Chapter 20
Milo
“Welcome to the second round, contestants,” Officer Zephyr announces as he strides into the food hall.
It's breakfast and we’ve all been escorted here, as has become the norm so that the guards can check our rooms each morning. We’re not segregated anymore but there has been an increase of bag searches, room searches, and just general questioning by the staff.
Behind Zephyr, a few of the others he commands trail in carrying stacks of those card-like folders. The ones you see doctors and such with on TV shows. They fan out as Zephyr strides to the middle of the room, and start distributing the files, giving one to each of us.
“This one is a longer game,” he starts to explain. “We’ve allocated a week to it and you’ll need a different skill set from what you demonstrated in the first challenge. Each folder contains all the information you need, read it carefully.”
Murmurs break out as the first few tables start opening their folders and looking at what’s inside. Tacita and I are sitting with Seffy on one of the far benches, so we’re nearly last to receive ours.
“You may ask any of the Guard Team questions throughout the week but don’t expect us to have the answers.” Zephyr folds his arms across his chest as his voice rises above the noise. “I’ll only give you this one hint: rushing will result in death.”
A young looking male guard with auburn curls hands me a folder and I quickly move my breakfast tray to lay it down on the table.
Opening it up, there are three pages inside.
It’s a profile of some random guy I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before.
Name, age, all the usual details are at the top of the first page before it moves into longer passages of text.
A few diagrams and pictures litter the subsequent sheets.
Flicking back to the start, my eyes catch on the ‘species’ category under the basic information section. Dark Angel is written next to it.
Okay, so this is someone from Hell then. It’s another reminder that we’re not in the human realm anymore.
Confused, I look across at Tacita. She looks just as perplexed. As she lifts the first page in her document to read the ones underneath, I catch sight of it, she has a different person’s profile.
Getting her attention, I ask to look at her document, my hand gestures are getting clearer with the practice we’re putting in each night. She gives me a smile like she’s proud of me and hands it over, whilst also grabbing mine.
Hers is the same in types of detail, but it is for a different person entirely. It’s only as I’m scanning the last page I note the only similarity is a location listed under their frequent whereabouts.
We both look up at the same time, she’s clearly noted the similarity.
“It’s a mystery to solve, are these profiles of victims?” I ask. The details in the later sections relate to police reports.
“No,” she replies aloud as she signs. I can hear just fine but it helps me to learn to see the hand gestures as she talks. “I think these might be suspects. I’m pretty sure we’ve been given a crime to solve. Which isn’t what I was expecting.”
I cock my head at her, confused as her lips tighten into a thin line and she shoots daggers at the Head Guard.
As if he feels her eyes on him, he turns so he’s fully facing her and raises a brow. In return, she lifts my file, “What the fuck is this?”
His lips tug at the corners as he shrugs. “A surprise.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Tacita turns back to the table and huffs. Since when are these two on talking terms? After he dragged her off the other day, when those two contestants on our floor were killed, the last thing I expected was a somewhat civil interaction between them.
To be honest, I fear whenever Officer Zephyr steps into the room with us because he seems to rile Tacita up, and then he drags her off to whatever prison cells they have here. She’s always gone for hours.
“Who have you got?” Wyatt jumps over from the next table, sitting down next to me and grabbing the folder in front of me.
I get a waft of his cologne and have the sudden urge to press up against his side.
I don’t think he’d mind but I refrain because of the woman sitting across the table.
Wyatt seems totally fine with me, but he and Tacita seem to have cooled to the point it’s icy.
I thought maybe us all hooking up would pull us closer, but it has driven them apart. I asked her about it and she said this is normal. They’ve banged the chemistry out and now it’s done. Time to move on.
But I don’t buy it.
Wyatt tried initially to engage with her, to even rile her up, but she just doesn’t seem to rise to it anymore. I think it's her way of putting up walls. Maybe I’m way off the mark, and delusionally hoping, but I think she actually really likes him.
What we haven’t talked about is the fact I’ve slept in her bed for the last three nights. And we’ve not said a word about the fact she gave me another hand job whilst I fingered her again yesterday after I woke up hard and our bodies were entwined.
