.


It takes a lot to trust that someone else will catch my fall.


Laurel Amory, 14, Boston, Massachusetts


Hours have passed and we've been in this damn lobby.

I'm not talking about maybe one, two fun-filled hours, I'm talking about a solid six hours of nothing but sitting in this lobby and babbling on about absolutely nothing. I'm pretty sure two or three people have slunk off, as I haven't heard from Arian or Mitchell in forever. Everyone's making the best of the incredibly dark situation, but the lack of power's starting to get to me. It's getting cold, and this thin tank top isn't doing me any favors.

"What should we do?" I whisper to Chase, by my side. I can feel her soft hair against my shoulder. "It's obvious that Elle's not going to let us go anytime soon. She's still telling us about her trip to Venice."

"She's been talking about her vacations for so long…" Chase scoffs. "So much for all the 'activities' that they were talking about today."

"I'm sure that there probably were activities, they just got put off because of this." I sigh. "I would've thought that in a big city like this, they'd have some generators on by now. Storms aren't that major."

"You're right." Chase grumbles to herself. "I feel disgusting."

Frowning, I rub a tendril of my hair between two fingers. "As do I. I could really go for a shower right now."

"Let's sneak off, then. They can't blame us for leaving if we have been sitting on this floor for literally hours on end. This ain't what we signed up for."

"I'm down. Which way were the stairs?"

Painstakingly slow, grateful for Elle's loud, babbling voice, Chase and I crawl – though nobody would've known if we had stood and ran, I guess – in the general direction of the corridor containing the stairs. Lucky for us, the red neon 'exit' signs must've been battery-powered – I could see one clear as day.

"This is bullshit." I hiss as we climb the stairs.

"Obviously."

"Also, when she said activities, I didn't think she meant falling to our almost-deaths. What was that shit, anyway? Some kind of Divergent or Spy Kids allusion? What was the point?"

"They were trying to see how we'd react to a new environment." Chase snorts. "I took a psychology class. It was some stimuli experiment done a while back, I'm pretty sure."

We reach our floor, and feel our way to our room. I feel around for my room key in my pocket. "Damn, I left our key in the room. Can you unlock it?"

Even in the dark, I can tell Chase's expression must be pissed. "You idiot. I don't have pockets, I told you to take one when we left this morning."

My face flushes red. "Bitch! I didn't hear you! I was too tired from being hustled from room to room last night while you were looking for someone new and fun to play games with. I got two hours of sleep while you were fucking Arian, but you think I could fall asleep after that?"

"It's what girl friends do with each other!" Chase argues back. "If you were out there with a dick appointment and I was your bodyguard, I wouldn't bitch about it the next day!"

I glare at her inky figure. If there's anything I hate, it's fake people, and at the moment, Chase is fitting the bill quite nicely. "So I was supposed to be the bodyguard while you upped your body count?" I hiss. "The cool thing is that I was told we'd actually be having fun, not playing Secret Service. Shitty job I did, then, falling asleep in Antonio's bed!"

Chase sighs. "Let's not argue, Laurel. We've been through enough today."

"We went through a skydiving tunnel and sat on a lobby floor for six hours, we haven't been through jack shit." I rub my temples, thinking. "There were community showers on our floor at the end of the dorm rooms, I remember Kendall mentioning something about that at some point. Maybe we can just bum off of the stalls in there. I'm sure there's shampoo."

We feel our way to the end of the hall in silence, reaching a door half-open. I feel for a plaque and feel nothing but Braille. Damn, now would be a good time to be blind.

"I'm just gonna assume that these are showers." I march in, Chase following like a meek blonde puppy.

The smell of soap and floral shampoo fills my senses. "We made it," Chase mutters.

"I'm just gonna strip right now, find a stall, and hope there's shampoo." I swing my tank top over my head, silently praying that I don't mix up my own underwear and Chase's.

It takes a while, but I feel out a line of stalls, and swing the door shut behind me. It also takes a long while to figure out how to work the faucet so it reaches a temperature that doesn't either boil me alive or send me to an Arctic tundra, but once I do, it's bliss. I lather myself up with a bar of soap found on a little ledge, relishing in the fact that water tanks aren't based off of electricity.

The water runs down my body in rivets. Nostalgically I remember the showers I'd take after soccer practice, stripped down to my sports bra and underwear with my teammates. We were messes of sweat and mud and cheap body spray, but we were genuinely happy.

I close my eyes, splashing water over my face. Chase is a great friend, one of the best I've had, but she doesn't fit the criteria of an entire team as your best friend.

In a team, it's not 'only the strong survive'. It's everyone pulls their weight and everyone else's so nobody gets left behind. If we had a power outage at my school and I was stuck in a room with my team, we wouldn't be sitting on the floor playing patty cake, we'd be doing something constructive and interesting to pass the time. Sure, we'd be bumping into walls and getting bloody noses, but we'd all be getting bloody noses. It'd be together.

Oh, I can't wait to see them again.


Raine Harvey, 14, Galveston, Texas


"Why can't we go back up to our rooms?"

