Chapter 29
I Was Drowning
Day Four.
We’d finished lunch, and I expected Merm to snap his fingers and summon all the weapons chests. Instead, he ordered everyone to the center of the platform.
“I like your necklace,” Farren whispered at the start of Merm’s speech.
I didn’t think she heard my “Thank you” over his booming voice.
I fiddled with the scepter pendant hanging over the similar shape marked on my chest. This was the first time I’d worn it.
I meant to take it off before lunch, but I forgot.
Still not entirely sure what possessed me to put it on in the first place.
It caught my eye from its perch on the bedside table that morning, and I donned it because why the hell not.
It was mine.
Regardless of what anyone else thought it meant, to me, the necklace was a connection stretching out between my grandmother and me. It was a lifeline to the only adult who’d ever given a shit.
“You all have shown you are capable of defending yourselves enough to survive NTG, so we’ll head over that way,” Merm announced at the end of a bunch of other crap.
Everyone broke out into small cheers of excitement.
Even Soren’s mouth seemed to slant at the corner.
“However,” Merm roared, clapping his hands together. “You all have proven you are still far from being a team, so we’ll focus on challenges that build connection and trust, teamwork. You will remain in NTG until I am satisfied. No dorms until you’re one big happy family.”
Sighs, but no other complaints this time.
Except for me.
I definitely made a fuss in my head.
How about I just waltz right out of here? What are they gonna do about it?
“Strength comes through stillness and belief,” said the quiet voice.
Thanks, nice-intrusive-thought-voice-thing, but I’m not very trusting and probably not considered still either. So that means I’m w—
“Get to it!” Merm ushered us toward the exit with his huge arm, and the others started walking.
Salah grabbed my wrist and tugged me along with a colossal grin. Farren nudged me on the other side.
“This is where the real fun begins,” Farren said with a waggle of her brows.
Turned out that big door at the end of the hallway—the one that had distracted me on my first day heading to Room R—led to an expansive stretch of wilderness in a controlled outdoor environment cordoned off as the Neutral Training Grounds.
The guild had sectioned off a whopping 137 acres for beings of all sorts to train together.
We had technically stepped foot outside Chapel but were still well within their leash.
When we made it through the door, we were greeted by a metal plank about two meters in width wrapping in a semicircle for at least a hundred meters each way.
I followed the rest of the team to the right until they stopped at a section of the platform that jutted out a bit further.
This was my first time leaving the underground bunker in a week, and the pleasure of getting some fresh air paled in comparison to the stifling humidity and the suffocating realization that Merm planned to send me to my death.
This was when I learned that Farren’s idea of fun was about as far from mine as one could get.
Pretty sure I decided we couldn’t be friends as I stared over the edge of the metal plank, watching Farren and Adriel fly through the air, at least ten levels above any solid surface, hanging on for their very lives by just a measly little cable.
N.O.P.E.
Zip-lining was not a reasonable mode of transportation!
“Are you scared of heights?” Matthias asked. He’d hung back from the rest and made his way to where I stood, flush against the wall.
I couldn’t even bring myself to step onto the plank. From my angle, I could barely see over the edge, but it was enough to know that only death awaited me in that direction.
No sound came out of me other than the shaky breaths I barely managed. The pendant of my necklace weighed a ton.
Matthias leaned next to my ear and whispered with hot breath blowing against my eardrum, distorting his words. “I can ride with you, if you want.”
I swallowed. My vision blurred, and a drop of sweat slid down my temple to the rim of the ear Matthias hovered over.
I shook my head and squeaked out an incoherent refusal.
Then Matthias chuckled and shifted so that he stood in front of me.
“Hey, Rapunzel,” he whispered.
My vision came into focus, and I saw him staring right back at me. Oceans of sky blue with sunny flecks of gold. He was conventionally the most beautiful being I’d ever laid eyes on.
The hum of my blood quieted, along with the voices of the others getting ready for their turn on the zip-line we were supposed to take to our campground.
Fun, they’d said.
I finally took in a full inhale. And all I could hear was Matthias’s calm and soothing voice, his lips barely moving.
“You can ride the zip line with me, Eliana. I’ll keep you safe. You won’t—”
“You ride with Salah,” Soren’s voice interrupted as Matthias straightened and broke eye contact.
