30. Chapter 30
Maryn
Ilistened for any clue as to where I was. The hood’s rough fabric scratched my nose, reminding me of the hemp dresses I’d worn before I reached the age of eligibility. Something clacked against the floor, and my sightless gaze jolted toward the sound.
Escape. Sixty minutes to escape.
“You may remove your hood.” A click followed the tinny voice.
I dragged the hood over my head, peering around.
The room was large, but not overtly dangerous. In each of the other corners sat my competition. Sera narrowed her dark eyes at me before her gaze swept the rest of the room.
Trial Eight.
It looked like an old mill, similar to the building I had worked in before the Rite. A pang of homesickness swept through me. I laced my hands together, nails pressing into my palms.
“When the clock begins its countdown, you may start,” the voice called over the speaker.
A drone dropped from the ceiling, projecting large red numbers onto the wall. Sixty minutes.
I searched the room, attention snagging on a table filled with objects. Some I recognized, but others were unfamiliar. If they’d given us tools, we would likely need them, but everyone would have that idea. A distraction?
A buzzer sounded, and the numbers on the wall melted into a fifty-nine.
I was up and running before I had made up my mind.
Lydia reached the table first, snatching a knife. She tucked it into her pocket and grabbed two round metal balls. Rakel made it second, grabbing a biometric sensor, and I swore softly.
Sera veered from her path, intercepting me before I got there. She swung, and I ducked, stumbling backward, pulse skyrocketing.
The knife. I needed the knife.
My gaze darted to Lydia as she lifted a metal canister to her lips, smirking before she wiped her lips. Her fingers curled around the knife—my knife—turning toward us.
My breathing sped as I took another step back.
Lydia stopped, wrapping a hand around her throat. A muffled croak escaped her.
My eyes shot to the canister. Then back to Lydia crumpling to her knees. The canister. Something in it. Something she’d just—
Sera was already moving toward her.
I turned and ran.
Behind me, footsteps. Sera’s.
She'd changed directions, moving away from her cousin toward the door. She’d never let me through. On the opposite side of the room, an old exit sign, no longer lit up, had me racing toward it.
I stopped. A long metal bar slid across the door. It would be easy enough to lift it, but my senses screamed at me to look closer. A soft hum tickled my ears. Stretching my fingers toward it tentatively, the hairs on my arms rose. Electrified.
I glanced up, spying Sera in front of the other door, watching me. She was smarter than I’d given her credit for.
In the middle of the room, Lydia was on her back, and Rakel was beside her, digging through a bag.
I searched the room for some clue, my gaze raking over exposed pipes and old switches. Just like my old office building, ventilation ran along the ceiling. If I could get up there…
There. A ladder.
I moved, sweaty palms crashing into it as I hefted it off the floor and dragged it to the nearest exposed duct.
Feet pounded on cement behind me, and I scrambled up the steps, swallowing down a wave of dizziness as I made it to the top. I reached for something to grab onto just as a crash sounded below.
Under my feet, the ladder wobbled, and my nails scraped metal as I dug my elbows into the walls on either side of me and pulled myself up.
Sera’s scream echoed in my eardrums, and I pulled with all my strength until I was on my belly.
I inhaled a ragged breath, trying to slow my pounding heart.
Climbing to my knees, I crawled through the space, glancing down through the slitted grate. The world tipped sideways, and I leaned into the wall. Behind me, the sounds of the ladder scraping across the floor had me moving again.
I didn’t look back.
Darkness closed in, and I put one hand in front of the other, feeling my way. My breathing was too loud in the enclosed space. Too fast. I tried to slow it—I couldn’t.
I paused, pressing my forehead against the cool metal. Listened. Nothing. Sera must have found another way out.
There would be an exit duct, but with no ladder at the bottom, it was a long drop.
Slowly, my breathing evened.
My right hand came down on open air, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. I threw myself sideways, fingers scrambling at the duct wall, cheek hitting metal. Below me, pitch darkness. For a moment, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. My arms shook, holding me in place over nothing.
I pushed myself back from the edge.
Reaching across the open space, I lunged, my left knee scraping painfully on the ledge.
