“How did someone so young master such a weapon?” she asked, frustration ringing in her voice.
I had no idea, so I just grinned at her. “Natural talent.”
Her left hand zipped past her hip and a knife blossomed out of nowhere. It turned through the air, end over end, passing my face in crystal clarity.
I snapped the whip. The end slashed across her upper arm, slicing through fabric and skin. Blood welled up.
She dove, tucking into a somersault at the last minute. I readied the whip, but she was too quick, already inside my strike zone. I threw the whole thing at her and picked up a dagger with a long blade.
She popped up like she was on springs. Her fist, lightning fast, connected with my nose. My head snapped back and my eyes watered. I dodged a hook, staggering out of the way.
Terrible idea.
In a fluid movement, she swung her foot around, striking my chest. The breath left my lungs and I flew backward, knocked into a table full of weapons and dragged the whole lot down on top of me. A blade cut my arm and a knife point jabbed my leg. Pain screamed through me as I climbed to my feet.
She danced toward me, lovely and graceful, horribly lethal. Her knife slashed the air.
I stopped improvising. Time to use what I knew.
I ripped my knife from my hip, comfortable and familiar in a way none of these other weapons could be. I dodged her knife thrust and countered with one of my own, raking the short but sharp blade across her skin.
She sucked in a breath and tried to pivot, but I was on her, jabbing, not worried about doing her harm. I was sure a healer could take care of her as easily as he or she could me.
She dove, rolled, bounced up, and a throwing knife sailed through the air. I smacked it away, hitting the handle and shocking the hell out of myself. I hadn’t meant to do that, hadn’t even thought it was possible!
She stepped closer, struck at me with her knife, missed, and punched me in the face. Blood leaked down my mouth and my eye started to swell, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. I’d come too far to get knocked down in the final hour.
I pushed forward, topping her by six inches and having a much longer reach. I jabbed her side with my knife, ignoring the part of my mind that quailed at assaulting someone with a deadly weapon. If I’d learned anything, it was that there would be no jail time here. No repercussions.
She let out a pain-filled grunt but didn’t slow.
I dodged her strike, staying outside of her arm span, before striking again. She blocked and sliced across my arm. Pain bit deep with jagged claws, weakening my knees, but I blocked it out and slid my blade home, punching a hole in her other side. She staggered like a drunk, holding one arm tightly with the other.
Seizing my advantage, and putting my long legs to good use, I kicked out at her shin, missed, stepped back, and raked my other leg across her thigh. Her legs flew out from under her, taking her to the ground.
Snarling and shouts filled the room. Light blared.
Ethan.
Throwing knives flew from god knew where, one sinking into his leg.
Acting fast, I bent to finish the job, clunking the handle of my knife against the woman’s forehead. Her lights went out, and she went limp. The headache when she awoke would be immense, and that was strangely satisfying.
When I sat back, panting, multiple places aching or on fire with pain, Ethan shot a jet of light at the woman’s chest as she lay there. Her body shook with whatever he’d done.
“No,” I said, waving him away. “I already did it. I—”
The gold shimmered back into the room, as solid as when I’d first seen it. The door at the back slid open and colored lights glowed down from the ceiling. Grinning faces filed in even as the badger took up a post in front of the gold, snarling at a red-faced Ethan.
“You did it,” a dark-skinned man said with a gleaming, white-toothed smile, clapping as he positioned himself next to the table of gold. “I think this might be the first time someone other than the House of Shade passed the final challenge in this trial.”
“Wild did it,” Wally said in frustration, her fists balled up. “Billy, I mean. Billy did it, and he didn’t need to cheat.”
“Will someone get that badger out of here?” the man said, not hearing Wally.
“I did it,” I said, rising from the ground. Blood dripped from my chin. “I was the one that knocked her out.”
The man paused, his smile slipping. His gaze roamed my various wounds.
