Chapter 14
Danni
This trial is pure psychological warfare.
I climb for what feels like hours. Each step up the ladder is like an impossible task.
A thick sheen of sweat covers me, making the rubber of the catsuit feel like sandpaper against my skin.
I can barely breathe, and my hands have turned bloody and numb from the piercing splinters.
But I have to keep going. I have to survive.
A soft wind whips my hair across my face, bringing with it an icy chill that takes root deep within my bones.
Why is there wind?
I glance up for the first time in what feels like hours to find I’m almost at the top. Relief relaxes my muscles as I cling to the ladder. The decomposing wood creaks in protest as I halt for a brief moment. I realize my mistake all too late.
The wood beneath my foot snaps in two. I grasp tightly onto the ladder, my legs swinging helplessly in the air that seems to be getting colder by the second.
The vicious wind picks up speed and what little warmth was left in the stagnant, popcorn-scented air of the tent disappears.
My fingers grip harder onto the wood as my feet struggle to find a landing.
The weight of my body threatens to pull me back down to where the lion lays in wait.
My teeth chatter like a jackhammer as my whole body shakes from the temperature drop.
I can’t die like this.
I won’t die like this.
My scream is a war cry as I gather what little strength I have left to drag myself up. I fight hard against the wind that engulfs me, ignoring the tiny daggers of ice cutting my skin.
My foot finds the next step. The crowd far below groans as if they don’t want me to survive this.
1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6…
I keep up the pace, refusing to let this nightmare and those monsters win.
They want a show? I’ll give them a fucking show!
When I survive and I blow the lid off this operation, I’ll make them all pay.
I reach the top after twenty steps. The cold wind eases into a gentle spring breeze as I take my place on the podium.
I turn to look down at the crowd. Their faces blur as exhaustion threatens to take me.
My body feels dead. My stiff muscles scream for me to rest as an empty stillness replaces my adrenaline.
My gaze locks onto a pair of familiar glowing red eyes, and finally the world around me stops spinning.
Knox’s expression is unreadable, but the bond igniting between us tells me everything I need to know.
A pleasant tingling moves from my fingertips and up to my palms. I stare at my bloodied hands and watch as the splinters wiggle out from the wounds and turn to ash.
As the cuts slowly knit back together, the fresh blood recedes back into each scratch.
Did he do this?
I find Knox again, a silent question threatening to leave my lips. He nods only once. The action so imperceptible that anyone else would’ve missed it.
Even though I’m just at the beginning of this nightmare, Knox’s pride hums through the bond. The bond likes that and urges me to please him further. Despite my better judgment, I like it, too.
Examining the next part of the training, I find six rings of fire standing between me and the end. I crane my neck to see past the flames. I think this might be the last part.
Six hoops isn’t so hard, right?
A powerful energy courses through me, my muscles stronger and my limbs leaner.
Is this a part of the bond or a new kind of magic that Knox possesses?
Whatever it is, I’m not about to question it. I need to trust it.
I position myself at the edge of the podium, coiling my body like a well-oiled spring.
I don’t think about it. I just leap. My body twirls effortlessly through the air, and the heat from the fire barely registers as I land with practiced perfection on the next podium.
The crowd oohs and ahhs, only spurring my desire to complete the remaining hoops.
But as I lift my head, a glint of silver catches my eye from below.
My fear reignites with a new velocity. Just when I thought the nightmare couldn’t get any worse, the enchanted circus decides to increase the danger tenfold.
A thick mass of steel thorns blanket the bottom of the arena.
Branches twist and turn upward towards me.
The sharp, thorny thicket shines under the spotlights in the tent.
How the hell did I miss that when I came in? Or did it just appear?
The knotted branches gleam as they keep growing.
How are they alive?
A huge branch winds itself with a serpentine motion around the podium I’d jumped from.
The sound of the glimmering metal grinding against the dry wood forces me to cover my ears.
I need to run. But I can’t look away. Exhaustion begins to creep back into my bones, the cold icy chill of the wind swirling around me.
The metallic grinding noise pauses only for a second before the branch begins to squeeze the enormous podium. An echoing creak, a sharp snap, and then chaos erupts as the wood implodes from the force of the branch.
Shit! Run! Now!
I ignore the protests of my tight muscles and leap once more through the second ring of fire.
This time, I don’t land as gracefully. My wrists shudder from the impact of catching myself on the wooden podium.
At least I’m not on fire.
Thwack!
The second podium shatters.
It’s coming for me. I have to go.
I leap again and again through the rings. Each one feels smaller than the last, but I’m too busy escaping the metal branches that want to tear me apart to stop to consider the reality.
That is, until I get to the sixth and final ring. Tiny.
A toddler couldn’t even fit through it without catching themselves on the fire!
Thwack! The fifth podium is destroyed.
How am I going to do this?!
A loud grinding rumbles beneath me. The branch has caught up.
The podium sways from the pressure. I throw out my arms to either side of me to keep myself balanced.
Nothing works. I’m either going to set myself on fire or be thrown down and impaled by a thousand thorns.
Either way, I will die slowly and painfully.
Just like this entire shitshow circus, there is no other way out.
Right as the podium crumbles under the weight of the thorny branch, I leap forward.
The world becomes fire and ash around me.
There’s a snap in my ribs as I land on the edge of the last podium.
But it doesn’t matter, because my entire body is on fire.
I pull myself further up onto the podium, the relentless sounds of the branches following close behind me.
I’m done for.
The nightmare has won.
And now I’ll never avenge my mother.
I’ll never be able to tell the world about the coven of vampires that kidnaps people and uses them like cattle. Vegans would no doubt have had a field day with my article.
Wait…
These are my nightmares…
Everything I’ve thought about until this point has become a reality. This torture is just an illusion in a place that makes all of your dreams come true.
I close my eyes and think of the ocean. A vast, endless blue sea that gleams beneath the sunlight.
Crystal clear water and white sand. Fuck it, let’s throw in a rubber inner tube and a cabana boy.
I open my eyes just as the branch snaps the final podium.
As I fill my head with nothing but thoughts of that clear ocean, the wood beneath me disintegrates and my body goes into freefall.
Warm, salty air kisses my skin and I can’t help but smile as I plummet beneath the waves.