“Eyes.” Pete turned in a circle. “It feels like we’re being watched.” He lifted his nose, sniffing the air.
Sweat broke out on my forehead and I turned to the rope, knotted for ease of climbing, leading up into those dark gray, almost black, swirling mists.
“What do you think is up there?” Wally asked quietly.
“Trouble,” I said, yanking on the rope a little, just to make sure it was really attached to something.
Gregory jumped onto the target platform with us, leaving the other one to drift back to hopefully collect Pete.
“Careful, it moves,” Wally reminded him.
“This rope is too easy to climb,” I said softly, thinking through all of this. “The path here was complex. Getting here was physically taxing. And now, at the endgame, it’s a knotted rope? Why not just make it a ladder?”
“How else would we get up?” Wally asked, confused.
“He means it’s too easy,” Gregory said, quickly drowned out by a screaming Pete.
“Made it,” Pete yelled, squatting like an attack spider. “I made it.”
“It’s too easy,” I agreed.
“I smell the gold,” Gregory said, his gaze arcing skyward. “It’s faint and kind of fluctuating, like it’s being carried on a breeze, but it’s closer now.”
“I really wish I could smell gold,” Wally said wistfully. “But I don’t feel a breeze.”
I shook my head. Neither did I.
“Easy or not, this is the way up.” I curled my fingers around the rope.
Pete yelled out a curse when his platform stopped moving, but thankfully didn’t pitch off the edge. Shaky, he jumped to meet us.
“Bad news, Pete,” I said, not able to tear my eyes away from those swirling mists. Everything in me said the danger lay up there. That to climb this rope would put our lives at stake. But hadn’t that been the case with the other challenges thus far? In jumping across the large gaps?
No. This is different.
I pushed my strange certainty away. It wasn’t helping. But I knew without a doubt that I needed to send the others up first—I just didn’t know why.
“You should go first,” I said to Pete. “That mist up there is probably fifty feet up, and who knows what’s beyond it. If you suddenly lose your grip, we should probably have someone to stop you from going splat. Besides, you seem to have a knack for climbing.”
“I hate this,” Pete said, ambling over.
“Yes, but when we get to your house’s trial, we’ll all probably hate that.” Wally patted Pete on the back. “It’ll be even then.”
Pete gave a little hop, hefting himself up onto the rope. A strange vibration drifted through me, like ripples in a dark pond.
You don’t belong here, it seemed to say. You will go no farther.
I hadn’t felt that when I’d touched the rope, only when Pete had.
I ripped my gaze higher, the itch between my shoulder blades turning into claws scratching and digging in deep. The angry mists swirled above. Something unseen looked down through them. I was certain.
“Watch yourself on the other side of those mists,” I said to Pete, stepping closer. “Get up, fast as possible, but keep your eyes peeled.” I dragged my bottom lip through my teeth. “This might’ve been a bad idea.”
“These are the Culling Trials,” Wally said, pushing in behind me. “You’d be hard pressed to find a good idea if it means staying out of danger.”
Hand over hand, Pete pulled himself up, his feet finding awkward placement about as often as they missed.
“Wally, you next. Go.” I shoved her at the rope, not waiting for Pete to get too far.
Gregory didn’t wait for my direction. He must’ve sensed I’d want to go last, to catch anyone who fell.
A scream rent the vast silence of the platform area behind us. I spun around as the rest of the crew stopped climbing, craning their necks to look over their shoulders.
Four people scattered from the lip of the tunnel, rushing for the sides, hands reaching for something to hang on to so they didn’t join their friend.
“He was pushed,” one of them shouted, looking behind him. “I swear to Christ, he was pushed!”
“Go.” I shoved at Gregory’s butt. “Go!”
“Colt, did you see who did it?” one of the other guys asked.
Another said, “Better him than us.”
Light flared from the end of a stick in a muscular guy’s hand. It shot into the air, illuminating the area in hazy red light.
