Wicked Challenge (Darkwater Reformatory Book 2)

by Marty Mayberry

  “You did it to me. To all of us!” Akimi broke free and stumbled forward before falling to the ground. She curled up and hugged her branches close. Her sobs filled the air. “It is over. So over.”

  “I did this to her,” I said. “The price I might’ve paid doesn’t matter.”

  Akimi whimpered. “I shall never escape.” A lifetime of grief filled her words.

  Brodin tugged me near. I buried my face in his chest, wishing I could sob like Akimi, but we weren’t done here yet.

  We may never be done here.

  “If…” Jacey growled and I could tell she ached to shout out the truth, but she would do as I asked. She wouldn’t tell Akimi about the slake. “We need to go.” Grumbling, she walked past us, her body shifting with unease. “Akimi, get up. We can…discuss this later.” She looked at me. “I am going to tell her. She needs to know and you won’t stop me.”

  “Not now. Let’s…let’s get going. Get through the next test.”

  She nodded but her steely gaze said the clock had started ticking.

  “Where to now?” Brodin asked, his voice filled with resolve. It gave me strength but I had to wonder. How did he find the will to keep trying?

  Akimi floundered to her roots and wavered. Her branches drooped around her shoulders and all of her leaves had turned gray.

  “Anyone up for a run?” Jacey asked.

  “Why?” Brodin said. “It can’t be starting already, can it? Giving Tria and Akimi a few minutes can’t hurt.” He kissed the top of my head, and I was grateful I’d found him all over again.

  Something shifted in the grass behind us, making it rustle like dead leaves skittering across a fallen gravestone.

  Kai grabbed my hand in his teeth and tugged me toward where I’d seen something glinting. Our destination, then.

  But…

  As I stumbled forward, pulled by Kai, I glanced over my shoulder.

  Titan stood on the top of a hill close behind us. As I moved forward, my pace picking up and my friends jogging around me, he shifted into his raptor form. Tipping his head back, he shrieked, the sound searing across my skin like molten lava.

  “Faster,” Brodin said, snagging my hand and holding tight.

  “Is he part of the test?” I asked, too winded already. I’d let my guilt and sorrow eat away at my resolve to finish this, but I couldn’t give up now. Not when Brodin and Jacey believed in me.

  Not when Kai did, too.

  We raced through the grass with Titan stomping behind us. Playing with us? Stronger and faster, he could be on us, ripping us to bloody pieces with his teeth and his claws. Why didn’t he end it?

  “He’s herding us,” Brodin hissed.

  “Where?”

  He pointed to the shining object growing closer and bigger.

  A tall, silvery tower awaited us, assuming we could reach it in time.

  “Do we have any choice but to run in that direction?” Jacey panted out.

  “Nothing else in sight,” Brodin said. “Keep going!”

  We crashed through the grass that glinted golden in the sunshine. It would’ve been pretty on any other day. I would’ve laid back in it and stared at the sky. But with a raptor after us? No thanks.

  A winged shadow soared overhead and when I peered up, Lars’ sharp claws and tusks glinted in the sunlight. Even if I had something to shoot at him, his scaly, armored skin would be nearly impossible to penetrate.

  He roared down at us, and while Akimi and Jacey ducked, Brodin and I dove forward, onto the ground. I rolled and sprung to my feet and kept running.

  Multiple thuds and roars behind told me we had to keep going. We not only had Lars hunting us from the sky, but Titan had also survived his fall from the ice crystal. They’d never relent. They’d be after us forever.

  “Thought they’d both died,” Jacey said as I burst for speed and caught up to run beside her. Ahead, the tower grew closer. I could only hope it would provide shelter since there seemed nowhere else to hide but in the grass.

  “Must’ve been another mirage generated by the catacombs.”

  “Bixby, you mean,” Brodin said from my left.

  Akimi raced on the other side of Jacey, her gaze focused on the tower.

  Kai had disappeared as soon as we’d started for the tower, telling me he’d gone to wherever he went to be safe.

