The Girl Who Dared to Think 4: The Girl Who Dared to Rise

by Bella Forrest

  Twenty-foot-tall statues stood in straight lines on the edge of either side of the bridge, which was thirty feet wide. The statues, replicas of former and current council members, stood shoulder to shoulder, with a row of white banisters separating the statues from the main traffic. The bridge spanned three hundred feet, and arched upward in the middle, making it impossible to see the other side.

  I knew from the real Bridge of Heroes that there were long struts for support underneath, in what looked like a widespread hand fanning out at either end of the bridge, holding it up. They were placed wide enough to navigate through using the lashes, but the closer you were to the start of the bridge, the more clustered they became.

  “Liana,” Leo whispered, catching my attention and breaking my train of thought. I followed his gaze and then the line of his arm, turning completely around to do so, and saw the word Defender glowing on the wall of the arena. Another quick glance at our surroundings showed me that we were also being flanked by two teams of four. Our teammates.

  My heart skipped a beat when I saw Frederick Hamilton striding forward from the group on the left, and then stopped completely when I noticed Lieutenant Zale breaking off from the one on the right, heading toward a spot equidistant from the three groups.

  Dylan shoved past me, breaking free from our tiny cluster and marching forward to meet them, a determined look on her face. I watched her stalk away with growing alarm, wondering if she really thought butting heads with Lieutenant Zale—a man who had been second-in-command for the Knights for the last twenty years—in a direct confrontation for leadership was a good idea. Because if she did, she had another thing coming.

  “The first thing we need to do—” Zale began, his voice loud and exerting a brutal edge that made me stand a little straighter and look a bit more attentive.

  “Clearly, the statues need to be—” Fredrick said over him, his deep voice holding a nasal quality that gave it a bit of whine, but also a note of authority that was hard to ignore.

  “I say that we tear up parts of the—” Dylan asserted confidently, not letting anyone get the better of her.

  Everything else they said was lost in the pandemonium of them speaking over one another. I watched and waited, unsurprised, as this was generally the status quo for the first few seconds and up to a minute of this particular challenge. Any second now, one of them would loudly remind the others that we were on the clock, and didn’t have time to fight.

  Frederick was gesticulating wildly as he spoke, his fingers pointing this way and that, while Dylan kept her arms folded across her chest and her legs set wide, still wearing a wry smile, even as she sarcastically and waspishly dismissed what Frederick was saying out of turn. Lieutenant Zale had his hands behind his back, but an angry and sour look on his face, likely because his position as Lieutenant hadn’t gotten him anywhere. They were still practically talking over each other, and while the words weren’t exactly understandable, the volume and tone were, and I winced, pressing a finger against my ear to try to clear the noise.

  And yet no one looked at the time, or even made mention of it. Anxiety twisted up inside me, and I nervously glanced at my indicator and the mission clock, wondering how much time had elapsed. As I squinted at the numbers, my stomach tensed. Nearly two minutes had elapsed since they started arguing, and they showed no sign of stopping. How could any of them hope to accomplish anything when none of them were actually listening to what the others were saying, let alone checking the time?

  Still, I waited, half expecting one of them to get the upper hand in the conversation—or at the very least, for one of them to yell “shut up, this isn’t working”—but each time someone got close, another would start talking again, and everything would devolve.

  Leo, Maddox, and I exchanged a three-way look of confusion. Compared with our training session with Dylan yesterday, today she was acting like a rank amateur. We had little time to waste on this, and I couldn’t believe how little attention she was paying to it. Not to mention, it was on one of them to take a step back, realize that this was fruitless, and do something decisive. Whether that was throwing his or her weight behind someone else or just walking away to approach the other teams directly, it didn’t matter. The status quo wasn’t working, and needed to change.

