The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter forty-three:

It didn't seem nearly as long as she'd been expecting it to take before Alex came through the door from the kitchen. He paused there for just long enough to inform her that lunch was ready before he turned right back around. If she didn't know any better, she would have guessed that he was just as hungry as she was, though she was pretty sure he hadn't been asleep for two days straight.

As soon as Alex disappeared, Johnny took his place, this time taking up the doorway to the bathroom. He wore clothes that were practically matching her own, so she could only assume that he'd raided the bathroom closet as well. His normally flame-bright hair was dulled to a more burnt orange color by the water.

"Lunch is ready in the kitchen." she said as she stood up, nodding towards the doorway that led to the kitchen.

He nodded in reply and followed her through the door and into the kitchen.

Rachel, Alex, Benjamin, Scarlett, Sam, and Xenia were already seated, which left just Clarity, Johnny, and August missing. But seeing as August wouldn't be joining them any time soon, they started eating once Clarity and Johnny took their seats.

The mood was rightfully dampened by a number of things that Clarity could list off the top her head—one of which was the escape of Eric Lance—but everyone was cheerful enough, considering. The conversation was steered pointedly away from pretty much everything to do with their recent imprisonment.

Clarity, however, could barely participate in the conversation. The food was delicious, made all the more so by her two-day fast. She probably couldn't speak through her mouthfuls if she tried. It was some sort of casserole, with potatoes, meat, and corn. She didn't know what it was called, she just knew that she loved it.

After a while, she finally reached the limit on how much her stomach could hold of the heavenly dish, so she leaned back in her chair. Sam was all but drilling Scarlett about teleportation—or at least, she guessed he was. She could hardly decipher what they were saying around all of the seven-syllable words.

Benjamin and Rachel holding a rather fast-paced conversation in German so she couldn't make heads or tail of anything they said either. Johnny and Xenia were clicking back in forth. Yet another language she couldn't understand.

Alex was the only one not saying something she wasn't able to decode. He was looking at Rachel and Benjamin in confusion, much like she probably was.

Someone—maybe Sam—said something about Eric Lance, and the whole table suddenly fell silent, as if the word had been amplified far beyond the volume of the room.

Clarity could guess that they were all thinking the same thing: He was still out there, and they had to stop him before he could rebuild again.

"We have to find him." Rachel said grimly after a few minutes of silence had passed.

Alex nodded. "After everything that he's done, we can't just let him walk free."

"But how do we find him? August is the only person that could, and he's out cold." Rachel's face scrunched up in a frown.

"We just have to keep looking until we find him. He'll show up eventually." Scarlett said, her eyes dark.

"But where do we look?" Sam asked.

Scarlett shrugged. "Everywhere."

"And in the meantime, we can stay here," Benjamin added.

Clarity pushed her plate away from herself. "We have to stop him, even if it takes months. After what he did..." an image flashed through her head of Clara, the light slowly dying from her eyes. "He deserves to be caught." She finally finished, trying to swallow the lump that was once again rising in her throat.