Page 19

My clothes clung to me like a second skin, freezing me to my core as I climbed a ladder one rusty rung at a time. Small lights flickered on the panels beside my hands, growing scarcer the higher I went.

After a moment of crisis and Kendra having to literally shake me like a ragdoll to snap me out of my hysteria, I’d taken a deep breath, wiped my tears, and silently taken a look at the chamber we were in.

Nothing but an unremarkable square room with a ladder placed in the centre.

And so, it began all over again. Another trial, or at least a segue to one.

My heart sank a little deeper in my chest. They weren’t kidding when they called this a Trial of the Mind.

Combat and magic? I’d take those any day.

They relied as much on gut instinct as on survival skills.

Taking charge of my destiny and deciding on my own path, I could handle, but this…

Having no choice of what to do or where to go, and being thrown into one room after another…

Maybe the Masters’ real test was seeing who broke before they got out of here, if ever.

Seeing who could hack the pressure and the heartache.

And oh, how my heart ached. I thought of the guys again, never needing anything more in my life than one of Zane’s warm hugs, a cocky comment from Kayden, or a kind word from Noah.

Heck, I’d jump at the opportunity to exchange verbal blows with Ace.

If I died before I found out what we really were to each other, I’d come back and haunt the Overseer until her last breath.

I sighed, a small smile curving my lips. That thought made me feel mildly better.

The ladder seemed to extend forever. I’d offered to climb last, not wanting to show my back to anyone eager to put a knife in it, but Kendra had wanted Lou safe and snug between us, so I’d become the guinea pig lead instead.

Eventually, the lights guiding our ascent twinkled out altogether, until there was nothing but darkness and the surety of my palms on cold metal. Only the sounds of my friends’ breathing and the steady clang and scrape of shoes kept me from spiralling all over again.

Clunk, clunk, clu—

My hand met no resistance, and, with a sigh of relief, I palmed the surface and hauled myself over the top, turning back around to help the others fumble their way into the pitch black.

“Is everyone out?” I asked, wincing as my voice broke loudly through the stillness. It echoed back to me like we were in a large chamber.

Before anyone had the chance to answer, a loud thunk sounded, followed by a humming akin to electricity when it buzzes to life. A generator, perhaps? Cold air gushed over me seconds later, and I shivered under the breeze.

“Is everyone out?” a voice whispered back suddenly, seemingly from all around as the sentence repeated. The hair on my arms and legs stood on end and I instantly backed up a few steps. Then, the words—even the echoes—fell instantly silent. Goosebumps formed over my skin at the abrupt loss of sound.

Perfect, because starring in a horror film was at the top of my to-do list today.

“Whoever is doing that,” I said weakly, “it’s not funny.”

“Is everyone out?”

I shuddered as the voice whispered from behind me and a cold plume of air travelled down my neck. Whatever was in this room with us was not something I wanted to party with.

“Get away from me,” I gasped, scrambling back in a semi-circle. My arms thrashed wildly around me, but no one came within reach.

“Fallon!” Kendra called. I knew she was reaching for me, but she sounded farther away now. Did I risk wandering blindly into some creature? But it was so cold, and the chamber seemed vast, if I didn’t get back to my friends I might be separated for good.

“Fallon, Fallon, Fallon.”

More voices. A lot fucking more.

“Stay away from her,” Dick yelled, his voice surprisingly steady. Steadier than I felt that was for freaking sure.

Fuck it. I needed to find them. Needed them around me, if only to feel grounded by the warmth of a hand or shoulder. We could get through this together if we stayed close. I just needed to retrace my steps and—

“FALLON.”

My name on that otherworldly tongue blasted down my ear, so close I could smell the putrid rot on its breath.

And the way it said my name… fear cleaved through whatever remained of my courage.

If I’d drunk anything in the last twelve hours, it would have trickled down my leg as I whimpered.

My body quivered like an arrow as every bone in my body locked down.

The voice… I could only describe it as demonic. Inhuman. And right beside me, judging by the sound. I tried to open my mouth to tell the others to run, run, run, but nothing came out.

The room seemed to grow impossibly darker, as if whatever lurked nearby was sucking all the life out of it. I could sense it circling me, eyes latched onto my skull, yet my feet would not move.

It was so suffocatingly dark in here. I couldn’t even see my own hands as I spread them before me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, so afraid that something might very well bite them off.

Shit, if I made it out of here, I’d have trauma for life.

“Kendra,” I croaked. It took all my strength to muster that one lovely name.

“I’m coming,” she assured me, and gods dammit her voice was the sweetest I’d ever heard. That voice was one of many reasons to survive and get the hell outta dodge.

The thing growled in the darkness—probably pissed Kendra was about to interrupt its lunch.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and licked my lips. “Girl, I’m gonna need you to hurry now.”

The sound of footsteps zoomed towards me, light and sure, and a spark of hope ignited in my chest like a small, fuzzy thing that lit up the cavity of despair inside me.

Or would have, if not for the bloodcurdling scream that erupted nearby.

Then another, not far off. That spark in me fluttered like the dying flame of a wick. The screaming didn’t stop.

“Kendra,” I yelled, trying to be heard over the insanity unfolding around me. “Where are you?”

Someone knocked me so hard that the breath wheezed out of me. I tumbled to the ground, knees scraping on the hard cement as I doubled over. And still more screams rang out, everywhere and all at once, the voices all swimming in my head until I couldn’t tell one from the next.

Fuck! Which way was I going?

A light clicked on from a generator some ways ahead.

I blinked, trying to adjust to the brightness that now blinded me…

and wished I hadn’t. Because straight ahead, not five metres from where I lay, was one of the Potentials from my group.

