Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
After my run with Landon, I made it through Strategy without winning a single chess game, Sublimation with an angsty mess of red and purple paints to show for it, and Elements without kneeing Ben in the crotch or whipping out my pocketknife.
He spent most of the session leering, running his eyes over my body as I tried to climb out of the mud pit.
Frustrated, I gave up and sat in the corner, planning to wait until time ran out.
“I can help you out.” His eyes gleamed in the sunlight. “For a price, of course.”
Lip curled with disgust, I shook my head. “I’d rather rot.”
“You’d change your mind.” When I ignored him, he chuckled. “They always do.”
Glaring up at him, I crossed my arms over my mud-soaked chest. “Okay, Silk. Whatever you say, buddy.”
His cruel, answering smile dropped like lead in my gut, and once our time ended, I kept one hand on my pocket while I grabbed his hand and let him pull me out.
“Thanks,” I said before I could stop myself.
He winked. “Oh, the pleasure is all mine.”
I wrinkled my nose and spun on my heel, unable to stand another second in his presence.
Proud of myself for not resorting to violence, I went into Sparring against Elaine, focused on blocking out her bullshit. Lasting through the hour without raging was my crowning achievement, since she was as intolerable as she’d been last time.
Weirdly, though, my next session with Vivian was as anticlimactic as the first.
I couldn’t figure out her angle, and I didn’t like it.
She wasn’t being nice, by any means. That would’ve seriously worried me. But she wasn’t being a bitch, either.
I came in ready for a fight after a night spent tossing and turning over Max and two sessions reining in my need for blood. Bouncing on the balls of my feet, I was ready to rumble.
Brad groaned beside me. “Calm down, Rocky Balboa.”
Ignoring him, I stayed light on my feet. “What? I’m floating like a butterfly. Stinging like a bee.” I shuffled my stance, practicing a few jabs. “Eyeing the tiger.”
He rolled his eyes at my energy level.
“It’s what Josh said to do,” I snapped. “Maybe you want to chime in with some advice?”
Despite my eagerness, I should’ve listened to Brad and calmed down since Vivian spent the same amount of time discussing technique with Josh.
Meanwhile, I listened to Brad write sonnets about Elaine and tried not to lose my lunch. Only because I had nothing else to do while I waited for Vivian to finish chatting.
As Brad waxed poetic about Elaine, I contemplated the way things had worked out.
If only fate had paired them together during the Trust Challenge, he might’ve swept Elaine off her feet. She might’ve given up on Landon, never gone to her parents to invoke the statute, or drawn more attention to me than I ever wanted.
Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess at all.
But, sadly, fate was a bitch who loved drama.
Brad made it clear he’d been shooting his shot with Elaine often and without reciprocation, so there was no hope for them.
“She’s cold as ice, no matter what I do. She hasn’t responded to my moves since she got Kingston in her sights.”
As much as I wanted to sympathize with him over why Elaine wasn’t looking for love in all the right places, I sat there silently instead. Trying not to let my anger get the best of me.
If the goal of his sessions had been to work up my aggression, Brad would’ve done great. He spent the majority of our time together pissing me off.
I just didn’t get to do anything with that energy.
When we finally entered the ring, Vivian focused on her movements and form more than she focused on me, despite having plenty of ammunition to get under my skin with her pending nuptials. Plenty of opportunities to give me a reason to strike back.
As I wondered what she was up to, Josh called out from the sidelines, “Hey, Everly! Your skepticism is showing.”
I tried to control my face and my emotions, but could he blame me? Vivian not jumping at the chance to bait me was suspicious as fuck.
We danced around each other, bouncing on our toes, circling the ring, and practicing our swings for the last twenty minutes while Josh and Brad egged us on from their corners.
With little to show for our efforts, it left me confused and thrown, especially when she packed up her belongings and left without a word.
Shaking myself out of it, I refocused.
The universe was bound to right itself, and I’d meant it when I said over my dead body at the idea of Elaine pretending to live out her wildest delusions with Kingston.
That went double for Vivian, whose claws actually were stuck in Max through their history, families, and secrets he couldn’t share.
Eventually, she’d revert to her usual bitchy behavior, so I’d get my chance to go toe-to-toe with her before this was all over.
No use stressing about it.
Not when I knew exactly how it would all play out.
