Free Refuge by Karen Lynch

YOU KNOW what this is about?” I asked
Olivia, walking beside her around the back of the main building.
When we’d arrived at the training wing a few minutes ago, we found
a notice telling all trainees to head to the arena. I’d never seen
anything here resembling an arena, and I was starting to wonder if
this was some kind of joke on the new girl.
    Olivia pointed to the left of the menagerie
at a square stone building about as big as a small church, with a
domed roof like the one on the menagerie. Tall thin windows covered
by iron bars shaped like leafy vines lined the side facing us, and
I could see an arched doorway framed with the same decoration.
Standing in front of the building were the other trainees, Sahir,
and the woman who had come into the training room with Tristan
several days ago. Everyone but me seemed to know her, and it was
obvious from the infatuated stares from the boys that she was very
popular among them.
    “Who is that?” I asked Olivia, who made a
face.
    “That’s Celine. She lives in Italy, but she
comes here three or four times a year. God, I hope she’s not
training us.”
    We reached the group before I could ask her
what she meant. Celine stopped talking to the assembled trainees
when we arrived, and I was taken aback when her frosty green gaze
settled on me. “Now that everyone has decided to show up, we’ll get
started, shall we?” Her attention shifted back to the others.
“Today we are going to add a little practical training, so I hope
you studied hard in school.”
    An excited murmur rippled through the other
trainees, and Sahir stepped forward, his dark eyes sparkling.
“Before your imaginations run away with you, you are not going to
be facing a vampire or anything that dangerous.”
    Celine walked to a cloth-covered cage I had
not noticed. “We are going to start you on something less
life-threatening.” She pulled the cloth back to reveal a brown
rat-like creature the size of a pug with large curved incisors and
clawed feet huddled inside the cage. Unlike a rat, it had a short
stump of a tail and yellow eyes.
    “This is a bazerat, for those of you who are
not familiar with them,” Sahir said. “They are found mostly in the
Amazon where they live off snakes and birds. They have been known
to attack humans if provoked. They are sometimes bred in captivity,
and they can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. One bazerat is
not much to look at, a couple of them are a nuisance, but a pack of
them is like a school of piranha when they pick up the scent of
blood. I have seen a pack of thirty or so bazerats kill and consume
a twenty-five foot anaconda in less than an hour.”
    Celine smiled as her eyes moved over our
group. “Fortunately for you, you will not have to face a whole pack
today. You each have to face only a pair of bazerats, a task I’m
sure most of
you will have no trouble completing.” I couldn’t help but notice
that she was looking at me when she said the last part and her
smile had become more of a sneer.
    “Oooh, someone doesn’t like you,” whispered
Jordan close to my ear. I started to ask her what she meant, but
Celine spoke again.
    “Here is how we’ll do this. One by one you
will enter the arena where we will release two bazerats. Your task
is to neutralize them. Before you go in, select your weapon of
choice from the pile by the door, but remember bazerats are fast,
so choose wisely.”
    The group of trainees surged forward to find
weapons, and I was left standing alone in front of Celine. “You
want us to kill them?” I looked from Celine to Sahir, and they both
nodded. “Why?”
    “Why? ” Celine repeated as if she couldn’t understand
the question. “Because they are vermin and they would not hesitate
to kill you.”
    “But they only kill when they are hunting for
food or when they feel threatened, right? They are no danger to
anyone now.” I pointed at the bazerat in the cage. “That creature
is terrified of us.”
    Celine arched a