by Tracy Wolff
As I do, I pray it’s not like the last one I entered. A girl can only take so many things going to shit around her at any given time, and I pretty much feel like I’m at my quota right now. Just saying.
Turns out it’s not at all like the last one I entered—it’s so much worse that I kind of want to cry.
I don’t even know what to think about this one, except to say that whoever thought it up was pure evil. Brilliant, yes, but also completely evil.
Something about the gravity is all messed up, and I end up freefalling through the portal while also spinning head over heels. With each spin, the top of my head and the back of my heels scrape against the walls of the portal and I get an electric shock every single time. It’s really, really not fun.
Even worse, from the scream I hear not too far behind me, at least one of the dragons chose to follow me into the portal and whoever it is is pissed. Then again, they’re so big, they must be scraping against the sides of the portal the whole time. I’m having trouble feeling sorry for them, but I wouldn’t wish that kind of shock/electrocution on anyone.
I try to take a guess at where we’re going to come out—and how I’m going to gain control enough to keep flying when we do—all while holding on to a ball that’s starting to vibrate hard again. And can I just say, it’s beginning to feel like overkill… Bad enough that I’ve got eight homicidal paranormals on my ass. I need to also have a ball that’s sole purpose seems to be to break me apart? I know Flint and Jaxon love Ludares, but I’m pretty sure it might be the worst. Game. Ever.
The portal finally ends, throwing me out into the near pitch black…and, I realize with horror, on top of someone.
What the hell? Afraid I landed on one of the werewolves, I start to push away, but then I realize I’m hearing human screams. And not one or two but several of them…all up close and personal.
Which means… I look around desperately, trying to get my bearings and find the goal at the same time, only to realize that I’m not even on the field anymore. This freaking defective portal dropped me off directly in the middle of the audience. Which means… Oh shit.
We’re about to get squashed.
“You need to move!” I shout. “Move now!”
Then I take off, flying right over my classmates’ heads even as I hope that they listen, that they manage to get out before… All kinds of screams ensue as Joaquin slides out of the portal and right into—and on top of—the crowd.
A glance behind me shows that Delphina follows right after him, belching ice, and the two of them manage to take out a whole section of arena seats—and the people sitting in them. Cyrus yells for order, and several teachers and Circle members race for the area, hoping to sort out the melee.
I make sure no one is seriously injured then take advantage of the ensuing chaos to toss the ball high enough in the air to reset it, then catch it again as I race back down toward the field. I’m in my gargoyle form, so despite the darkness, I can see well enough to figure out that I’m not that far from their goal line. I lay on the speed, heading toward that damn red line with every ounce of energy I can muster. I’ve got thirty seconds to get close to my goal and maybe, just maybe, figure out one more way to reset the ball without chancing losing it when I’m this close to the end. Now if everyone else on the field would also cooperate, I would really appreciate it.
But the upper balcony seats jut out over the field in this section, so I have to fly low in order to clear them. I do my best, dipping down and bringing my wings in low and close to my body as I make a beeline for the end. As long as the dragons remain tangled up with the spectators, I have a real chance.
I end up hitting the field about twenty feet from the goal line with the most intense tunnel vision of my life. I know things are going on behind me and around me, but I don’t care right now. If they were seriously injured, or about to be, the magic of the game would pull them out anyway. All I care about is getting to that damn goal line before the dragons—or anything else—catches me.
And if I could do it before my hands literally shake off my body from the ball vibrating so intensely, that would be great, too. But I’m low to the ground now, too low, so I start to climb up again as fast as possible.
I don’t make it. Quinn comes out of nowhere, in werewolf form, slamming into me so hard that he sends me careering into the ground.
It doesn’t hurt—the stone keeps me from feeling too much—but the lack of pain doesn’t change the fact that I’m on the ground with a wolf standing directly above me, snarling like I’m about to be his next meal.
He wants the ball—I know he wants the ball—but I’m not planning on giving it to him. At least not if I can help it. Instead, I grab on to the comet with one hand, then pull back my other hand and punch him in the nose as hard as I can with my stone fist.
He screams and rears back, blood spurting out of his nose, and I take the opportunity to roll over and start army crawling away, but the ball is vibrating so badly that it’s almost impossible to hold on to it like this.
I manage it, though, and stumble to my feet at as close to a run as I can manage. I shift on the fly, going back to my human form so I can run faster. I’m so close, the goal line is only twenty feet in front of me, and I’m almost there, almost there. Back in human form, the burn from the comet is moving quickly from painful to agonizing, but if I can just hold on another few seconds—
Out of what feels like nowhere, Cam (Macy’s right, he is a fucking traitor) hits me with some kind of earth spell, and vines shoot up from the field and wrap themselves around my ankles and legs. I go down hard and take the ball with me.
It’s burning hot now, and when I fall on top of it, I can feel it branding me through my shirt. Can feel painful blisters starting to form. The pain is too much, and I gasp, roll off the ball, and just that easily, Macy’s soon-to-be-ex-friend Simone swoops in.