  But it seemed Dylan hadn’t considered that going into this, which left me in a strange place. I really didn’t want to undermine Dylan’s command right out of the gate, but she was leaving me no other choice. I had to do something before we lost any more time waiting for them to decide who was going to lead. It wouldn’t matter who was in charge if we didn’t start planning our defense. Even now, the other team was planning their avenue of attack—and if we didn’t begin fortifying our end, they would roll right through us, and we’d be eliminated from the Tourney.

  And I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Hey, I’m going to talk to the other teams to see if I can convince them to help us out while our three illustrious leaders waste time trying to figure out who’s in charge. Can you guys go check the bridge? There should be emergency toolkits with cutters and a welding kit inside that we’ll need to start constructing our barricades.”

  Maddox arched an eyebrow, a sly smile coming to her lips. “That didn’t take very long,” she said cheerfully. “Start with Frederick’s team. He got grouped with a guy named Kellan Moore, who was the leader of his own team. It was infiltrated as well, and now he and Frederick are stuck together. He was actually the lead yesterday, and from the vids I watched last night, he’s reasonable.”

  I followed her gaze to where a dusky-skinned man with a thick swatch of inky blue-black hair and a pair of dark brown, almost black, almond-shaped eyes was watching our three leaders squabble over who would be in charge with an openly disgusted and frustrated look on his face. As soon as I noticed that, I turned and gave Maddox an appraising look.

  “Good job,” I said. “He’s a great starting place.”

  And I meant it; anyone with that look on his face would be perfectly amenable to teaming up to undermine his ineffective leader. Good thing I had just the proposal for him.

  I set off toward him, cutting a wide path around the three people still arguing in the middle, approaching quickly. Kellan didn’t notice me at first, but one of his teammates—a woman of about twenty-five, with short brown hair and dark green eyes, reached out and tapped his shoulder.

  “Kellan?” she said, her voice husky. “Liana ‘Honorbound’ Castell is here.”

  Kellan whirled, his eyes immediately raking me from head to toe with a wary look. “What are you doing?” he asked, his brows drawing together. “We’re supposed to wait until—”

  I gave him a wry look, and cut in smoothly. “Time runs out and then the other team is on us before we have time to put up barricades?” He faltered mid-sentence and then closed his mouth. “Look, our leaders have already wasted…” I glanced at my indicator, which was now displaying the Tourney countdown, sighed, and continued, saying, “Three whole minutes trying to figure out who is in charge or who has the best plan, and that’s time we could’ve used planning our defense.”

  He frowned, contemplating my words, and then nodded. “You’re right. Do you have a plan?”

  “Nothing fancy at the moment,” I said, both relieved and pleased that I didn’t have to waste any time convincing him further, then turned to the bridge, pointing at it. “I figure we tear up the floor of the bridge starting about sixty feet in, and use what we rip out to create barricades farther back, set up to funnel the attackers into a bottleneck. That way, they’ll only be able to come at us one by one, which will let us take them out easily. If you think there’s anything we need to add, I’m all ears.”

  Tearing up the bridge was a bold move, as it meant cutting a hole directly in the center of it to create an obstacle to slow the other team down. They’d be limited in how they could use their lashes, as well as how much room they had to maneuver, which would give us the advantage, as we wo
uld control the points they would have access to. It required us to move fast if we were going to do it, but I left room for other suggestions, knowing that the easiest way to get the other teams on board was to make them feel included.

  Kellan studied the bridge for several seconds. “We should create some barricades underneath as well, in case they try to come up from underneath. And we’ll need to post a few people down there, but… yes, I think you are right. We need to limit their numbers, and cutting a hole in the bridge certainly does that.”

  “Good. Why don’t you join Maddox and Grey, and I’ll see if I can’t get the other team to help,” I said, giving him an encouraging smile.

  Kellan waved for his teammates to follow and began making his way to where Maddox and Leo were taking equipment from specially crafted cabinets inside the first columns on either side of the bridge. I watched him go for a second, and then sucked in a deep breath before turning and directing myself toward Zale’s team.

