“Joel,” Phoebe snapped again. “Say the last line!”
“Why would that work?” he demanded in an angry shout.
I wanted to scream at them to stop arguing, but my voice wouldn’t work. I tried to speak, my lips twitching, which sent piercing quills of pain through frosted nerve endings.
“Do it,” Phoebe commanded with the authority of a drill sergeant. “Do it or the first chance I get, I’m killing you.”
He must have believed her.
“They all took one and left four in it,” Joel said, so quickly the sentence sounded like one long word.
At first, nothing happened.
The baby’s voice died away but didn’t fade completely. Bess still touched me. Both of her hands had raised and cupped my face, though I couldn’t feel them through the numbness. Her inhumanly bright eyes locked onto mine. The shadows that outlined my vision began to collapse into themselves. “Life is death,” she breathed before we fell together.
***
Gurgling bubbles escaped, tickling the sides of my head as they ripped upward. The frozen sensation was gone, but I’d traded that for lack of oxygen.
There was light overhead, and I raised my hands to swim for it when I felt something around my waist, digging into my hipbones.
I was being pulled down, down, down. Away from the light. My hair swished above my head, waving goodbye, as my dress rode up my legs.
Grabbing for the restraining object in my midsection, I felt a rope and a knot. Kicking my feet, I could feel the rope was drawn taut, tied to something below me.
Gripping the rope, I followed it down, inching my way until I felt the cinder block it was wrapped around.
I remembered Dad having a few in the backyard when he was building the deck. I also remembered that they were heavy.
Beneath it, the ground was even and gritty like sandpaper. Like a pool? I wondered.
I fumbled for the rope when I realized that something had brushed up against my wrists.
Snatching it before it could drift away, I felt the fabric again.
The dress. I wore it instead.
Bess!
I felt the shoulders of my dress. They were short, just like Bess’s had been in the room. Snagging the rope around my waist, I fumbled for the knot.
My lungs began to burn their warning, aching and caving in on themselves inside my chest. I’d encountered this once before in the first Challenge. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to again.
Don’t breathe, I told myself, though my body didn’t seem to be listening. My chest convulsed, and the panic made me clumsy.
I thought of my mother’s frantic face when I’d showed up late with Cooper and of my dad when he sat on my bed to talk about his sister—my real mother. Why didn’t they tell me?
The answer was obvious, but didn’t I have the right to know that Caitlin and Mona were my cousins, not real sisters?
Would it make a difference? I wondered and immediately knew that it wouldn’t.
Brushing aside the thought, I picked at the knot, hoping for a weak spot.
The warmth swelled in my stomach, rippling up through my chest. I could use it. This demon power. It was my only advantage, and it was in me. If I did, there’d be a punishment. Or you can die, a voice hissed.
Aidan, Cooper, Claire, and Read were still lost somewhere in the Challenge. Would a small injury be worth my life? Or would Damien punish me this time?
The last bubbles escaped.
I felt my fingernails pulling back as I dug at the rope, and my heart pounded in my head, which was concentrating on not taking that breath. The impulse was so strong it tried to take over logic.
One breath and it will be over. No more pain.
My lungs were tearing themselves apart.
I can’t die like this. But Bess had, I reminded myself. Bess tied that rope to the cinder block, not me. Let her die like this.
Twisting in the blackened waters, I opened my mouth and took a breath.
The excruciating pain and horror as the water flooded my lungs made me want to scream and expel all of it, but I couldn’t. I was choking, suffocating.
It was if liquefied steel had invaded. Hot, seething, remorseless and heavy.
No air.
In my weakening struggle, I felt a sharp pain on my ring finger.
I closed my eyes. The warmth in my stomach still hadn’t risen to save me, or maybe Damien stopped it after all.
***
I vomited, raising cumbersome, swollen hands to touch my own face.
Warmth tingled through my body in a brutal wave.
I coughed uncontrollably. My chest still felt as if it were caving in, but each breath inflated it, making it a little fuller. It was slow and hurt, but it was better than no air at all.
My wet eyelashes fluttered open as I stared at the projectile water on the dull black floor.
“Fuller?” Phoebe asked.