  “It’s huge,” I said, tipping my head back as I rushed toward the looming silver structure that resembled one of the turrets at the Academy only about ten times taller. The wide base would not only help support the building but would hopefully provide an escape from the danger swooping down on us from above and chasing us from behind.

  “Where’s the gorelon?” Jacey asked.

  I peered over my shoulder and stark fear bolted through me to see Titan gaining on us fast. “Hopefully not inside.”

  “Assuming we can get inside,” Brodin said. “Incoming.”

  Lars’ shadow gave him away. As he dove down toward us, we ducked and scattered, still aiming for the tower.

  “A door,” Akimi said, pointing a branch.

  “By the fae, I hope it’s open,” I yelled.

  We slammed up to it, a jumble of scared kids and a tree nymph, exposed to the attack from an army of shifters above and behind.

  Akimi’s branches scrambled for the knob. She twisted and turned and wrenched on the panel, but it resisted.

  “Let me,” Brodin said, nudging her aside. He latched onto the knob and turned while slamming his shoulder against the metal.

  Jacey and I turned to face the onslaught coming at us.

  “Find some sort of weapon,” she shouted.

  Nothing but grass except… something glinted on the ground, and I snatched it up. My knife! I thought it was lost forever, but I recognized the etching my stepdad had added the day he gave it to me.

  Together, we’re strong. Apart, we splinter.

  Who knew how it had gotten here. The catacombs played with your mind.

  The blade snicked free. It wasn’t much, but I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  I waved it in the air, knowing how puny it must look but what else could I do? It wasn’t as if I could access my magic. All I had was the knife and… Wait.

  “Jacey. Akimi,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Make it work fast,” Jacey cried as Titan crested a low hill a short distance away.

  “We can’t use necromancy,” I said as Brodin kept throwing his body against the door. “Or healing, and we don’t know what we can tap from Akimi. Seeking is out, but…”

  “Influence,” she breathed. “But how?” Her gaze cut to the building as Titan roared and barreled down the hill toward us. Overhead, Lars added to the mix, spiraling through the sky, his claws extended. It would be over in seconds.

  “I’ll pull in mist and then the three of us need to do what we can to influence that door.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing to lose, right?”

  Except for our lives. Should we run? There could be something over the next hill or the one after that. But I felt this was the way. All of us together would make this happen.

  “Do it,” Jacey said. Akimi, her eyes still cold when they met mine, nodded.

  While I’d been determined to do the right thing, I’d lost her.

  I pulled in sketar mist, though the pickings were slim. Had Bixby caught on to my using the power? Probably. If I somehow made it out of here, I bet she’d add another layer to my tenna bracelets, one to suppress this ancient ability.

  “On three,” I said. “You ready Brodin?”

  “Do it.”

  “Three…two…and…”

  As I blasted power toward the door and Brodin pushed, his face straining, we all shouted open.

  The panel swung inward and Brodin fell inside. We jumbled in after him. While they gaped around, I slammed the door shut.

  Claws screeched down the surface and the knob turned…

  “Lock it,” Jacey cried.

  “
How?” I said, my fingers fumbling around the knob. “There isn’t anything here to turn or engage.”

  “More power,” Akimi said.

  “Yes, influence it closed.” Jacey nodded to Akimi.

  I pulled in mist, finding it even more scarce inside the building, but juggling whatever reached me. The door bulged inward from the frame.

  Would locking matter if they could bust it down? No choice but to try.

  “Now,” I hissed.

  “Lock,” we all shouted as I shot out power.

  A sharp snick and I sensed the panel changing.

  Like a cage slamming shut or a rock fall sliding down a mountain, a solid stone wall formed where the door had been. The stonework spread like ink across a wet surface, encasing the entire room in which we stood until only jagged mortared walls surrounded us.

  “Well,” Brodin said, rubbing his shoulder. He moved around Akimi and Jacey to join me in the spot where I’d last seen the door. He peered upward. “I guess we’ve found our next trial.”

  “Maybe.”

