met, and that nobility kind of stuns me, to be perfectly honest.”
“Well,” I start, “everyone has to be something in life, and I guess I’m the martyr.”
“Yeah, I guess you are,” Luke agrees with a small smile, and shakes his head. Turning to look back at me, he meets my gaze and says, his voice full of emotion, “It’s almost unfair though. Couldn’t you wait a couple years to be the martyr?”
“Sorry Luke, I don’t really have a choice in the matter anymore,” I tell him, and it kills me to see the pain tainting his expression and know that I have singlehandedly become the sole cause of that pain.
“I know,” he says, pursing his lips and nodding his head slightly. “It still seems unfair though, for the world to lose such an amazing person as you so early in your life. I mean,” he continues, “you haven’t even reached your full potential yet, and you haven’t done all of the good that I know you can and would if you were allowed to live longer, and you haven’t made the huge impact in our dimension that I know you would.”
“Luke,” I begin gently, looking him directly in the eye, “what if this is the greatest good I can do?” When he doesn’t answer, I continue, “What if helping the Sections by dying for them is my ultimate purpose in life?”
After a long moment of silence, he answers, “Life is definitely unfair then, if that’s the case. I mean, that means that you were born to die, and that’s terrible. You must have a greater purpose than that!”
“Well, what if I don’t?” I ask. Even though I’m just as disturbed by the possibility that my purpose in life could be to die as Luke is, I know that there’s no point in getting mad about it because there’s nothing I can do about it. “What if my whole purpose in life is just to die? To be honest,” I quickly add, as I see Luke open his mouth to interrupt, “I don’t think living to die is such a bad thing, if I get to make such a difference by dying. I mean, I think I’m going to make more of a difference in more peoples’ lives by dying at seventeen than I could in a hundred years of life.”
“Lizzie, that’s not true!” Luke shoots back, his tone angry and indignant now. “You are one of the most amazing people to ever walk this planet, and you’re selling yourself short if you honestly think that you could make more of a difference by dying than by living. Do you have any idea how many people you could and would save in a hundred years, no matter what you choose to do?” When I don’t answer, due to not having a good answer or rebuttal, Luke continues, “Lizzie, I’ve told you this so many times before, but I guess it still hasn’t stuck: you are worth so much more alive than dead.”
“What if all I can do when I’m alive is kill people, Luke?” I burst out, my guilt and self-loathing finally getting the best of me. “Am I really worth more alive than dead if all I can do is harm people around me?”
“Lizzie, you can do so much more than kill people!” Luke tells me emphatically, meeting my gaze and not allowing me to look away.
“Oh yeah?” I question, staring him down. “Like what? Give me one viable example of something else I can do besides destroy.”
“You can love,” he answers immediately, and my heart sinks slightly, because I know he’s right. “You’ve made so many people happy and helped so many people – hell, you’ve made my whole life worth it – by loving, so there’s all the proof you need.”
“But,” I start to protest, to be immediately cut off by Luke.
“No buts, Lizzie,” he says firmly. “As long as you can love, you’re definitely worth more alive than dead. After all,” he adds with a smile, “it’d be unfair to all of the people you might love in the future to die now and not let them know what it’s like to be loved by the amazing Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning.”
A few moments go by in silence, with me still trying to absorb everything Luke just said and formulate a response to it. His devotion to and adoration for me unsettles me greatly, and I don’t know how to or even want to reply to his comments, so I finally roll over onto my stomach, bury my head in my pillow and grumble, “Fine, you’ve won this one.” I then lift my head up to look him directly in the eye and tell him, a small smirk on my face, “Don’t expect to win any other ones though.”
“Lizzie, I didn’t win this one,” he replies with a smile of his own. “You won this one against yourself.” He then rolls over onto his side, wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him, kisses me gently on the forehead and murmurs, “Good night, Lizzie,” before falling asleep and taking me with him.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

I look around at the buzzing crowd of at least ten thousand and can’t help but roll my eyes. This many people honestly paid ten thousand dollars to come to the Team Survival team-selection ceremony?
“This is dang crazy,” I mutter under my breath, scowling at one El Nieve boy who gives me a more-than-interested look as he passes by, despite the fact that Luke is standing right next to me with his arm around me and I’m flagrantly displaying my wedding ring.
“You’re telling me,” Luke murmurs back, his arm around my waist. “I guess it shows how much of these people’s lives revolve around the Triple Crown.” Ten thousand dollars in El Nieve money is the amount that an upper-middle-class working person makes in a year, and there aren’t that many people with ten thousand dollars to spare in the city, so most of the people here coughed up the money to get in by shorting themselves and their families on other, more important things. It makes me shudder to think that the people in front of me would give up their food, water, clothes and home just to come to a Triple Crown ceremony.
“It’s sad that they don’t have lives at all then,” I whisper back, and a wan half-smile crosses Luke’s face. Despite the fact that we both hate the El Nieveans for being so blind and giving up their individuality for the Triple Crown, neither one of us think that it’s right that they are willing to give up a year’s salary just for a few hours of entertainment.
“I feel bad for them,” Luke says quietly as he looks around at the huge crowd surrounding us. “Almost.”
I can’t help but smile slightly and nod my head in agreement, and am about to vocalize this agreement when Puck, looking absolutely verdant in a brilliant emerald suit, walks out from behind the huge red curtains onto the stage in the middle of the room. I immediately fall silent, as I know that it must be time for the ceremony to start, and wait patiently during the incredibly loud applause he receives.
After the room has quieted down, he picks up the microphone from its stand in the middle of the stage, clears his throat and booms, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Triple Crown Team Survival team selection ceremony!”
That’s the cue for Luke and me – as well as the other champions – to make our way to the stage, and I give Abby, in a brilliant blue dress that perfectly matches her eyes, a smile as I pass her. She, along with everyone else in the room except for Luke, couldn’t expect what’s going to be the outcome of this ceremony.
Once all of us champions are seated in the thirty-two identical chairs on the stage, with Luke and me occupying the first two because we won Hand-to-Hand and One-Person, and the audience has quieted down again, Puck turns to Luke and me and says, “Mr. and Mrs. Gates-” – I can’t help but cringe internally at the Mrs. Gates part – “-as you won Hand-to-Hand Combat and One-Person Survival, one of you will pick first. Please decide among yourselves which one that will be.”
Even Puck, who can get enthusiastic about anything partially related to the Triple Crown, considers this part of the ceremony to be a formality, as clearly he thinks that whoever one of us picks will choose the other. I wonder if he’ll have a heart attack after hearing who I’m actually going to choose.
“Lizzie, you pick,” Luke tells immediately, then gestures for me to go to the microphone. I can tell that he isn’t exactly thrilled about who I’m choosing, as I know that he would much prefer to be on my team so that he can try to keep me safe, but he’s also smart enough and respects where I’m coming from enough to not try to discourage me.
“Thank you,” I tell him with a smile, and rise to my feet agilely, for once not having to worry about what my outfit’s doing. I requested that both Luke and I just wear T-shirts and basketball shorts, so we are, and I personally think I made a very good decision in doing so. While everyone around us is sweating buckets in the ninety-degree heat, we’re relatively comfortable, or at least not soaked in our own sweat.
When I take the microphone from Puck, I notice that, despite the fact that the whole room is silent, it’s a bored silence, not an excited silence. The boredom is evident in the faces of the people I look at, and I can tell that they just want me to get it over with so they can get onto the more interesting picks to be made. I can’t help but think idly that they’re not going to be bored for much longer, and this is most likely going to be the most interesting pick of the day, maybe even in Triple Crown history
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I begin, my back straight and my voice clear and determined, “my partner for Team Survival will be...” I hesitate momentarily for effect, “Abigail Williams.”

The effect on the room is instantaneous. People in the audience gasp audibly, and stare at me in such shock that their eyes are in danger of popping out of their heads. I hear all of the champions except for Luke either sit up or gasp as well, and I can tell that everyone in the room is in a state of disbelief. Well, everyone except for Luke, me... and Rush.
I meet his gaze momentarily to see a small, unsurprised smile crossing his face. Somehow – I honestly think he might have cameras or microphones put in every room so he can watch and listen to me all the time – he saw this coming, and he’s probably smiling because he’s envisioning all of the ways he can torture me by trying to kill Abby in the arena.