I used the opportunity to look up through the swirling dark mists at the top of the rope. There, just above Pete, lying on her stomach with her upper body slung over the side of a platform was the lady in black with blonde hair. Her hand moved in a sawing motion and the knife she held glinted in the throbbing reddish light.
“She’s cutting the rope,” I yelled, helplessly throwing up my finger.
Her gaze flicked from her task to me, and in that look, I saw sparkling cunning. She was enjoying the game, and sabotaging fellow trial goers was part of the fun.
“Climb faster than you’ve ever climbed before,” I yelled at Pete even as someone from the tunnel shouted, “That black widow is trying to throw the trial!”
I turned in time to see a blast shoot out from the guy’s stick, what I had to finally admit was a wand capable of real magic. A jet of bright blue light streaked through the air. It passed within feet of the girl cutting the rope and she jerked away, rolling to the side.
I looked for something to throw. Anything.
“Go, Pete,” Wally yelled. “Go, Pete!”
“I’m hurrying,” he said, his movements jerky and his breath short. “I’m hurrying.” Another jet of light cut through the air, screaming by me. The heat coated my arm.
“It’s not us,” I yelled, taking hold of the rope as my crew labored up. “We’re not—”
A dark shape moved behind one of the guys at the lip of the tunnel.
“Look out—” I screamed, but it was too late. He pitched forward, his hands clutching the air as his feet left solid ground. Although he had a wand, it didn’t help him any. Light erupted from the end, slicing through the air and exploding against the earth ceiling far above our heads. He screamed, reaching for a platform that was too far away, but gravity took hold, and his body dropped from view.
“Hurry up,” one of the guys shouted, an attractive man with confidence and swagger in spades.
Soft laughter echoed down in the failing red light, and I could just barely see the blonde girl, still leaning out over my crew. She winked, setting off warning bells…and then she was gone.
“This is what happens when the mean girls get free reign,” I said through suddenly numb lips, grabbing the rope.
“The mean girls are nothing,” Wally said as Pete ascended through the fog. “It’s the murderous bastards you have to look out for. In the Culling Trials, they don’t have leashes.”
“Clearly.”
Down to three, the guys behind us took to the platforms. The muscular one, tall and broad, with a wave of dirty blond hair, swept his wand in front of him. Footprints shimmered into existence on three of the platforms—the first three we’d taken. He followed in our footsteps, literally, leading the other guys. When he got to the furthermost one, he stopped and waved his wand again.
“Cheater,” I grumbled. “Let’s hustle, everyone. They’re able-bodied. They’ll be here in no time.”
“I’m surprised he doesn’t have a map,” Pete said in a strained voice, clearly recognizing the guy. “Crap. Oh crap, what’s that… It sounds like something is groaning.”
“It’s the rope,” Wally said, fear riding her words. “It’s the rope. The rope is going to break. Hurry up, Pete. And no more Snickers bars. No more. You’re officially cut off.”
“I’m at the top,” Pete yelled a moment later. “I’m there!”
“Then pull yourself up,” Gregory shouted.
The guys behind us were onl
y a few platforms away by the time I reached the deep cut in the rope. As I pulled myself over it, a second strand broke free, pulling hard on the remaining strand. I doubted it would hold strong for the copycats, at least not all three.
“It’s that way,” Gregory was saying as I heaved myself up over the lip of the wooden platform at the top.
On the left, a shaky looking suspension bridge hung over nothingness, leading to another tunnel. Gregory pointed in the opposite direction, across a log with no handrails suspended over a sea of spikes. The end of the log disappeared into more dark, swirling mists, this trial clearly using the unknown to spark fear into our hearts.
A small table on the log side of the platform held three pairs of binoculars and large metallic discs that I figured were shields.
“Those spikes are an illusion,” Pete said, drifting closer. “Right? Or else there would’ve been a strip of roof above some of the platforms, and there wasn’t. It was all one big, open cavern.”
“So, it’s an illusion, so what?” Gregory picked a set of the binoculars. “If we don’t fall on spikes, we’ll bust our heads on the platforms way below. Not a big difference.”