I blinked and saw Soren standing behind Matthias, a hand on the blond’s shoulder.
Matthias laughed from his throat and mussed my hair.
“Next time, kid,” was all he said before heading off toward Salah at the awaiting cables.
Her face lit up as he walked toward her.
My panic attack was over for now, and I focused on watching Matthias help Salah climb onto one cable before he mounted the other.
Soren slid to the space to my left, leaning against the wall beside me.
Though I was no longer hyperventilating, I still had no intention of moving.
Merm pulled a lever.
Salah and Matthias’s screams were probably joyful, but they haunted me as I kept my back pressed to the wall.
My pulse spiked. Breathing quickened.
Here we go again.
Marigold adjusted her clothing so she could go next. She hooked a shorter cable with a small disk at the bottom to one of the two endless cables stretching into the horizon. Then she attached another to the second line, setting them both up so two people could race to their deaths.
Her long blond hair cascaded down over the leather straps holding her cut-off top as she glanced back at Soren and me.
Well, probably just Soren.
“Want me to wait for you?” Marigold asked, lowering her chin and raising one brow, her mouth twisted in something between a smirk and a scowl.
“No need,” Soren said so low that I was surprised she heard it.
She must have because she turned and climbed onto the disk, both feet locked together as she grabbed the cable with one hand. She waved with the other before swinging her body forward. That was all it took to launch her into the yawning void.
The zip noise was more terrifying to me than a scream. Marigold herself didn’t make a sound.
Along with every other part of me, my breath shook—too loud.
I tried not to look left toward Soren or forward to where everyone expected me to leap into the impossible.
So, I eyed the corrugated metal floor and silently prayed Soren would take his turn already.
Then I could sneak back to my dorm, and no one would notice I’d bailed.
It wasn’t like I was an integral member of the team, right? Like I was the whole damn reason they made the team. Not like the entire guild fantasized about me delivering them from evil…
“Are you?” Soren finally spoke, but I had no idea what those two three-letter words meant.
“Huh?” I choked as I swallowed some vomit sitting at the back of my tongue.
“Scared of heights.”
A whine slipped out with my sigh this time. I mussed my hair further and kept my eyes down. I could see a canopy of trees if I looked too far toward the edge of the walkway, which meant I was way too high up.
I trained my eyes toward the sky instead and tried to pretend it was further away than it was.
A lone chuckle vibrated beside me.
“You jogged every day on the Hi-Lo.”
I swallowed and tried to steady my voice.“You can’t fall in The Tower.” It came out small because that was the only way I could make it sound like I wasn’t about to cry.
Soren hummed. No laugh this time.
“Don’t make eye contact with Matthias in the future,” he rasped.
“Why not?” I whispered.
“He hypnotizes. He can make you do whatever he wants. And I don't trust him not to want you.”
I gulped and nodded, the rough brick knotting my hair at the back of my head further.
“I’ll go with you,” Soren said after a long pause.
My lungs froze around a shallow breath. Then I let that breath out in a full whoosh, my fingers drifting to the pendant again.
“I don’t think it’s going to matter that you’re on the cable next to me when I slip off and plummet to my death,” I said quickly. “Unless that’s the point. You want a front-row seat?”
I rubbed my sweaty palms on my leggings, gaze fixed on my feet.
My throat felt close to collapsing, just like my skull would when it smashed into whatever waited far below.
At least the fear was keeping the rising acid in my stomach from erupting.
With nerves tightening every muscle in my body, I couldn’t even manage to puke, much less attempt an escape.
Soren’s boots slipped into view. The toe of his black combats kissed that of my cream ones. Heat radiated from his body as he leaned in with a hand on the wall above my head. Mint and ash invaded both my sense of smell and taste. Then the rumble of his voice snatched up the only sense I had left.
“I’ll hold you,” he said.
That was it. No explanation. Just that.
I missed Zade. I preferred his oversharing to this guy’s penchant for never giving enough details. Ever.
Still, something sparked low in my back and zipped up to wrap around my chest.
Soren holding me sounded like a strange mix of torture and comfort.
I bit the sides of my tongue until pain grounded me. My breathing quickened, but his didn’t.
Still not sure this guy even needs to breathe.
I was about to stall and say something like, “Go first. I’ll catch up.” But I didn’t get the chance.