Savage Run (20 page)

“
To the hospital, perhaps?”
he asks and looks at me.

“
No.” Mai gets out of the
transporter and walks around it to where the bellboy is standing.
“Help us get him inside. We’ve already checked in. Room
10545.”

“
Uh…most certainly, ma’am,”
he says. Nicholas and the bellboy lift Arthor’s arms above their
shoulders, and help him out of the transporter. Arthor groans, but
they continue to drag him toward the hotel.

I follow after, walking with Mai. The
interior has vaulted ceiling with serpent-like woodcarvings and
metal sculptures that resemble birds. We cross the marble-floor
foyer and Mai presses the button with the number two hundred and
thirteen. If I weren’t as exhausted as I am, I probably would love
this place, but right now nothing seems important other than Arthor
gets the help he needs and that I can get some rest.

The elevator doors open and we go down a
long, narrow, carpeted hallway. I hardly remember walking from the
elevator to the door, but somehow I manage to get there. Nearly
unconscious, I glance at the clock and it reads 5:07 a.m. Mai’s
room is a two-bedroom suite with a full kitchen, a living area, and
an office. Mai finds a first aid kit in the bathroom while the
bellboy and Nicholas take Arthor into one of the rooms to lay him
on the bed. Arthor’s eyes are open slits and drops of sweat roll
down his face.

Mai comes back with a white box, flings it
on the bed, and opens it. Wasting no time, she undoes the makeshift
bandage I put on and douses a cloth with alcohol. “I’m sorry. This
is going to hurt.”

Nicholas stays her hand. “Maybe we can give
him something for the pain.”

Mai nods and Nicholas leaves for a moment,
returning with a glass filled with dark yellow liquid. “It will
knock him out.”

Arthor downs the entire glass and rests his
sweaty head back onto the pillow. “We made it, Heidi,” he
whispers.

I take his hand in mine. “We did.”

“
We’ll wait to tend to the
wound until it takes effect,” Mai says. “Care for some food,
Heidi?”

“
No,” I say, remaining by
Arthor’s side. I won’t be able to stomach anything right
now.

“
Go eat. I’ll watch him,”
Nicholas says sternly.

I don’t feel like eating anything, but I’m
too tired to object, so I follow Mai out to the kitchen and have a
seat by the table. Every inch of me is still uncomfortably sore,
and I desperately need to get cleaned up—I can even smell
myself.

Mai sets a huge bowl of pasta and two tall
glasses of water in front of me, the beads of condensation
trickling down the outsides of the glasses. I gulp the entire first
glass down and start on the pasta, eating it quicker than I should
after having not eaten for twenty-four hours.

“
Your room is right across
the hallway from mine, but you can stay here until Arthor is
stabilized.”

“
Thank you.” I pick at the
pasta. “So what was that all about back there?” I ask.

Mai squint her eyes at me. “Oh.” She nods
her head. “The landmines were rigged to go off at fifty
pounds.”

I stop eating. “They changed it?” I ask as
calmly as I can, giving Nicholas the benefit of the doubt. He told
me they were rigged to go off at one hundred and thirty pounds, and
he wouldn’t lie to me. Would he?

Mai continues. “We found out about the
change right before the Opening Ceremony, but it wasn’t something
we were allowed to share with you.”

“
I went out there thinking
I was safe!”

“
Yes, but
thankfully…”

I don’t listen to the rest of her sentence,
only stand up and charge back into Arthor’s room where Nicholas
still is. “You lied to me?” I ask Nicholas.

He takes me by the arm and leads me out of
the room, closing the door behind him. “I didn’t think it would be
good for you to know. You would just have worried about it and I
needed to keep you emotionally stable.” He stares at me
unapologetically.

“
You needed to keep me
stable? Like I can’t do that myself? Like you can…control
me?”

“
Not like that.” He huffs.
“If I would have told you beforehand that you would probably be
blown up, wouldn’t it have made you terrified?”

“
It would have,” I admit.
“But I have a right to know the truth!”

