Chapter 19 #3
The chemical-laced water floods my nose, my mouth. Burns like acid. I thrash as best I can, but he’s sitting on my back, has got me pinned face down in the shallows. My fingers claw at the sand beneath me, finding little purchase.
Through the distorted water, I hear his voice. Muffled. Desperate.
“Just make it easy for yourself.”
He’s not trying to kill me. He’s trying to knock me unconscious so he can get to the Deathball without a fight. Smart. Practical. While I’m out cold, he climbs back up, waits for the shell to open, grabs the ball and ends this.
But understanding his plan doesn’t help me escape it.
My chest burns like the fiery pits of hell. Worse now. Concentrated. My chest spasms, trying to force me to breathe, but there’s only water. Only poison.
Marco’s face flashes through my mind. Not the cold bastard who rejected me, but the Marco from the forest stream. The one who held me under the water while shouting at me to fight back.
“Push me off!”
“Fucking do it!”
But I couldn’t then, and I can’t now. My body betrays me once again. The fire in my chest spreads outward, consuming everything.
My lungs give up waiting. They try to breathe.
Just like that day with Marco, water rushes in like liquid fire. My throat convulses, trying to expel it and draw air at the same time. The choking fits tear through my chest, each spasm weaker than the last. The world starts to fade. My muscles go slack. My thrashing becomes barely a twitch.
Then I hear it.
Through the water, through the roar of blood in my ears, a sound cuts through everything. Harsh. Electronic. An alarm.
Not the horn that started the match. Something different. Something the last scraps of my hazy consciousness recognize from last week.
Marco’s voice in my head. “You survived this before. You can do it again.” Not the words he actually said, but what he meant. What he was preparing me for.
I reach deep for some last thread of fight.
It’s still there.
The first wave hits us like a battering ram.
The world explodes. It slams into us from behind—sound and pressure and chaos.
The grip on my head vanishes as the impact tears Elijah away from me, sends us both tumbling across the sand.
Water pours from my nose and mouth. I’m still choking, still can’t breathe properly, but my head is above water.
I inhale a single, ragged, violent gasp.
Then I roll helplessly, still coughing up water, as the artificial tide drags us in opposite directions.
The commentator’s voice booms across the arena, but the words blur together. Something about a sponsor. Something about—
Another wave crashes down. Then another.
Not just any waves.
Tidal waves. They must be coming from some sort of machine.
They’ve activated Poseidon’s Wrath.
My new sponsor activated Poseidon’s Wrath.
I’m slammed against the base of the cliff, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. The costume tears. Water floods my mouth again. But this time I’m ready for it. This time I can spit it out, can fight back.
Through the chaos, through the roar of artificial surf, I catch fragments of the commentator’s voice.
“—hold on to your seats, ladies and gentlemen—”
Another massive wave builds at the far end of the arena. Taller than the others. Taller than anything nature would create in a space this small.
I press my body to the cliff, clinging tightly for dear life to what I can grip.
The wave crashes down with the force of a landslide. White water everywhere. The roar drowns out the crowd, drowns out my own gasping breaths.
When it finally recedes, I’m alone on the sand.
No sign of Elijah.
I can’t waste a second looking for him.
The crowd’s roar is deafening, but underneath it I catch the loud mechanical groaning of the clam shell preparing to open. How long do I have this time? A minute? Two?
My hands find the cliff face again. The wet rock cuts into my already torn palms, but I climb. Every muscle in my body screams in protest. The fall, the near-drowning, the waves—my strength is nearly gone. But I climb anyway.
One handhold. Then another. My legs shake with exhaustion. The painted glitter has washed away, leaving only skin and determination. My shoulders scream with each reach.
Slower this time. Much slower. My fingers keep slipping on the wet stone.
Then I hear it.
“Robin! Robin! Robin!”
The chant builds across the stadium. Thousands of voices calling my name in unison. It should disgust me—these people cheering for blood, for death. And it does. But it also gives me something to hold on to when my grip slips.
I imagine Cas in the viewing box, leaning forward, willing me to climb faster. Come on, Robin. Don’t you dare give up. Don’t you leave me here alone.
I imagine Marco standing beside him, face carved from stone, betraying nothing. But his eyes—his eyes would be locked on me. Watching every move. Maybe he’s even shouting prayers inside his head, in our mother tongue.
Vamos, birdie, más rápido. Come on, birdie, faster.