Ethan laughed to cover the moment. “You fought the good fight, surely,” he said, all ease and confidence. His charisma filled the room and then some, ever the handsome trust fund baby who would rule the world one day. “But we both know it was my spell work that actually took her out. Look at you. You wouldn’t have lasted much longer. If I hadn’t finished her off, we’d have lost.”
“He shouldn’t know those spells.” Wally flung a finger at Ethan. “Someone prepared him for this course. That’s against the rules! His spell work is too advanced for someone his age.”
“There’s no rule against spell work once you’re in the trials,” Ethan said with a million-dollar smile, walking over to shake hands with the dark-skinned man. “I’m ahead of my class. What can I say?”
The man’s brow furrowed. “It does seem that there was more than one player in this challenge. That is a first, too, I believe.”
“Ethan just waited until Wild did all the hard stuff,” Gregory said from the corner. “He didn’t do anything. Billy, I mean.”
If the man’s eyebrows lowered any more, they’d become a mustache. “You’re…Billy?” he asked me.
I realized with a start that somewhere along the way, I’d lost my hat. I plucked at my shirt to make sure no breast definition showed, then smoothed my hair back. Blood continued to drip from my nose and I pinched it shut, half to hide my face.
Maybe I should give Ethan the limelight. I couldn’t have the scrutiny. I didn’t need anyone realizing I wasn’t who I claimed to be.
I shrugged. “Ethan did make his way in here,” I finally said.
Wally sagged and the badger—Pete??—snarled louder and kicked with his back feet, claws scratching across the floor. A distinct smell of rank musk floated off him. Gregory looked at the ground in the corner, his shoulders drooping.
I was letting my crew down by giving way to the rich, handsome kid that had it all, but I didn’t have any choice. Not if I wanted to keep my anonymity. Stick to the middle, that’s what I needed to do. My whole family’s safety depended on it. And they meant more to me than any bunch of kids I’d only just met.
“Yes, well, we’ll get it sorted out.” The man smiled and gestured Ethan toward the door. “Come on, let’s introduce you around. Or do you know everyone already?”
The two of them laughed, already as thick as thieves, leaving us all in their wake.
Chapter 15
The white room slowly emptied of everyone but Wally, Pete—okay, assuming the badger was Pete—Gregory, and me, still kneeling in a growing puddle of blood. I’d never been so sore in my life, not even after Mr. Whiskers had first come home and run me over.
“Why would you let him take it?” Wally asked. “The officials would most likely believe you, you know. No one outside of the House of Shade ever gets the gold in this trial.”
I tipped my head back and struggled to breathe around the blood sliding down my throat. “Some things aren’t worth the fight. Gregory, explain to her why we never would have gotten that gold.”
He snorted. “We are lesser than them, girl,” he said, his tone bitter. “They would have found a reason to not believe us even if Ethan hadn’t made it across. Had we all been from the House of Shade, sure, but with Ethan Helix here? Well, that gives them another thing to take from us. Another thing to lord over us.”
I waved a hand in the air. “See?”
The badger let out a snarl, followed by a groan. I made myself watch as Pete shifted back to human right in fron
t of me. His body kind of twisted in on itself, there was a moment where the air around him shimmered, and then it was just him on the floor.
Buck naked.
I jerked my head away. “Welcome back, Freckles. A badger, huh?”
“How could you do it, Wild? How could you let him win after everything? And I’m a honey badger.” He stood and I closed my one eye that wasn’t swelling shut.
“Because, she knows when to let them win, so that there can be a bigger pay off later. That is the proper way to play the long game,” a new voice said softly, like a whispered hiss that crawled along my spine.
I spun on my knees, hands going for the weapons closest to me. There, standing just behind Wally, was a kid about our age, his skin so pale, it was near translucent in spots, showing the veins in his face and neck. Dressed all in black, he would have blended into the shadows easily.
“He,” I snapped. “I’m a guy, goth boy. Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?”
