Arena 3 (Book #3 in the Survival Trilogy) Chapter 19

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

The road is bumpy, making the journey tough going. Every part of my body is aflame with pain. I slip in and out of consciousness, and each time I come around, I’m expecting to discover that it has all been a dream, that there is no US military vehicle taking us to Dad. But each time I am rewarded by the jolting sensation of the truck, by the sounds of its tires racing across the parched earth, and by the sight of the US marine as she tends to me, giving me water to sip and chewy protein bars for energy. Not long ago I was certain we were facing death, that my dead friends were appearing before my eyes in order to take me to the afterlife. Now, it is as though I’ve been given a second chance.

I can’t believe what is happening. My dad is alive, and we have been rescued, right when it looked like the end had arrived. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined it would happen this way.

The truck I’m traveling in is part of a convoy. For reasons I don’t fully understand yet, we’re all traveling separately. I think of Bree and pray that she is being cared for as well as I am. I wonder if she’s been told that our dad is alive yet, or whether she knows we’re on our way to be reunited with him. I try to picture her reaction; I know she won’t have held back her tears in the way I did. At the very least, I hope she’s with Charlie, that the two of them are together, perhaps even with Penelope beside them. I don’t dare let myself consider that the dog may not have survived, though I know it’s a possibility.

I hear the sound of brakes and start to feel the truck slowing down.

“What’s happening?” I say to the soldier who has been caring for me.

I try to sit up but she guides me back down.

“We’re at the compound,” she explains. “There are checkpoints to go through. Don’t worry. We’ll be there very soon.”

I try to relax but it’s almost impossible. I feel like I did when I was a little child waiting for my dad to come home after being stationed abroad for months. Only the sensation inside of me is a thousand times stronger than it was when I was younger, because it hasn’t been months, it has been years. And while the concept of my dad dying while he was away was scary when I was younger, it still seemed abstract and unimaginable. But I’ve spent the last four years assuming I will never ever see him again. The sensation inside of me is more akin to discovering that someone has come back from the dead.

I can hear the sound of a chain-link fence being opened. Then the truck picks up speed and we’re bobbing along once again. The jolting movement smooths out and I know that means we’re riding on asphalt, that we’re on a proper road again. I wonder if it’s a new road, built after the war, or if the people of the compound managed to protect one that was already there. Nothing else in the south seemed to have survived the bombs, so I presume that means they’ve been rebuilding.

There are many more checkpoints to pass through, and row after row of fencing. If I’d thought Fort Noix was heavy-handed with its layers of guards and outposts, it was nothing compared to this. The fences are tall and topped with barbed wire. Guards are positioned all along them, though from where I am lying prone in the truck I can only see the tops of their heads. But I recognize their uniforms and the insignia of the marines. It gives me a sense of enormous familiarity and nostalgia.

“This is the last checkpoint,” the soldier informs me. “Then we’re heading straight to the Commander. Your dad, I mean.”

My dad, a commander. I shouldn’t be so surprised. If anyone was going to survive the war and find a way to thrive in spite of it, it was going to be my dad.

I’m surprised to see the tips of trees above me as the truck crawls past the final fence. I’d become so accustomed to the barren desert landscape that the sight of green leaves is shocking. Then, I’m certain in the distance I can hear the sound of running water.

“How do you have trees?” I say. “And water?”

The soldier smiles. “The Commander has turned this place into Eden,” she explains. “We’re completely self-sufficient.”

As I absorb her words, my first feeling is relief. If they’re self-sufficient here then there’s no need for scavenging, no dangerous hunting trips out into the wild.

“Do you take in survivors?” I ask.

The soldier looks at me kindly. “Brooke, I know you have a lot of questions. But I don’t want you to tire yourself out. Why don’t you rest and gather your strength for when you see your dad?”