My hand slaps against the plateau’s edge. I haul myself up, gasping, my arms cramping and near useless.
The clam shell sits open in the center, the Deathball gleaming.
But I’m not alone this time.
Elijah pulls himself over the opposite edge at almost the exact same moment. Water streams from his black hair, his costume torn and bloodied. How the hell did he—no time to think. We both see the prize. We both see our chance.
We rush toward the center.
Our bodies collide at the shell’s edge. No technique, no strategy—just desperate, frenzied hands grappling for the Deathball. My fingers close around one side of it, his around the other. The metal spikes bite into our palms as we search for the handle.
We’re locked together, both gripping the ball, both pulling on a spike with everything we have left. My feet slide on the wet rock. His shoulder crashes into mine. We stumble, twist, fighting for control of this nightmare weapon.
He’s stronger. Less battered. The ball shifts toward him. Inch by inch.
No.
I can’t let him win. Not when I’m this close. Not when Esme needs me to survive. Not when Marco—
Elijah slides his fingers into the handle, and the Deathball tears free of my grip.
He stumbles backward, the weapon clutched to his chest. Victory spreads across his face. The crowd explodes. It’s over.
Except it’s not. Not yet. Next comes me being bludgeoned to death.
What to do?
Throw myself off the cliff?
No. My body won’t survive another fall. But maybe it doesn’t have to.
I collapse.
Drop to my knees right there on the plateau, letting my head hang in apparent defeat. My hands shake—not entirely an act. I am beaten. I am broken. I am at his mercy.
“Please,” I gasp, not looking at him. “Just make it quick.”
Through my lowered lashes, I watch his feet ready themselves. See the way he adjusts his grip on the Deathball, raising it above his head for the killing blow, measuring the perfect angle. He’s merciful enough to want this over fast for me.
That mercy will be his undoing.
He brings the weapon down.
I dive forward, threading myself between his legs like a slippery fish. The Deathball whistles, thuds on empty ground.
I kick.
His knees buckle.
He gasps. Stumbles, loses his footing on the slick rock.
Falls.
I scramble up his back before he can recover. My knees dig into his spine, pinning him face down against the stone. My hands close around the Deathball’s handle, wrenching it from his weakened grip.
Now I have it. The weight of it in my hands, the power to end this nightmare.
All I have to do is bring it down.
Elijah isn’t fighting anymore. He’s gone completely still beneath me, his face pressed against the rock. Waiting.
I raise the Deathball above my head.
The arena holds its breath. Twenty thousand people waiting to see which of us walks away.
Don’t hesitate.
I bring the Deathball down with everything I have.
The impact travels up my arms like a lightning strike. Metal against bone. The crowd erupts, but their cheers sound distant, muffled, like they’re coming from underwater.
I lift the weapon again.
Again.
My eyes squeeze shut, but I can still hear them chanting my name. “Robin! Robin! Robin!” Over and over, a rhythm that matches the rise and fall of my arms.
I can’t stop.
Just like Cas couldn’t stop hitting Andreas last week. I didn’t understand it then—why he kept swinging long after the first blow ended it. Why his face went blank, why his movements turned mechanical.
Now I know.
It’s not about the kill. It’s about the crowd. Their hunger feeds something primal, something that strips away every civilized thought until only this remains. Lift. Strike. Lift. Strike. My body moves without conscious thought, driven by thousands of voices screaming for blood.
I don’t think of Elijah. Not Marco.
I think of Esme.
The way she used to laugh when I’d chase her around, threatening to throw her in the tide pools if she didn’t put down her sketch pads and train with me. Her gray eyes bright with mischief. Her blonde hair flying behind her as she ran.
I think of her seeing me like this. Her brother, the one who was supposed to protect her, reduced to a butcher performing for the entertainment of strangers. A monster wearing her brother’s face.
My arms begin to tire.
The Deathball grows heavier with each swing. My shoulders burn. My grip slips on the handle, slick now with—
I force myself to stop. To open my eyes.
The mess beneath me used to be Elijah. His dark hair spreads like seaweed across the stone. Red stains the pink stone, pooling in the cracks between rocks.
Beside me, black shapes move about. The game architects, scaling the cliff in their sleek uniforms, having crossed the water in small boats that have suddenly materialized. They buzz around me like insects, efficient and emotionless.
One grabs my hand. I still clutch the Deathball in the other.
“Smile,” he hisses in my ear, and lifts my arm into the air.