The Arena (7 page)

W
hen I came to
, I almost couldn’t believe it. I really thought the last moments of my life were going to be spent in that kitchen. At least if I died with my parents, I wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of not being able to save them. There was no reason for the men who murdered my family to want me alive. I was just a kid; what could they possibly want from me?

My arms and legs were stiff. My wrist and ankles hurt like they had been bound tightly, but they were free of restraints now. I couldn’t see, but when I reached up to rub my eyes, I found a cloth covering them. When I removed the cloth hood, I couldn’t see too much better than before. It appeared I was in some kind of cell. There was a faint glow from a candle. From the feeble light in the room, I could see four walls and a door. I spent a few extra seconds to examine the door. There was no knob, and it was set flush into the wall. There was no way out that I could see.

I sat up slowly and started to work my fingers in and out, making a fist and then rotating it in a slow circle. I had to try and get the blood flowing back into my limbs. I started to wiggle my toes, and slowly started to roll my ankles around. Finally satisfied that when I stood up I wouldn’t fall flat on my face, I decided to give it a go. With more effort than I thought it would take, I rolled over onto my hands and knees. Once I was stable there, I used the wall to slowly lift myself up onto my feet. When I could successfully stand without holding the wall, I continued stretching.

I started working all of my muscles like I was getting ready for a run. No sense in not being prepared if there was a chance I could get out of here. I might only get one chance to make a run for it. If the door opened, I had to be ready. Seeing as how I had been tied up all day, it was a good bet they wouldn’t be expecting me to be limber enough to run. I was pretty sure that, unless they came in with multiple people and a gun, leaving me untied was going to be a pretty big mistake.

During the last couple of months, when I felt like I couldn’t burn off enough energy, I had been working my body into exhaustion every night, only to wake up the next day with even more energy. This constant running and working out had left me in really great shape. I was sure that even with no training, I could take two or three guys my size without a problem. I could already feel the energy flowing into my body. It was loosening my muscles and easing the exhaustion that I felt. I kept at it, stretching and working my muscles, until they started to feel normal again.

As I sat in the pure silence of my cell, I started to listen, hoping to hear something. Maybe there was more than one cell, more than one prisoner. I strained my ears for what felt like hours but could have just as easily been only a few minutes. Just when I was about to stop listening, I thought I heard something. It could have been anything. I was trying so hard to hear something that I wasn’t even sure if it was real. I was about to dismiss it as nothing but then I really did hear something. It had to be people talking. The sound of their voices was muffled, but I could tell that there was more than one person coming. I could now hear their voices slightly echoing, and it was followed by the sound of footsteps getting louder.

I was sure of it now. I wasn’t imagining it. There were at least two people walking toward my cell, holding a conversation. I could almost make out the words now. I moved closer to the door, hoping it would help me hear them. There was definitely a man. He sounded older. His speech seemed hurried, like he was nervous about something. The person or people he was with never responded. I had to believe that he was with someone; it was too scary to think of him walking the hallways of this place talking to himself. Just when I thought I could make out the words clearly, the talking stopped.

I heard what sounded like hurried whispers. Then the man I heard earlier, at least, I think it was him, clearly said, “Are you sure this is the one?”

More whispers. I prepared myself to attack. I stood against the wall to one side so they would have to move into the room to see me. This way I might have a slight edge, might even be able to take one of them out before the others knew what was happening.

I heard the man speak again. “If you’re ready, let’s get this over with.”

As soon as he stopped speaking, the door flew open. Two people entered at the same time. I launched myself from the wall and was about to strike when I saw the swirl of her long blonde hair. My fist was about to make contact when her face came clearly into view. It was a beautiful younger woman. Time seemed to slow as I took in her expression of shock and the beauty of her features. I barely pulled the punch back in time. I stumbled past her and was thrown violently into the wall by her partner.

When I rebounded off the wall and landed on the ground, I was tossed against the back wall of my cell. I hadn’t expected one of my attackers to be a woman. I should have been ready to do whatever it took to get out of here. Chivalry died when my parents were killed.

Now I found myself being held against the wall about a foot off the ground, and no one was even touching me. It had to be a trick of some kind. As I hung against the wall, suspended in the air by some force I couldn’t see, the older man stepped into the room.

“That’s enough, Steven! We came here to save him, not to squish him into little bits.”

Without a word from anyone in the room, the pressure around me lessened and I dropped to the ground. Taking a breath and looking up for the first time at my three visitors, I only had one question on my mind. “What in the hell is going on?”

The older gentlemen looked at me with a little bit of concern creasing his mouth and eyes. “There will be time for that later. First we need to get you out of here and somewhere safe. Steven, Vanessa, take the lead. I’ll bring up the rear with our new friend.”

We exited my cell and headed to the right. The hallway we were in looked just like my cell, only much, much longer. It was surprisingly well lit. Bulbs hung from the ceiling roughly every ten feet. There were doors lining both sides of the hallway, all of them unopened. We started to jog, and I got the feeling we didn’t have an unlimited amount of time before someone noticed our escape. Hopefully we could make it out of here before someone tried to stop us from leaving. We started to pick up the pace, our jogging slowly turning into a flat out run. My ankles groaned in protest, but I started to feel better about making myself stretch while I had been waiting for my chance to escape.

When we reached the end of the hallway, we entered a large square room. Video monitors completely lined one of the walls. Desks were placed against the opposite wall, giving whoever sat at them visibility of both the doors and the video feed. This was clearly a guard room of some kind, but there were no guards. As we headed through the room to the open door on the opposite side, I noticed a foot sticking out from behind one of the desks. I started to point, but then I noticed the rest of the body. It had been ripped in half by God knew what, and someone had tried to hide as much of it as possible by shoving it under the desk. I didn’t ask any of the questions that were tumbling through my mind; I just followed Steven and Vanessa through the door and kept running.