“Mrs. Gates, are you sure you spoke correctly?” Puck asks me, his eyes also threatening to pop out of his head as he looks over at me, completely stunned.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I confirm with a smile, idly thinking that there’s no way out of this one now, and Puck seems to recover from his surprise slightly.
Tearing his eyes away from me, he turns to the champions and says, “Miss Williams, please come up to the front of the stage.”
Abby, who, up until this point, had been one of the most visibly shocked of the champions, now comes to and cautiously makes her way up to the front of the stage to stand right next to me, her eyes glued on my face the whole time. Clearly she didn’t expect this any more than the other champions did.
Giving her a smile, I gently take her hand in mine to comfort her and hear Puck announce, who’s clearly still not completely recovered from his surprise, “Ladies and gentlemen, Lizzie Gates and Abigail Williams!”
As Abby and I walk off the stage, still hand-in-hand, she leans towards me and whispers, her eyes still round with shock, “What are you doing?”
I smile down at her and, my eyes on the crowd gathering around us, murmur in reply, “Picking a partner I know I can win with.”
“But Lizzie…” Abby says, her tone that of utter disbelief, and turns to look at Luke, who is still sitting on the stage with an unsurprised, slightly amused and also slightly sad expression on his face. “Who will be Luke’s partner?”
“I don’t know,” I reply frankly, turning to look at Luke as well as the other champions still on the stage myself.
Luke would never pick Marshall as a partner; he hates Marshall too much to even consider pairing up with him. He might pick Marcus, except for the fact that Adelaide and Marcus are now dating and Luke would want them to be partners. McKenizie is off-limits too, because she’s already made it clear that she’s going to partner up with the boy from her Section – Sam Smith, I think she said his name is – which basically leaves Luke with the remaining sadistic careers or the remaining pathetic non-careers. Man, I really should have thought this out better, because I will feel terrible if Luke gets stuck with a psychopathic career or a cowardly little non-career that would as soon stab him in the back as help him.
“Mr. Gates, it is your turn to pick a partner for Team Survival,” Puck announces, pulling me away from my thoughts and spurring me – and, in turn, Abby – to walk over the chairs we’re supposed to be sitting in and watch Luke take his pick from the not-so-good field. “Please make your way to the front of the stage,” Puck commands, and Luke rises from his seat to do just that. My eyes are on him the whole time, and I can’t help but notice how incredibly handsome he looks from this angle.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Luke begins, and all eyes in the room are on him. There is a definite buzz of excitement to the room, now that I’ve been taken out of the pool of available champions, and it’s clear that everyone – myself and Abby included – want to find out who will be Luke’s partner for Team Survival.
I see a flash of orange, yellow and red in the stands and look up from Luke momentarily to find Max, his bald, tattooed head reflecting the sunlight coming through the window next to his seat. He catches my eye momentarily, and I can see that he’s not surprised at all either. I guess he figured, with my past track record, that I would want to try to play the hero, even if at my own detriment, again.
“My partner for Team Survival will be,” Luke continues, and instantly my gaze is drawn back onto him. I meet his eye for a moment and he gives me an almost imperceptible smile. He then finishes, “Marshall Moore.”
“Marshall?” I can’t help but burst out in surprise. What has gotten into Luke, that he chose Marshall Moore as a partner? I mean, last time I checked, Luke hated Marshall’s guts, and didn’t want to touch Marshall with a ten-foot pole – unless that pole was tipped with a blade, of course; then I’m sure Luke would touch Marshall in order to spear him.
No one else in the room saw this coming either, as a fresh wave of whispers and murmurings, nearly as loud as the one that occurred when I announced Abby as my partner, breaks out. Even Max looks surprised by this one; I catch his eye again and mouth the question, “What’s he doing?” to have Max shake his head in reply.
In fact, Rush is the only one in the room who doesn’t look surprised, but that’s probably because, after all of the sabotage and killings and backstabbings and betrayals he’s seen and caused, nothing surprises him anymore. I narrow my gaze at him, and, when he sees me looking at him, he gives me a sardonic, partially malicious smile. I quickly look away, not wanting to feel Rush staring into my eyes and reading the contents of my mind, like he’s so adept at doing.
Suddenly it occurs to me that there’s one partially good quality – or at least it’s something that makes him easier to predict and deal with - about Rush: he never lies and he means everything he says. If he tells you that you’re going to be dead in twenty-four hours, you will be dead in twenty-four hours, if not sooner. That’s why I’m so scared about crossing him and unleashing his wrath on my family, because I don’t know if even they, five incredibly powerful immortals, could survive that.
Puck is almost as surprised this time as he was when I made my choice, and it takes him a few seconds to recover and regain his voice. When he does, however, he wastes no time in calling Marshall, who looks as shocked – if not more – than everyone else in the room, to the front of the stage to stand next to Luke and then walk off with him.
The audience gives them a round of applause before Puck dismisses them to their seats next to us, and I can feel the lingering excitement in the air. This has to be the most interesting and controversial Team Survival team selection ceremony in the history of the Triple Crown.
The first thing Marshall says when he sits down next to Luke is, “Luke, what did you do that for? I thought you hated me.”
“Well,” Luke begins, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from me to look at Marshall, “I’m not exactly your biggest fan, but you’re competent, and Lizzie says you’re a decent guy, so I didn’t really have any choice but to pick you. I mean, look at the rest of the field.” Luke gestures to the twenty-eight champions remaining on the stage. “Only three of them are known to be trustworthy, and those three already have partners, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to team up with one of those backstabbing non-careers or psychopathic careers. That would just be signing my own death warrant,” Luke finishes, and Marshall nods his head in understanding, a small smile on his tan face.
“Well, when you put it that way, I guess I kind of am the best choice you had,” Marshall agrees quietly, and Luke is clearly about to say something in return when Puck’s voice breaks the excited buzz blanketing the room and shuts up everyone in it.
As I look back up at the remaining champions on the stage, I can’t help but think about how, in a day, all of us are going to be back in the arena and slated to kill each other again. The only difference will be that this time there’s no coming back if you die.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

The rest of the ceremony goes relatively quickly, with Marcus picking Adelaide, McKenzie Lewis picking Sam Smith, the leftover careers picking each other – I’m not exactly too happy to see Marissa and Hunter on the same team again – Nick picking Sarah and the remaining non-careers picking each other. In the end, Luke’s and my picks were the only controversial and unexpected ones, which means that we get a lot more attention than the other champions as we exit the ceremony room.
“Lizzie, why did you pick Abigail Williams, a small, weak non-career girl, to be your partner instead of Luke, even with the new rule change in place that would allow you to pick Luke?” multiple reporters ask me as I leave the room, which I find rather rude, as Abby is still holding my hand and can hear every word they’re saying. I brush past all of them without a word, and can’t help but smile slightly when I see their disappointed expressions out of the corner of my eye.
“Luke, why did you pick Marshall Moore as your partner when even he thinks that you hate him?” those same reporters shout at Luke, who is being follwed by Marshall Moore, as they exit the dome behind us.
When the reporters don’t get a response to that question, they immediately question Luke, “Luke, how do you feel about Lizzie not picking you to be on your team? Do you feel hurt, betrayed, backstabbed? Or was this all some conspiracy between Lizzie and you?”
Luke ignores this question as well, although I can see the anger sparking in his eyes and know that, if he were given the chance, he would like to stuff the reporters’ microphones down their throats. And I don’t blame him .It makes me very angry just hearing the questions they’re asking him, since they don’t have any right to try to turn Luke and I against each other – it’s not like it’s going to work anyways – so he must be incredibly angry by this point.
It seems like forever before we finally reach the black car, the same one Luke and I drove to our honeymoon, waiting for us on the curb with the keys already in the ignition. With cameras still flashing and video still rolling, I slide into the front seat to have Luke slide into the passenger seat and Abby and Marshall climb into the back.
I rev the engine as a warning to the reporters standing in front of the car and stopping us from leaving, and, when they finally move and I am able to drive forward a little bit, I turn to Marshall in the back and tell him, “Cover Abby’s eyes.”
