The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter thirty five:

Clarity pushed the guard away more savagely than she'd been trying to. "What did you do?" she demanded as she crouched next to Johnny, trying to see what the little device was doing inside of the angry bullet wound.

The hissing continued, but Johnny had fallen silent after the first weak cry. The device had started as a tiny white rod—thin enough to fit easily into the hole. But as she watched, it slowly grew thicker and longer until the white was filling the empty space completely. The nasty red hole from before was now occupied by a small, white stub.

"I don't know how long he'll last like that." The guard said. "We need to find the others, and get out of here. We can get him help on the surface."

She looked around, realizing for the first time that the water level had risen at least an inch. His words made too much sense.

"Well, we can't leave him here." She protested weakly, trying to convince herself as well as him that they even had a choice in the matter.

"We have to. If we don't find the others soon, none of us will get out alive. We can come back for him." the guard persisted, killing the last shred of resistance.

"Let's go." She said grimly. The sooner they left, the sooner they could return.

She hated to leave Johnny, but before she did, she propped him up against the wall, so that he wouldn't choke on the fast-approaching water. She hoped he would be okay until they could return for him.

With one last backward glance, they were off, the guard walking a little ahead of Clarity the last, lingering look back.

No matter how much she attempted to drive the thoughts from her mind and focus on what had to be done, her mind seemed glued to the subject of Johnny. Was he okay? Would he recover once they got out? Was it really smart to leave him? What if an actual guard stumbled across him? She wouldn't know until she came back, and by then it would be too late.

She forcefully pulled herself away from the thoughts and focused with a painful determination on the path in front of her.

Through the blur of tears, she saw Sam, Alex, and Rachel, walking side by side.

The guard, still walking in front of her, came to such a sudden halt that she almost bumped into him as she rushed forward to meet the group.

"Where have you been? Me and Johnny have already broken the outer hull of the building, we need to get out soon or we'll drown." She winced when she spoke his name, her thoughts snapping back into the flurry of desperate thinking.

"What's wrong?" Rachel stepped closer.

"Johnny got shot, by August." Her voice cracked pitifully, and she winced again.

"What?!" she wasn't sure which of the three exclaimed—it could have been all three.

"Yeah. He came up behind us, and he shot Johnny." The quickly-forming lump in the back of her throat threatened to choke the words out of her mouth.

"Is he alright?" Alex asked.

"I don't know. I think he'll be okay, but we need to get him out, and soon." For the first time, she allowed the full force of the raging turmoil inside of her into her voice. They had to realize just how serious it was.

Alex and Sam seemed to get the gist of it, at least, but Rachel's attention had strayed. Her eyes were now focused on a point over Clarity's shoulder.

She whispered something, the word nothing but a wisp of air that Clarity couldn't hope to decipher.

A few seconds passed. Clarity turned to look at the guard. He had the same expression as Rachel—awestruck disbelief written over every feature.

They stared at each other for a few moments. Standing in such close proximity with their matching expressions, she could see such a striking resemblance that she would only be half-surprised if they were twins.

"Benny!" Rachel cried, barreling forward so quickly that she almost knocked Clarity over.

The guard ran to meet her halfway, his strange gait not hindering him in the least. Clarity took a couple of steps forward, confused into silence as the two collided in the middle of the hall, nearly flattening each other in a mutually tight hug.

"I didn't think you'd recognize me." The guard—or Benny, as Rachel had called him—spoke first. His eyes glistened with tears that soon began to streak down his face.

"Of course I'd recognize you," Rachel replied, almost fiercely. Her voice was husky, and Clarity was shocked to see that tears streaked down her cheeks, as well.

The two of them finally broke apart, staring at each other. Their matching eyes were loaded with not just tears, but deep emotion as well.

Clarity cleared her throat, and it seemed to break Rachel out of a trance, though she was still acting quite unlike the Rachel that Clarity knew.

"Oh! I completely forgot! Benny, this is Clarity, Alex, and Sam." She pointed at each of them when she said their name. "And everyone, this is Benjamin, my little brother." She finished with a very uncharacteristic grin, wiping a tear from her chin with the heel of her hand.

"You're Rachel's younger brother?" Clarity didn't know what to think. They definitely looked similar enough.

"Uh... yeah." Benjamin was clearly overwhelmed with the attention of all four of them trained on him.

"Well, why didn't you tell me that earlier? I literally asked you!"

"I didn't know that you knew Rachel." Benjamin shook his head. He looked even more like Rachel when he was standing next to her, though he was a few inches taller.

Clarity rolled her eyes but decided to drop it. "Doesn't matter. We need to find Scarlett and the others and get out."

"Who's Scarlett?" Benjamin asked, obviously a couple of steps behind the situation; probably still slightly flustered.

"You don't know?" Clarity asked before it dawned on her. "You still know her as 77432, I guess." Even after such a short time, the string of numbers was almost fading completely from her mind.

"Ohhh..." Benjamin nodded slowly "Yeah."

Clarity decided to ignore any further delay, and she took off walking. The sooner she found Scarlett, the sooner Johnny could get medical attention.