I understand what he’s saying. If I end up fighting in the arena, there’s no way I’ll make it out in five minutes. I’ll be at the mercy of whatever fighters they decide to throw at me. It would be a suicide mission. I pray it doesn’t come to that, but I also know I’m willing to give myself up if it does.

It’s time to go. I begin the long walk through the underground corridors, then I’m up into the compound, surrounded by trees and vegetation. It feels so strange standing in this beautiful Eden in a military uniform. That war must exist for peace to prevail is a concept I can hardly wrap my head around.

Up in the compound, my friends have been allowed out of the hospital to see me off. Ryan has shaved his head again, and he gives me his confident, cocky smile. For the first time in a long time, he looks like the Ryan I first met at Fort Noix, the only difference being the sling around his arm and the absence of Jack.

Charlie has bounced back to full strength remarkably. I hug him goodbye, knowing that Flo is watching down on us, grateful that I have gotten him this far.

Ben is still weak from our ordeal. He was always the gentler, more sensitive of us, and it stands to reason that the toll the desert took on his body would be greater than the toll it took on mine. I feel bad for leaving him when he’s still vulnerable, but I know Ben can look after himself, even if his mournful blue eyes are silently pleading with me not to go. Like always, the words we want to speak to each other seem bound up, tied in our throats. Ben and I always struggled to talk about the shared experiences we’d been through, and I vow in that moment that if I make it out of the arena alive, I will open up to him about everything. But for now, I take his hand in mine, noting how the skin has become soft again thanks to a week resting in the hospital, and press a kiss onto the back of it, just like he did with me when we first parted ways all those months ago. Back then he went off searching for his brother, while I went after Bree. Now we’re parting ways again, united in our goal, knowing that the whole future of the world is resting on my shoulders.