My throat felt like sandpaper had been scraped up and down it, and I didn’t answer at first.
Rolling onto my back with Phoebe’s help, I saw her and Joel staring down at me.
When I looked around the room for Bess, Phoebe answered my gaze. “She’s gone. I thought we lost you.”
I raised my eyebrows, trying to gather up my strength. I would have loved to curl up on the filthy mattress we’d found earlier and fall asleep. “What happened?”
“She grabbed you.” Joel paused, and at first I thought he was being sarcastic again, but he continued. “Then you went white and started gurgling water. When the baby sounds finally stopped, she let you go and disappeared.”
I glanced around the room and noticed the large puddle of glistening water I lay in.
“That’s her,” Phoebe confirmed. “She hit the floor and just…splattered.”
Awesome. I’m covered in dead girl.
I lifted an arm, and Phoebe helped me to sit up. The stinging cuts in my back stretched but otherwise didn’t cause any problems.
As my hand touched the water, I felt the sharp pain of a new wound.
A fingernail on my left hand had cracked back so far blood had bandaged it. When I had been struggling with the rope just before I passed out, I vaguely remembered feeling it snag on my ring finger and rip.
Shuddering, I cradled my arm close to me, my finger throbbing with the applied pressure. Too bad there wasn’t any cloth left to wrap it.
It was Joel who helped me stand. He caught the crook of my arm and lifted me to my feet with one hand.
I prepared myself for him to drop me. But he didn’t.
Standing, I tried to pick at my clinging pajamas. The water had soaked me thoroughly.
“Now to get out of here,” Phoebe said. “Do you think you can walk?”
“Do you?” I asked, glancing at her leg then to Joel.
We were quite the trio.
“Should we wait for Robin and Cody?” I asked, my voice harsh and raw.
Joel shrugged. “They ran ahead. For all I know, they could be waiting for us.”
Phoebe nodded in agreement.
Together, we trudged forward, slower than usual. The reflection of light from the mirrored hallway to our left lit the way.
As time dragged on, it seemed as though the hallway would never end. It swept to the right then left, leaving the mirrored hallway behind. Soon we found ourselves in a corridor of black walls, ceilings, and floor. A torch lit the way every thirty feet.
Phoebe tried to call Robin and Cody’s names, but only her echo was kind enough to answer.
Phoebe’s limp became prominent again. After the adrenaline rush, she somehow managed to spread the poison. I wondered how that would work. Would she die again?
Joel wasn’t far behind her. His head was down, his arms limp at his sides. He barely was able to lift his feet or hold his injured arm close to his chest. The shuffling was starting to strum my nerves.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, hoping to distract myself from being irritable. “If we w
on, where’s our way out?”
Phoebe grimaced in response. “Maybe we didn’t win.”
“If we didn’t, I would be dead,” I pointed out.
Joel’s voice cracked. “Maybe it wasn’t the poem that saved us. Maybe the poem was a warning of who was here.”
Phoebe and I paused. He had a point.
“You mean maybe Robin and Cody found the crying baby. That’s what saved us from Bess?” I asked.
He nodded and shrugged at the same time.
“Dammit, if only they’d waited,” Phoebe said.
I didn’t want to say it, but if they had waited and they were the reason Bess disappeared, I would have been dead.
A rumbling growl overhead quieted the conversation.
Tilting my chin, I saw the black ceiling but with one small difference. A few feet ahead, there was a square hole with a white sheet of wood covered it from above, kind of like our attic at home. The blinding contrast of white on black was hard to miss.
“The tiger?” I asked.
I glanced to my two friends. Neither would be strong enough to lift me. Phoebe’s limp had worsened, and Joel couldn’t even lift his feet. The shuffling had started to make me flinch.
I glanced between the board above and Phoebe before asking, “Do you think if you stepped on my back you’d reach it?”
“Maybe you should stand on my back,” she suggested, frowning.
It was tempting, but I shook my head. “You’re taller.” I didn’t dare say she was weaker; it would prod her to do something stupid.
“Are you sure you want to check it out?” Joel asked, actually sounding concerned. “I’m pretty sure I heard a growl.”
“I bet it’s the tiger,” I said.
We looked up and gauged our options silently.