She picks up the ball and takes off running full tilt for the goal.
114
Fake It Till You
Break It
I jump to my feet, shifting into my gargoyle form as I do, so that the vines are ripped apart by my larger stone size. But I’m way behind Simone, and I’m terrified I won’t be able to catch her before she tosses the comet to a teammate and I never catch up.
I launch myself into the air, and briefly I think about tapping into Hudson’s powers. But he said I can do it only once, and to make sure that when I do, it’s to win, because it will totally wipe me out.
I’m not there yet—I’m currently about as far from winning as I was at the beginning of the game, maybe even further—but if I don’t catch Simone right now, it won’t matter if I save Hudson’s power for later because I will have already lost.
Desperate not to let that happen, I fly faster, determined to use the power if I really, really have to. One of the dragons—Joaquin, I’m pretty sure—passes Simone going in the opposite direction and heads straight for me, fire blazing and talons out.
I don’t have time for him or his shit right now. Too bad he doesn’t feel the same way about me.
He’s heading straight for me like I’m personally responsible for whatever pain and humiliation he suffered coming out of the portal earlier, and he’s looking for payback.
Also something I don’t have time for at the moment.
But this is the path Simone is running, so this is the one I have to stay on—which means I can’t afford to duck or change course or do anything at all but what I’m doing.
So I do exactly that, even though it means flying straight at Joaquin.
You know, if anyone had told me six months ago that I’d be playing a supernatural game of chicken with a dragon, I would have suggested they stop smoking whatever it was they were smoking. But six months makes a huge difference in this world—hell, at Katmere Academy, six minutes makes a huge difference—and I can’t afford to blink.
Not now. Not this time.
So I stay the course, no matter how scared I am.
No matter how fast my heart is pounding.
No matter how loudly my brain is screaming for me to stop, to go back, to turn around because there’s no way I can win in a collision with a two-thousand-pound dragon.
But I have to win—this collision and this game. Which means there’s no way I’m backing down now.
A quick glance at the field shows me that Simone has passed the ball off to Cam, who is now running for the goal even faster, with the wolves quickly approaching to flank him on either side. I have no idea where the other dragon is—and I try not to let that fear distract me—because I’ve almost caught up with Cam, and I need to get this giant freaking other dragon the hell out of my way.
So I’m just going to have to count on beating the warlock to the goal line and keeping the ball in play.
How I’m going to do that is another matter altogether, though. Especially since there’s only one way I can think of to do that while we’re both thirty feet off the ground—and it’s pretty goddamn awful.
I know everyone on the ground thinks I’m out of my mind. I know they’re convinced I’m about to die right here in midair, and maybe they’re right. But times don’t get much more desperate than this, so I aim for the dragon and brace myself for impact.
I let myself wonder briefly about not surviving the upcoming crush. And if I’m really willing to take that chance.
But the truth is, if I don’t take that chance—if I don’t fight this fight and win—I won’t survive anyway. Besides, I’d rather die fighting for what I believe in than live as the victim of somebody else’s whims—especially if that person is as evil as Cyrus.
There’s no way I want to spend the rest of my very long life being Cyrus’s prisoner or personal gargoyle-for-hire.
That being said, I don’t actually want to die. And so I lay on the speed, using every ounce of strength and energy I have to go faster, faster, faster. Joaquin is still coming at me, but I can tell from the way he’s flying that he’s convinced I’m going to chicken out at the last minute. Convinced that there’s no way I’m going to actually let myself get into a giant collision with a dragon.
But he’s wrong, way wrong. And his mistaken conviction means I have an advantage. Right now, it’s a small advantage, but I’m willing to take anything I can get. Which is why, as the dragon bears down on me, wings spread wide and flames shooting out of his mouth, I do the only thing I can do.
I veer just a couple of inches to the right and clench both my hands into fists as I straighten my arms out directly in front of me and tuck in my own wings…and then I punch a giant hole in the center of his wing and fly right through it.
Joaquin screams in agony and starts spinning out as he plummets to the ground, unable to do anything but fall with his broken, torn-up wing. I feel bad—of course I do—but an injured wing is totally fixable, especially with Marise in charge of the infirmary.
A gargoyle’s lifetime chained up in a dungeon? Not so much.
Leaving half the Circle to run wild, power hungry and unchecked, throughout the paranormal world? Double not so much.
I vaguely notice Joaquin magically disappears from the sky just before he hits the ground, likely teleported to the infirmary. Either way, they’re down a player, and that can only be good news for me.
The crowd is shouting now—at me or for me, I don’t know or particularly care—but I don’t take so much as a second to glance over at them.
Instead, I do a backward corkscrew and deep dive toward the ground as Cam closes in on the goal. No way is Macy’s scummy ex getting that ball over the line. No freaking way.
Except Cole is there, too, waiting to take me out if I get too close to Cam—or if he can think of another reason to do it. But I haven’t come this far to lose to some mangy dog with a God complex, even if he is in human form, so instead of moving in front of Cam to stop him, I take him from behind—with a well-placed kick to the back of his knee.