  My mother was already watching me, a pleased smile spreading across her lips as she registered Kellan moving to join Maddox and Leo, his own team following behind him. A strange rush of pleasure made my cheeks heat as I realized she was looking at me with pride, but I quickly batted the feeling away and let it scatter to the far recesses of my mind, to dwell on later. I didn’t have time, and I could feel the press of each second, reminding me that even more was running out. I was up to six people, and with my father, Min-Ha Kim, and my mother, that would be nine. The other three could follow us when they figured out that they had lost.

  Provided I could get Zale’s team on board, of course. My gaze flicked over to where they were standing, and I studied them. My father and Min-Ha—a woman with straight, jet-black hair and dark brown eyes—had their eyes on Zale as I approached, but it didn’t take long for my father to notice me.

  “What are you doing over here?” he blustered angrily, and I winced at the volume. Looking over my shoulder, though, I saw that the three so-called leaders had barely paused for breath, and was relieved that my father’s loud question hadn’t drawn any attention from them. If they noticed I was getting their teams moving behind their backs, they’d jump in and unify against me—and I’d lose any semblance of control I had managed to get through convincing Kellan and Frederick’s team to help us. They’d likely jump in, barking orders, which would only get things muddled up and slowed down, and would throw our risk of winning the challenge into more jeopardy.

  “Talking to Mom,” I snapped back. I turned my attention to her and smiled. “So, we’re gonna start setting up the bridge. You want to join us?”

  My mother chuckled, and then nodded. “Absolutely,” she announced softly. “It seems more proactive than standing around here, don’t you think, Silas? Min-Ha?”

  She didn’t give them a chance to respond, but instead turned on her heel and began moving toward the others, following Kellan. Min-Ha watched her for a moment, her shapely eyebrows rising to her forehead, and then gave me a small, polite smile.

  “Well played,” she said, inclining her head. “Let’s go, Silas.”

  “What?” my father blustered. “No, we have to stay here and wait for the Lieutenant!”

  Min-Ha shook her head—a subtle thing that made her hair fall around her face—then tucked a strand behind her ear and gave my father a sympathetic look. “You can do that if you wish, but you and I both know that your daughter outmaneuvered the others for leadership. And as Knights, we are honor bound to acknowledge it. I suggest you take a page from your daughter’s deed name, and fall in line.”

  “But… the Lieutenant!” my father repeated, although some of the fire seemed to have left him. “He should be made aware.”

  “He will become aware when he notices, and the longer it takes the more it will hurt his standing. But that is his burden to bear. Ours is to perform well in this challenge, as Knights would, and pray that we perform well enough that our leader gets his shot in the final challenge. We lose this battle, Silas, so that we might win the war.”

  I blinked, impressed by how reasonably she was explaining things to him—but prepared myself in case he told her off and decided to warn Zale anyway. It wouldn’t be good form to use a baton on my father, especially in front of the drones, but it would buy me some time to get things moving before Dylan, Frederick, and Zale became clued in to what I was doing. And I desperately needed that time to get us some semblance of a defensible position in place.

  So I would have used my baton if I had to.

  But to my surprise, he went still, thinking, and then whirled on his heel and stalked off. He didn’t take as much care to disguise his movements, but none of our would-be leaders noticed, not even when he picked up a cutter and moved to start helping Leo cut into the bridge.

  Min-Ha gave me another polite smile and small bow, and then went after him, leaving me in a strange state of surprise, elation, and nervousness. But I didn’t have time to dwell on emotions—so instead, I channeled them into something more productive.

  Like using the next twenty-five minutes and thirty-two seconds to tear up a bridge and prepare for the oncoming attack.

  28

  “LIANA!”

  Dylan’s voice seemed to echo off the walls of the arena, hot and brittle with anger. I paused where I was cutting a chunk of the bridge out, shut off the cutter, wiped rivulets of sweat from my forehead, and looked at my indicator. We had ten minutes left to set up defenses, and I was surprised to see that even that much time had passed. It had felt like nothing—and yet I wasn’t sure I had ever worked so hard in my life.

