“Let’s make a run for it,” I suggested softly.
Cramped together on the little porch, the four of us stared out into the empty clearing, waiting for that one odd-shaped shadow or quivering tree.
Phoebe kicked the ladder off the deck, letting it spin to the ground. “Quick, Fuller, you first.”
“Why me?” I started to protest.
“Fine, Cody can go.” Phoebe threw her hands up.
“No, no,” I said and tried to sound apologetic.
Stepping over the railing, I gripped the rope sidings and struggled down the ladder. It was easier to climb than to descend. I glanced up to see Cody stepping over the edge and Phoebe reaching for a tree limb.
She crawled out of the tree house porch and started to climb down the tree the same way she had gone up. Joel watched her for several minutes before turning to the rope.
I stepped onto solid ground first and looked around.
It really wasn’t here, or it was waiting for us to run right into a trap.
I wrung my shirt, trying to ignore all my new aches. My shirt had stuck to the larger scratches on my back, having dried the blood to it. I winced as I thought of how tender it would be to pull it off and open the wounds all over again.
Cody made it to the ground behind me and stepped up to my side. “What made it go away?” he asked me.
I shook my head, confounded.
Joel touched ground just a few seconds before Phoebe landed as graceful as a cat.
“Back the way we came?” Phoebe asked for a consensus.
“Unless he moved the door,” I said.
Phoebe wouldn’t meet my eye.
Here comes the seeds of betrayal, the voice sang.
A reverberating rumbling sounded beyond the trees. It was hollow and phlegmy and didn’t sound the least bit human.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Is that the monster?” Joel asked, his voice low.
Phoebe whispered, “It sure feels like it.”
The ground beneath my socks quivered.
“Hope everyone is rested,” I said over my shoulder and broke off into a run, initiating the chase.
As we neared the black door, I heard Cody wheeze, “Hide!”
All at once, we scattered into groups of two. Cody and I veered right while Joel and Phoebe darted left into the scratching spruce trees. Ducking, I finally saw what Cody did.
The monster was behind us near the tree house. How it managed to hide there, I would never understand. I began to judge the distance between the ajar black door and us and prayed that we had hidden in time.
Each step jolted the ground. Good thing we have that warning, I thought.
Watching the beast, I felt my heart begin to flutter and sputter, paining my chest. The pale blue eyes, grossly similar to that of Aidan’s, swept the tree tops, flashing over where we hid.
Cody and I flattened against the uncomfortable tree trunks and hoped the needles would be sufficient enough to block our forms. But if we could see it, there was a good chance it might spot us.
As it stepped between the two groups, I noticed the hairy white foot was gigantic, at least five to six feet from toe to heel.
Above our heads, the shrill sound of metal bending and shrieking made me duck.
I covered my ears, the sound forcing me to grind my teeth together.
The two large, white feet lifted. After a few awful seconds, I was finally certain it was walking away.
Cody and I jumped out of hiding and looked up.
The cage bars above the door were peeled back as if they were rolls of paper. The monster had pushed the bars outward and climbed back into the hallway.
Phoebe and Joel moved from under their tree.
The lumbering monster’s footsteps were growing fainter.
“Is it really that strong?” Joel asked, sounding impressed.
“I guess,” Phoebe said with a lingering disapproval. She started for the black door when Joel held out his arm to stop her.
“Where are we going?” he demanded, his brown eyes stony.
I rolled my eyes, thoroughly annoyed. “We’re going to hand you over to the monster. That’s why we hid you just now.” The sarcasm tumbled out before I could stop it.
Joel’s face reddened against his tan. “What the fuck is your problem? It’s your fault I’m here.”
“Didn’t Damien visit you?” Phoebe posed the question again, this time with more force.
Joel’s hateful gaze landed on her and, kudos to her, she didn’t flinch. “The weird dark-haired guy?”
She nodded, her eyebrows raised as if it were obvious.
“Sure he did.” Joel shifted on his feet uncomfortably, glancing away. “He told me about this stupid freeze tag game, but it was a dream and…” He choked back the rest, seeing our expressions. “It wasn’t a dream?”
Cody and Phoebe shook their heads.
Joel glanced at each of us, mulling it over, before demanding, “So what now?”
Phoebe shoved his arm out of her way before stepping through the black door. “Now we pick a new path and find more people.”
Joel frowned. “Shouldn’t we be finding a way out of here instead?”
“That is how we get out of here,” Cody said, his voice clipped.
We stepped through the door behind Phoebe, not waiting for Joel. Eventually, he quickened his steps to catch up.
“Back to the center?” Phoebe asked me.
Nodding, I peered down the Snakes pathway, making sure a pair of icy blue eyes weren’t watching. The vibrations in the ground were still there but faint. The idea that the monster was so close quickened our footsteps and kick up enough dust to choke on.
Phoebe led the way, though Joel kept inching forward. The unregistered position for “leader” was going to be stiff competition.
Joel squeezed past Cody, bumping him out of the way. “Why are you limping?” Joel asked Phoebe.
I was certain the question wasn’t out of concern.
Phoebe didn’t answer him.
