Free Oblivion by Lauren Barnholdt, Aaron Gorvine

Chapter One
Campbell
    The pain is unbearable, like nothing I’ve ever felt
    before. It starts with a strange tingling sensation in
    my face and quickly becomes prickly, like a hundred
    needles are poking into my skin.
    Reed’s put some sort of spel on me, and so I can’t
    speak. That’s good, I think. It will make it easier for
    me to keep from screaming out in agony.
    Beside me, I can sense Raine is struggling, too. I
    can hear her panting and gasping as the discomfort
    intensifies.
    Reed is practical y screaming now, his voice
    projecting and echoing out across the amphitheatre.
    I can’t understand a word he’s saying, but somehow
    each syl able is sending knives through my body. A
    sharp pain shoots up my leg, flares up my side, and
    then final y settles at my skul , where it blossoms into
    a headache that feels like a sledgehammer is being
    taken to the inside of my forehead.
    I want to puke.
    I want to get away.
    But I can’t.
    Raine starts jittering and dancing beside me,
    screaming with every spasm.
    I try to find something, anything, to focus on instead
    of the pain. I refuse to move around like Raine is
    doing. No way I’m going to let this audience of
    sickos think they’re beating me. Especial y Reed. I
    won’t let him see me react to the pain no matter how
    bad it gets.
    So I think about the one thing—the one person—that
    I’m doing this for.
    Natalia.
    I close my eyes and picture her face. Those brown
    eyes. Her smile. The way she looks at me when I’m
    making a joke, or when she’s making a joke in
    return. I throw myself back in time to when we were
    together during homecoming weekend. Those few
    days of brief happiness when I could feel how right it
    was for me and her to be with each other.
    Somehow, the pain starts to fade into the
    background. It’s a relief. But at the same time, a part
    of me also knows that the end is near. In a few
    minutes, I’l probably be dead. I know Reed has no
    intention of keeping me and Raine around. This
    whole
    “ceremony” is just a charade, a little show to
    convince Natalia that he’s actual y trying to help us,
    when in reality it’s simply the most efficient way to kil
    us, while stil al owing him to come out looking like a
    great guy.
    I open my eyes. The sky has turned gray and is
    spitting rain. Thunder rumbles and lightning splits
    across the clouds.
    And then my gaze is drawn to a commotion on the
    stage, off to the right. There are about four guards
    trying to keep someone contained. My vision is
    blurry, and so I squint, trying to figure out what’s
    going on. I get a glimpse of Natalia, her dark hair
    flying as she thrashes her arms. She’s trying to get to
    me. In fact, she almost gets free as I watch.
    Somehow she knocks a few of the guards
    backwards— maybe by using a spel , I don’t know.
    We lock eyes. But before she can get away from her
    captors, one of them raises his fist and strikes her
    across the back of her head. She doesn’t see it
    coming and the force of it drops her to the ground.
    Then I get a look at who hit her. It’s Phelps, the guy I
    pummeled the other day when he chased me
    through the woods. He stares down at Nat with a
    happy grin, like he just hit a homerun at Yankee
    Stadium.
    Reed looks over at them, distracted. He sees what’s
    going on, and it seems to flummox him a bit. He
    hesitates for a moment, and when he does, some of
    the crackling energy is sucked out of the theatre. A
    murmur ripples through the crowd, as everyone’s
    attention is diverted to what’s going on at the side of
    the stage.
    I look back at Natalia, my stomach contracting with
    dread.
    What if that idiot kil ed her when he hit her?
    She’s lying on the ground in a heap, not moving, and
    Phelps is stil grinning down at her. It occurs to me
    that maybe I’m going to die, but there’s no way in hel
    I’m going to let them hurt Natalia. Of al the things
    they could do, that’s the last thing I’l accept.
    But what can I do to