Cade shook his head. “Trust me. Once you’ve seen the second, you don’t want to watch the rest.”

Amber sighed.

“So … dino meat and Le Prince’s projector?” he asked.

That earned him a grin.

“It’ll have to do,” she said, feigning disappointment. “Although I don’t think I’d like to look at another Hydra as long as I live.”

“You’re telling me.” Cade shuddered. “I’m just glad I only had to fight one of their alphas. The last contenders fought hundreds of them … and won.”

The pair linked arms and began the long journey back down the mountain. At the top of the trail they gazed out over the red-sand expanse that stretched as far as the eye could see.

“You ever wonder what happened to the Romans who were here before us?” Amber asked. “Quintus’s legion, and the ones that came before?”

Cade bit his lip. He had pondered that very thing. The soldiers, Earth’s prior contenders, had marched away to attack another species in one of Abaddon’s rounds. An attempt to move up the leaderboard, and away from the red line that would mean Earth’s destruction if they dropped beneath it. But then they vanished. At least, Cade and his friends hadn’t come across them yet.

Was there another caldera somewhere in the distance? One populated by the primeval beasts of that rival species’ past?

There was still a lot they did not know. Cade wasn’t even sure if they would be defending an attack from a species below their leaderboard, as they had in the last round, or attacking a species above them to move up the leaderboard, as the Romans had.

“Cade?”

He hesitated, unwilling to turn their happy evening sour. “Abaddon brought us here to replace them. That means they’re … not here anymore. Let’s leave it at that.”

Amber gave him a half smile. “I like to think they’re still out there.”

Cade doubted it. It had been years by now.

“You never know,” he said. “Let’s hope so.”

He took her hand. It was time for their first official date.

CHAPTER

4

Food. It had been the contenders’ obsession for months, as inescapable as the hunger that had clawed at their bellies every waking moment.

Cade had dreamed of food most nights. Of his mother’s pakoras, fresh from the pan. Sweet jalebis, pretzel shaped and dripping orange syrup, ready to dissolve in his mouth.

But that night, with his first full belly in months, it was not food that occupied his dreams. No, only the giggling laughter of Abaddon, as claws and teeth reached for him from the recesses of his mind.

Cade jolted awake, cold sweat pooled on his chest. It was still dark; the red of the moon through the cracks in the shutters was all that lit the Commander’s Room, which he still shared with the other boys.

He sat up and shook himself like a dog, as if he could rid himself of the nightmare. There was no such luck though. Even the soft snores of the others did not turn the oppressive darkness into anything less scary, the primordial part of his brain keeping his heart beating fast.