When he does, I flip the reporters off, then drive away, a smirk on my face the whole time. After all, it’s no less than they deserve, considering they’ve been trying to screw us this whole Triple Crown.

“You know the drill Lizzie: nice responses that make Rush and everyone else happy with you,” Max tells me, and claps me on the back. “No comments, no song quotes, nothing at all rebellious, alright?”
He looks down at me for conformation, and, even though I know what his answer is going to be, I can’t help but ask, “What if Puck asks me to sing again?”
“Then sing something nice, like that song you sung last time,” Max replies. As Puck’s voice begins to float down the tunnel and the other girl champions in front of me begin to move forward, Max gives me a shove forward and says, just before he slips off to the side, “Go be nice to them, Lizzie. I know it’s a stretch for you, but your family’s sake, please try.”
I don’t even have the time to roll my eyes at Max before I find myself stepping out of the tunnel and onto the stage with thirty-two chairs lined up in eight rows off to the side – half of them already filled with the boy champions – two chairs in the middle of the stage, and Puck, looking very pink in a brilliant magenta suit, sitting in one of them.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your sixteen female Triple Crown champions!” Puck booms into the microphone in his hand, and the crowd goes absolutely crazy. I look out at the people in the stands to see that many eyes are on me, and glance down momentarily to be reminded that I’m wearing a sparkling gold, orange and red dress that gives the appearance that I’m on fire.
Mitchell apparently didn’t get the anti-spark message from Rush, or Mitchell just ignored it; to be perfectly honest, the latter possibility seems the most likely, since Mitchell probably figures he’s dead anyways. He already knows that I think I’m dead too, although he doesn’t know that my friends and family might die with me too if I don’t stop being rebellious, so I guess he thought that neither one of us had anything to lose. Unfortunately, he was wrong, and my loved ones might suffer because of it.
However, I have no time to dwell on such thoughts, because the interviews – which I’m supposed to be paying attention to – start as soon as I sit down.
I pay partial attention to the interviews of the champions from One through Three up until Marshall, noting that the careers seem just as sadistic as usual – with the exception of Marcus, of course – and that the non-careers seem just as pathetic as usual – with the exceptions of Adelaide, McKenzie Lewis and Sam Smith. In fact, if it wasn’t for me and all of the controversy and rebellion I’ve stirred up, this might be one of the most boring Triple Crowns yet. I guess the Triple Crown committee should be grateful that they have me to liven things up.
“So, Mr. Moore, how are you and Mr. Gates preparing for Team Survival?” I hear Puck’s voice say, and I immediately sit up straight and listen at the mention of Luke. I see that Puck is interviewing Marshall, who is almost directly in front of me, and I catch his eye momentarily, which is long enough to see the exasperation and annoyance in them. I can’t help but smile, as I feel the exact same way about the interviews, and, even when he turns back to Puck, I keep my gaze on his face.
“Well, I can’t tell you our strategies,” Marshall begins, and Puck nods his head in understanding, not taking his eyes off of Marshall’s, “but I can tell you that we do in fact have strategies, and that we hope they’re going to work.” A smile curves Marshall’s lips at his own joke, and the crowd – including Puck – bursts out laughing.
“That’s good to hear, Mr. Moore, that’s good to hear,” Puck says when he becomes coherent enough to speak again. Puck then shifts slightly, and I see the immediate change in his posture and know exactly what he’s going to say: he’s going to ask Marshall about me.
After a half-second’s hesitation, Puck questions, “Marshall, how will you and Mr. Gates deal with the issue of Lizzie Lightning, who is now Lizzie Gates?”
Marshall, thank God, simply replies with, “What do you mean, issue?” When Puck doesn’t reply after a fraction of a second, Marshall continues, “Lizzie picked Abigail Williams as her partner, and Luke picked me as his. There’s nothing to be done about that now, so I don’t see the issue.” Marshall shrugs and meets Puck’s gaze, and I idly think that Marshall is an excellent actor and Bser.
“Well, I was referring to the issue of both you and Mr. Gates being attracted to Lizzie, but her being married to Mr. Gates. Wouldn’t that cause some tension between you two?” Puck stares Marshall down too, and I see Marshall’s confidence waver some. I have to admit, Puck can be kind of intimidating at times.
“Puck, that unites us, not divides us,” Marshall replies, and instantly my heart sinks even more than it first did when Puck asked the question to begin with. I don’t like where this is going, I don’t like where it’s going at all. “Both of us only want the best for Lizzie, so we’re going to do everything in our power to keep her safe.” Marshall shrugs, and meets Puck’s gaze evenly again.
Even though I know that it won’t be good for damage control at all, I can’t help but sigh and bury my face in my hands at what Marshall’s saying: that he is willing to die for me, which means that I’ll have another name to add to my kill list. My God, I’m not even trying and I’m still killing people!
”Are you saying that you would die for her?” Puck asks Marshall, and I look up in surprise. I, knowing Marshall personally, know that’s exactly what he’s saying, but I guess hearing it will just validate my suspicions.
Marshall meets Puck’s gaze evenly and rationally again as he answers simply and calmly, “Yes, I would die for Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Lightning.” He then turns his gaze onto me and adds with a sad smile, “Well, I guess you’re Gates instead of Lightning now,” and I know that he’s probably thinking about how I should be Lizzie Moore instead of Lizzie Gates.
Puck is silent for a few moments, exaggerated tears running down his face, until he finally wipes them away, clears his throat and says, “Well, that’s very noble of you, Mr. Moore.”
Very noble indeed, I think as I roll my eyes. It’s incredibly dumb and incredibly reckless – in fact, it’s downright suicidal, considering I plan on dying in Team Survival – but it is noble. It really would be in Marshall’s best interests for him to not be so noble; actually, it would be in his best interests to have never fallen in love with me, but I suppose one mistake just leads to another.
“Thank you, Puck,” Marshall replies politely, and rises to his feet and exits the stage, his eyes on me the whole time, when Puck waves his hand to dismiss Marshall.
Marshall chooses the open seat to my left – for once we actually got to pick where we sat, so Marshall, of course, picked directly to my left, Abby directly to my right, and Luke directly behind me – and turns towards me to ask, “What’s the matter?”
“You, you dumbass!” I reply hotly, locking my eyes on his angrily. I see the surprised expression on his face and can’t help but roll my eyes. Did he honestly think that I would want him to die for me? “I don’t want you dying for me!”
“Lizzie, I’m just trying to help you. It’s the right thing to do, after all,” Marshall tells me in reply, and I shake my head bitterly. Him and Luke and their damn senses of honor.
“Marshall, the right thing to do is to save yourself,” I shoot back coldly. “I’m on my way out anyways, and I plan on dying in Team Survival, so you might as well not go down with the ship.”
“You’re wrong, Lizzie,” Marshall responds, his eyes locked on mine fiercely, and I resist the urge to look away. “Number one: the right thing to do is most definitely to save you, since you’re not going to die in Team Survival, and number two: even if you do die in Team Survival, it is best that I go down with the ship, because my life won’t have meaning without you. If I let you die without even trying to save you, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
I can’t help but sigh again, because I see the honesty in Marshall’s eyes and know that he means everything he says. Unfortunately. It would be so much easier if he didn’t, if he was as good of an actor as I am.
“Marshall, I just don’t want you wasting your life and dying for me,” I tell him, my tone defeated. I know that he, like Luke, isn’t going to give up on something once he’s set his mind to it, so any arguments I try to make against him are basically pointless.
“And I don’t want to live without you,” Marshall answers evenly, meeting my gaze determinedly, and I’m grateful for the interruption and excuse to look away when Puck begins interviewing the next champion.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

Abby’s interview goes relatively well; Puck, thank God, only mentions in passing that I picked her as a partner and doesn’t ask her any direct questions. Luke, however, does not escape Puck’s wrath so easily.
“So, Luke, what do you think about Lizzie picking Abigail Williams as her partner for Team Survival instead of you?” is the first question Puck asks Luke, and Luke meets my gaze for a millisecond before answering.