“The number of people—”
“No.” Pete held his hand up for Wally. “Don’t say it. Whatever horrible stat it is, don’t say it. I don’t want to know.”
The rope groaned behind me. The dirty blond, muscular guy had just started up, one of his friends joining him a moment later.
“We’re out of time.”
Gregory sucked in a breath through his teeth. “There it is,” he said, cutting me off. “Holy shi—”
“Lemme see.” Pete grabbed a set of the binoculars. “Oh f— I changed my mind. I’m in. Gold. I choose gold.”
I took the two quick steps and grabbed the last pair of binoculars. They cut through the mist, revealing a doorway and a room beyond it. I sucked in my own breath as an enormous pile of gleaming gold caught my attention. It sat atop a stout table in front of the rear door, spilling down onto the floor there was so much of it.
“Holy crap,” I said softly, but I couldn’t let the gold blind me to the danger. There was a reason they’d provided shields. I swung the binoculars to the right, at the ivy-covered wall in the distance. There, on a wide platform with a door at his back, a bow in his lap and a quiver of arrows at his side, sat none other than Sideburns, his own binoculars pressed to his eyes.
I gave him a wave featuring one of my fingers. He’d gotten me into all this, he deserved a little shade thrown his way. Pun intended.
On the other side, much closer, a woman leaned against the cavern wall. A metal stand with six holes, each filled with long sticks, took up a large portion of her deep platform.
“Silly, rabbit,” I muttered to myself, zooming in on the stand beside her. Then I chuckled to myself, because what the hell else could I do? “Those aren’t sticks, they’re spears.”
“What’s that?” Gregory said.
Something snapped and a scream filled the air. A loud thunk cut off the sound.
I spun, finding the dirty blond man just climbing over the wooden platform. Once up, he took a quick look down, his demeanor unaffected by whatever he saw.
“Did that rope snap?” I asked, hurrying over.
“You don’t want to see.” Wally held up her hand to stop me, looking over the edge. “Unless you like a leg bent the wrong way. Then you do want to see.”
“Colt is tough; he’ll be fine.” The blond guy stepped away from the edge, giving Wally a wide berth. The untrustworthy rarely trusted those around them. “This is it, then? This is the path to the Shade treasure? How much are they offering?”
Gregory and Pete backed away as the blond guy sauntered toward the log, his eyes scanning the shields before he reached out for the binoculars.
I held onto them. He hadn’t said please.
“What have we got?” the guy said, looking my way when his hand wasn’t immediately filled with the binoculars.
“A party crasher,” I growled low, my guard up. I tugged my hat a little lower, and wiped a hand across my cheek, smearing sweat and a good amount of mud still there from the ditch.
The dirty blond guy turned toward me, his eyes bluer than any eyes had a right to be. He took my measure for one solid beat, but this wasn’t the way a man would usually size up a woman, analyzing her face for beauty before looking at her body—he puffed up slightly, pushing out his chest and leaning in just a little, a play for dominance.
Because, of course, I was a dude.
I liked this far better. Beauty I couldn’t control, but kicking him in the head to prove my dominance was well within my skill level.
Stare hard and body loose, I met his gaze and held it. I didn’t want to care what he looked like, but there was nothing wrong with my eyesight. His face was classically handsome—straight nose, defined jaw, and high cheekbones. The set of his robust body and broad shoulders denoted a level of confidence above average, and the upward tilt of his face and superior air led me to believe he’d grown up affluent, not rough and tumble like I had. I hadn’t met many people like that, but there was no mistaking the cloud of entitlement.
That meant he hadn’t learned street smarts the hard way. He hadn’t needed to. That gave me an edge he would never understand.
I smirked and handed over the binoculars, secure in my place at the top of the pile. In response, his brow lowered in obvious confusion. He’d catch on sooner or later. In the meantime, we could use him. He was good with that wand, even if his aim could use some work.
“Arrows on the right, spears to the left,” I said, turning toward the log. “At the end is a plain room that surely houses all sorts of nightmares. There’s no way they’d be content to give away all that gold to someone with good balance and quick feet.”
