The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter twenty-six:

It was made immediately apparent that they weren't going to have any time to recover from Sam's battle, because almost as soon as the twins left, a new set of fully armored guards took their place.

Clarity's eyes roved over the people in the room almost without her knowing it. Her gaze stayed the longest on the people who hadn't yet fought. Clara, Alex, and Rachel. She didn't want any of them to get hurt, and anything could happen while they were in the ring. Her fight had never held any real danger, from the start, but she couldn't say the same about what any of the remaining three would go through.

Her breath hitched as the guards stalked forward, their target unclear. She couldn't see where their eyes were aiming from behind their cold, metal masks.

Clarity watched, secretly seething, as the two guards pulled Rachel through the open cell door. The clank of the cell slamming shut echoed through the hall, mingling with the footsteps of the guards walking away.

A second later, the doors of the coliseum started clanking open.

Clarity didn't want to get up. She was sick of having to watch her friends get hurt, and she was sick of watching her friends hurt other people. She just wanted it to stop. But she overcame her dislike of the idea. She had to make sure that Rachel was okay.

She squeezed in beside Alex on the bench near the window and looked out into the circular arena.

Rachel was pushed through one of the doors. Clarity watched the other entrance carefully, dreading who Rachel's opponent might be.

A while passed, and no one came through the door. The yawning black cavity remained starkly empty. Then a guard flew through the dark opening in the coliseum wall, skidding and sliding across the metal floor until he came to a graceless stop, slumped over on his side.

Clarity hardly had any time to register the surprise. Another two guards followed the first one in quick succession, each one scratching across the floor. The sound of their metal armor grating against the floor filled the air. They stayed where they landed, no sound or movement to show if they were still living or not.

Rachel tentatively stepped forward, craning her neck to see what lay on the other side of the black opening in the wall. The flying guards had clearly put her on edge, her unease evident in every single tensed muscle.

When nothing appeared, Rachel hasted her steps. She'd covered half the room, then the other half. Still no activity from the cavernous opening.

A few feet from the other door, Rachel was wrenched off her feet by an unseen force and dragged through, into the darkness. A strangled cry of protest escaped Clarity's mouth before she was able to bite it back. Rachel didn't reappear.

Strange sounds started drifting through the building. Things she hadn't hear since arriving. The sounds of some sort of scuffle, a legion of feet tramping over the metal, so many that it was quite impossible to discern how many. And most chilling, a single scream.

Then the noise cut out altogether. Somehow, the silence was much, much worse. It hung like a curtain of dread in the atmosphere. She found herself holding her breath as she waited for something—anything to happen.

The footsteps started up again—so many and so loudly that she jumped, her bated breath escaping her lungs in a rush.

Seconds passed, then minutes. The noises only came closer, and she couldn't shake the icy feeling that they were heading straight for her own cell.

Though she knew it was coming, her heart still dropped to her stomach when a whole troop of guards stopped in front of the door.

One of the guards stepped forward. An unfamiliar black mark graced the upper-left corner of his breastplate. It looked like a trident, which was all too fitting for their Atlantis-prison. She assumed that the mark meant he was some kind of leader among the ranks.