  We stood close together in a room about fifty feet across. Stone, stone, and more stone, both along the newly formed, circular walls and on the floor beneath our feet.

  A tall ceiling—also made of stone—arched overhead.

  “Shall we go up?” Jacey asked, pointing.

  In the dark shadows along one wall, a staircase rose up through a circular hole in the ceiling.

  “There is no other way but up,” Akimi said. “There is no going backward now. Unless…”

  I strode over and stared up. It appeared to go on forever. What would we find at the top? Only one way to find out.

  “Anyone up for a climb?” I said, my foot landing solidly on the first step.

  Brodin joined me, and his hand settled on my lower back. “I’m with you.”

  “Me, too,” said Jacey, crowding behind Brodin.

  Akimi nodded but shot me a dark look. I wouldn’t find forgiveness there nor friendship, and it hurt.

  But if I was back inside the middle world, I’d do it all over again.

  “What…?” Jacey climbed the first flight of stairs. When she reached the landing at the top, her scream echoed through the tower. “Rohnan. No!”

  With Brodin right behind me, I slammed up the stairs and dropped down beside her where she’d collapsed to her knees.

  Her hands reached out. They twitched before she laid them on the gleaming floor.

  A face, frozen in shock, stared up at us.

  Twenty-Seven

  Jacey

  As I stared at the face of the one I loved, I tumbled back to the last time I’d seen him…

  My roommate, Kylie, woke me the next morning with a shake on my shoulder. “Time to go,” she whispered. “The Challenge awaits.”

  Groaning, I flopped over onto my side, away from her. Damn hard bed. It was worse than sleeping on a rock. My entire body had to be black and blue from flopping around on the stiff mattress all night.

  The slice of a window near the toilet let in no light. Darkness still cloaked the room.

  “Spyling,” I hissed.

  “Disabled.”

  A neat trick I needed to learn.

  “We’ve got to leave for the Challenge,” she said.

  “The sun’s not up yet,” I said. “They let witches enter this early in the morning?”

  “I, um, didn’t tell you everything.”

  Great.

  Wide awake now!

  Turning over, I faced her, though I couldn’t read her expression. So far, I hadn’t seen even a dimly lit winky at the prison. From what I could tell, they used natural light only. If it was dark, you were welcome to stumble around with your hands stretched out in front of you.

  “Spill,” I said firmly.

  “My sister doesn’t know I’m doing this.”

  Tossing back my thin blanket, I sat on the side of the bed. “What does your sister have to do with taking the Challenge?”

  “She’s here. At the prison.”

  Still didn’t get it. “You’re eighteen, right?”

  Kylie rocked back on her heels. Her attention remained focused on the bunk overhead. “Yeah, but…”

  “You’re an adult. That means you can make your own decisions.”

  Her hands fretted with the zipper on the front of her prison jumpsuit. “You don’t know my sister. Sheera will kill me if she finds out I formed a triad, let alone entered the Challenge.”

  “Why would she be mad about that?” Rising, I went to the toilet. “It’s a chance to get out of the prison.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Once we get through the test,” I said, yanking a few slices of stiff paper off the roll then grimacing as I used it. “We go to the Reformatory and do whatever they ask. They’ll reform us, I suppose. We’ll be free after that. Surely that’ll make your sister happy. She can’t want you to stay here for the rest of your life.”

  After I got out, I’d go after King Orren. I couldn’t wait to wrap my fingers around his skinny neck.

  “My sister is twenty-one. She’s too old to take the Challenge. The Reformatory only accepts inmates aged twenty and under.”

  After dragging on my clothing and zipping it up, I stormed up to her. “What’s going on here? Are you saying you woke me up to tell me you’re backing out?”

  “No way. I’m still in.” Her gaze darted to the closed door. “But we’ve got to leave before my sister finds out. She’s…protective. She won’t let me do it.”

  “Okay.” Why keep arguing? I was just as eager as she was to get this thing started. “We’ll grab Rohnan on our way to the arboretum.” Where I’d heard we could gain access to the Challenge.