I also had no need to fight with her when I needed to be fighting for him.
Keeping that in mind, I left the room, refusing to think about her, her weirdly passive behavior, and her never-going-to-happen future with Max again.
At the start of Succession training, Paul looped around me, assessing me as if I were a soldier signing up to fight. “When the Obstacle Course begins, you’ll be racing against the clock.”
“You know, when you circle me like a vulture, it’s hard to focus on the looming threat of the Obstacle Course.”
He stopped, but he didn’t smile. “My sessions focus on your ability to make quick, decisive choices under pressure.”
I skirted my gaze away from his, sure I should’ve known that but having spent the first two days slightly distracted.
Clearing his throat, he drew my eyes back to him. “Do you think you can handle that, Quinn?”
“Yes,” I blurted before thinking about it. “I think I can.”
“The Obstacle Course is a series of tests. You’ll make your way through it and collect what you need to complete the Scavenger Hunt.
” He pointed across the lake to the back lawn of Winchester Hall, the fraternity house inside the high-walled grounds.
“The Final Trial spans across Camelot Court, and it’s important that you take each step in the right order. ”
That was new information.
Unless he’d already mentioned it.
I cursed myself. “What happens if I don’t?”
“You won’t be able to solve the final clue.”
“Well, shit.” I frowned.
The black lockbox I’d practically ignored for two full days haunted the back corner of my mind. Was I already making the wrong choice? Picking the bear when the way to survive was choosing the unknown man.
That couldn’t be right.
But Tristan had said he suspected nine out of ten girls would pick the bear. Was there something one girl knew that the rest of us didn’t realize?
When I asked Tristan about it during Escape training, he confirmed he’d been right. Nine out of ten Ladies had picked the bear. He also confirmed that poking a bear was not a recommended approach, but he couldn’t add to my internal debate about my current life choices.
Instead, he covered the Flight response, the instinct to run away from a threat or desire to escape and avoid a situation.
Then, during my Sabotage lesson with Austin, I tackled obstacles he’d set in my path to slow my progress.
As I made my way through his miniature training course, I worried over my next lesson with Max. I half-expected him to mirror Austin’s lesson. More obstacles.
Instead, he mirrored Tristan’s.
When I walked into the training room, nothing but a scrap of paper waited on the middle of the mat.
Initially excited, thinking he’d planned a tiny Scavenger Hunt for me, I followed the instructions scrawled on it to twelve other scraps of paper.
The first six clues filled me with giddy anticipation, as each one revealed a new clue.
But I never found him.
He’d sent me on a wild goose chase, and I grew so frustrated I convinced myself he’d ditched me just to shack up with his future wife. Ridiculous as it was, my anger flared. First, at him, that those thoughts were even possible. Then, myself, since I spiraled with anxiety and assumed the worst.
If Max and Vivian had made it through high school and three years of college without having sex, I highly doubted they’d finally do the deed in a fit of passion during my training session with him.
Although…
That did reek of petty.
I shook my head, nearly ripping out strands of my hair and scowling at the maddening way things with him and her were getting in my head. I’d wanted to avoid thoughts of their bogus betrothal entirely, and I’d spent the end of the day with it smacking me in the face at every turn.
All because I couldn’t shut down my masochistic brain.
Thankfully, when the twelfth clue wanted to send me to my apartment, I pulled out of my spiral.
I gave up on my search to meet Kingston in his office.
He had check-ins scheduled with each of us midway through the week.
“It’s not much, but at least, it’s a bit of time together.” He closed the door and led me inside, my favorite secret smile gracing his lips. “I wanted to see how your training and the clue solving were coming along. Discuss any issues.”
Still frustrated, I launched into my issues with Max. “He’s not teaching me anything! This is the third session where he’s run off.” My shoulders sagged, hating that complaining was my only option. “Can’t you do something? Remind him of his duty or whatever. There have to be rules!”
Seconds away from stomping my foot, I forced myself to breathe. Kingston placed his hands on my shoulders and guided me to the window beside his bookshelf.
“Subterfuge is about evasion, Quinn. I can’t really go to Merle or my father and say Max isn’t teaching you anything. Not when he evaded you for an hour.”
“More like three days,” I grumbled, making his point, as hopelessness bled into my voice. “I’m running out of time.”