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Fifty-Three
Skye
Present
As we begin to move, me at the end of the line, we enter a giant domed room. I look up at the bright lights, at the fortified glass walls. My eyes narrow as I peer through them, at the rows and rows of people sitting. A fucking audience watching. There’s no light shining where they are. They look like dark ominous figures.
My body goes weak.
“I’m scared,” I whisper under my breath, and for a moment I imagine Hunter as a boy, and he’s holding my hand, and he’s telling me, “It’s okay, Skye. You can do it.”
I glance down at the imaginary boy, my eyes raw. “I’m breaking, Hunt…”
His dark eyes peer up at me, and he smiles. “Did you put a flower in your pocket, Nugget?”
I touch my side, and there it is, my imaginary pocket. “Do you think it’s still good luck if the flower isn’t real?”
“A flower is a flower,” he consoles me. “No matter what.”
A small hand takes hold of my other hand. I swing my eyes to my other side. I see Leo as a little boy smiling up at me. “You don’t need luck. You just need to be strong, sweetness.”
“But you’re both gone,” I tell him, choking on my words. “And you left me, Leo…I don’t know where you’ve been.”
Leo’s blue eyes brighten. “I’m closer than you think, Skye.”
“You are?”
He nods. “You’re so close…”
The floor is smooth, marbled. I step over blood spatter and blood-soaked weapons. I lift my head and glance around, faintly hearing the gurgle of a breath. I nearly trip over my feet as I see the man dying. I pass him, my heart thudding, my fear ratcheting. His muscled frame is naked and lying in a pool of his own blood. There are deep wounds over his torso. Deep cuts like he’s been stabbed. He twitches, his gaze losing focus as he raises a bloody hand into the air. I see the fresh wounds on his hand where some of his fingers used to be. The few fingers he has left close, like he’s grabbing at something only he can see.
He's hallucinating.
He’s about to pass.
I stop in my steps, my tears falling down my face now as I see the agonized sight of him. I turn and move to him instead, my heart hurting as it beats a sad rhythm inside me. I step through the puddles of blood, and then I kneel, my soul drenched in this man’s dying fire.
I take hold of his wounded hand, and even as the blood spills down my arms, I hold him tightly. “It’s okay,” I tell him on a sob. My boys kneel beside me, their imaginary hands brushing through the man’s long hair. “You can let go,” I tell him, my breaths quickening when his glazed eyes turn to meet mine.
In a few seconds, I watch the light fade from him, and he goes limp.
And I want to scream.
Because what the fuck is this?
A booted foot prods my back, and the cloaked cunt is there, growling, “Get up, whore!”
He prods me again, and I want to lash out and scream at him, but I get up.
He looks over my shoulder and at the glass wall. “This one is disobedient! This one should go to Cassius!”
But there’s no response coming from the wall of people, and I can sense his frustration. He digs his finger into the back of my neck and drags me aggressively across the room. I nearly trip over my feet, clenching my teeth in anger before my eyes follow the trail of blood we’re on.
I see the fingers of the man I just consoled.
I see bits of flesh and bone.
That anger is snuffed out, and in its place is horror.
My stomach twists as I look up and at the Victor.
A giant muscled man, naked, covered in blood and deep cuts. He’s holding a weapon—an axe—and I’m fucking terrified beyond belief.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Keep going,” Leo’s tiny voice says in my head. “Keep going, Skye…”