“
We weren’t allowed to say
anything, Heidi.”

“
Not being allowed to say
or do something hasn’t stopped you before.”

His intense eyes bore into mine. “I get to
decide what I share. Will you just trust me that I’m trying to do
what’s best for you?”

“
Which is what, exactly?” I
pinch my lips together.

“
To keep you
alive.”

I point my finger at him. “I’ve lived as a
Laborer my entire life—”

He rolls his eyes. “Heidi…”

“—
where I’ve been told what
to do, what to think and what to believe. I can’t live like that
anymore.” No, it’s more than that. I shake my head. “I refuse to
live like that anymore! Knowing the truth is the only freedom I
have.”

His eyes grow worrisome and he breaks our
eye contact by looking down.

“
What?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Did you finish
eating?”

“
No.”

“
Why don’t you go and
finish eating, take a nice hot shower, and get some rest. Tomorrow
we’re attending the fundraiser at 8:00 p.m.” He pauses and the
right side of his lip curls into half a smile. “Only if you want
to, of course. It’s all optional.”

I don’t know what makes me think that I can
punch him in the arm, but I do. Immediately, I regret it. “I’m
sorry…I’m really tired, and…” When he starts to laugh, I can’t help
but smile a little.

“
Remember, you’re not a
Laborer anymore.”

Right as I open my mouth to
say that I
am
a
Laborer, I think I get what he’s trying to do: get me to change my
perception of myself.

He takes my arm and leads me back into the
kitchen. “Please eat.”

I sit down at the table and take a bite.
After I finish my food, Mai escorts me to my room just across the
hallway. It’s identical to Arthor’s room. She leaves me a key card
and says to come back once I’ve finished cleaning up.

I hop into the shower and turn the setting
on hot. The water scolds my skin, but it feels so good, like I’m
washing away all the grueling events in phase one. Someone has laid
out fresh clothes for me on my bed and I slip on the silky blue
pants and a loose white t-shirt with the Savage Run logo.

I return to Arthor’s room and see his leg is
bandaged; they must have wrapped it while I was in the shower. I
sit down on the bed and hold his hand, watching him sleep
peacefully. His skin is colorless, his cheeks sunken, and it’s only
a matter of days before he’ll die unless he receives professional
medical treatment.

“
You really should get some
rest, too,” Nicholas says, entering the room.

My eyes feel like they have gravel in them,
but I say, “I’m fine.” I turn back to Arthor.

Nicholas sighs a little. “I know you think
you are, but tomorrow is a long day and you still haven’t seen the
worst of the obstacles yet. Do you need anything to help you
sleep?”

I cringe at his words. ‘Still haven’t seen
the worst.’ I can’t imagine that I’ll be able to survive anything
crueler than I just went through. I look into his blue eyes as he
sits down next to me on the bed, his knee resting against my sore
thigh.

“
You did a great job out
there, but this next round will be even more difficult than the
first one.”

“
I can manage,” I
say.

He sighs in frustration. “Would it be so
hard to accept my help?”

I’ve always relied on myself, never having
found anyone I felt I could trust completely. Except for Gemma. And
she’s dead. “I just don’t…when I have in the past, they’ve always
let me down.”

“
I won’t let you down.” He
touches my elbow briefly.

I feel a flutter in my abdomen. “You don’t
have to help me.”

His eyebrows rise.

“
I know what’s best for
me.” I look down at the red carpet and pretend to kick
something.

“
I won’t let you down,
Heidi.”

I don’t believe him since everyone always
eventually does. “It won’t matter if I’m careful or risky out
there; it seems like surviving has more to do with luck than
anything.”

“
Listen, you may be
physically weaker than any of the other participants, but you’re a
whole lot smarter than most of them, too. You pick up on things
others don’t, so just use it to your full advantage.” He nudges me
with his elbow.

Heat rushes to my cheeks, and a lot of the
exhaustion I was feeling earlier has melted away. “Is that the
secret to survival? Picking up on things?”

