“Stay back! All of you—stay back!” My fists were clenched, held out in front of me.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the bloodied knife just inches from my foot; I dropped quickly and snatched it up from the floor.
“Come any closer,” I threatened Kade, “and I’ll kill you. I. Will. Kill. You.”
Kade’s nostrils flared, and he came toward me anyway.
“STOP!” a woman’s voice called out from the crowd like a whip striking flesh.
Kade stopped mid-stride; he gritted his teeth, rounded his chin, frustrated by the order but submitting to it.
I looked up to see Ravinia’s blonde hair moving down the bleacher steps and through the parting crowd like light pushing through darkness. An eerie hush fell over the gymnasium: a thousand whispers went around the room; the movement of closely-packed bodies; the hum of the balloon lights; the tap-tap-tap-tap of Ravinia’s boots as she made her way across the arena floor.
I stood my ground, knife gripped now in both hands, and I waited, with Atticus wounded at my feet; I could sense him moving just barely; his shallow breaths rattled in his chest; he moaned and grunted.
Ravinia stopped feet from me, just out of striking distance, and she looked me over. “You’re not as delicate as you appear,” she said.
“Stay back,” I warned, pushing the knife forward.
Ravinia smiled, and the non-threatening nature of it puzzled me.
“And what would you do,” Ravinia said, “if I didn’t? What would you do if I came at you?”
“Do what you want with me,” I said boldly, “but if you touch him, I’ll do whatever I have to, whatever I can, to kill you.”
A wave of low laughter went around the room; Ravinia raised her hand and it ceased at once.
She kept her attention on me; her smile grew more; she clasped her hands together on her backside.
“Do you really think you could kill me?”
I backed up an inch—an inch was all I had to keep from stepping on Atticus—my hands still locked out in front of me, gripping the knife I was terrified to use, but would without thinking twice, if I had to.
“One never really knows these things,” I answered with logic. “Because one person is bigger, or more experienced than another doesn’t always mean they’re stronger.”
“So, you think you’re stronger than me?” Like her smiles, nothing about Ravinia’s questions were sarcastic or mocking or threatening. “If you thought you could kill me, how exactly might you do it?”
I glanced away from Ravinia’s eyes; I swallowed nervously.
“If I told you that, you wouldn’t let me leave here—you’d kill me.”
Ravinia tilted her head to the left, and then to the right.
“I’ll take her back to my room,” Kade spoke out, and then tried to step up beside Ravinia but she shot him with a hateful glance and he backed off with a disgruntled sneer.
“What is wrong with you people?” I blurted out, looking at Ravinia for only a moment, and then my gaze followed all those standing nearby, surrounding the arena floor. “These aren’t fights—they’re executions!”—I glared into Ravinia’s eyes then because she allowed such barbarism—“You are no better, no more evolved or advanced as human beings as those out there hunting people for food! You’re uncivilized—savage!”
A mild eruption of voices rose and fell over the crowd.
Ravinia remained silent, allowing me to continue, perhaps wanting me to, but when I did not go on, Ravinia spoke instead:
“The World is a savage place,” she reasoned, raising her voice so that all could hear, but never taking her eyes off me. “But we are not a savage people. We are survivors. We are strong”—she raised both hands high into the air—“We are survivors because we are strong!”
The gymnasium erupted into cheers, and then silence fell over the room again slowly.
Ravinia’s brown eyes met my blue ones.
“Forcing others to fight,” I began, stepping toward Ravinia rather than away anymore, “forcing the weak and oppressed into slavery doesn’t make you strong—it makes you pathetic. It proves your mind weak. And what good are strong hands if the mind that controls them is broken?”
Words of dispute went around the room.
Ravinia smiled, and in her face I detected something indicative of delight.
“You are right,” Ravinia said, and it surprised me. “But who here”—she raised her voice and her hands again—“who here is in Paducah against their will? Who here has not been given the opportunity time and time again to leave this place and their oppressors?”
No one spoke out.
“They say nothing,” I accused, “because they’re afraid.”
“No. They are not afraid,” Ravinia said. “They are learning.” She clasped her hands on her backside again; she paced left, then right.
Kade, standing near her moved out of the way; he glowered at me.
Ravinia stopped and turned to me again. “Were you not given an opportunity to leave?”
She turned to Kade then.
“Did you give her an opportunity to leave?”
Kade nodded. “Yes,” he answered straightaway. “I left her alone for three hours in my room. I didn’t lock her in. She chose to stay.”
“You knew I wouldn’t leave,” I snapped. “You knew I’d be convinced to stay, told it was dangerous to walk out the door”—I glanced at Atticus lying on the floor—“And you knew I wouldn’t leave without him. So how is that an opportunity?”
Kade started to answer, but Ravinia cut in:
“Regardless of the circumstances,” she said, “it was still an opportunity. You were not chained up, or thrown in a dungeon—”
“But he was!” I barked, motioning at Atticus—I started to accuse them of locking him in a kennel, but I didn’t want to betray Drusilla, and hoped I didn’t accidentally just now. “In fact, we were abducted, taken against our will, forced from our home—we were brought here with our hands bound behind our backs! So, explain to me how your argument is valid!”
Ravinia’s index finger darted upward.
“You were brought here,” she began, “against your will because you cannot live out there, alone in this fucked up world. If either of you were strong enough—fists or mind—to get yourselves out of it, then you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Ten against two,” I shot back, “like six against one”—I pointed at Atticus and then those who’d beat and stabbed him—“is not opportunity, or a chance—it is unjust!” I stepped even closer to Ravinia, enraged, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, the knife grinding against the bones in the right. “And who are you—any of you—to decide where and how others choose to live?”
“The world—the human race—cannot survive if those who are left are weak and cannot defend themselves from those who are strong,” said Ravinia.
“And who are you to decide who is weak, and who is strong!”