“Lizzie picked who she wanted to pick. It’s not my place to judge her for that,” Luke replies coolly, and even shrugs his shoulders to show his nonchalance. It’s an obvious ruse that I can see right through – and that Puck undoubtedly sees right through too – but the audience gobbles it up. That’s good, because those are the only people we really need to believe our answers. Well, I guess I need Rush to believe mine, but that’s never going to happen, so there’s no point in me even thinking about it.
Instead of dropping the subject, like I had desperately hoped he would but knew he wouldn’t, Puck instead says with a smile, “Oh come now Luke, you must feel something about her decision. Anger? Distrust? Betrayal?” Puck looks at Luke expectantly, and I can tell, the sick feeling that’s overtaking me increasing tenfold, that it would make Puck’s lifetime for Luke to reply with yes to one of those.
“Actually, you’re right, Puck; I do feel something about Lizzie’s pick for Team Survival,” Luke begins, and Puck’s toothy smile gets even broader. However, I sit straight up and stare at Luke intently and almost warily, as I know the tone in his voice and don’t like at all where this is going. “I feel that it’s none of our business to pass judgment on Lizzie’s pick, and that it’s none of your business to ask questions that are deliberately meant to test my relationship with Lizzie, so please stop.” Luke meets Puck’s gaze almost fiercely, and, with a start, I realize how truly intimidating Luke has been made by the sheer emotion he feels. Well, I guess a reply and aura like that are a couple ways to make Puck wet those sparkly, magenta pants.
“Alright, alright, no need to get defensive.” Puck throws his hands up in the air, his fear evident in his eyes, and I can’t help but move my hand with the motion of waving a flag slightly. It’s something my friend’s mom made up freshman year, the [censored] flag, which you wave every time someone says something that you know is complete [censored]. Now that I think about it, I probably should have been waving it every time Puck opened his mouth.
“How about we call that the end of the interview, eh?” Puck suggests, and Luke nods in agreement, rises to his feet and exits the stage to complete and utter silence. Suddenly someone begins clapping, and a smile spreads across my face as I see that the lone person standing up and applauding is Max. The people around him, other Triple Crown mentors who hate Puck just as much as Max and I do, start clapping too, and soon the whole arena is applauding and cheering Luke. I catch Max’s eye just as he sits down and give him a nod of recognition and thanks, which he returns with a smile of his own.
However, my happiness at Luke’s embarrassment of Puck is short-lived, because, as soon as Luke sits down next to me, Puck opens his mouth to announce the next champion being interviewed, which I remember to be… oh, right, me.

“Lizzie Lightning, the female counterpart of our favorite Triple Crown couple,” Puck says as he gives me a beaming smile, and I involuntarily ball my hands into fists. I guess Puck just instills violent emotions in me.
“Or I guess you’re Lizzie Gates now,” Puck corrects, his smile getting even bigger, to meet my gaze for a moment, which is long enough to feel the full extent of his brown, x-raying eyes. Despite the fact that he seems very bubbly and maybe even not very intelligent, his eyes tell the truth: that nothing gets by him and that he definitely isn’t happy all of the time.
When I simply give him a fake smile and don’t say anything in reply, he says, his gaze locking on mine again, “So, Lizzie, I just have to ask: why did you pick Abigail Williams as your partner for Team Survival instead of Luke?”
Without hesitating or even thinking, I answer, “Because there’s a possibility I can save her, Puck.” After a half-second of silence, I continue, “Even if I’m dead, Abby isn’t, and I fully intend to make sure she doesn’t die. Besides,” I finish, “Luke doesn’t need me to save him. He can save himself.”
A long, dangerous silence takes over the arena for a moment, and I can’t help but wonder worriedly if I said the wrong thing and a band of immortal mercenaries is currently on their way to wipe out my family and friends. However, I know that worrying about such things will get me nowhere, so I take a deep breath and try to shake off the thought by telling myself that my dad’s a god and that he can stop anyone who tries to hurt my mom or my brothers.
It doesn’t work very well though, because I know that, while my dad is a god, he is a minor god and therefore not very powerful at all, if compared with other gods. In fact, I’m sure Kuro could probably destroy my dad, although Kuro is technically a minor god as well.
Actually, considering all of the evil and chaos and destruction in the world right now, he might not be so minor anymore. After all, very malleable humans and their want for power at any costs are very useful tools for destruction and chaos that are just begging to be used by Kuro. When there is a person who wants to take over the world, or blow something up, or kill other people, Kuro finds that person very quickly and puts them to use creating destruction. It’s how he’s become so good at his job.
“But Lizzie,” Puck finally begins, overcoming his shock at my answer at last, “don’t you want to at least try to save Luke? Is he not worth that much to you?”
Before I can stop myself or moderate my tongue, I find myself replying, “Holy [censored], Luke was right about you! You really are determined to tear us apart, aren’t you?” My anger takes over me, and all of a sudden, I find myself on my feet, towering over Puck. “Do you enjoy chaos and heartbreak, Puck?” I pause for a fraction of a second, don’t give him a chance to reply, because I keep on talking almost immediately afterwards. “After all, you go out of your way to sabotage relationships and screw with people, so I really think that you must get off on betrayal, despair and using people.” I can’t stop myself from adding at the end, “If so, you should meet this friend of mine. His name’s Kuro, and he’s just as much of a son of a bitch as you are.”
When I finally stop talking, I find that the arena’s completely silent again. Desperately I search out Max in the crowd to find him with his head in his hands, and I can tell, without even trying to read his mind, that he thinks I’m going to be dead by the end of the day. I guess it really doesn’t make much of a difference, considering that I would dead, with the start of Team Survival, tomorrow anyways.
I catch Mitchell’s eye for a moment to see him visibly sigh and shake his head, and I feel momentarily guilty for not being able to last long enough to be the spark like Mitchell wanted me to. Oh well; maybe my comments to Puck will suffice as rebellious enough for me to be the martyr.
Almost defiantly, I scan the crowd for Rush, and find him almost immediately; those pitch-black eyes are impossible to miss, even in a gathering as large as this one. I meet his gaze to see an amused but not at all surprised look on his face, and I know that he must have predicted I would snap like this at some point before Team Survival actually started. He should be happy; I’ve just given him an excuse to kill me even earlier than he had planned.
However, I don’t see him whisper anything to the attendants around him, or reach into his jacket to flip the switch that controls an alarm to release the soldiers to come get me. I guess that means that he’s already called the soldiers, and my death – most likely televised, as they’ll want to send a message to the Sections – is only moments away. Completely disregarding Puck, who is still sitting there in shock, I look around warily at the entrances to the arena, expecting to see soldiers rushing out of one of them at any moment.
However, five seconds pass without any signs of soldiers, and I look back up at Rush to find him still sitting there, his expression even more amused now. It then hits me that there aren’t any soldiers coming for me, that Rush is going to have me killed on national television tomorrow like he wanted, and that, for twelve more hours, I’m safe. Well, it depends on your definition of safe, but I guess I’m safe by Triple Crown standards.
By this point, Puck has finally recovered enough to speak, and announces into the microphone in his hand, his voice a weak echo of its usual volume and emotion, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Lizzie Gates!”
He then gestures for me to exit the stage, which I do so eagerly, catching Marshall’s gaze and smirking with him as I do. Even though Luke, his expression stony as he looks up at me, clearly doesn’t approve of my behavior, at least there’s one person who’s willing to back me up all the way to hell. Oh, wait, we’re already there.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“So what’s our plan for the Triple Crown?” I ask Abby, and she looks up at me blankly for a second before realizing that I’m actually asking her, even though there’s no one else in the room. I guess she didn’t count at all on me using on her strategizing skills; maybe that’s because she doesn’t think she has any.
“Survive?” she replies, shrugging, and I can’t help but smile. Leave it to Abby to come up with the rational response to a question I would reply to with ‘die.’
“Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good plan,” I agree ruefully, thinking that it’s a good thing Abby doesn’t know my actual plan. I would never hear the end of it about breaking the promise of always Luke made me if she did, and I might almost be guilted into not being the spark and not dying in the arena. Of course, I’m dead anyways, even if I win the Triple Crown, so I might as well die on-screen, where I can at least say some famous last words.