“
There’s no secret.
Everyone knows the shortcuts are out there, but many can’t seem to
find them.” He places his hand on the mattress and leans in. “At
one point I wanted to join the Savage Run myself, to prove to my
father that I could do something worthwhile. I’m not as strong as
some of these guys, but I’m reasonably fast. And it’s easy for me
to determine where the shortcuts are—my mind has always been going
at a hundred miles a minute trying to decipher everything. I
planned to find the shortcuts in every single obstacle, just like
the one you found in Devil’s Cliff.”

“
What happened?”

“
My father forbade me to
register. Said he’d change my status to a Laborer if I tried. Like
I said before, he wanted me to be the venture manager, but as a
compromise, he let me become a registrar.”

“
Do you enjoy what you’re
doing?” I whisper.

His eyes scan my face, starting with my
eyes, until they reach my mouth where they linger for a long time,
and says, “I do.”

The room has become unbearably warm, and I
stand up and start to pace. “What about the next phase?” I ask.
“There doesn’t seem to be a way around those obstacles.”

“
That’s a tricky one, but
try to find a pattern on the disks or on the beams. The most
obvious route isn’t always the smartest or the easiest.”

“
What’s the hardest
obstacle you’ve ever seen?”

He thinks for a moment. “It depends on what
you’re afraid of, but I’d have to say the underwater swims. In one
competition, participants had to swim for longer and longer periods
of time beneath murky water before they came up for air. The last
stretch took some of them three minutes to complete and many
drown.” A wrinkle appears between his eyebrows and he looks down.
“That would be the hardest one for me.”

Why would he be afraid of water? “I’m not
really great at swimming either, but my main weakness is small
spaces.” My shoulders feel tense just thinking about it, having to
crawl through the Caves of Choice in phase three. He stands up and
walks over to me, never breaking eye contact. His blue eyes draw me
in—away from where I’ve been, away from the pain. What is it about
him that puts me at ease?

“
You’ve already proven that
you don’t give into your fears,” he says.

“
That’s because…” It’s
difficult to speak my mind when he’s so close to me, breathing the
same air. “…I never felt like I had a choice; it was just something
I had to do.” Mai comes into the room, and with her entrance, the
air returns.

“
So, there’s a problem,”
she says.

I immediately think that President Volkov
knows, and it’s as if I’ve been whacked in the solar plexus.

“
What?” Nicholas
asks.

“
We don’t have a tuxedo for
Heidi for the benefit,” she answers.

“
That’s a relief.” Nicholas
puffs.

“
This is serious!” Mai
says. “It’s not like we can just go out into the store and get her
one in her size.”

“
I thought you were going
to say something along the lines of that my father had found out
Heidi is a girl,” Nicholas says.

“
No, of course he doesn’t
suspect at all. I just spoke to him and he’s giddy that Joseph the
underdog actually made it,” Mai says.

“
Giddy?” Nicholas’ eyebrows
crinkle. “I’ve heard my father described as many, many things, and
giddy isn’t one of them.”

“
We absolutely have to
solve Heidi’s apparel problem,” Mai says.

Nicholas brings his hand in front of his
eyes and shakes his head. “I’ll order one and it will be here
within the hour.”

I nap on the couch while we wait for the
tuxedo to arrive. When it comes, Mai wakes me and helps me get into
it. It’s way too big.

“
My tailor’s in town. I’ll
call him,” Nicholas says.

“
Well, we can’t let your
tailor get too close to her, if you know what I mean,” Mai
says.

“
Don’t worry. He’s a master
at what he does, and I guarantee he’ll keep quiet.”

The silver-haired tailor arrives within the
half hour, carrying a container and a full-length mirror. After he
sets up, he has me stand in the middle of the room in front of the
mirror. He takes out these paper pieces and starts pinning them to
my Savage Run outfit, using his tape measure. His gray eyebrows
crinkle a bit as he writes the measurements of my chest and
shoulders down. He measures my hips, and then grunts a little as he
writes those measurement down. He glances at Nicholas over his
glasses. Nicholas remains silent.