  “LIANA!” Dylan’s indignant shriek came again, drawing closer, and still, I ignored it, motioning for my mother to drag away the chunk of metal I had just cut, using her lashes and the gyro. The metal strained as she began to retract the line, and then, with a heavy groan and clang, finally broke free and was dragged several feet toward her, kicking sparks off the metallic surface.

  Min-Ha and my father rushed toward it and immediately began helping my mother shift the three-foot cube into position along the row we had already created to help shove our attackers into a choke point. I supervised for a second, and then, when my father set the blowtorch to the block to fuse it to the others and the bridge, I turned and raised an eyebrow at Dylan.

  “Yes?” I asked mildly, bracing myself for the tongue-lashing I was about to receive. I wouldn’t let her get very far—after all, she had squandered twenty minutes of time fighting with Frederick and Lieutenant Zale—but I doubted I would be able to stop her before she paused to catch her breath.

  “What the hell is this?” she asked, closing the distance between us until we were nose-to-nose. “You little traitor, you didn’t even wait three seconds after my back was turned before pulling this crap! You were supposed to follow my lead! We had a deal!”

  I pressed my lips together for a second, and then held my watch out so it was facing her, trying not to look smug. But Scipio help me, I felt it—along with a dull, burning resentment and anger that she would have the audacity to act like I had done something wrong.

  “It took you twenty minutes to notice that we were already working, which was twenty minutes of time that you should’ve been using to construct the barricades. Instead of getting Zale and Frederick to see that, you joined them, the three of you screaming at each other like children. So, as far as following your lead as it was presented to me… Sorry, I just couldn’t stamp my feet and scream my lungs out when there was work that needed to be done. I had to do something to make sure we won the challenge.”

  Her face turned a very interesting shade of red, and her nostrils flared. “You—”

  “Hey, Liana, we need another block under the bridge!” Kellan’s voice called, coming from the hole we had opened up. “Grey and I already have our lashes on the next section. Just waiting for you to cut.”

  I glanced through the hole and saw him at the edge, looking up at me expectantly. I stared at him for a second, then smiled
and turned back to Dylan. “Get mad at me later, if we win this challenge. Or blame me if we don’t. Either way, save your breath and give us a hand. We’re going to need it.”

  I shoved the cutter into her hands, giving her the choice of either taking it or dropping it, and then walked away, moving to where Frederick’s other teammates—Sella and Norman—were reinforcing an internal set of barricades that Maddox had designed, which formed a U-shape that created a lip around our side of the hole. It would allow us to defend against anyone who tried to approach from under the bridge. They wouldn’t be able to land anywhere save the three-foot gaps that Maddox had purposefully left open, and would most likely have to use their lashes to connect with the wall—in which case we could easily knock them back down through the hole by disconnecting their lash ends, dropping them into the water below. The wall Maddox had created periodically gave way to three-foot-wide gaps meant to lure our opposing team in. The idea was that we’d be hiding next to the gaps, attacking whoever came through before they got fully out, and then pushing them back through the hole itself, which was now almost the entire width of the bridge at twenty-two-feet wide. We couldn’t go much farther toward the edges, or we would risk the weight of the statues that lined the sides collapsing the rest of the bridge.

  Another barrier—the one my mother and her team were currently working on—was beginning to take form on the opposite side of the hole. Like Maddox’s wall, it was curved into a slight U-shape, and blocked the far side of the hole from direct access unless the competitors wanted to waste a lot of time navigating around or over it. They’d left only one gap in the middle of it to create a bottleneck, which would slow our attackers down, forcing them through one by one. With only a few feet of intact bridge on the other side, my mother’s team would be able to shove any enemy forces headfirst into the hole, or baton them before they even got through. The attackers wouldn’t be able to get through in large enough numbers to overwhelm my mother’s team.