He cries out and starts to fall, bobbling the ball in the process—which is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I snatch the ball out of midair and somersault backward, planning to take to the air a second time. With one of the dragons down, my odds just got a whole lot better in the sky.
But before I can get more than a couple of feet off the ground, Cole leaps at me. I’m not fast enough to get away, and he manages to twist his arms around my waist as he tries to wrestle me to the ground.
I fight him the whole way—the gargoyle’s stone way more effective than my human body would be in this situation—but before I can land one really good punch, we’re falling straight into another goddamn portal.
This portal is narrow and fast—so narrow that my wings are scraping hard against the sides of it and so fast that it’s actually crumbling the edges of them. Terrified I won’t be able to fly if I lose too much of my wings right now—the info from the library said gargoyles can regenerate certain things but it doesn’t happen instantly—I do the only thing I can think of to do. I shift back to my human form.
But that’s no better, because I’m still in this portal with Cole and the ball, and while I’m trying desperately to get my hands on the comet, Cole is trying desperately to get his hands on me. I start crawling away from him, using his own body as my ground, arms stretched in front of me as I try to grasp the ball that’s spinning along in front of us. But Cole has a different idea, and he grabs on to the back of my pants and pulls me straight back toward him, even as I claw at the icy portal in front of me.
He finally manages to get me turned over and then wraps his hands around my neck and starts to squeeze.
115
He Totally
Deserved That
Panic fills me—wild, overwhelming, desperate—as I realize this isn’t about the ball. It isn’t about the game or even about the Circle itself. This is about Cole and how much he despises me. More proof—if there was any doubt—that Cole has never given a damn about the Trial. He only cares about hurting me.
Which makes him a million times more dangerous.
Get up! the voice deep inside me says. Get him off. He’ll kill you.
I want to shoot back, Thanks, Captain Obvious, but the beast doesn’t deserve my snark. He’s just trying to help.
My hands are on top of Cole’s now, my nails scoring his skin as I try to pry his fingers from around my throat. But he’s a werewolf, with werewolf strength, and I can’t get him off me no matter what I do.
And I do a lot.
I twist and buck and kick and claw and try to roll over, anything to make him let go, anything to dislodge his grip for even a second, but he doesn’t budge.
Suddenly, I sense the weird feeling again, the one that says we’re about to exit the portal, and I brace myself for my one chance to run, to get away.
But even as the portal empties us onto the field, shooting us out, Cole’s fingers don’t dislodge.
We hit the ground fast and hard, and Cole grunts in pain. I take that one split second of inattention and try to run with it, body bucking wildly even as I reach for the platinum string inside me.
If I can change back to my gargoyle form, I can end this right now—he can’t strangle stone, after all—but no matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. Keeping Cole from tightening his fingers and crushing my windpipe is taking every ounce of energy and focus I have. Grabbing on to the platinum string takes concentration and precision, and I’ve got neither going on right now.
Suddenly, the ball flies out of the portal, too, smacking Cole in the side of the face. He doesn’t so much as flinch. To be honest, I’m not even sure he knows it hit him—once again reinforcing the idea that this Trial doesn’t mean shit to him.
Get up now! the Unkillable Beast orders me again.
I’m trying, I really am. But I
can’t catch my breath, and I can barely think. Everything is going gray and cloudy inside my head.
There’s a part of me that knows Cam just ran by and scooped up the ball, so I have a fleeting thought that I’ve already lost this game.
And then another fleeting thought about how fucked-up everything is if that’s what I’m worried about right now, when death seems a much more imminent concern.
Desperate, I try to reach for Hudson’s power—pretty sure now’s the time to use it—but I can’t unlock it, can’t focus without oxygen to sift through the memories enough to find the one where he left—
“Grace!” Hudson’s shout echoes across the field. “Get up! Get away from him, now!”
I want to, I really want to, but I can’t. The darkness is coming over me, swallowing me whole, and I’m fading, fading, fad—
But before I do, I turn my head just a little to get a glimpse of Hudson, and that’s when I see them—Macy and Jaxon and Hudson on the sidelines of an arena gone silent with shaken spectators.
Macy is standing by the fence that separates the field from the stands, screaming at the Circle.
Jaxon still looks half dead, but he’s got murder in his eyes as he rests both hands on the magical wall. He’s sending quakes of energy to unseat Cole, but the witch’s magic is holding and he’s only shaking the spectators instead.
And Hudson… Hudson is laser focused on me. His eyes are pinned to my face with an intensity that makes it impossible not to feel him and imagine him still in my head.
“Get that bloody wanker off you, Grace!” he orders me.
I don’t know if it’s the Britishism or the intensity of his voice, but suddenly it feels like he’s inside my head again instead of all the way across the stadium. Snarking at me to stand on my own two feet, telling me I’m a badass, that I’m stronger than I think. Pushing me to try again, to reach inside me for my platinum string. And this time, even though I know it’s too far, that I don’t have the strength to grab it, I strain my fingers just enough to brush against its soft glow.