A few moments pass in silence between us before Abby gets the nerve to pipe up and ask, a teasing tone to her voice, “So how was your honeymoon with Luke?” She looks up at me with her huge, adoring blue eyes – which I know are actually at the mention of Luke – and I can’t help but think that she should have been the one to marry Luke.
“It was ok,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders. “We didn’t really do much, to be perfectly honest. We just talked a lot and then fell asleep.”
“You didn’t…?” Abby begins, her tone a terrible impersonation of seductive almost, and suddenly I realize that she’s asking if Luke and I slept together. Oh God; I really didn’t want to have this conversation with anyone, much less Abby!
“Oh God no,” I instantly reply before I can moderate my tongue. Oh well; she deserves some tougher language for putting me in this situation. Actually, she should consider herself lucky that I didn’t say something even worse.
“But, why not?” Abby asks me, and I can’t help but think that it really isn’t her business, even though she does like to claim partial responsibility for Luke and I getting in a relationship in the first place.
“Luke and I…” I begin, not knowing how to phrase it so as to respect her delicate ears, “just aren’t like that.” When I’m finished, I shrug. Unfortunately, that happens to be the best, most eloquent and explanatory answer I can come up with right now.
“Really?” Abby questions, and I look over at her warily. Where’s she going with this? “Because I see the way he looks at you, and I think it’s pretty obvious that he does want it to be like that.” She meets my gaze inquisitively, and I roll my eyes at my own blindness. If a fairly innocent eleven-year-old can see that Luke wants to sleep with me, how in the hell did I not see it?
“Well, I don’t want to do that with him, and he respects that,” I reply, and Abby nods her head in understanding.
A few seconds go by in silence, until Abby finally adds, “You know, he really is perfect for you,” like I knew she would – she really is one of the most predictable people I know, besides Luke; no one can beat him in a predictability contest.
“I know,” I respond quietly, and I can’t help but sigh. Everyone – including myself – has been telling me that Luke’s perfect for me, that there shouldn’t even be a choice between him and Jackson, but even now, even though I’m married to Luke, I don’t know if his perfection is really what I want. I suppose I don’t have a choice in the matter anymore though.
Suddenly I realize that Abby and I have been in my room talking for almost two hours – although only about a minute was actually used for strategizing, like I had intended the whole time to be used for – so I turn to her and tell her, “It’s late, and we need to go to bed.” Even though I don’t dare add, “So we can be rested for our deaths,” at the end, the threat of doom hangs in the air just as heavily as if I had.
“Ok,” Abby agrees, her voice sullen and depressed all of sudden. I can’t help but smile, even as I roll my eyes at her, at the fact that she doesn’t want to leave; in some ways, she really is seven or eight.
“Abby, you can stay with me tonight if you’d like,” I tell her, not able to stop a little bit of exasperation from creeping into my voice.
“Like a sleepover?” Abby asks, her tone anxious and hopeful, and, when I nod my head yes, it’s as if I pulled the pin on a grenade of high-pitched sounds.
As Abby’s happy squeals fill the air, I feel my eyes begin to water because of the pain the noise is causing my eardrums and slap my hands over my ears in an attempt to block out some of the sounds. Even though it’s not very effective, it doesn’t take Abby too long to look over at me and realize that my face is screwed up in pain, not happiness like hers is.
“Are you alright?” she asks me concernedly, and, as I warily remove my hands from my ears, I nod my head yes.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply, shaking my head slightly to clear all remaining memory of Abby’s earsplitting shouts out of my mind. “You just have an incredibly high voice.”
“Sorry,” she tells me bashfully, dropping her head to her knees.
“Oh no, it’s fine,” I say reassuringly, then rise to my feet from off the bed and cross the room to rummage through the closet, looking for something Abby can wear. Even though everything in the closet has been designed especially for me by Mitchell and therefore is huge on Abby, there’s bound to be something that she can just throw on for the night.
When I come across a pair of short shorts – which won’t be short on Abby at all – and a tank top that’s a little short on me – which means that it will be a dress on Abby – I turn to her, tell her, “Nightclothes,” and throw both garments at her.
She catches them easily, and slips off of the bed to go into the bathroom adjoining my room to change. I strip down and change myself, and am about to put my nightshirt on when Luke, whistling slightly, comes into the room unannounced and takes me completely by surprise.
“Luke, let me put my shirt on!” I hiss at him, very conscious of only having a bra on, and shove him back out of the room and lock the door behind me before he can say anything in response. I then quickly slip into my nightshirt and open the door a crack to glare at Luke.
However, unlike I thought he would, he doesn’t look abashed at all. If anything, he looks pleased with himself, and beams down at me as I scowl up at him. “What? We’re married,” he says with a smirk, and, annoyed, I shut the door in his face again. However, he soon calls out, “Oh, come on Lizzie, I was just joking,” and, sighing slightly, I turn back around to open the door up a crack again.
“And?” I prompt, staring up at him expectantly. It’s my turn to smirk when I see the exasperated look on his face, but he replies like I want him to.
“And I’m sorry,” he finishes, and I give him a true smile as I open the door up and stand back to let him in.
“Apology accepted,” I tell him, and lean up to kiss him lightly on the lips. When he pulls back after a moment, he wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me to him, smiling down at me as I bury my face in his shoulder and inhale his scent. It’s scary and more than a bit alarming to realize that I’m going to get cut off permanently from my supply of the drug that’s him in less than a month.
Suddenly my mind wanders onto the forbidden subject of Jackson, and I immediately try to get myself to think of something else, anything else. However, it doesn’t do any good, and I find myself pulling away from Luke, sitting down on my bed and sighing as I allow Jackson Lucas Carter to come into my thoughts for the first time in almost a week and a half.
I wonder how he’s doing, considering that he’s facing losing me tomorrow. I hope he hasn’t gone on any more rampages or destroyed any more El Nieve property; he’s probably been killed by the Protectors by now if he has. (Jackson is conditionally immortal, like I am, and undoubtedly Rush knows this and would be more than willing to use it, if an opportunity to get Jackson out of the way presented itself.)
However, my thoughts are almost immediately interrupted by Luke simultaneously asking me, “What’s wrong?” and a door creaking open as Abby, making my clothes look like baggy robes, comes out of the bathroom to stare at Luke in surprise.
“Just thinking about Jackson,” I tell Luke in reply at the same time that Abby questions him, “What are you doing here?”
Luke nods his head in understanding at me and then turns to Abby, a smile on his face, to tell her, “Well, Lizzie and I kind of are married, so I was hoping we could spend the night together.”
“Oh, ok,” Abby says slowly, looking between Luke and I almost suspiciously, as though she thinks that this some kind of conspiracy or secret of ours. I suppose she does have a basis for thoughts like those, considering that Luke and I have had our share of conspiracies and secrets between us. Of course, she doesn’t even know the biggest one of those yet.
“Well, I’ll leave you two alone then,” Abby says, her tone slightly disappointed.
However, she slips out of the room quickly and without any further comment, closing the door behind her, and, when she’s gone Luke turns back to me to ask again, “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah,” I reply, to immediately backtrack, a bitter smile crossing my face, “Well, no.” I pause for a moment, not sure how to intelligently articulate my thoughts. “I just… I’m just worried about Jackson. You know how unpredictable he can be,” I say quietly, and Luke nods his head again. A few seconds go by in silence before I finally get the nerve to say the rest of what’s on my mind. “And… I can’t help but wonder if there’s something wrong with me, for still loving him some when you’re perfect for me and I’m married to you.” I look up at him desperately, and he takes a seat next to me, a small, knowing smile on his face.
“Lizzie, just because I’m perfect for you doesn’t mean that I’m what you want,” Luke tells me gently, and I look over at him in amazement. He shouldn’t be telling me this stuff; it goes against everything he wants! Oh, right, he’s one of those really weird guys who will tell me the truth no matter what, even if it hurts their cause.
“I know, Luke,” I begin, “but isn’t there something wrong with me if I don’t want the best I can get, if I don’t want perfection?” I look over at him again, and, much to my surprise, he answers almost immediately again too.
“Love is a very… odd thing,” Luke replies, and I can’t help but snort slightly. He’s telling me! “Who knows why I fell in love with you the first moment I laid eyes on you? Who knows why you still love Jackson when I’m supposedly better for you than he is? Love is basically a game of ‘who knows’ questions, with nobody but God – and he sure as hell isn’t telling anytime soon – knowing the answers.”