Mr. Peepers lifted the binoculars to his eyes, checking my findings. A moment later, he blew out a breath. “Crap. That’s the Sandman.”
“Oh, you recognize the sideburns, do you?”
“Good balance and quick feet won’t be enough against him,” he said.
“That’s why they’ve given us shields, I’d imagine.” I dragged my lip through my teeth and glanced back at the suspension bridge. “Did those girls try their hand, do you think?”
“Which girls?” Peepers rolled his finger across the top of the binoculars, zooming in as he looked at the room across the way.
“The five girls that went down the path first. I saw four of them make it to this platform.”
Peepers took the binoculars away and studied me for a moment. “Did one of the girls cut the rope, or did you stage that?”
“Hard to cut a rope when you’re still climbing it.”
His brows lowered. “For a no magic hack, yeah, I guess.” The binoculars clattered across the table—he clearly had no respect for someone else’s property. “If they went this way, they didn’t make it far, being that the gold is still there. The spikes are an illusion. If they fell, they landed wherever the losers go. The arrows and spears are real, though. Those’ll hurt. They won’t aim to kill, so the worst thing you’ll face is falling or pain.” He glanced around at our motley crew. “Only one question left. Who’s going first?”
Chapter 13
A log over an open chasm, spikes waiting to stick you from below, and two shooters working to knock you into said spikes. This was not a good idea.
“Wait, wait, wait.” I held up both hands, connecting eyes with Wally, Pete, and then Gregory. Whatever my own inclinations, I had to consider their safety—no different than if it were Billy and Sam with me. “Look, this is incredibly dangerous. What are the chances we’ll get that gold?”
Pete looked at Wally. “Well?”
“I…” She put out her hands. “I don’t have enough information to calculate that. Not good?”
“Oh sure. When we really need it, where are you?” Pete asked.
“What are you, chicken?” Peepers taunted me, and I got the feeling tha
t line was supposed to pack more punch than it did.
I ignored him. “Crossing that log will be hard enough, but whatever’s in that room will probably be nuts. Or we could just take the suspension bridge out of here. With the rope cut, no one else will get that gold. We’ll still get a win, the ladies in black didn’t take the gold, that much is obvious. We’ll get out of this trial. I know it.”
“I’ll get that gold,” Peepers said confidently.
I waved my hand at the log. “Well then, be my—”
“No, wait.” Pete stepped forward. “Bi—Wild, wait. You go. You go first.”
“What?” I widened my eyes. Talk about throwing someone to the wolves.
Wally’s voice took on the tone that had earned her the nickname. “Cheaters never prosper unless those cheaters are from the Helix family.”
Peepers huffed out a laugh. “What sort of freak show did I walk into? Look, are you going to go, or what? It might be helpful to see how you’re taken out. Otherwise, step aside.”
Pete skulked over to me, his back bowed and head low, showing submission, though not to me. To Peepers.
“He gets everything handed to him, Wild,” Pete said quietly. “His dad probably told him exactly how to beat this challenge. What spells to use, who to follow, who to knock out first. We can’t let him have it. You can do it. You don’t even have to cheat, you’re so dang good. You should get the money, not him.”
“What happened to ‘we’?” I mumbled as Peepers bent for a closer look at the log, pushing it with one toe.
“We’ll keep him from taking you out when you reach for the gold,” Pete said out of the side of his mouth. He jerked his head, and I saw that Gregory was eyeing Peepers in obvious disdain.
“Who is he?” I asked as a shock of anxiety rolled through me, followed by a surge of excitement. Crossing that log would be no problem—I’d crossed the creek on our property via logs, rocks, and any manner of bridge more times than I could count, in all sorts of conditions. Being shot at was one of those conditions if you counted rocks, sling shots, paintballs, and once a dead possum. As the youngest of our crew growing up, and the only girl, I was often the odd man out. I’d always been elected to play the role of the enemy—I got good at avoiding rapid fire.
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