I spoke up. “Shouldn’t we wrap it up? Maybe we can slow down the poison if we tie something around your leg.”
“Poison?” Cody’s bloodshot eyes widened. “The snake?”
Phoebe half twisted to respond. At first, she appeared angry. Her eyebrow furrowed, and veins in her forehead throbbed as if she were readying for an argument. Then one look into Cody’s concerned brown puppy eyes and she withered on impact.
Smiling weakly instead, Phoebe said, “I feel fine. Probably wasn’t poisonous.”
“You said it was a cotton—”
Phoebe snorted, interrupting me. “I said I feel fine.”
“You’re limping,” I pointed out, “so it must hurt.”
“It’s an open wound. If I patted you on the back, that would hurt too,” she said.
I winced at the idea. “Yes, but mine aren’t infected.”
“You sure?”
That shut me up.
“What would happen if you suddenly collapsed?” Cody asked then his eyes dropped to her leg. “It’s not clotting,” he said as if this answered everything. “And dust is getting in it.”
The vibrations in the ground felt like they were getting stronger.
We all froze, making sure the next shiver in the earth wasn’t our imaginations.
As predicted, vibrations rocked up my kneecaps and into my dread-knotted stomach.
“It’s coming this way,” I whispered.
Cody grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him. Even with her limp, Phoebe managed to keep ahead of us.
As we skidded into the familiar circular center of this zoo, it was Phoebe who started for the hotdog stand. I jumped over where I thought the ropes I’d left behind were, and Cody let me go. I realized the ropes weren’t kicked to the side anymore. I couldn’t see them anywhere as I crammed in with the others behind the shiny red stand. We all barely fit.
A rumbling bellow burst through my ears and shook the metal bars
near our hiding place.
I closed my eyes, ducking my head into my drawn knees. “Please go away.”
“Nora,” whispered a voice.
I didn’t pay attention to the others as I concentrated. It couldn’t find us now, not now.
The beast grunted, close enough that I could hear the snot whistling up its nose.
“It’s leaving,” I hissed. I wasn’t sure why I had said it out loud or what would prompt me to predict this. All I knew was that everything fell silent. I opened my eyes. The silence made my ears ring as I checked my friends and okay, yes, Joel too.
Confusion creased each face.
Listening to the silence, Joel stood up.
Phoebe went to grab him but missed.
“She’s right,” he said. “It left.”
Phoebe was the first to sigh with relief. She gripped one of the bars of the cage behind us and used it to stand. She sagged against it for support.
Joel turned, eyes narrowed. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t,” I said.
I struggled to my feet with Cody, and we stared into the empty circle. The footprints in the fine dirt were beside the metal bench, only a few feet from our hiding place. Then from there, they disappeared. No footprints lead away from the circle; they just stopped. I knew that there should have been some leading from the monkey hallway, but it had been smoothed.
“Yes you did. I heard you,” Joel accused, snapping me out of my concern.
“I did too,” Cody said hesitantly, his long face troubled. “Before it left, right after you said to go away.”
I turned to Phoebe for help. She stared at me in the same bewilderment. “Joel wouldn’t wake up when I pinched him, but you touch him once and he’s awake. And then a monster disappears just because you say so.”
No, no, I thought. Joel yes, but not the last one. I didn’t do the last one. I felt my insides curl, but there was no warmth; it didn’t even spark at my panic.
Studying me, Phoebe took a cautious step away along the bars. “Are you really Nora at all?”
Flustered, I felt the butterflies. She didn’t call me Fuller. “I didn’t…I mean, I don’t know what happened.”
Joel was the only one who appeared completely unconvinced.
Cody fidgeted from foot to foot and wouldn’t look at anyone while Phoebe just stared at me as if I were a puzzle.
“Phoebe,” I said, trying to change the subject, “maybe you should sit down so we can look at the bite and get it over with.”
She blinked and glanced at Cody for reassurance. He nodded and motioned to the bench but glanced at me. When our eyes locked, he looked away as if he’d been caught spying.
“Look, I don’t know what happened.” I held up my hands in a truce.
Phoebe was looking at my palms.
Alienated, I crossed my arms to hide the burn marks. “Damien probably did that to turn you against me,” I blurted. “He’s done it before.”
Phoebe nodded reluctantly. “That’s possible.”
Joel wasn’t convinced, though Cody was breathing easier.
“I don’t believe you,” Joel said.
“Of course you don’t,” I said with fake cheeriness.
We glared at each other while Cody led Phoebe toward the bench.
It wasn’t until I heard Phoebe utter a curse that I broke the staring contest with Joel.
Turning to my friends, I stopped in mid-step.
Standing near the bench was Damien, watching Phoebe’s leg with mild curiosity.
“That’s the guy,” Joel whispered.
The demon’s exotic features had darkened somehow. I was used to the cocky tilt of his head and his half smirk. Instead, his chin was tilted down, and his straight eyebrows were drawn together. In a snap, those obsidian eyes locked on me. The gaze stole my breath, and I realized something had gone wrong.
He didn’t say a word or move when the whole scene disappeared. The cages, hotdog stand, even dust at my feet dissolved before my eyes.