His eyes fluttered to half-mast. “I am one of your crew. I followed you into the trial, though you did not see me, and followed the others on the log bridge to this place.”
“Vampire,” Pete said. “That’s what he is. Creepy buggers. They might as well be in the House of Shade for how blinking sneaky they are. Sneaky sneakers!”
I kept my eyes on the—Jesus, vampires were real? I’d thought Gregory had been joking—new guy. There was an edge to him. Like one of the young bull calves at home who hadn’t yet figured out they could be stronger than the rest of us. One day he’d be dangerous—deadly even. The possibility was there at least.
“What’s your name?” I asked, pushing to my feet slowly, painfully.
“Orin,” he said softly, his eyes dilating as he eyed me up. No, not me.
The blood dripping off me. His gaze tracked the drops as they fell and a pink blush covered his high cheekbones.
I arched an eyebrow with serious difficulty. “Come at me now, Orin, and we are going to have a seriously bad start to our relationship. I’ve had a crappy day, and you do not want to be the next person in line for a butt kicking.”
I spat to the side for good, masculine effect, a gob of blood and saliva that hit with a thick thud. Vampires could smell really well, right? Was that why he’d called me ‘she’? Could he know I was a girl? Morning crap on toast, I did not need him spilling the beans about my own little illusion.
“I can control the blood lust,” he said, though the strain in his voice said otherwise. “I could not have come to the trials if I was not capable of that much. I would come with you, all of you. If your…crew…will have me as a companion.”
“No,” Pete said. “Not a good idea, Wild. In fact, a very bad idea.”
I kept my good eye on Orin. “Why should we let you in?”
“Because I was following you all along and none of you noticed,” he said. There was not an ounce of smugness to him. He was just stating facts.
So that’s what I had been picking up in the tunnel.
“Not good enough,” Gregory said. “We’ll be housed together and—”
“I despise Ethan Helix,” Orin said. “We went to school together. I know his style.”
Silence hung for a single beat, then Pete and Gregory all but jumped on each other to speak first.
“He’s in.”
“Yup, let’s take him.”
Orin and I continued to eye each other up. He twitched under my gaze and shrunk a little inside his black clothes. “You don’t like me.”
“I don’t know you enough to not like you,” I said.
But if I kept him close, there was less chance he’d rat me out to the officials. You didn’t rat out part of your team—that was how the guy code worked, even I knew that much.
He bobbed his head like a bird of prey and then wrapped his arms around his upper body. “Fair enough. I will be sure to prove my worth. To all of you.”
Part of me wondered how he’d gotten to the top platform after the rope was cut. But if Pete was right, and Orin was a master of sneaking, he could have even taken a different path. Hell, he could have flown up here for all that I knew about vampires.
I sighed and turned as a new someone stepped into the doorway that led out of the white room.
“Excuse me, does anyone have need of a healer?” The newcomer was a stunningly handsome man in his early thirties. From the corner of my good eye, I watched with faint amusement as Wally swooned a little, her eyelashes fluttering. I couldn’t blame her, not really. He was quite the package with jet black hair and deep, bottomless brown eyes. His frame was lean, cut hard, and he was one of the few people I’d seen so far who was taller than me. A smile crossed his perfect lips and two fangs peeked out on either side. I steeled myself to keep from stepping back.
Another vampire. Was it coincidence?
He had a pair of sweatpants in his hand and he tossed them at Pete, who grabbed them in mid-air and yanked them on. Apparently, he could move fast when motivated.
“I am Jared,” the older vampire said. “Supervisor of the Culling Trials. I see you’ve got one of mine with you.” He glanced at Orin. Tension rose between them, taut, and behind me, I could feel Orin cringe under his gaze. I stepped sideways, cutting him from view. Orin was with us now, and that meant nobody was picking on him, not while I was around.
“Yeah, about that healer? Think you can take me there? I got a scratch or two,” I said.
Jared snorted. “You Shades are all the same. Tough as nails and about as smart. Follow me.”