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

I smile at his reply, because, even though I don’t like not knowing the answers, it makes perfect sense, and I scoot over to lean my head on his shoulder and have him wrap his arm around my waist.
Suddenly it occurs to me that Luke is supposed to be using this time to strategize with Marshall, not answer my nearly-unanswerable questions, so I turn to him and say, “Aren’t you supposed to be strategizing with Marshall? You know, figuring out how to survive Team Survival?” They already have a strategy which I hate: keep me alive at any costs, even at their detriment, but you’d think that they might have other things to talk about still.
“Oh, Marshall and I already have a plan that we don’t need to discuss, which you heard during interviews,” he replies, and, as he looks down at me, I can see the slight fear in his eyes. Clearly he knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t like his and Marshall’s plan, but they went through with it anyways, which just makes me even angrier at the both of them/
“Remind me what it is, please,” I command coldly, meeting his gaze and narrowing my eye at him. Since he knew I wouldn’t like his idea, but he still chose to do anyways, he gets to deal with the full force of my anger now.
“Find you and Abby and protect you till the end.” He meets my eye firmly and almost stares me down – I guess his drive to save me, even when I’m not worth saving, finally kicked in and gave him the backbone to hold his ground – and I can’t help but sigh in exasperation, weariness and anger. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen!
“Luke, I don’t want another person dying for my sake!” I tell him, my temper getting the best of me and my voice getting louder.
“Lizzie, it’s his choice. You can’t dissuade him from it now,” Luke tells me, and I shake my head in frustration. “Besides, it’s like you said to Jackson-” – at the mention of Jackson I immediately look up and stare over at him almost warily – “‘You can’t save me from myself.’ Well, you can’t save Marshall from himself either, because he’s chosen to put his life on the line for you.” After a moment’s pause, Luke adds, “You should be honored, Lizzie.”
I can tell that, as soon as the words are out of his mouth, Luke regrets speaking them. However, I don’t let him take them back, because I explode on him. “Honored?! Honored?!” My voie fills with anger and indignation and I look over at him like he’s lost his mind. I suppose he very well could have by now, considering all of the stress this place puts on your mind and body.
“Lizzie,” Luke begins to say, but I don’t want to hear anything else from him and keep on talking like he hadn’t said anything at all.
“Luke, I don’t want another name on my kill list, whether that person chooses to be on there or not!” I meet his gaze to have him stare back at me coolly, which puzzles me enough to get me to shut up for a second. Shouldn’t Luke be meek and apologetic, not trying to stand his own ground?
“Lizzie, you don’t have a kill list,” Luke says, and my eyes shoot open even more in surprise and anger. This is less tactless than the last comment he made!
“No kill list?!” I stare over at him for a second, dumbstruck by his momentary stupidity. Luke should know better than to say something like that to me right now. “Have you forgotten that I killed every person I faced in Hand-to-Hand Combat except for you and that I was the kill leader for all of One-Person Survival? That sure sounds a whole hell of a lot like a kill list to me!” I exclaim, and here Luke finally has the decency to drop his head and look away ashamedly. After pausing a moment to control my thoughts and take a deep breath, I continue in a normal voice, meeting his gaze and willing him, and his inherent innocence, to understand, “Luke, I don’t want to be responsible for any more bodies. Being responsible for all of the bodies I’ve created in the past is a big enough job already.”
“Lizzie, this is his decision, not yours. Therefore it’s not something you’re responsible for,” Luke tells me gently, and it’s my turn to lower my head in admittance. I know what he says is true, that I really shouldn’t feel compelled to take responsibility for other people’s actions, but I guess that’s why I’m the martyr: I want to burn for everybody.
“I know, Luke,” I murmur, not looking up when he lays one warm hand on my forearm comfortingly. “I just... I just can’t help but feel like, since he might die to protect me, that whatever happens to him is my responsibility.” Here I look up at Luke, meet his gaze, and shrug in defeat. Like usual, the only mind I can’t understand is my own.
“Lizzie, look at it from his perspective,” Luke begins. “Marshall knows he’s going to die anyways, so why not die protecting the girl he loves?” I hear Luke’s voice tighten a bit at the mention of ‘the girl he loves’ and I can’t help but think how genuinely alike Marshall and Luke are; in terms of behavior, they honestly are two peas in a pod.
“He sounds a lot like you,” I say quietly, and a small smile crosses his face as he nods his head in agreement.
“I guess he kind of is,” Luke murmurs in agreement as he stares over at me. “After all, he is kind of hopelessly in love with the most amazing girl on the planet.” After a moment’s hesitation, he adds, “Of course, considering all of the places you’ve gone, there’s probably a hundred more people like us.”
A brief, bitter smile flashes across my face as I murmur quietly, “I’m really not nearly as amazing as you and Marshall and Jackson make me out to be.”
“Lizzie, don’t lie like that!” Luke shoots back, and the exasperation, indignation and anger in his voice surprises me. “You are the most amazing person I have ever met, and the fact that there’s two other guys who believe that as strongely as I do just further emphasizes its validity!”
“Oh yeah, three teenage boys falling in love with the same girl totally makes her perfect,” I reply sarcastically, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at his downright idiotic logic. Does he really listen to what he says sometimes?
I see, out of the corner of my eye, Luke open his mouth to respond and I immediately continue, trying a different vein that will hopefully work better on him, “Luke, do you know how many people I’ve killed? Do you truly know how many names are on my kill list? Do you really know how much blood and sin I’ve soaked myself in during the seventeen years I’ve been alive? Can you even truly comprehend how far from perfect, how a-moral I am?”
I see the fading, angry look on his face and take his silence as an opportunity to keep on talking. “Luke, I am so far from the perfection that you see that the Lizzie you think I am and the Lizzie I really am could never exist in the same universe. You are so blinded by your love for me that you can’t see what I truly am: inherently dangerous. Hell, if you could see me for what I really am, you would stay the hell away from me!” I exclaim, which prompts Luke to try to interrupt me. However, I see this attempt and keep on speaking before he has a chance to cut me off. “Luke, you claim that I am perfection, that I am good for you, when in reality I am as far from good for you as is possible. I mean, if it weren’t for me and my assassin skills, we wouldn’t be in this dimension right now!”
“I guess you are to me as Jackson is to you then,” Luke finally gets a chance to say. “You might not be good for me, and there might not be a reason for me to love you, but you are still all I will ever want and I still love you with all of my heart, and isn’t that kind of how it is with you and Jackson? You love him, even when you think that you shouldn’t and you know he isn’t the best thing for you.” He looks over at me for conformation, and I feel compelled to nod my head yes. “That’s kind of how it is with me and you. I don’t know why I love you, or why on earth my heart chose to permanently latch onto you, but I do know that I will you love you always, no matter what you say or what happens.” He hesitates for half a second before adding, “Hell, I would say that I will love you until I die, but I know that I will love as long as my heart and mind live on, which I hope is beyond the grave.”
His comment brings a question that has been floating at the back of my mind for a while up to the surface, and I ask, looking over at him and meeting his gaze, “Do you think we’ll get to be together, in the afterlife?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” Luke replies, a slight smile crossing his face despite the serious and desperate situation. “I mean, I lived the last four years of my life for you, so I’d hope that I’d at least get to spend a little bit of time with you when I’m dead.”
“Yeah, I hope so too,” I reply honestly. Luke really has crept up on me and grown his claim to my heart over the last two and a half months exponentially, so much so that I think I might love him more than I love Jackson now. “It’d be a shame to die for the sake of love and not even get to see the person you died for in the afterlife.”
“You’re telling me,” Luke says quietly, and reaches over to gently wrap his arm around my waist and pull me to him again. After a few moments of just holding me and stroking my hair, he murmurs in my ear, “We really should go to sleep now. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
I can’t help but snort at Luke’s last comment, because he sounds more like a father talking to his elementary-school-aged son than a man facing death with the person he loves. “Yeah, a day that might be our last,” I mutter in reply, but oblidge to his request all the same and pull back the covers on my bed to crawl in and have Luke crawl in next to me.