Almost half of our group has gone, slipped off into the inky blackness to explore the hotel or back up the long trek to their rooms. Only the obedient have lingered, waiting for Elle to quit pacing and tell us what to do. She remembered her flashlight a couple minutes ago, but it's a tiny penlight on a keychain. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing, allowing us a thin beam of LED light.

"You're not allowed," she barks. "We were supposed to do activities until dinnertime. But I'm not getting a good connection over my walky…" She taps the little device in her hand, shaking it when there's no reaction.

"I'm sure it'll come on in no time." I smile, touching her arm. "We could play a talking game until they tell you what to do. That way, you're doing your job by keeping us entertained, and we're not so bored over here."

Elle huffs. "Like telephone?"

"Like getting to know you games!" I chirp, motioning for everyone to sit before I remember they can hardly make out what's illuminated in the penlight. "Everyone, sit down. Let's try to make it a circle." Shuffling. Someone gets poked and they go 'ow'. Soon enough, we're mashed together in a circle, knee to knee.

"What are we going to play?" The voice is Ailsa, I'm pretty sure.

"We could play never have I ever," another voice says – Payton.

"Isn't that a dirty game?" Etienne.

"Not necessarily." Payton's voice takes on a mischievous tone. "Unless we want it to be. Everyone, start with ten fingers, put one down whenever you have done the action. First one to zero wins!"

"I'll go first!" Paige, I think. She's right beside me. "Never have I ever been out of my state, except to here."

She's never been out of her own state? That interests me. After my father died, we've been dirt poor, and still been able to make the trip up every Christmas to Louisiana to visit my relatives. Maybe she's never had a reason. I put my pinky down delicately.

"My turn?" My voice breaks out. "Never have I ever gotten worse than a B."

"You're making this too easy," Payton calls out.

"That's not a good thing, dumbass." Natalie, I believe. "It just says you're not smart."

"One step closer away to winning, though!"

"I'll go, now," says Etienne. I can feel the bandaid on his knee, pressed up against mine. He took a nasty spill this morning, and I'm pretty sure he chipped a tooth against the floor. He didn't seem to mind too much, just cried for a solid twenty minutes before biting into some toast. "Never have I ever had a birthday party."

My heart falls momentarily. In my own mind dances images of my mother and father and all my siblings, gathered around a hefty sheet cake from the grocery, adorned with orange and red flowers and golden candles. Their smiles warmed my heart almost as much as the warm cake did. I haven't had a birthday party with them since my father and Mike passed away – I hadn't much of a taste for cake after that.

And yet Mother still made the effort to get me a new book and a new pair of shoes, every birthday. This year it was penny loafers. I wore them almost every day.

I didn't bring them with me. They're lying with my other few pairs of shoes, in a neat row next to my bed.

I wonder if they're still as polished as they were when I left them.

The game continues for several more minutes, and I'm actually quite enjoying myself. I'm down to six fingers and am about to take my turn once more when the lights flicker. Elle shrieks.

Leaping to my feet, I instantly forget about the game. "What is it?" I shout, seeing flashes of the people around me in the glinting lights. The floor jumps suddenly, and I topple back to the ground, right into Etienne. He gives a comically high-pitched yelp, but I have no time to laugh.

"We have to get down to the storm cellars," hollers Elle, clutching onto a chair. From what I can see, her eyeliner's smeared, presumably from crying. But she doesn't look scared like her voice makes it seem. Her eyes meet mine and they dart away. She looks guilty.

All that I think of Elle is forgotten in the panic that ensues. Etienne grabs my hand, apparently to pull himself up, but forgets that he's got a good thirty pounds on me and instead reels me on top of him. This time it's my turn to yelp.

Devon and Natalie dash past me, hand in hand. Ailsa's tumbling after them, close behind, and for one split second, her eyes meet mine and she thrusts our her hand. I take it gratefully, pulling myself to the floor, looking back for Etienne but being pulled away in the rush. He's down on the ground, limbs in a tangle like a big albino spider.

"Etienne!" I croak out. Ailsa bites her lip, her running slowing for a solid moment. It picks up.

"He can get up himself," she snaps, her face a mish-mash of black and tan in the pulsating lights. "He's not a cripple, he's just clumsy."

Maybe he's clumsy, I think to myself, but he's my roommate, and I should be back there helping him get out with the rest of us. I know he'd be doing the same for me. The floor gives another quake, and the three girls and I soon wind up on the floor. My mouth is biting down on Natalie's shoe, and she swats me.

"Where the fuck did Elle go?" Natalie howls.

"She was up ahead!" Devon scrambles to her feet, glancing back at the ones behind us. Paige and Payton aren't far behind. Antonio was the first one out of here, running with inhuman speed. But Etienne…

"I know where she went," Paige announces. "I watched what door she went into. Follow me!"

So there goes Payton, Natalie, Devon, and Ailsa, all staggering after Paige in the blinding optical illusion. For a terrible split second, I'm torn, mind telling me to follow the pack, heart telling me to go back into the giant lobby, weaving between chairs and tables, losing my sense of direction and throwing myself out into the dangerous unknown, to help Etienne to his feet, where he still hasn't emerged.