I didn’t let myself react, which was surely what he wanted.
He didn’t turn, didn’t walk away. He was just there one second and gone the next. I blinked my one good eye through the smudge of blood. “Am I seeing things?”
“Full vampires are extremely fast,” Gregory said and then shook his head. “I seriously cannot understand how you don’t know anything about our world and still…” he waved his ridiculously skinny fingers back the way we’d come, “…have done all that. And won. Despite what Ethan said, we all know that you won this trial, Wild.”
“Sheltered. He has been sheltered and that makes his fear less,” Orin whisper-hissed. I turned to give him a glare. Yeah, he knew I was a girl.
I blinked and he was gone too. Just like that Jared dude. I narrowed my eyes until I could pick out the subtle outline of his head in the single solid shadow at the back of the room. “I can see you, Orin.”
Hide and seek was going to get old fast, but I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it at the moment. The cuts all over me throbbed, making themselves well known now that the adrenaline had faded. I blew out a breath, only able to breathe through my mouth. “Let’s get out of here.”
Wally stepped up beside me and tucked herself under my arm. “Lean on me. You know that sepsis can set in within hours of a cut and it causes thousands of deaths a year. That would go poorly on all of us.”
Pete stepped up on the other side and I dropped an arm across his shoulders. “You’re a real downer, Wally.”
“I know,” she said with a small smile. “It’s what I do. You’ll be glad for it one day though.”
“Doubtful,” Pete muttered.
Gregory rolled his eyes as he passed us and took the lead. I assumed Orin fell in behind us but didn’t bother to check.
The hall that led out of the white room was serviceable solid concrete and blessedly short seeing as each step sent new shockwaves of pain up through my body until Wally and Pete were all but carrying me. I almost apologized to them. But that’s something Wild the girl would do, not Wild the boy.
I clamped my jaw shut and just worked on breathing through the pain and not passing out. Head down, I put one foot in front of the other. Thank God this was over.
We stepped out of a final door and into the bright sunlight of a late summer day in upstate New York.
The sudden change in scenery threw me for a loop and I took a minute to breathe it all in, to taste
it on the back of my tongue.
We were at the end of the trial. I’d made it.
A white tent with a red cross emblazoned on it was set up in the grass ahead of us. All of the flaps to the tents were pulled wide, allowing medical staff to easily go between them. A few of the guys from the Bro Pack were being treated by what looked like doctors. One of the guys had burns all over his hands, and I had no doubt he’d been caught by a blast of electricity while climbing the metal wall. The blonde chick I’d fought in the white room was there too, stretched out on her back on one of cots.
I did a slow turn of my head. This wasn’t the only tent. There were more tents to either side of us, at what had to be the exits for the other trials, and each was overflowing with patients.
Crying, whimpering, yelps of pain echoed through the air.
“Is he missing an arm?” Wally asked.
“Holy cats.” Pete gulped heavily, “that one’s belly is sliced open.”
“Keep walking,” I said, and they stumbled forward, jarring me. For just a second, I thought I was going to vomit, the pain was so bad. Surely the cuts I’d gotten couldn’t be this bad?
I swallowed the nausea down with difficulty and closed my eyes. Two sets of hands gripped me, pulling me forward the second my eyes drifted shut. I snapped an arm up, breaking away, and opened my good eye.
“Easy. We’re going to help you out here. My name is Mara. I’ll be your healer today.” The voice was soft and soothing, and it belonged to a woman who looked equally soft. Her body was all curves and there would have been no hiding her as a boy at any point in her life. Her kind, gentle smile calmed me enough that I let her guide me to one of the beds. “You Shades, always so defensive.”
There it was again. Shade. I’d been well and truly labelled. I doubted I’d even need the sticker name tag any longer.
I lay on the bed, unable to hold back a groan. I wanted to make a smartass comment, but I decided to leave that up to someone else for once.
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