I know she’s right but I can’t help myself. The sensations inside of me are too great. They all vie for my attention, mixing around in my stomach and making me nauseous. My exhausted body is telling me to rest and recuperate, but my frantic mind is racing through a million thoughts. I’m filled with excitement, but at the same time I’m nervous. I haven’t forgotten the sound of my dad’s hand as he slapped my mom’s cheek the night he left us, voluntarily, to join a war that went on to obliterate everything. Is he even still the same man I remember?

Just then, the truck jolts to a halt.

“We’re here,” the soldier says.

She stands and starts unlatching the flap at the back of the truck. I’m suddenly overcome with fear. What if my dad isn’t the person I want him to be? What if he’s been traumatized by the last four and a half years? He said he would always love me no matter what, but that was before the slaverunners and the arenas and the crazies. That was before the nuclear bombs and the fighter jets.

“Are you having trouble standing?” the soldier asks.

I am, but not in the way she thinks. She thinks I’ve been weakened by my ordeal out in the desert. In reality, my legs seem to have turned to jelly beneath me. My whole body trembles as she helps me to my feet, guiding me by my elbow down onto a step, then down again onto the ground.

I’m standing on paving slabs with moss growing up between them. I can smell grass and vegetation, and hear the sound of running water in the distance. The air is cool, not like the painful, sweltering heat of the Texan desert I’ve just come from.

I feel the soldier put gentle pressure on my shoulder, and I can feel that she’s urging me on. Another truck has pulled up beside me, and Bree is being led down to the ground, trembling in much the same way as me. When she sees me, her eyes brim with tears. I know Dad always told me not to cry, but the sight of her alive makes me well up. I can still hear her screams in my head as she begged me not to give up back in the desert, to keep moving. I couldn’t do it for her. I’m only here by a miracle. But if she holds any resentment toward me because of it, she doesn’t show it. She rushes over and throws herself into my arms. She’s been patched up well by the soldier she rode with, and is no longer as feeble as she was back in the desert.

“Did they tell you?” she says through her sobs. “Dad is alive.”

“They told me,” I gasp, stroking her hair beneath my fingers.

“You were right, Brooke. You were right all along.”

I was. But people still died because of me. I will have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life.

Finally, Bree lets me go. I can see the other trucks pulling up behind us, and see Ben emerge from one. He looks as frail as he did when we first got to know each other back in the prisons of Arena 1. But he has transformed since then. He is leaner, more muscular, and the sensitivity I could always see in his eyes seems to have hardened. Like me, survival has taken its toll on him.

Bree slips her hand in mine, pulling me back to the moment. I turn away from the trucks. As much as I want to see each of our friends arrive safely, I know my dad is waiting for me. I can’t prolong this anymore. It’s time to face him.

The soldier who’d been riding with me gestures past some palm trees.

“He’s over there,” she says.

Bree and I squeeze one another’s hands as we take small steps along the paving slabs. The vegetation grows thicker and lusher as we go, forming a thick canopy above that plunges us into cooling shadows. Then all at once, I see a figure.

We stop dead. There is a man down the path. He’s wearing a military uniform. His hair is completely gray. He stands with his hands resting just lightly behind his back. I know the stance. “At ease.” It is my dad.

I can’t get the words out. I try to call to him but the only noise that comes from my throat is a croak.

It’s enough for him to hear. He spins to face us. There is no denying it; though time has aged him considerably, the man standing before me is my dad.

“Brooke,” he gasps, staring at me like he can’t believe what he is seeing. “Bree.”

And then we’re running, both of us, full speed, finding reserves of energy from deep within our weakened bodies. Dad spreads his arms wide and we run into them. He sweeps us tightly into him. He feels so solid, so real. This is not the man in my dreams; this is my real dad, alive and strong.

I don’t want to show my weakness in front of him, but Bree is sobbing uncontrollably, and I just cannot hold back anymore. My tears begin to fall.

We’re all shaking with emotion. I clutch onto Bree and nestle my head into the crook of my dad’s neck, letting my tears drop onto his uniform one by one. It is then that I realize, for the first time in my entire life, my dad is crying too.