I then reach over and flip the switch to turn the light out, and Luke and I proceed to lay in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments until Luke finally works up the nerve to break it. “Well, if tomorrow is our last, at least we get to die with the people we love,” he whispers in my ear, then kisses the back of my neck softly and locks his arms possessively around me. “Good night, my love,” he murmurs before drifting off and leaving me alone in the world of reality.
I try to organize my thoughts about Jackson, and, when that doesn’t work, attempt to think about strategies that will keep Abby and I alive in the arena. However, that gets nowhere too, and, after a few long minutes of no results, I give up, roll over to rest my head on his chest, and find myself drifting off in a matter of seconds, my last thought being that maybe that term ‘my love’ finally applies to Luke too.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie,” I hear a name urgently mumuring, and my eyes immediately pop open. Like always, it takes a couple seconds for them to adjust to the blinding whiteness, but, when they do, I let out a cry of surprise when I see who’s standing above me: Jackson.
However, I quickly get over my surprise to sit up and throw my arms around his neck as I cry, “Jackson!” I have never been so happy to have his slightly sharp scent, made so by the hatred and anger he feels, fill my nose, and I close my eyes and lean against him, feeling his hard, lean body against mine. I hadn’t realized, up until now, how bad my Jackson withdrawal symptoms were, and how bad I had missed him. It feels like my heart is about to explode from the joy I’m feeling at having him here with me.
“Lizzie,” he whispers in my ear, his arms tightening around me, and I feel his lips brush my neck and sigh in happiness. Why couldn’t he have been with me, like this, for the last week and a half? I really could have used to take a couple more doses of my rapidly-evaporating drug supply.
He just holds me silently for a few seconds – based off the happiness and relief radiating off of him, I’d say that he missed me almost more than I missed him – and finally pulls back with more than a bit of reluctance to look me in the eye and tell me, “Lizzie, I’m sorry for waking you, but Team Survival starts in three hours-” – he chokes a little on the part about Team Survival starting, since he knows that he’s going to lose me permanently in three hours, and the desperation and unbearable sadness coming from him is enough to break my heart without him saying anything else – “-and I want to get to be with you, and spend these last few hours with you, and maybe make up for some of the stupid things I’ve done to you in the last two and a half months.” He gives me a small, unbelievably sad smile, and I can’t help but smile back to reassure him.
“Jackson, thank you for waking me up,” I tell him sincerely, leaning up to gently kiss him on the cheek. “I really could use to spend a few hours with you.” I leave off ‘before I die’ at the end, but both of us are as aware of it as if I had said it anyways.
“I think this will be more for my benefit than for yours,” he says quietly, taking my hands and entwining his fingers with mine. I look down to see in surprise that he’s not protesting at all to touching my wedding ring, which prompts Jackson to give me a small grin as he notices my surprise.
“There are more important things than wedding rings today,” he murmurs, and leans forward to kiss me gently on the lips. After a moment, he pulls back so that our noses are almost touching and whispers, his golden, incredibly intense eyes that are currently filled with happiness but also burning with more anger and sadness than usual, “I love you, Lizzie.”
He then lets go of me and stands back to let me rise to my feet, and wraps his arm around my waist as he gives me a smile to accompany me out the door of my room.
I resist the urge to get as close to him as possible and lean into him as we walk, since I know that we could both end up falling if I do, and give Max a sincere smile as we walk past him.
“Hey Max,” I call out in greeting, happily finding that I can’t stop smiling, no matter what I do. However, my smile soon fades as I see the stormy look on his face.
“What are you doing, Lizzie?” he asks me, his expression slightly angry but mostly worried as he looks between Jackson and I.
“Max, I’m going to be in the arena in three hours,” I reply, my tone exasperated. Is me being with Jackson really such an issue now, when I won’t be able to be with him much longer and am on my way out anyways? “Could you just let me do what I want to instead of what I have to for once?”
Max huffs quietly in response, and I can tell that he still doesn’t approve, but he doesn’t say anything else about it, thank God. However, I’m not so lucky with other people I happen to stumble across.
As Jackson and I make out way out to the kitchen area of the floor – both of our stomachs are downright roaring by this point – we find a very familiar tiny blond form picking up dishes, and I call out to her in surprise and happiness, “Abby!” When she turns around and sees me, a huge smile lights up her face. That smile disappears very quickly when she sees that the boy who has his arm around my waist is Jackson, not Luke.
“Why’s he here?” She jerks her head in Jackson’s direction, her eyes narrowing in suspicion and dislike as she looks at him. “Where’s Luke?” She turns back to me and narrows her eyes at me now, as though she suspects that I got rid of Luke to have Jackson around. “He wouldn’t allow him to be here.” Her eyes flicker over towards Jackson again, and I can’t help but think that the hatred she feels for him would almost be comical if it weren’t so real.
“Actually, I would,” a very familiar voice behind me says, its tone ruefully amused, and I turn around in surprise to find Luke standing about ten feet away with an amused look on his face.
“Luke!” I cry, and pull away from Jackson to cross the gap between us with five long strides and embrace him in a huge hug. As I hug him and feel his body, which, even though it’s just as muscled as Jackson’s, seems to be softer in some way, press against mine, I’m reminded of how truly different Luke and Jackson are. They’re almost polar opposites; Luke is so much more... soft, maybe even breakable, than Jackson.
After a few moments, I pull back to stare up at him and have him murmur down at me, his smile contented now, “Hi.”
In that moment, I am so struck by Luke’s eyes and his almost beauty that I can’t help but lean up and kiss him, his arms locking around me as I do so. A few seconds go by, everything else that was on my mind and around me besides Luke completely forgotten, before I realize that I kind of need to stop kissing him so I can breathe and not suffocate. Almost reluctantly, I pull back to take a deep breath and stare up at him again, almost in amazement this time. I find it almost shocking how he can completely fill me up and make me forget everything else, even if just for a few seconds. I’ve never felt that with Jackson; I’ve always been aware of my surroundings when I’ve kissed him. I guess that just shows how Luke can completely take up my mind and also how I’m willing to give myself completely to Luke. Maybe that means that I trust him more than I trust Jackson. Actually, I know I trust Luke more than I trust Jackson, because Jackson’s so damn unpredictable that it’s hard to trust him, even if I do love him.
“What was that for?” Luke asks me quietly, staring down at me in confusion and happiness as he raises a hand to gently caress the side of my face.
“You’re kind of cute when you smile,” I tell him, my eyes locked on his. I take in every shade of his brilliant-blue irises, from the blue so light that it’s almost white around the edges of his pupils to the indigo so dark that it’s almost black that borders his irises near the whites of his eyes. His eyes are truly a mosaic of colors, and I can’t imagine anything else being more beautiful than they are; they’re more breathtaking than any sunset or waterfall or mountain I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure.
“Oh,” he replies quietly, his tone slightly surprised. I guess he kind of has a right to be, since I’ve never said or done anything like this before in the history of our relationship. “Well, you’re kind of radiant all the time,” he tells me as he gives me a smile, his fingers gently tracing the slope of my cheek. I lean into his hand, my gaze glued on his, and everything else – Jackson, Abby, the scary-white kitchen around us, the threat of imminent doom hanging over my head – disappears to leave only him and me, floating in space forever. It idly occurs to me that some kind of memory-capturing device would be very useful in these kinds of situations, because I’d like to remember this moment for the rest of my life.
“I love you, Lucas William Gates,” I hear myself saying, and I know that, for the first time since the wedding, I’m actually meaning those words with all of my heart.
I hear Luke gasp slightly in surprise, and he stares down at me, his expression skeptical, for a few long moments before finally coming up with a reply. “Lizzie, are you alright?” he asks, and I come hurtling down to earth. That’s not what he should reply with; no, he should reply with “I love you too,” or even just a hug or a kiss, not with, “Are you alright?”