We made our way through several more guard rooms, all of them empty except for what was hiding in the corners or under the desks. It was weird to be running through empty room after empty room. The only thing left in these rooms was pure destruction and death. I could only imagine that my new traveling companions were the ones responsible. Why hide the bodies, though? We hadn’t encountered another living soul since we left my cell.

We finally made it to a closed door. Steven hit the door at a full run, with Vanessa right behind him. I caught the door as it started to close, and all I heard was a hurried, “Go up.” Then the real fun started. We were running up endless flights of stairs. I could tell it was taking its toll on the man running next to me. His breath was getting ragged. Every now and then it would be accentuated by a gasp for air, and he was starting to slow down. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to be able to make it, we burst through one last door into the glaring sunlight. I had to stop running, the glare of the bright sunlight momentarily blinding me.

After my time in the dark cell and being unconscious, my eyes just couldn’t adjust fast enough to the light. I felt an arm on my shoulder guiding me forward. We reached a dark SUV of some kind, and as soon as the door closed behind me, we were moving again. We were going fast, like
the devil was nipping at our heels
fast. My mind was reeling with the thoughts and emotions of the day. Not too long ago, I was just a normal kid going to school and coming home at night to my family. Now that I knew that I was adopted, my adoptive parents had been murdered. I had been kidnapped and imprisoned. All of that had happened in the last day, as far as I could tell. My sense of time was a little muddied from being unconscious. Now I found myself on the run with people I didn’t know. Not to mention that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that I could trust any of them. I did feel like I knew a few things, though. These people saved my life by getting me out of that hole, they were killers, and at least one of them had some kind of superpower. Crazy as all of that was, I had a feeling it was just the beginning of things to come.

I woke up, jumping violently out of my seat with the memories of my parents’ deaths still haunting my thoughts. Bumping my head on the roof of the car brought me back to reality rather quickly. I had forgotten where I was, and ended up paying for it by adding another bump to my head. We had to have been driving for hours, at least I thought so. When we left the prison, it had been bright and sunny, but now it was dark without a trace of the sun in the sky. I felt something bump against my shoulder and almost banged my head on the roof again.

Vanessa only smiled at me. “Don’t worry, you are safe with us.”

I looked down to see what had bumped into my arm, only to see she was offering me a bottle of water. Taking a quick look around the vehicle, I noticed that the older gentleman had at some point moved from the back of the SUV to the front seat. I couldn’t complain much. Trading up from an old man to a beautiful woman was a good deal in my book. I was surprised that I hadn’t even noticed when the SUV stopped. Looking back at Vanessa, all I could mumble out were the words, “Thank you.” Sometimes water was the greatest gift you could get. That must be why they say a drop of water in the desert is worth more than gold.

I looked up to the front of the SUV and asked, “So, do you think it’s time for us to have that talk yet?”

The older gentleman turned slowly around in his seat to look at me. I could tell he was sizing me up. “First, let’s get cleaned up and get something to eat. Then we will sit down and have that talk.”

I turned to look out the window, shocked at the ease with which I let him blow me off. I felt like I deserved answers. I could feel the anger in me boiling just below the surface. I calmed myself by slowly breathing and reminding myself that without their assistance, I would be trapped in a cell somewhere. I felt the SUV start to slow down, and we took a slow right through a gate and onto a hedge-lined driveway.

To say the house was impressive would be an understatement. We stopped at a small gate for a second; while it opened, it gave me a chance to take it all in. The long driveway led up to what could only be called a mansion. Both sides of the driveway were flanked by huge lush green spaces. The owner was obviously not pretentious; the driveway was just regular asphalt instead of crushed shells or gravel. The front of the house was just a pristine green space. Large windows were placed on each side of the elaborate wrought iron and wood door. Turning around to look back out the window, I marveled at the sheer amount of grass. It was the most I had ever seen outside of a golf course, and it was completely amazing.

The house itself seemed slightly out of place for being in the Southwest. I guess, that is if we were still in the Southwest. It reminded me more of a mansion you would see in the South. The front was lined with pillars and had a covered awning over the drive. From this central position, the house rose on both sides to what seemed to me to be a towering height. It was at least three stories tall, but it looked bigger, like each floor had vaulted ceilings. You couldn’t get a real scope of its size without going inside, because there was no way to tell how deep the house was from the front. All I knew was it was the most expensive house I had seen in person.

As we pulled under the covered part of the drive, the massive front doors opened and two men came out, heading for the SUV. They were both dressed in dark suits and wore very serious expressions on their faces. I took my cue to exit the vehicle when I saw my benefactor open his door. The older gentleman spoke to both of the men as if they were old friends, but I was picking up on the vibe that they actually worked for him. He confirmed this by asking one of them to show me to the guest quarters and to bring me a change of clothes, as well as some food. Vanessa and Steven nodded once to the man standing in front of me and then disappeared into the house.

He turned to me and said, “Jackson, I’ve got some business to attend to, and I’d like to get cleaned up myself. Please take some time to relax in your room and have something to eat. Tony will bring you some food and clean clothes. I’ll have someone come and get you when I’m ready for you.”

He put out his hand and I shook it, a little confused as to how he knew my name. It was a slight slip, but something that I needed to keep in mind. “Thank you for helping me out of that place, sir. I don’t even know your name.”

He smiled, as if covering up being momentarily caught off guard, and said, “You may call me Mr. Stillman.” He smiled at me again and gently patted me on the shoulder. “Now go get cleaned up, Jackson, and have something to eat. Tony.” He motioned for the guard to lead me away as he said his name.

One of the men in the suits turned toward me and said, “Right this way.” I turned away from the remaining security and Mr. Stillman, and followed Tony into the mansion.