"I will be stronger than my sadness."

-Jasmine Warga

Adira stopped fighting when the Authorities stuffed her into the back of their van, the doors slamming shut behind her. The sounds of the city continued outside the vehicle, everyone going on about their day like nothing had happened while Adira's world had flipped upside down.

She leaned back, her spine digging into the kraenite built into the wall behind her. The stone drained the powers she didn't even know she wielded. Ironic. Letting out a deep breath she had been holding inside of her, she rested her head back, her chin tilting up towards the ceiling. She stared at one single spot, her eyes burning dry as she refused to blink. She would not let herself cry. She already had shed a tear in the street when she was surrounded.

Never again.

The van roared to life. Adira rocked with the curves and turns of the van, her muscles limp and numb. Gone was the fear. Gone was the pumping blood. Gone was the fight. She should have beat the walls until her knuckles bled, but instead, the backs of her hands rested on her thighs, her palms empty and open, the cuffs still tight around her wrists.

A battle raged on in her head as she tried to keep her composure. The shadow of fear plunged and trampled over her fragments of light, trying to devour her, control her. Her vision of the rising sun that morning was swarmed with the dread of what was to come. The Pit.

She had gone once to watch out of curiosity and she never had gone back. She remembered marveling at the sheer size of the dome, which might have been as tall as it was wide - she couldn't remember. The massive structure was built with the same metallic black stone that caged the island. As intimidating as the Pit had looked to her, it wasn't the dome that kept her away--it was the bloodshed.

Wielders that were on the same side of the war fought each other underneath the black bowl that kept them trapped within. Wielders that had witnessed the deaths of their friends and family during the Great Purge turned on each other under the eyes of the packed audience that had bought their seats just as she had that one day. She couldn't erase the desperation that flickered across the Wielders' faces as they unleashed their powers against each other.  It terrified her watching them.  She couldn't even imagine being a part of it.

But now she was going to become one of them. She was going to die--she knew it. She didn't stand a chance against Wielders who knew exactly who they were and what they could do. How did she go her entire life not knowing what she possessed? Idiot. Stupid, useless idiot with a death sentence.

The van stopped, the rumbling of the engine silencing.  Adira heard the two doors at the front of the van slam shut. Any second the back doors would open and the panic would set in again. Her heart pounded in her chest, her breathing accelerated, and her fingers trembled, itching to claw the cuffs off of herself.

The doors opened. The light streamed in, blinding her momentarily.  Rough hands grabbed at her arms, yanking her out, and placed her on the smooth concrete outside.

"Let's go, Wielder," one of the men hissed.

Don't. Don't look at it.

Adira ran her eyes over everything in sight except for the Pit as the two men dragged her forward, the toes of her boots scuffing the pavement with each step. The wind whipped her chestnut hair back and forth across her vision.

To her left, she could see the black mounds from the quarry, where hired labor from the Council mined kraenite. Black dust wafted into the air as workers used their machines to drill. 

The Wall stood mountainous not too far in the distance, its height scaling so far she had to tilt her head back to look at the sky.

Her feet stopped moving as she took in the breathtaking hues of the sun setting behind the Wall. A curve of pink blended into a rich purple, leaving the rest of the sky a dark blue as stars began to shine between the tufts of clouds that drifted by.

Adira was tugged forward, the men getting impatient with her as she took in her last view of the sky. They wouldn't take away this last moment of hers, she had already let them make a fool of her earlier.

She planted her feet firmly into the ground, placing one foot behind her for leverage as they pulled at her. If they yanked any harder, they would pull her arms out of socket. Adira didn't care. Let there be bruises tomorrow, let them rip her arms from her shoulders, at least she would have this last memory of the sky.

The sky had always been her light when things were darkest.

Suddenly, her feet were swept out from under her and she was on the ground, pain shooting up her spine. The same man who had spoken to her a moment ago leaned over her, his legs straddling her body, his cleanly shaven face too close to hers.

"When I say, 'let's go', I mean it," he seethed, his eyes narrowing at her. "Don't be stupid."

Her fingers itched to claw his face, staining his clean skin with streaks of his blood. She wanted to scream at him, call him every horrible word she knew. She wanted to kick his knee in so hard he would never be able to walk again. Instead, she closed her hands into fists. She bit her tongue. She pulled her legs under her to stand up, instead of raising them for a critical hit.

Control. Control yourself.

"That a girl," he purred, stepping back to her side and wrapping his fingers tightly around her arm again. Both men helped her stand up, but it was him who spoke into her ear again. "Be a good girl. Don't cause trouble and you'll stick around longer. Become a problem and you're as good as dead."

She was already dead either way, honestly, but she didn't tell him that. Let him believe that she had hopes of living, the joke was on him.

The Authorities jerked her forward, back on track to the Pit. Adira swallowed down the lump in her throat. She couldn't avoid looking at it any longer, it took up the entire space in front of her.

The Pit was even bigger than she remembered it. Maybe it was just because she was never going to see the outside of it again. The air changed the closer they got to the thick black doors. It was heavy, dense, full of something that was wrong. Shivers snaked down her spine.

Within a few steps, every spot of her vision was filled with black - the endless black wall, the black doors. It was strange to her that in a city whose buildings and Authorities were dressed with white, the element that brought down their enemy, the Wielders, was black.

