Luminosity Read Online Free Page B

way or another, or at least it feels like it most of the time. The Keeper wants to see which of us is strong enough to survive, and she’ll push us to our limits to find out.
    Quickly, I drop into the space under the arena and carefully pull the door closed over me. Just in time, too, as the sound of footsteps bangs down on the hatch.
    The room is dark, of course, so I flick on the flashlight at the end of my gun, flooding the area with brightness. It’s a tunnel, and where the tunnel leads, I have no idea. I’m at the far end of it, stuck in a corner. Not ideal, especially if someone from Team B found a hatch on their end and is heading in my direction. I have to move.
    As I snake through the narrow corridors, I hear people running above me, the soles of their shoes slapping on the ground. Mixed in are muffled screams and the sounds of bodies hitting the floor. Hopefully, we are winning.
    At last, I find a place where the floorboards of the arena are loose, allowing a peek up through a crack. It’s enough for me to aim the laser sight of the machine gun through the hole as well, so I crouch down low and switch the light of my gun off. Maybe five minutes have gone by and already it sounds as if seventy-five percent of the players have been rendered unconscious. Footfalls are scarce now, and the arena is eerily silent.
    That’s when I hear him.
    “Bea? Beatrice! I need your help!”
    Gabe.
    He needs my help, but I have no idea how to get out of the tunnels. If I go back, I will be running away from the sound of his voice and not toward it. If I go forward, I could end up Maker-knows-where. He is not far away from me either, and it sounds like he is in pain.
    “There’s only one more, Bea! Where are you?”
    I can’t stay trapped in the tunnels the whole time, and I can’t leave Gabriel to be “killed” either, even if he ran off without me.
    With the end of my gun, I bash away at the crack in the floor until it splinters open. After a few more adrenaline-powered thrusts, I am able to sling my gun around my back and climb up through the hole. Scrambling to my feet, my head still pounding along with my heart, I start to sprint in the direction of Gabe’s voice.
    I am afraid I am lost in the maze of walls when I find him. He is kneeling on the ground, his hands behind his back with a machine gun pointed at his head. And who else but Rachelle is holding the weapon?
    She smirks and pushes the end of the gun closer to Gabe. “Bang, bang.” Rachelle squeezes the trigger, and Gabe’s body jolts with electricity. Because of the proximity, it’s enough to knock him into unconsciousness and his body falls forward. Isn’t she supposed to be on our team?
    I jerk my gun up and shoot, but it’s too late. I’m filled with an intense shock that brings me to my knees, and my palms hit the floor. I gasp for air and glance up, trying to find the source. It occurs to me that Rachelle is still shooting.
    The arena lights come on.
    My world fades to black.

Chapter Four
    While I am out cold, I think of Gabe. We are around seven years old, and we are sitting in a classroom—a dim little room with long tables, each with four chairs, and two holoboards at thefront, behind a small, metal desk for the instructor. Gabe and I always sit together. It’s as if we naturally gravitate to one another, inseparable. I haven’t ever thought of my life without him in it, because I’ve never had a moment when Gabe wasn’t a part of what I was doing.
    It is history day in our class, and the boards flicker on, words appearing across the length. The instructor taps one board with her hand, her eyes on us. “Today we are going to learn about the roles of Seers and Citizens. Please start copying notes.” The first thing we ever did for this particular teacher was to copy a ton of notes that I never read again. Even today, this woman still insists on making us take copious amounts of notes, and one-by-one we all pull out our holopads and begin