Arena One: Slaverunners by Morgan Rice Page A

long time, either. I also can’t help noticing how strikingly attractive he is, despite all of this. He looks to be about my age, maybe 17, with a big shock of light brown hair, and large, light blue eyes.
    He’s obviously telling the truth. He’s not a slaverunner. He’s a survivor. Like me.
    “My name is Ben!” he yells out.
    Slowly, I lower the pistol, relaxing just a bit, but still feeling on edge, annoyed that he stopped me, and feeling an urgency to continue on. Ben has lost me valuable time, and almost made me wipe out.
    “You almost killed me!” I scream back. “What were you doing standing in the road like that?”
    I turn the ignition and kickstart the bike, ready to leave.
    But Ben takes several steps towards me, waving his hands frantically.
    “Wait!” he screams. “Don’t go! Please! Take me with you! They have my brother! I need to get him back. I heard your engine and I thought you were one of them, so I blocked the road. I didn’t realize you were a survivor. Please! Let me come with you!”
    For a moment, I feel sympathy for him, but my survival instinct kicks in, and I am unsure. On the one hand, having him might be helpful, given there is strength in numbers; on the other hand, I don’t know this person at all, and I don’t know his personality. Will he fold in a fight? Does he even know how to fight? And if I let him ride in the sidecar, it will waste more fuel, and slow me down. I pause, deliberating, then finally decide against it.
    “Sorry,” I say, closing my visor, and preparing to pull out. “You’ll only slow me down.”
    I begin to rev the bike, when he screams out again.
    “You owe me!”
    I stop for a second, confused by his words. Owe him? For what?
    “That day, when you first arrived,” he continues. “With your little sister. I left you a deer. That was a week’s worth of food. I gave it to you. And I never asked for a thing back.”
    His words hit me hard. I remember that day like it was yesterday, and how much that meant to us. I’d never imagined I’d run into the person who left it. He must have been here, all this time, so close—hiding in the mountains, just like us. Surviving. Keeping to himself. With his little brother.
    I do feel indebted to him. And I reconsider. I don’t like owing people. Maybe, after all, it is better to have strength in numbers. And I know how he feels: his brother was taken, just like my sister. Maybe he is motivated. Maybe, together, we can do more damage.
    “ Please ,” he pleads. “I need to save my brother.”
    “Get in,” I say, gesturing to the sidecar.
    He jumps in without hesitating.
    “There’s a spare helmet inside.”
    A second later, he is sitting and fumbling with my old helmet. I don’t wait a second longer. I tear out of their fast.
    The bike feels heavier than it did, but it also feels more balanced. Within moments, I’m back up to 60 again, straight down the steep mountain road. This time, I won’t stop for anything.
    *
    I race down the winding country roads, twisting and turning, and as I turn a corner, a panoramic view of the valley opens up before me. I can see all the roads from here, and I see the two slaverunner cars in the distance. They are at least two miles ahead of us. They must have hit Route 23 to be gaining that kind of speed, which means they are off the mountain and on a wide, straight road. It burns me to think that Bree is in the back of one of those cars. I think of how frightened she must be. I wonder if they’re restraining her, if she’s in pain. The poor girl must be in hysterics. I pray she didn’t see Sasha die.
    I gun the bike with newfound energy, twisting and turning way too sharply, and I look over and notice that Ben is gripping the edge of the sidecar, looking terrified, hanging on for his life. After several more hairpin turns, we get off the country road and go flying onto 23. Finally, we are on a normal highway, on flat land. Now, I can gun the bike for all it has.
    And I