Free Wheel of Fortune by Cameron Jace Page A

all fours like a spider to shift my weight until I am upside down like her, hooking my legs through the gaps in the net to hold on while I stretch my hand out to help. The crocodiles are so close to Vern. There is no way he can make it. I stretch my arms and they hurt, but I get a grip on Pepper’s foot, my other hand, like my feet, tangled in the net.
    “Stop thinking you are disposable!” I scream at her in the rain.
    I am sure the viewer meter is picking up. The viewers must be having the time of their lives in their homes with the popcorn and beers on their laps. You won’t see this kind of stuff in your latest Zpiderman movie.
    “Life is precious. You could have an amazing life,” I scream at Pepper.
    She doesn’t listen to me, trying to kick my hand away. “You can do it, Vern. You can do it,” I hear her scream. She doesn’t preach about life being precious to him. “You can do it. Take my hand!” That’s all she says.
    “It strikes me that life is still precious.” Timmy’s voice is barely heard through the rain. “To a Monster, a Bad Kid, who will eventually die in a day or two, I say life is entertaining.”
    The crowd has mixed feelings about this. I can tell from their voices. It’s not all hailing and clapping any more. Something has changed. Just a little. That tiny voice of reason we love to kill like a cockroach has started crawling into our heads.
    Still, most of them are surely entertained.
    “Stop the rain,” Bellona screams. “Turn back to summer.”
    I have never imagined hearing such a sentence. It sounds as if Bellona is talking to God. She is only talking to the Summit, who has sewn the fabric of a nation, pretending to be gods.
    Pepper succeeds in shaking my hand away. I wriggle, managing to keep my balance on the net, with her one left shoe in my hand. It’s her and Vern now. How many people will shout “I am alive” when this ends?
    Pepper risks crawling closer to Vern. Their hands finally meet.
    The audience in the Zeppelins moans. Most of them stand up again.
    Holding onto Pepper, Vern climbs up finally. Clumsy and helpless as he is, he climbs past Pepper without even thanking her, using her like a stepping-stone. Raindrops run out of his ears. The crocodiles down there are getting madder, trying to stretch up to catch Vern. Then they turn their bad breath toward Pepper, who is now last in line, a foot away from their open jaws.
    I climb down to her, trying to get hold of her feet again, but she is too far. Soon, the water will rise high enough for the crocodiles to reach her.
    Some boy from the audience shouts Pepper’s name. “She doesn’t deserve to die!” he rants.
    It strikes me as a one-in-a-million voice that no one would listen to. “She saved Vern!” The single sound keeps screaming in from the audience and his iAm.
    In the middle of the mess, I remember Bellona again. They need us. The fact that they remember our names after just two days is something I don’t think has happened in previous games. Are they growing attached to us? Can we really use this? Can you use your enemy? Can we persuade them we are not the enemy?
    I tilt my head and look at one of the iScreens soaked in the rain. The boy is short, grumpy, with thick sunglasses, wearing an overall with a famous construction company’s logo on it. He looks like a Five to me. He is about seventeen.
    “The game is over!” the boy says. “You have to stop the game now, before she dies. I need to talk to her.”
    Timmy isn’t paying attention.
    I remember Pepper mentioning a boy last night, one who’s been raised like her, prepared to die at sixteen, but was surprised he got ranked a Five a year ago. They have been separated ever since.
    “I love her!” he shouts out of the blue.

Chapter 22
    A Kiss Before Dying
    The audience’s hearts stop…
    The rain stops…
    The crocodiles are suddenly locked behind bars in the pool.
    The crowd is not looking at us anymore. They are all looking at the boy who