The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter thirty-one:

Clarity rounded the corner and saw with a flash of embarrassment that Johnny had stopped to wait for her. Her faltering pace must have slowed down even more than she'd realized. Her already-heaving breath pleaded with her to slow down as she scurried to catch up, but she didn't heed its call.

"Sorry..." she gasped out, unable to keep her breathlessness a secret. White, blurry orbs were starting to flash and dance across her eyes.

She was halfway through taking a step forward when her knees suddenly turned to something like spaghetti noodles.

Johnny caught her seconds before she would have thudded onto the ground, carefully pulling her back up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just a little dizzy." Clarity said, blinking rapidly as she tried to stand again. They had to keep going. People were depending on them. As long as she was still awake, she would be okay.

"You'd better let me help." Johnny stopped her in her tracks by quite suddenly scooping her up into her arms as if she was a sack of potatoes. But maybe he wouldn't have held potatoes with the same amount of gentleness, on second thought.

Now that she was no longer concentrating so desperately to support her own weight, she realized just how dizzy she was. And at the same time, she noticed how odd Johnny's flame-red hair looked in contrast to his blue eyes.

"I think you looked better with black hair." The thought formed itself into words before she could snap her mouth shut.

"Is that so?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

She nodded in reply, heat rising up her neck and into her face at the thought of her stupid little blurt.

The embarrassment faded quite suddenly after a bout of fatigue took its place. She closed her eyes. Her head felt like a nail, and someone was pounding it with a hammer. That guard had hit her harder than she thought.

Every time Johnny took a step, it jolted her head. She closed her eyes tighter, trying unsuccessfully to block out the harsh lights.

She felt like she was made of lead, and she wanted nothing better than to drift off.

She reluctantly opened her eyes again when she felt Johnny's movement halt. The bright lights did nothing to help her pounding headache, but she couldn't fall asleep now.

She wanted to relieve Johnny of the burden of carrying her by walking, but her legs didn't want to cooperate, and besides, Johnny didn't seem to be having any trouble carting around the extra weight.

He had stopped in front of an unmarked, plain metal door, significant only in its dullness. He gently set her down, and she slid to the floor, her back resting against the wall. A chill leeched through her shirt and into her back from the cool metal.

Johnny started fiddling with a device mounted on the wall near the door, most likely a keypad through which one would gain access to the room beyond.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her back, she knew, would all but refuse to straighten, but even with that knowledge, she tried to stretch up to get a better look.

"This is the generator room. I'm trying to open the door." He said absentmindedly, his concentration aimed more at the work in front of him than her question.

She watched him move. He seemed to know what he was doing, but Clarity knew that she would know jack about it, even if he tried to explain. The words would go right over her head. She was smart, sure, but electronics had never been her strong suit.

"Sorry," Johnny said, the break in the silence sudden and unexpected.

"Sorry about what?" Clarity asked. Her head had thankfully stopped pounding with each new word that came out of her mouth.

"I'm sorry for going so fast. It wasn't very thoughtful of me..." He replied, his attention momentarily flicking to her.

"Oh, it's fine." She said, pushing against the wall to help herself stand. It was a risk, but she was tired of sitting there helplessly. Standing would help her feel like she was doing something, even if she wasn't.

She was dizzy, but much less so than earlier. She took her hand away from the wall, and didn't collapse again immediately. And the streak continued, because she stayed standing for a satisfying chunk of time with no support whatsoever. If anything, her head just seemed to get clearer.

Clarity looked back to check on Xenia, who was standing guard at the head of the hall, ready for anything that might try to disrupt their search.

Johnny didn't try to continue the conversation, and Clarity decided that she would let him work in silence... until she started to get curious about how he turned into a dragon. She bit her lip to stop herself from asking, but she knew almost right away that it wouldn't do any good.

"Johnny?" she gave up and let her resolve crumble.

"Hmm?" Johnny replied, still distracted by the device. It was taking an awful long time to open the door, in her opinion. But she would never claim to know anything about what he was doing, so it wasn't her place to think such thoughts.

"How do you, you know... uh, change into a dragon?" she asked, the question suddenly awkward as soon as it got halfway through her mouth. Johnny seemed startled by the question.

"Well, actually, I turned into a human. I was originally the dragon." His attention had finally been pulled away from the device, and he met her gaze.

"So you're a dragon?" she raised her eyebrows. She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but that certainly wasn't it. He didn't even answer her question, really.

"Not technically, but yes." His head nodded once, and then he was back to work on the keypad before she could ask another question.

"Got it!" he declared triumphantly, standing up straight.

The door swung open, and Johnny helped her walk through. She tried to protest the help, but he insisted. Heat rose in her cheeks as they entered the room, and she tried to cover what had to be a painfully obvious blush by looking around the room.

After the incredibly plain door, she hadn't been expecting anything spectacular, but the generator room was truly something else. It seemed impossibly huge. It had to have taken ages to build. She couldn't even see any other walls from where she was standing, her view not only blocked by machinery, but distance as well.

Pipes and hulking walls of machinery rose up to a ceiling that was at least fifteen feet up. Out of the huge space, there were only a few, slim walkways clear. The rest of it was taken up by tubes and machines. The whole room hummed with energy.

Jonny muttered something, but she couldn't make out the words. He seemed just as surprised as she was to see the endless expanse.

When the two of them had recovered from their gawking, they made the decision to split up, checking anywhere they could reach for a weak spot in the infrastructure.

She knew as soon as she saw the thick plate of metal that composed the wall that they would never be able to break through. It was even more hopeless where the wide beams of steal touched down like so many metal tree trunks.

As they were searching, there was the dimmest popping of gunfire from the hall, but it stopped quickly, and she assumed that Xenia had taken care of it. It wasn't long before every wall in her side of the room had been checked thoroughly, which left her to start checking the ceiling. She knew that it would be hard to reach, but a weak spot on the ceiling was better than none at all.

And considering the fact that they didn't really have an alternative plan, she really, really hoped to find one.