Chapter 14 #2
As Marcella tosses the arrow to the side, the section of the arena they are in triggers its next shower of arrows.
“Marcella!” I scream.
She barely has enough time to drop and roll off the woman. But an arrow still slices straight across her cheek as she lands on her back, ripping open the skin and drawing fresh blood.
Aelia and I crawl forward as the woman Marcella pulled the arrow from turns to her. As soon as I see her profile, I recognize her from the gardens—Beatrice.
“Are you alright?” Aelia asks as we stop near their boots.
Marcella growls something under her breath and flips onto her stomach. “Keep moving!”
When I look up past Marcella and Beatrice, my shoulders somewhat relax. We’re so close to the finish.
That is, of this section in the arena. Beyond it, some women are jumping from stone platform to platform, causing the heights of the surrounding ones to shift.
Fueled by my determination to break free from the arrows, the four of us crawl the rest of the way forward. Once we’re clear of the dirt arena, we all shakily stand.
The entire ground is made up of the square podiums, all the same length and width. But all of which are a few inches taller or shorter than the ones around it.
The muscles in my arms are already burning with exhaustion. Aelia and I are working on slowing our breaths when Marcella steps forward onto the closest square podium.
It clicks, lowering down a few inches as the walls shake dust loose.
A few more steps and she’s at the platform’s edge, determining which one she goes for next.
But as women farther ahead of us land on a new podium, the entire chessboard-like floor rises and falls like a wave as the walls shake harder.
Beatrice hops onto the platform to the right of Marcella’s.
Click, click, click.
As the dust settles, gleaming pointed triangles shine on both sides of the walls.
“Come on, we have to get through quickly!” Aelia pulls me forward.
We launch. Barely landing on the first square as it shifts up and down. Partnered with clicks that trigger the spiked walls to inch in closer.
“Wait!” I scream on shaking legs as Marcella jumps to a new podium and lands, Beatrice crouching and ready to move forward. “The walls are triggered by each step. We have to move together if we all want to make it through!”
Marcella and Beatrice turn back to look at Aelia and me on the same platform. They both exchange a look, and once they see each inch gained by the spiked walls in their hesitation, Marcella extends a hand out to Beatrice, behind and below her.
Based on Beatrice’s position, she would have to go two squares to the right before she can advance. That is, if there aren’t drastic changes in height by the time she moves.
Beatrice backs up and gets a running start, leaping for Marcella’s outstretched hand. Marcella catches her and hauls her up onto the platform. It shifts down a few inches. Aelia and I, hand in hand, make our way to them. Eventually, enough has shifted that we make the leap easily.
When we turn to face the finish, some of the women ahead of us join hands, following our lead.
Though, considering our positioning, we four will be the dead last to finish this arena.
There are five other groups of women joining together, with those further along not bothering to slow down and work together.
No time to grow frustrated, I scan the three platforms in front of us. Each of them rising and falling. Spiked walls grow closer in my periphery.
“We’ll have to move together!” I call as I watch each podium and grab Beatrice’s hand, with Aelia’s in my other. Beatrice grabs Marcella’s. “Ready? Now!”
All together, we race forward to the platform directly in front of us. It lowers a few inches, and we leap—those of us with longer legs landing first. I stumble as our disjointed heights keep me from finding balance when we land, though I’m caught by either woman on my sides.
Together, we stand hand in hand, all wavering under the shifting platforms.
“Well done!” Aelia smiles at all of us. “Again!”
She picks the next one, and we leap. Beatrice stumbles on the landing, taking me down with her. But Aelia and Marcella help us both up.
At least five more platforms.
One of the platforms with a lone woman—Stella—sinks completely out of our view as she screams. The other groups are jumping together, stumbling along just as we are.
Some of the individuals who decided not to partner together get to the last platforms. Even with the constant change of height, the woman whose platform dropped doesn’t rise again.
“Stella!” Moe screeches from the tallest platform in front of the one Stella was on.
“We have to keep moving!” Willow barks at her on the same square, pulling her elbow.
We jump to the next platform. Then the next.
“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me, please!” Stella’s echoed scream rips through the arena from somewhere out of view, as Moe fights against Willow to stay and help.
“Fine, stay then!” Willow snaps, then lets go of Moe and jumps onto another platform.
