Page 20 of Cut Her Strings (Fractured Puppets #1)
Chapter 19
Kinkajou
T he sound of Levi’s door unlocking woke me, and I extracted myself from his body. I had fallen asleep fully clothed with my mask in place, but I had not expected to be conscious when they arrived.
Levi sat up as two guards entered the room.
“Lucky you two, you get to fuck and be rewarded for it. Get ready to go, five minutes.” The guards took station against the bedroom door.
I turned to Levi and gave him a reassuring smile as we took turns in the bathroom and put on our shoes.
We were going to make it through this. We had to.
“Time’s up,” the same guard stated. “You take her.” He pointed to the other guard, and we were both ushered out of the room.
We made it in time for me to see Jayce, Maverick, and Enzo being carried through the exit, drugged and unconscious. It was going to be okay. We were going to be okay. I didn’t believe it yet, but I kept repeating the words internally, nonetheless.
“Lights out,” the guard stated, and my vision disappeared.
We walked in silence for a long period of time, our footsteps echoing through the otherwise silent halls. The only noticeable difference as we walked was the temperature. It steadily dipped until we eventually came to a stop. After another several minutes, our vision returned.
“Take a look; you have ten minutes before you are placed with the others.”
I blinked a few times to adjust to the light. Levi stood across from me, doing the same. Once I gained my bearings, I began to take in my surroundings.
We stood together on a singular platform above what appeared to be a life-size game of mancala. Wait, that wasn’t quite right; instead of the two rows, there was only one, and they were all uniform, concrete, and rectangular-shaped. Eleven pits in total. I continued my surveillance and did my best to intake any helpful information. The entire game was surrounded by insurmountable walls that left no space on any side of the holes. There was an empty trench on each end that appeared deeper than the rest, with nine pits in the middle. All the holes appeared to be about thirty feet wide and six feet long. The ones at each end were probably around six feet deep, while the ones in the middle were about three feet deep and currently held thirteen players. Correction, there were two that only held twelve people. The trenches at each end were void of contestants.
What the actual fuck was this? I continued my survey, I was able to locate Jayce and 197 in the center hole, but I couldn’t spot anyone else in the mass of bodies.
“What do you think this is?” Levi murmured, echoing my thoughts .
“Nothing good. This looks physical, as Maverick predicted. I spotted Jayce and 197 in the middle. You find the others?”
Levi scanned for a moment. “Fuck yes, on opposite ends, look on the walls. Looks like the pits are numbered.”
He was right; on one side of the wall, numbers were lit up, and only the rectangular holes with contestants were labeled one through nine.
“Maverick is in three and Enzo is in seven. I’m guessing we’ll be going into pits one or nine. I doubt that’s good.” He was right; those two currently held only twelve people.
The walls at the ends of the last pits displayed the number zero.
“You ever play mancala?” I asked.
Levi’s eyes darkened. “Fuck, it does sorta look like that, but there’s only the one row?”
I pointed to the other wall, where there were arrows pointing in one direction currently lit up. “I’m guessing that is going to be their workaround to show which direction to move.”
“I think you’re right.” Levi stepped forward into my space. “Be careful, okay? Don’t be a hero.” He placed a chaste kiss on my lips and separated just as the guards returned.
“Time’s up. Let’s go,” one of the guards snarked.
Once more, everything went black, and we were led down the steps to the game. After a few minutes, I was pushed into place and felt the heat of other bodies.
“Stay still until the others wake up.” The guard ushered and released his hold on me.
I carefully sat down, doing my best not to jostle the other people in my vicinity. It would be best if they didn’t know I had an advantage and I appeared to wake up with the rest of the contestants .
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I heard the distinct groans of others waking around me. I felt a hand reach out and grab my ankle, and I bit down my surprise, wrenching it out of their grip.
“Good morning, my lovelies!” the Host’s voice chimed through the space, echoing against the walls, causing me to freeze entirely. “As I’m sure most of you have guessed, it is time for the next game to begin. I do suggest you listen to the rules in their entirety before making any rash decisions.” The Host was back in his complete lyrical persona. “First things first, let there be light!”
I blinked my surroundings into focus and came eye to eye with the last person I wished to see; 189. He was in the same pit as me.
“Now, let’s see. Where to start? Oh yes. Congratulations to the one hundred seventeen of you who have made it this far. We have only lost a few since our last group game. That is practically unheard of.”
I heard his applause, but I still could not find where he was.
"This game is simple enough, but there are quite a few rules.”
Finally, I spotted him on the platform where I had previously stood with Levi.
“As you can see, you are surrounded by walls and in a pit. There are eleven of those. Look at the walls; oh, do dearies, take a look for me.”
I scanned them and noted they were the same as before.
“Your pit number is on one side, and a direction is on the other. At both ends, you will see the number zero. That is how many teams have made it to each end. Those numbers can only go up to twelve. Once they both hit twelve, the game ends.”
I did the math in my head. Twenty-four teams would be making it out of this game. With one hundred seventeen of us left, I couldn’t be sure what the average team size was, but it didn’t appear to go over five, and the lowest was two. My best guess was around forty teams left. I supposed I had worked with worse odds.
“Both a number and an arrow direction will be illuminated at the same time. If you are in the pit number with the matching number, your collar will light up, and it will be your chance to go as quickly as you can to make it to the pit at the end in the correct direction. And remember, whatever you do, never forget the wisdom of a kinkajou,” the Host sang. “Unfortunately, if your collar is lit up, as soon as you leave your pit, you are fair game to anyone in any other pit. Do try your best to make it past, but if you haven’t, after five minutes, your collar will go dark, and you will be stuck in the hole you have made it to. Oh, and sorry to say, if you are the one with a lit-up collar, you can defend yourself, but no killing or attacking any of the others.”
At this point, I was anxiously surveilling my surroundings. I had no allies in the pit I was in, but I re-found Maverick in hole number three and spotted our allies 32 and 41 in hole two. 32 had climbed up on 41’s shoulders to get a better look around. Shortly after, more of the contestants did so, completely blocking my search for others.
“Oh yes, and don’t worry, if one of your teammates is in the winning trench at the end of the game, your whole team wins. Hmm, am I forgetting anything? Who knows. Good luck and have fun, kiddos.” The Host was positively unhinged, but something about the rules didn’t sit right, and what in the ever-loving fuck was a kinkajou. Additionally, this game appeared to favor those with larger teams, leaving Jayce and myself at a disadvantage.
I was so distracted by my thoughts that I didn’t realize 189 moved the other contestants between us out of his way until he invaded my space.
“Well, hello there.” His voice was just as plain as the rest of his appearance, but it was incredibly off-putting. He sounded like everything he spoke was prerecorded. He leaned over until he was right in my ear and whispered in that robotic voice, “Answer me this, what’s only one color, but not one size, stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies. Present in the sun, but not in the rain, doing no harm, and feeling no pain.” He pinched my cheek at the end, and I flinched, but it wasn’t from the physical pain. It was his words that caused a cold to wash through me.
I thought about his words for a few minutes before I figured out the answer to his riddle. My breath stuttered. I was hoping he had been bluffing before. But that wasn’t the case; he knew exactly who I was.
The Shadow.