My friends melted into the darkness, fading into that which cloaked me. Looking to my hands, I stiffened. The burn marks glowed as if a flashlight were embedded in my palms.
Peeking up, I could see Damien.
We were alone, and he looked pissed.
I wanted to ask where my friends were, but his expression warned against speaking.
A nagging fear itched fiercely, and the warmth began. It was sluggish at first, but deliberate rotations in my stomach took up a rhythm, building in power—in strength.
Being cast out by my peers was nothing compared to the shrinking sensation I felt under Damien’s gaze.
Standing still, I waited, afraid to move.
It felt like days passed before Damien finally spoke. His quiet words were laden with threats.
“You’re cheating.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Shaking my head, I didn’t speak. I was afraid my voice would shake.
Damien had strict policies against cheating. I remembered being alone with him as I vomited dark hair into the hallway. And that had been someone else’s punishment.
He moved closer with a predatory ease that would have me stepping back if I weren’t so scared that my legs would give out. Besides, in the darkness, I didn’t dare move. I might end up tumbling down.
Down, down the rabbit hole.
“You know…” he said, interrupting my scattered thoughts.
Damien’s stony expression put me on edge, and I shook my head.
In a blur, his hands gripped my shoulders, and he squeezed as if I might run away but not hard enough to be painfully. “You’ve cheated,” he reaffirmed.
I restrained myself from trying to wriggle away.
The anger was shooting out of him like a javelin. “Do you hear me?”
I opened my mouth; my voice wasn’t cooperating, so I just nodded.
Black, unblinking eyes bore into mine as if he might pluck them from my head.
“How?” I asked weakly. “Did I make that thing go away?”
His grip poked into every cut, stinging them.
“Did…did I wake up Joel?” The weight in the question haunted me long after I asked.
His lips tightened as if stifling rage. His fingers dug into my shoulders, and my body vibrated with emotional adrenaline.
“Did I?” I pressed.
“I have the authority to punish you for this,” he said through his teeth.
“Is that a rule?” I asked. The swell of adrenaline threatened to overwhelm me.
The instant his eyes flickered to his grip, he released me. My muscles relaxed a little, but I was still trapped with him.
He turned his back to me, and the muscles beneath his shirt twitched and shifted, reminding me of the powerful movements of the tiger we’d left behind.
“You woke him,” he confirmed.
I stared at his back, astounded. “But I didn’t. I didn’t know.”
“You did. You must have felt it. You’re not as naïve as you play yourself to be, Nora,” he said disparagingly. “It is you, not the Keeper’s grandson, with the power.”
Aidan?
“It was an accident,” I said, trying to sound compliant.
His stiffness as he turned away from me indicated he was still angry, and I didn’t want to incur a demon’s wrath. Pausing just a few steps away from me, he hesitated as if listening.
With his back turned, I dared to move enough to rub away the tear that snuck free.
My mind twirled at the questions, but Damien didn’t seem the least bit interested in answering.
Damien stood still, broad shoulders taut and raised, looking almost human.
“Damien, my friends are suspicious of me. You all seem to think that I’m able to do things that I thought…thought I couldn’t do.” I had to speak over the massive lump in my throat.
“You can,” he said. “Phoebe was dead.”
Everything inside me seized for several heartbeats. Staring at him
, I shook my head. “She’s not dead.”
“No, she’s not completely. You’re welcome.”
“I don’t under…you brought her back? Like a zombie, like those things from before?”
“In a way,” he said. “It wasn’t all me.” Damien peered over his shoulder. “You remember the crystal in the atrium?”
Blinking I whispered, “The one that changed colors when we were leaving the Challenge.”
Turning to face me, the demon said, “It was the last clue that one of you was different. It was you who tampered with crystal bomb in the museum. Your concern over your friends, more specifically Phoebe, prevented her body from decaying. I brought her back to watch over your friends in your absence.”
“You could do that?”
“Only because you started it. The energy you expelled went straight to the one who’d fallen.”
I remembered Phoebe’s hands had gone numb. Her snake bite wasn’t healing anymore. “How?”
“In the beginning, the very first door. She failed the Challenge on her own. From there, she fought until she died.”
I tried not to think about how she died. She’d been alone in there. I don’t think I could have done any of this alone.
“And we brought her back. You and me.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you could freeze her back there?”
“She belongs to the Demon’s Grave now.”
“Why bring her back at all?” Really, all I wanted to say was, “Thank you.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“She would prove useful in keeping you from the same fate that befell her. You would have never made it this far if it weren’t for those around you.”
I almost didn’t hear him as my brain attempted to catch up.
Twitching a nod, I tried not to step back as he pressed forward, moving within inches of me. I tried to focus on my socked feet, wiggling them and feeling the grit between my toes. Clearing my throat, I said, “So what does this mean?”
He caught my chin in his fingers, and I had the urge to jerk away but felt the steely, unrelenting grip warn against it.
His hand was chilled but not cold as I reluctantly rolled my eyes to meet his. My heart thundered, and my knees grew weak as the idea began to swirl inside my head.
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