Adira spun her head over her shoulder as the doors swung open, the Authorities pulling her into the darkness. Her eyes widened, trying to take in every bit of the sky before the doors closed behind them, shutting her off from the rest of the world forever.

☆ ☆ ☆

The main hallway stretched on either side of Adira as she was escorted by the two men. Their footsteps echoed off of the walls, the only sound besides their breathing. Sections of the wall opened up, revealing sets of stairs leading up into the arena seating. The same arena where not too far in the future, citizens of Acadia would witness her ugly death.

They walked for what seemed like hours, the skin on her arms going numb from how tightly the Authorities were gripping her. Then they started to curve to the right and she heard voices, some joking, some laughing. She also heard a few raised voices having an argument. Everything fell silent when the three of them rounded the corner.

"Finally!" one of the men in white leaning against the wall called. "We haven't caught a new one in two months!"

Cheers arose from the men, some waltzing over to clap her two escorts on the back. Congratulations were given to "Kyland" and his meaner counterpart, "Jag", the one that had knocked her to the ground. Most of the men stayed back, huddled in their groups, staying far away from her. A few of the men looked her up and down, a small smile tugging at their lips, their eyes filled with hunger. Adira refused to look at them again, but she could sense their gaze continue to roam over her as they continued down the packed hallway.

One man walked next to them, looking at her curiously. "What can she do?"

Kyland on the other side of her spoke for the first time, shocking her. She had assumed he was a mute. "This one's dangerous. She attacked us with ice. She's got fire in there somewhere too. Maxon and Jensen are both at the hospital with third-degree burns on their hands."

The cheering turned to whispers, gossip and rumors already starting.

Great.

"Actually," Adira spoke for the first time since the incident. "I can't wield either. This is all just one big mis-"

"What did I tell you about being stupid?" Jag yelled in her ear, leaving her eardrum ringing. "No one spoke to you!"

Adira clenched her jaw, gritting her teeth. As she was escorted away from the herd of Authorities, she imagined all of the painful ways she hoped that Jag would die one day, letting a sliver of darkness enter her heart.

☆ ☆ ☆

Adira thought it would smell much worse underground. She imagined the scent of death and waste. Surprisingly, the air was just musty. Apparently, the Council didn't want their prisoners dying for unsanitary reasons.

She tried to catch glimpses of her new home as they walked, but the Authorities were dragging her too quickly. The walls, the ground, were all kraenite. The Council must have built the Pit right on top of a mass of kraenite.

The perfect prison for Wielders.

She was led through door after door, the last one opening to reveal a long corridor of cells. Each cell was walled off from its neighbor, the fronts closed off by thick kraenite bars reaching from the ceiling to the floor.

Adira was paraded down the corridor, Wielders watching her from their cells in silence. She glanced at as many as she could. Some of the older Wielders looked pained for her, their mouths drawing down into a frown as they watched her go past. Younger Wielders varied. A few were angry, their brows drawn in, but most were curious. Almost as if they were sizing her up, wondering if she was competition.

Finally, they stopped in front of an empty cell. Kyland turned to face her, his fingers fumbling at her cuffs, unlocking them. Her wrists burned once the pressure was relieved. She twisted her wrists in her hands as she watched Kyland. His fingers wrapped around the black bars of the cell door and slid it open. Her hands were free, Kyland was distracted.

This was her only chance.

With as much force as she could, she swung her arm towards Jag, her fist colliding with his face. He grunted with pain, his hand dropping from her arm to cover his nose that was dripping with blood. Kyland jerked around, his arms reaching for her, but she was gone.

She was flying down the corridor, cheers blazing through the bars of the cells, hands reaching out for her as she ran past. Her hair billowed behind her as she ran, her boots pounding into the floor. The door was so close, just a few cells away.

Then she was tackled hard to the ground, her chin bouncing off of the floor. A heavy body laid on top of her, his weight pressing into her back.

Jag's voice screamed in her ear. "You stupid bitch! I warned you!" He flipped her over onto her back, so she was forced to look at him. Blood covered his lips, his chin, some of it dripping into his mouth.

Before she could think of something witty to say, his knuckles connected with her eye, her world going black.

☆ ☆ ☆

Adira awoke on the floor of her new cell, only one eye opening.

The bastards couldn't even have put me in the bed?

She grunted as she sat up, her back sore from the hardness of the ground. Her fingers reached up to graze her swollen eye, the pain from just the single touch making her flinch.

"You alright?" a deep voice asked her.

Adira looked through the bars of her cell, straight into the cell across from her. A man rested on his knees, his face pressed close to the bars. His blonde hair was a shaggy mess on his head, his jaw lined with the beginnings of a beard. His cool blue eyes rested on hers, waiting for an answer.

"If you call waking up in a cell after being knocked out cold 'alright', then sure," she replied. She tried to stand, but the room spun, sending her right back down to the floor.

She bit her lip. Hard. Trying to keep her scream of anguish inside. She threw her head into her hands, burying herself away from this new horror. She could feel it coming, the tears, the quivering chin, the burn in her nose. She was going to fall apart.

She could barely hear the man over her inner turmoil. "I'm Ryder. It's okay to cry, you know."

Instantly she shut it off.

Control. Control yourself.

"Thanks, Ryder. But no, it's not okay."

Playlist ~ Escape Artist by Zoe Keating

Visual: Adira at the Pits

Is this the last we have seen of Jag, the asshole? Did Adira make matters worse by trying to escape? Who is Ryder?