He might have been a welcome sight, were it not for the fact he was banging his head against a wall. Repeatedly.

My stomach churned as each hit became more violent than the last. And all the while he was screaming as he banged his skull.

Blood splattered the wall, dripping down his face in spades.

And somehow, over all the chaos, I heard the grotesque wetness of his brain matter mashing against the wall until one final crack finished the job and he went down like a sack of potatoes.

Holy fuck. Holy fucking fuck. Alarm bells fired in my head as a high-pitched shriek that might have been Dick echoed through the room.

“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no.”

We didn’t come all this way together to be killed so brutally. I didn’t know if it was in the air, like a chemical making everyone crazy, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

More lights flicked on, revealing Potentials scattered across the room—some I hadn’t even seen before.

Was this some sort of web connecting to other chambers?

My heart skipped a beat. Would the guys find themselves here, too?

I looked around for them, but all I could see were Potentials in varying states of distress—some looked as though they had ghastly sunburns, others had freshly drenched clothes and more were covered in blood.

Cautiously, I kept an eye out for the thing that had shouted at me.

Nothing. Not a single red or yellow eye, nor a glimpse of a fang or horn.

I’d either imagined it or the chemical in the air was losing its effect on me.

I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone. I just needed to put my big girl panties on and remember who I was.

My name was Fallon Auger, and no noxious cloud or demonic spirit was going to stop me.

If this was a video game, I just needed to level up so I could make it to the boss stage.

I gritted my teeth. Game. Fucking. On.

The heat from the floodlights warmed my blood enough to propel me forward.

One final scan of the room revealed no demons or monstrosities lurking nearby, and that was enough for me.

I tried to run, but my legs turned to jelly as I put one wobbling foot in front of the other.

What the hell? I blinked, suddenly seeing four legs instead of two.

Okay, not good. Not good at all. There was definitely some kind of toxin being pushed out from that generator and it had not lost its effect.

I squinted around the room for my friends and blurrily saw Dick and Lou dragging a half-conscious Kendra along the side of a wall, taking care to avoid the manic gaze of Potentials gone mad. My stomach flipped at the sight of my friend’s limp body.

Kendra was my rock. A saint in a world full of vile, evil things. No chance in hell was I going to let anything happen to her. The fact the air had gotten to her so quickly… it didn’t bode well for the rest of us. But at least she hadn’t turned into a total psycho yet. We could still survive this.

Slowly, so painfully slowly, I stumbled towards them. Skirting around Potentials was easier said than done, though. I didn’t dare look too hard at the shapes darting across my vision—or at the horrid things they were doing to each other.

All around me, I saw flashes of blood and bone, leering smiles and the whites of eyes rolled so far back into people’s heads I was surprised they hadn’t popped…

no. This was too freaking much for one damn day.

Fuck this. I ran like it was my last day on Terrulia because this circus was more batshit crazy than any insane asylum could ever compete with.

And I was on a fast track to crazy town myself unless I got out of here.

Hell, that was being optimistic. Even if I did escape, there was no telling if the toxins in my body would clear out of my system any time soon.

Someone’s face popped into my vision, and I screeched, snapping out my fist so fast I almost fell over.

A high-pitched scream answered.

I blinked, seeing the very terrified face of my friend. “Oh my god. Dick? I’m so s-sorry.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat as I realised it was just him and not a monster, but I locked that shit down asap.

“Fallon.” He glared at me, but his shoulders wilted in relief. “We gotta get Kendra out of here.” He gave me a once-over. “And you, too. Never thought I’d say this, but you look like shit.”

“S-so kind of you to… to notice.”

“Whatever is in that filtration system is kicking in hard. It seems to affect us all differently,” Lou whispered frantically to Dick. “Fallon has been exposed the longest and isn’t going to last much more. We need to move.”

Understatement of the century. But I couldn’t get those words out. My lips moved, but trying to piece the sentence together felt like slogging through mud. And moving my feet… I stumbled into Lou, who grabbed me gently, somehow bearing the brunt of my now leaden body.

Dick tossed Kendra’s limp body over his shoulder. If I hadn’t been so out of it, I’d have remembered to be impressed, but then we were moving, my feet half dragging over the floor as Lou used the wall to help leverage my body.

“So pretty,” I said through a grin as I stared at Lou’s face. The headlight framed her head, making her blonde hair, which seemed to remain perfectly fluffed and curled, look like a golden ray of sunshine in this hellhole.

She just patted me on the cheek and pulled me along like a ragdoll.

“There!” Dick shouted suddenly.

I tried to see what he was vigorously pointing at, but I couldn’t make out left from right anymore. “Sooo hot,” I mumbled.

“Yes. Lou is very beautiful,” Dick said a little irritably. “Focus, Fallon.”

“I don’t think she means me,” Lou said sharply. “She’s burning up. We need to—”

I never learnt what we needed to do. A scream ruptured my ears, and then I was falling, my face smashing into the cold, hard ground.

Something cracked, but the pain was a distant memory.

There was only heat flooding through my body, a kind of haze taking over my vision as I lay there limply.

All sense of self began to evaporate. What was my name again? It didn’t matter anymore.

Nothing mattered but this unbearable heat that burned through my blood, giving me purpose again. Giving me a new thirst for vengeance. For blood. I wanted to tear limbs from bodies, grind bones together, and feel the hot, wet mess of someone’s lifeblood on my hands.

I saw a bunch of bodies swarming two blondes by me, the limp body of a black-haired girl between them. But I didn’t recognise them as people. I saw only meat, and I longed only for the kill.

Another face appeared before my own, the whites of their eyes glowing in the dark. They smiled at me, their white teeth coated in blood.

So, I smiled back.