My heart and my mind tousle.

I take off, doing exactly what my father would do. I know I'll make him proud yet.


Natalie Decker, 16, Milwaukee, Wisconsin


It really seems like Paige is the new Elle.

"This door," she announces, pushing open the most random door in the corridor. It's a closet. I press my lips together, not hiding the glare that comes when I look at her.

"Don't look at me like that!" Paige snaps. She might be my roommate, but the passive-aggressive hostility between us is so thick, you'd need a steak knife to cut through it. Where Paige thinks her view of the world is all for justice, as in she treats everyone the way they treat her, mine is more of a go-with-the-flow and do whatever I want to do. She thinks I'm cynical and bitter. She's not wrong, but fuck her for not making more of an attempt to be nice. At least I tried being polite. "So I got one door wrong. It was one of them on this side, I saw her."

"It looks like our new leader isn't living up to her promises," I reply right back. I hold my head high. "We haven't had much luck, either. The first one ditches us to save her own ass and our new one's a fraud."

Another lurch rocks the floor and sends us all spiraling down the hallway. I hit ground face first, my jaw smacking into the hard flooring. I bite down on my tongue hard. Groaning with shock, I turn my head, tasting blood.

"Natalie!" Ailsa cries out. She rushes to my side, pulling me to my feet. I almost growl at her friendliness, but shove the negative feelings back down. She helped me. She got off her ass and helped me to my feet, not the others. I should be grateful. I am grateful.

"Come on," I hiss, scowling at Paige on the ground. I think her nose is bleeding, but that might just be a tendril of hair. "Let's blow this joint and find the storm cellar."

"The elevator would probably have a button for the basement," Ailsa says.

"You crazy bitch!" Ailsa looks at me wildly, and I give a grin to show her I'm kidding. "The elevator is the last place we wanna be right now with all this malfunctioning electricity and whatever the whole jumping floor situation is."

"You're probably right," she mutters. "What's your plan then?"

I grab her hand and rush out of the darkened hallway, risking the high ceilings of the lobby. A pot and a plant from a shelf stories above us has crashed onto the ground, sending smithereens of ceramic clay and peat moss everywhere. I lead us into a new corridor, one with much fewer doors, and I push open the one for a staircase.

Ailsa stares as I enter. I glance back. "What're you waiting for?"

"How do you know this will lead to the storm cellar?"

It takes all I have not to roll my eyes. "Typically, staircases lead to a basement," I say patiently.

"How did you know there was a staircase here?" Her eyes are wide, white.

"I had a lot of exploring time on my hands." I smirk, waving my hand to tell her to follow. She hesitates, but I don't. I fly down stair after stair after stair, clutching the railing with a hand as I go down, down, down. I hear Ailsa's light footsteps pattering after me.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she mewls.

"Elle herself said to get to the damn storm cellar!" I call over my shoulder. "She's probably down there right now, laughing her ass off and counting how many diamonds are on her wrist Swarovski."

I must be a pretty good motivator, for Ailsa picks up the pace and is soon right by my side, breathing heavily as she descends with me.

The staircase reaches its end, and there's a singular door in front of us. I waste no time in pushing it open, greeted with the darkest, creepiest hallway I could imagine. Red lights from an EXIT sign bounce off of the floor, slick with moisture.

"This is creepy as fuck," Ailsa whines by my side.

I look ahead grimly, mouth set in determination. Back home, I might've not cared too much about my future except where my next baggie of weed was coming from or what new video games were being released in the next month, but that was then. When it comes to self-preservation, I'm undeniably good at saving my own ass.

For a moment, I almost miss my own home. Its safety. The routine. Smoking weed with Matteo, coming home and ignoring my mom, hacking here and there to up my grades just a bit. I had a little control over my life.

But here? No barriers. My parents aren't here to scorn me and call me vixen and try and send me off to rehab. Nobody knows me but me. I can rule my life here in Detroit. This is me, plain and simple, starting my adult life early. Special opportunities, they promised. Special opportunities, I'll receive.

"We have to do this," I say, hearing a remarkably strong voice coming from my mouth. "It's the one way we know will be safe."

I look to my side. Ailsa's brown eyes are wide, but no longer wide with fright. Wide with something warmer and kinder. She might be one year my junior, but as we lock eyes, she could be a thousand years younger, a doe with her ears perked up and eyelashes batting. "I trust you," she says.

I look back out into the hallway. "Thank you," I say, and I walk forward.


A/N: Porcelain by Skott.


Andddd we got one more chapter until the arena!

I hope you're enjoying this story so far. School's picked up and I have actual homework now and it sucks, but writing for this is a little piece of solace that I enjoy. I hope you're enjoying it, too! I've appreciated every single person who's come back to this story and reviewed. It makes me happy knowing that even though I abandoned it for a while, you guys didn't. Much love!

As per usual, I'd always appreciate a review ;)