Moe, shaking, lowers herself to lie chest down on the platform.
She reaches a hand down. It’s a futile attempt with the stretch of space between her fingertips and Stella who leaps up from the dark space below.
Swiping and missing her by at least a foot before she disappears into the space below again.
We four jump ahead. To our left is the sunken platform, and perhaps eight feet down is Stella, who leaps up for Moe’s hand again as she calls, “Again, again! You have to try again!”
Beatrice tugs me forward for the next platform.
I pull my hand out of hers. “We can’t leave her.”
“She couldn’t be bothered to slow down, so why should we help her if she wanted to risk our lives by racing forward?” Beatrice tosses back.
I rip my gaze out of hers as I look down at Stella. I’m certainly not made for the cutthroat nature of this competition. Unable to stomach the guilt to come with leaving her, I say, “Then you all can go ahead. But I won’t. Not until I’m sure there’s nothing else I can do to help her.”
“Then you’ll die,” Beatrice hisses.
I turn to face her. “Better I die than live a life full of guilt that will kill me anyway.”
Aelia squeezes my hand, pulling my attention to her. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes. But I won’t blame you if you decide to go, too.”
She smiles, despite the situation we find ourselves in. “You’re my friend, now. I won’t leave your side. Tell me what to do.”
I mirror her smile, badly wishing this wasn’t the way we would share our friendship with one another. I nod toward the platform touching the top right corner of ours. “Perhaps if we trigger the ones around her, it’ll raise hers back up?”
Marcella is quiet. Sweeping her attention across every platform, every woman, the finish line, Stella, and then the spiked walls closing in. Based on their distance, we have less than ten jumps before they’re on us.
But when Marcella turns her face back to me, she nods. “Godspeed to us all.”
The four of us stretch for the one diagonal from ours. When we land, it shifts the platforms around ours. But the sunken one still doesn’t budge. The spiked walls only draw closer.
We hop left. Closer to the one Moe is lying and reaching for Stella on.
The sunken one still doesn’t budge.
We move for the platform Moe is on when Aelia stops us. “Wait, look!”
I take my eyes off the platform and follow her gaze. To the shining spikes on the walls. Two platforms away.
“This isn’t working. If we keep hopping around on these, they’ll only get closer. And it’s not raising it,” Aelia whispers quickly.
Marcella lets go of Beatrice’s hand, pushing her sleeves up her arms. “Hold my ankles, and I’ll try to pull her out.”
“What?” we all say in unison.
She looks at us over her shoulder before crouching down. “I said hold my ankles! I’m going to reach for her and see if I can get her out. And I’m easily the strongest one here.”
Aelia is the first to break through our shared shock, grabbing her ankles as Marcella hoists herself down grumbling some curses. I straddle the back of Aelia’s legs, just in case. And Beatrice grabs my shoulders. Moe on the platform diagonal from us leaps to the one north of ours.
“Reach for me!” Marcella shouts down into the sunken platform.
There’s hesitation. Quiet. Until the platforms click and shift again. The spiked wall is now one platform away.
“Now!” Marcella barks.
Skin claps against skin, Marcella puffing out a breath and her body tensing. “I got her!”
The three of us pull her back by her legs, dragging along with her Stella. The spiked wall slides over the sunken platform. The metal tips glaring at us from inches away.
“Move, move!” Aelia screams, pointing at the platform diagonal and farthest away.
We all scramble forward, grabbing hands where we can and leaping to the next one the same time Moe lands on it. With six of us, it’s a tight squeeze. Forcing us to steady each other as the platforms shift underneath our boots.
The right spiked wall is only five platforms away now. The left, only one.
“We have to move diagonally!” I screech.
We jump, again and again, with Stella and Moe at the back.
One more. Just one more—
Both walls snap closer. On either side of our platform.
We leap. Stretching for freedom. As our feet touch the ground, the walls clamp shut behind us, followed by an ear-splitting scream.
When we turn, Moe and Stella are on the ground. Moe’s boot is caught behind her in the closed wall. Her face contorted in pain.
Stella’s hands grab her face. “Can you pull it out?”
Moe’s too lost in agony to answer, her eyes squeezed shut as she slams a fist on the ground with a cry.
Marcella and I crouch down near the wall, with Aelia and Beatrice behind us.