And with all those thoughts buzzing around my head, I miss what he says as he finishes looking at the pages. I sign for him to repeat it.
“I said these two are the same,” he says whilst reaching for Tacita’s, pushing his own to the side.
Seffy also comes over and joins us, putting her file down in the middle of the table. “I don’t understand this at all,” she says.
Taking a look at the profile she’s received, it’s different from any of ours. I turn it to show the others.
“How many different ones do you think there are?” Wyatt asks. “Do you think we have them all?”
“Good question,” Tacita replies whilst scanning Seffy’s suspect. “I think there’s at least a couple more, this one mentions another woman.”
“And this one mentions a brother,” Wyatt says as he lifts the ones we both had.
“Do you think we’re supposed to work together?” Seffy asks. Wyatt’s and Tacita’s heads shoot up from the papers now covering the table between us.
I can’t help but hope. If we can form a team, maybe they’ll talk a bit more again. Maybe it could lead to other stuff.
Something flitters across Wyatt’s face as he eyes the rainbow haired woman across from him. Then he looks at me and gives me a wink.
“Definitely,” he purrs. “Let’s form a team now and decide on a strategy.”
“Hang on, I didn’t say I was in,” Tacita fires back.
“But I think we’re going to need all the files,” Wyatt argues. “You agree, right Milo?”
Tacita looks at me and I briefly consider saying that we probably can figure it out alone, but that’s not what I really believe. Looking around the room I see the other contestants dividing themselves into huddles as well, clearly having the same idea.
“I think we should group together,” I sign.
“Fine, but we have a duplicate. It's useless us having two people with the same suspect.”
For a second I think she’s going to kick me out as I’m holding one of the duplicates, even though it was the file she was handed originally, but before she can clarify, Wyatt stands, scoops up his file and stalks off.
“Us three it is then?” Seffy asks.
“Yeah, we can work this out between us,” Tacita says.
“Phew, I don’t really want to be on my own now the no killing rule has been lifted.” I freeze at that, having forgotten the change in the rules during game periods. The murderer on the loose now has free reign.
“Alright.” Wyatt returns, bringing number Forty-Seven in tow. “I have a new file and Rio has a different one as well, so he’s joining.”
“Wait–” Tacita interrupts.
“Nope. There’s strength in numbers, Mo Stór. And we need all the files to solve this thing quickly. Shall we head to my room to start plotting?”
Admitting defeat, Tacita rolls her eyes before agreeing.
As we stand to leave, Officer Zephyr claps his hands to get our attention again.
“I’m sure you’ve all remembered the rules change during the games.
Well, we have an amendment to add in light of recent events.
Whilst you may indeed eliminate your competition during this next week, the dormitories are excluded.
Feel free to go at it anywhere else, but killing in the housing buildings remains strictly forbidden and punishment will be given by Hades himself. ”
“Ha, like you’ve punished the one responsible for the last four bodies,” number Fifty-Nine calls and few others join in with jeers and comments about the guards’ lack of control.
Officer Zephyr’s eyes flash golden. “I assure you, whoever committed those killings will be spending a long time in Tartarus,” he practically growls.
I wonder what he is. I haven’t seen him sprout wings, or shift into a different form, that I know of, but his eyes in that second scream predator. He’s as intriguing as he is terrifying.
“And one final thing,” Officer Zephyr adds once the crowds die down once more. “Lessons have not been cancelled, so off you all go before you’re late for your first lectures.”
There’s a few groans but the guards soon have us filing out of the canteen and towards the classrooms.
I guess our detective work on solving this puzzle will have to wait.
By the afternoon, I’ve poured over my file as well as Wyatt’s and Tacita’s. They had given them to me upon my request, neither hesitating in handing them over.
After lessons finished, Wyatt invited me back to his room. I’m currently sitting on the spare bed with the pages spread around me as I draw up the connections I’ve noticed with a deep read.
It’s the first time I’d been in any of the other rooms, and Wyatt’s is an exact copy of the one Tacita and I share.
Still, it's Wyatt’s space and I can’t help but feel something at being here, surrounded by his stuff.
Granted, it's also all the same as my own, all the stuff we’ve been issued.
But it's his. And I’m trying really hard to not think about how he’s currently naked in the ensuite.