I crawled forward, wincing every time my left knee came down. My nails clacked against metal, hands trembling. Was this the wrong path? Would I have to go back, climb down into that room? Could I? She'd moved the ladder by now.
In the distance, a soft glow crept closer. I inched toward it.
Slits bisecting a closed grate filtered low light just ahead. I stopped, peering through the slats. Below, a store of grain was piled in the center of the room.
Carefully, I hooked my finger through sharp metal and lifted.
I tried to turn, but the space was too tight.
The grain was close enough that it shouldn’t hurt too badly, even falling out face-first.
I leaned down, wedging my elbows against the wall and went slowly. My slick fingers lost their grip, and my stomach lurched into my throat. For one awful second, there was nothing beneath me.
Then, grain swallowed me whole.
I clawed for the surface, pellets filling my nose.
Panic flared in my chest before my head broke free and I gulped air.
My hands found the wall, fingers searching frantically along the surface until they caught a seam.
I shoved. Nothing. I shoved again, throwing my shoulder into it, and the panel gave way, grain and I spilling out into the open together.
I collapsed onto my hands and knees, chest heaving.
Only then did I let out a shaky breath that might have been a laugh.
Across the room, a door was ajar, and I hobbled toward it, my knee screaming in protest.
When I reached the door, I glanced left and right. Left led back to the room I’d escaped. If the goal was to get out of that room, there was likely another room on the other side of those doors.
I went left, hugging the wall, straightening as I neared a well-lit room.
Sera looked up from a chair by the wall, a nasty sneer on her face.
I froze.
Across from her, a door was pressed firmly closed.
She glanced at a drone in the corner, pointed at us, and then away. I sank into the chair farthest from her.
We sat in silence, watching the door.
When an eternity had passed, a buzzer sounded. The door clicked, and Rakel and Lydia stumbled through. Lydia was deathly pale, and she sank heavily into the chair beside Sera. Rakel sat stiffly in the chair next to me.
“You left her to die,” she whispered, brows low, slashes over stormy eyes.
I laced my hands together in my lap, thumb tracing over broken nails and faced the open door.
***
Vera was a welcome sight, but her rebuffs weren’t.
“What do I do with a bum knee?”
I huffed a loud sigh.
“The world will watch you trip and fall on your face, and then we’ll both go to our fates.”
“I did my best.”
“I doubt it,” Vera grumbled, pointing to a chair. “Sit. I have an idea.”
I eyed Vera’s dress. “No.”
She tossed the gown in my lap. “You don’t get a vote.”
A knock sounded at my bedroom door. “Is she decent?”
Paul fluttered in, not waiting for a reply. “Oh no no no. This won’t do. We need stills. Date night is coming.”
“I can’t wear this.” I held up the two-size-too-small dress.
“You can and you will. They’ll blame the dress.” Vera’s eyes narrowed.
I stood, and Paul let out a little gasp. “Vera, honey, you’d better find her longest gloves. Those bruises won’t film well at all.” He tsked, circling me to take in all scrapes and cuts that had begun to purple.
Vera disappeared through the door, and he shook his head, following.
Then it was just me and the dress.
***
Walking was a challenge. Dancing tonight would be another. I pushed the thought aside—I’d come in second, I was still here, and whatever the fertility test had revealed, it hadn’t sent me home.
I climbed out of the car, my chaperone in tow. Before us, a home stretched into the sky: the most breathtaking piece of architecture I’d ever seen.
Rakel stepped out behind me, staring up.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?”
I wrapped my fingers over my arms. So close to the water, the wind was like ice pelting my skin. I glanced at Rakel. Her words from the trial sat heavily on my shoulders. Had I been wrong to leave Lydia?
Rakel moved to my side. “We should go in.”
I darted a glance over my shoulder. “Are we not waiting for the others?”
“This is Sera’s house. They’re inside.”
Ice slid down my spine.
Rakel slid past me, heading up the long walk to the set of double doors thrown wide.
I let my hands fall to my sides, shaking out my fingers. Inhale. Exhale.
I straightened and stepped forward, into my enemy’s house.