  We crept through the halls, running into no one. Three long corridors and two flights of stairs later, Kylie fretted in the hall while I snuck into Rohnan’s room to wake him. Well, I climbed on top of him lying in bed, and that woke him.

  “Jacey,” he murmured. Rolling over with me in his arms, he pinned me beneath his body and kissed me.

  Time kinda lost all meaning. Damn, he felt good lying on top of me. I missed this. Missed being close to him whenever I pleased. Even more reason to get out of the prison.

  When my breathing had gone ragged and my heart was flopping around in my chest, he lifted his head. “Now this is how I like to wake up.”

  I ran my fingertips along his bare shoulders, and he shivered. Leaning close again, he grazed his teeth along my neck.

  Delicious goosebumps chased across my skin.

  “You’re almost naked,” I whispered. Had to keep it down, because his roommate slept in the bunk overhead. Total embarrassment if I woke him, too.

  “I’m fully naked,” Rohnan said.

  Hot. I was steaming.

  “Too bad you’ve got a roommate,” I said.

  “I could wake him up and make him leave if you want.”

  Oh, I wanted. This situation was too tempting. But… “Kylie’s waiting in the hall.” Probably gnawing through all her fingernails.

  “We can tell her to go away, too.” He nibbled along my collarbone.

  Closing my eyes, I drank in the feel of him. To think I’d almost lost him. I still could lose him. I would find it hard to rest until we’d gotten through this together.

  He unzipped my prison uniform with his teeth.

  “Rohnan,” I gasped, arching my back.

  “Mmm?” His mouth moved lower. His fingers…

  I was going to explode.

  “It’s time,” I said, somehow latching onto enough brain cells to speak. “We’re going to take the Challenge.”

  His kisses trailed off to nothing, and he looked up at me. “Now?”

  “I don’t think the Warden knows how close we are to escaping. Kylie mentioned something about her sister trying to stop her, but the early morning timing feels off.”

  He levered himself up and sat back on his haunches. Sadly, the blanket remained in place, covering him from t
he waist down. “Give me two minutes to dress.”

  I traced my finger down his chest, following the fine trail of tiny hairs that disappeared beneath the covers. “One minute and another kiss?”

  Bracing himself over me, he trailed his lips along my jawline. Delicious. “I only need thirty seconds to get dressed.”

  We joined Kylie in the hall a few minutes later.

  “This way,” she said, pointing to the right when we’d started walking left.

  Coming to a full halt, Rohnan lounged against the wall and linked his arms on his chest. “Arboretum’s in the other direction.”

  “We’re…” Kylie’s gaze dropped to the floor. “We’re taking the back way.”

  “Why?” Rohnan asked.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” I asked.

  Kylie chuffed out a sigh, and her gaze finally met mine. “Here’s the thing. Last night, I told the Warden I’d formed a triad, that we were ready to take the Challenge. Thought that would be it, that she’d hand me the access pin and tell me good luck. But she insisted on knowing who else I’d compete with. I refused.” She gulped. “She brought in a truth slayer, and I had no choice but to name you and Rohnan.”

  “And?” Rohnan asked, his voice grim.

  “She refused to give you two access. Said she has different plans for you.”

  The more you want something, the more it’s denied. Wasn’t that how life always went?

  I groaned, unable to imagine what she’d dreamed up for her next attempt on our lives.

  Kylie walked closer. “But we’re a triad. We’re in this together.” She lifted a hand toward us and, flipping it over, unclenched her fist. A thin brass pin lay on her palm. “When she wasn’t looking, I stole an access key to the Challenge.”

  Rohnan’s low chuckle rang out in the dark, empty hall. “I like you, Kylie.” As he passed her, he ruffled her hair. “Show us this back way into the arboretum.”

  At the end of the hall, we took three flights of stairs down to the ground floor and crept through the back wing of the prison. We passed closed office doors and a small cafeteria where staff ate, separate from us prison peons. I imagined their food was better than the slop I’d struggled with yesterday. My belly still rumbled, and I had a feeling it would keep grumbling until I’d left the prison.