This was his last chance to try to speak.

He looked at the boy and he looked at the adults and he kept quiet.

Stubborn.

Stubborn and stupid and ashamed.

But they weren’t used to taking on someone like him. He would show them today how to fight.

Chapter 64

64

Ella was sitting with the Windsor kids. Waiting. Not sure if she wanted things to happen quicker or slower. She’d made herself watch the horrible gladiator fight, straining to see if Malik was there. So relieved when he wasn’t. And now here was the last event. With the last of the grown-ups. Was he going to be among them?

She’d lost him when they’d been attacked near the woods and the same thoughts had kept going round and round in her head ever since Go had told her about the races … Had he been killed? Had he escaped? Had he been captured and treated like a grown-up? Was he going to be here today?

She’d told Go all about him, explained that she’d been with a friend, a boy who looked like a grown-up. Asked Go to find out if he’d been picked up when they’d found her. Find out if anyone had seen him.

Go said that as far as she knew no one had.

‘His face is scarred,’ Ella had said. ‘People think he’s a grown-up. But he’s not, he’s just a boy.’

‘We didn’t find anybody,’ said Go. ‘I was there. I’d of seen if there’d been any other kids. We almost didn’t find you. You were buried under a pile of dead ones.’

‘Dead grown-ups?’

‘Yeah. A lot got killed in the attack. We couldn’t bring them all back here.’

‘So Malik could have been killed?’

‘There were no other children, Ella. Just you.’

Ella had begged to be allowed to see for herself, to look at the grown-ups in the dungeon. See if Malik was among them.

He wasn’t.

He’d gone.

She prayed that he was safe somewhere.

The raggedy band started playing Darth Vader’s music, ‘The Imperial March’ from Star Wars, and kids were riding into the arena.

Golden Boy came in first, arm in the air with a clenched fist. Half the kids were cheering, half booing. He pulled his sword from his scabbard.

‘This is my sword,’ he shouted. ‘This is it! I shall not return it to its sheath until it is stained red with the blood of the fallen.’

‘He can be such a tosser,’ said Go.