I’m perfectly fine, thanks for asking, Luke. I’m not on something, I’m not in the arena, and I’m not acting; is it such a stretch for me to say, “I love you,” when I’m not in any of those situations? Luke’s first reply to me truly opening my heart up to him shouldn’t be to doubt it, it should be accept and embrace. After all, I thought this was what he wanted: me to mean it, and not have to act anymore. I guess I’ve just been acting with Luke for so long that even he – the boy who never gives up, who never loses faith no matter how high the odds are stacked against us – has begun to doubt if I could ever actually love him. Our relationship shouldn’t be like that, it just shouldn’t. There’s something wrong, something perverted and twisted about it, if Luke’s knee-jerk response to “I love you” is to doubt it.

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie!” I hear Jackson’s concerned voice cry out, and I am pulled away from my thoughts and into the real world again by someone shaking me violently. My eyes focus, and I’m vaguely aware of something wet on my cheeks as a very worried Jackson standing in front of me stares down at me anxiously. It crosses my mind that Luke was the one standing in front of me not too long ago – well, it could have been centuries or millennia even; I wouldn’t have been able to tell if Jackson weren’t there in front of me and, pulling me back to the present – and I look around Jackson to see Luke standing off to the side, looking even more worried than Jackson does. I hear Jackson say some more meaningless words, the only one I catch my name, and I turn my attention back onto him and try weakly to get my mind to focus and work and understand the things he’s saying.
“What’s the matter?” I catch, and I think idly that Luke says that too much.
“Are you alright?” I hear; Luke says that too much too. I see movement over Jackson’s shoulder to find Max standing there next to Luke too too, his expression just as concerned as the rest of them. They worry too much, all of them. Or maybe they make me worry too much.
“Lizzie!” Abby’s shrill, worried voice cries; they all say that too much too.
“Lizzie, please,” I hear Luke murmur, his voice almost inaudible to the human ear but very audible to mine, and suddenly I snap out of my trance, my blind reverie and look over at him as if I’ve never seen him before in my life. As I pull away from Jackson to walk towards him, the question of why did his voice snap me out of it, when no one else could, crosses my mind, and I can’t help but smile as I think idly that that’s a very good question.
“What were you asking me to do, Luke?” I stare up at him, and am struck by the beauty of his eyes again. I don’t think I could ever get over that, even if I spent eternity with him.
“To forgive me,” he replies quietly, his gaze locked on mine. “I’m sorry for doubting that you love me.” He raises a gentle hand to the side of my face again, and begins to trace my cheekbones again. A moment of silence that isn’t awkward at all passes between us, and is broken when Luke says, “Isn’t it sad, that I would doubt you love me?” I feel compelled to nod my head yes, and Luke continues, “I shouldn’t be cynical like that. I shouldn’t be insensitive like that. I shouldn’t have allowed El Nieve to get inside me and change me like that.”
“El Nieve didn’t change you,” I murmur. “I changed you.” After a moment’s pause to gather my thoughts, I keep on talking, “Me not loving you for so long made you doubt that I would ever love you; after all, even you, being human, have to run out of patience at some point.” I give him a small smile when I’m done. I guess his breaking point for waiting on me was four years, which is three years and six months longer than any other guy has waited for me so far.
I look over at Jackson and fully realize, with a start, that it’s been about six months since Alexa rejected him and he started waiting on me. He hasn’t taken it too well, either; he could pass as twenty-five easily, and his features are made almost more intense with this false aging that’s taken over him.
My gaze turns onto Max, and I see with satisfaction that he looks the same as always: somewhere between twenty and forty even though he’s almost eighty-five. At least I haven’t aged him; I don’t know if I could live with myself if I had actually caused Max enough stress to break and change his agelessness.
I look down at Abby, and see with a start that she’s aged at least five years over the three months we’ve been here. Even though her angelic face could never pass as anything older than eleven, her expression and the almost-haunted look in her eyes somehow change her, and make her look sixteen at least. It’s downright alarming, to perfectly honest. I’m not even sure I want to look in a mirror now, if all of us look that dreadful.
I turn to look back up at Luke and find, to be unpleasantly surprised, that he’s aged just as much as Jackson and Abby have. I hadn’t really noticed it up until this point – I guess I was too focused on his eyes to actually look at the rest of him – but, now that I do look at the rest of him, it’s obvious that the Triple Crown hasn’t done him any favors either. He could pass for twenty-five, just like Jackson, and the dark circles under his eyes accentuate the aging. I probably caused those dark circles; after all, it has to be really hard to get some sleep when the person next to you is flailing and screaming in her nightmares the whole night.
“I promised you always-” Luke begins, but I immediately cut him off, not wanting to hear him bring himself down, like he’s so fond of doing.
“And you gave me four years,” I finish for him, my eyes locked on his. “That’s all I need, Luke.” I give him a small smile, and the corners of his mouth twitch up almost involuntarily. I guess my smile is truly contagious.
“I still feel like I should have given you more, though,” Luke insists on saying, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at his determination to blame himself for everything. If anything, I’m the one to blame for Luke running out of patience, considering I made him wait so long.
“Luke, you didn’t have to give me anything at all, so the fact that you gave me four years – three years and nine months of which I didn’t even know about – is amazing to begin with,” I tell him, and finally he has the decency to bow his head in admittance. “I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that I would ever have someone as dedicated as you give up a quarter of their life for me, so it amazes me that there actually someone out there who would wait that long for me. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m holding you to any standard or anything.” I give him a smile, but he doesn’t smile back this time.
Instead he says quietly, “I’m holding myself to a standard, and anything less than always is unacceptable to me,” his eyes locked on mine.
“You’re holding yourself to too high of a standard then. After all, you only have eighty years on this earth to begin with!” I exclaim, and, much to my surprise, a smile darts across Luke’s face here.
“You honestly think that I would stop loving you if I died?” Luke asks me, and I immediately open my mouth to backtrack and say that’s not what I meant at all. However, I don’t get a chance to, because Luke keeps on talking. “Lizzie, I will love you as long as my heart – in the figurative sense – is intact. As long as I can feel, I will feel love for you,” he murmurs, his gaze glued on mine, and the passion and reverence rolling off of him in waves is enough to pull me under and drown me in the tide of emotion.
I don’t try to say anything in reply, since I know that any response I could ever come up with would just be feeble in comparison to Luke’s announcement, so I throw my arms around the back of his neck and just kiss him again.
The kiss is different than it was before; there’s more passion and intensity to it, and both of us seem to want each other more than we’ve ever wanted each other before. As the moments pass, my hands work their way up to lock into his hair, and his arms, wrapped around my waist, crush me to him. After a few too-short, blissful seconds, it occurs to me that I’m running out of breath, and I pull back reluctantly to take in a few lungfuls of air.
“Wow,” Luke murmurs, vocalizing the thought on both of our minds as he stares down at me. Luke and I have kissed many times before, but never had we kissed like that before. It was as if we were both on fire with need for the other person, and neither one of us have ever felt that kind of passion pass between us before. It’s more than a bit alarming, that’s for sure.
I hear someone clear their throat behind me and turn around, about ready to punch whoever broke the glorious moment Luke and I were sharing, to find tears streaming down Abby’s cheeks. The droplets of water sparkling on her face pull painfully at one of my heartstrings, and I squat down to look her in the eye and try to comfort her. I reach out towards her, beckoning her to come into a hug, when it suddenly occurs to my incredibly slow mind that I don’t even know why she’s crying.
Since the only way I’m going to find out is by asking – well, I guess I could read her mind, but that goes against all of my morals about personal privacy – I almost stare her down, trying to make my gaze reassuring, as I question her quietly, “Abby, why are you crying?” I add after a moment’s hesitation, “I’m sorry if it’s something I did, and I will do everything in my power to make it right to you if I’m what hurt you.”
Much to my surprise and confusion, Abby shakes her head no, and, a millisecond before she opens her mouth to explain, everything falls into place in my mind, and I know exactly why she’s crying: she’s finally getting to see me get the fairytale ending, where I truly love Luke, that she always wanted me to have.
“Lizzie, that was the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” Abby says after she clears her throat and wipes her cheeks dry with the back of her hand.
“Agreed,” Max says, and I stare up at him in amazement. Max isn’t one to get emotional, or encourage me to get emotional, for that matter, but I see tears welling up in his eyes too, and I wonder why. I didn’t think anything Luke and I did was that amazing – well, except for the kiss, but of course they could experience that – but I guess things are different when you’re on the outside looking in.