Free The Arena by Bradford Bates Page A

exhaustion that I felt. I kept at it, stretching and working my muscles, until they started to feel normal again.
    As I sat in the pure silence of my cell, I started to listen, hoping to hear something. Maybe there was more than one cell, more than one prisoner. I strained my ears for what felt like hours but could have just as easily been only a few minutes. Just when I was about to stop listening, I thought I heard something. It could have been anything. I was trying so hard to hear something that I wasn’t even sure if it was real. I was about to dismiss it as nothing but then I really did hear something. It had to be people talking. The sound of their voices was muffled, but I could tell that there was more than one person coming. I could now hear their voices slightly echoing, and it was followed by the sound of footsteps getting louder.
    I was sure of it now. I wasn’t imagining it. There were at least two people walking toward my cell, holding a conversation. I could almost make out the words now. I moved closer to the door, hoping it would help me hear them. There was definitely a man. He sounded older. His speech seemed hurried, like he was nervous about something. The person or people he was with never responded. I had to believe that he was with someone; it was too scary to think of him walking the hallways of this place talking to himself. Just when I thought I could make out the words clearly, the talking stopped.
    I heard what sounded like hurried whispers. Then the man I heard earlier, at least, I think it was him, clearly said, “Are you sure this is the one?”
    More whispers. I prepared myself to attack. I stood against the wall to one side so they would have to move into the room to see me. This way I might have a slight edge, might even be able to take one of them out before the others knew what was happening.
    I heard the man speak again. “If you’re ready, let’s get this over with.”
    As soon as he stopped speaking, the door flew open. Two people entered at the same time. I launched myself from the wall and was about to strike when I saw the swirl of her long blonde hair. My fist was about to make contact when her face came clearly into view. It was a beautiful younger woman. Time seemed to slow as I took in her expression of shock and the beauty of her features. I barely pulled the punch back in time. I stumbled past her and was thrown violently into the wall by her partner.
    When I rebounded off the wall and landed on the ground, I was tossed against the back wall of my cell. I hadn’t expected one of my attackers to be a woman. I should have been ready to do whatever it took to get out of here. Chivalry died when my parents were killed.
    Now I found myself being held against the wall about a foot off the ground, and no one was even touching me. It had to be a trick of some kind. As I hung against the wall, suspended in the air by some force I couldn’t see, the older man stepped into the room.
    “That’s enough, Steven! We came here to save him, not to squish him into little bits.”
    Without a word from anyone in the room, the pressure around me lessened and I dropped to the ground. Taking a breath and looking up for the first time at my three visitors, I only had one question on my mind. “What in the hell is going on?”
    The older gentlemen looked at me with a little bit of concern creasing his mouth and eyes. “There will be time for that later. First we need to get you out of here and somewhere safe. Steven, Vanessa, take the lead. I’ll bring up the rear with our new friend.”
    We exited my cell and headed to the right. The hallway we were in looked just like my cell, only much, much longer. It was surprisingly well lit. Bulbs hung from the ceiling roughly every ten feet. There were doors lining both sides of the hallway, all of them unopened. We started to jog, and I got the feeling we didn’t have an unlimited amount of time before someone noticed our escape. Hopefully we