I sank down to my hands and knees, making a human stool. “Come on,” I urged. “The floor’s cold.”
Making a face, Phoebe placed one sneaker on my shoulder, testing it before stepping up.
Her weight made me wobble, which almost threw her off balance.
I heard her push the white plywood out of the way, or rather, fling it.
I heard it clatter overhead, but it hadn’t fallen through the hole. I didn’t dare look up in case it shifted my weight and threw her.
Before I could say anything, Phoebe’s weight lifted from my back.
I sat back on my haunches and watched her wriggle through the hole. She poked her head back in just as a snowflake splattered on my cheek, melting instantly.
“Just great,” I muttered, glancing down at my thin pajamas as I stood.
Joel nudged me. “I’ll help you up.”
I was about to argue when he grabbed my sides with beefy fingers and flung me up.
It was so fast that my head swam and my arms flailed. I found purchase on the opening and felt him let me go.
He hadn’t started anything since Bess. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was exhausted or if it was because of something I did.
The air was brisk up here, and the grey clouds overhead were thick, but it didn’t seem like night or as cold as I’d thought it would be.
When I shimmied through the hole, I found Phoebe standing on the slanted, shingled roof, looking out.
The view was breathtaking, though it didn’t mesh well with Phoebe’s tube top and my wet pajamas. Several feet away was a partially frozen lake. Heck, maybe it was the ocean, considering the towering icebergs in the distance. Their shiny blue sides reflected the water that bubbled, looking warm and steamy near the edge of the lake closest to us.
A large snowflake melted on my nose, and I wiped it away. “Help me with Joel,” I said to Phoebe.
Phoebe and I poked our heads through the hole.
Reaching down, I prepared myself for Joel’s weight.
It took a lot of grunting, cursing, and strength that no one had left, but we managed to get him to grip the edges. He had to pull himself up the rest of the way.
Breathing heavily, we surveyed the blowing snow that whistled until it steamed in the warm portion of the lake. The ice near the open pool was so smooth that it could have been glass. No snow touched the edges of the melting ice.
We were on the only shack. No trees for cover, no jungle, just a snowy wasteland and the House of Mirrors.
The wind pierced straight through me, making me shiver.
Sitting on the uncomfortably hard and cold roof for a few seconds longer, I noticed the white drift up the side of the building. It was practically a snowy slide that touched the ground.
The tiger sat several feet away, hunched and looking cold.
It wasn’t until the shingles beneath my frozen feet and butt started to quiver that I stood up, alert. My pajamas, which were still damp, peeled off of the freezing roof and crinkled solid against me. “It’s coming. We have to hide.”
Phoebe glanced back at the House of Mirror’s hole. “Back in there?”
Joel nodded.
“No,” I said, watching the horizon worriedly. “It’ll know.” Call it a demonic instinct. “I think we have to fight it this time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“How do you know?” Joel sounded suspicious.
“Because,” I said and motioned around us, “this looks like a place an abominable snowman would hang out.”
“But we haven’t found the rest of them yet,” Phoebe said, sounding equally uncertain.
The roof shuddered. I looked between the two of them. “Any other ideas?”
Phoebe stood up and walked to the edge of the roof. “Let’s hide and figure out what we can do. We need more time.”
“It must have a weakness…” I began when Joel’s snapping tone interrupted.
“Hide? That’s our solution?”
“Any other ideas?” Phoebe mimicked me and planted her fists on her hips. “We don’t have all the time in the world here, Joel. What if Cody and Robin are out here somewhere?”
As she said this, I stepped up to the edge of the roof with her.
Phoebe nodded in my direction, and we stepped off the edge. With a brief moment of weightlessness, we fell into the powdery cold and slid off the roof. Slipping to the uneven, snowy ground, I realized the frozen powder had wedged its way up my shorts despite me trying to hold my knees up.
Any other day, that might have been fun, but any other day I’d have a snowsuit.
Squealing, I stood up and shook my pjs to get the tingling cold out of my clothes. My wet shirt had already begun to stiffen, and my socks wouldn’t last much longer.
Phoebe hopped from foot to foot to dislodge the snow that had rimmed the edges of her shorts.
Teeth chattering, we glanced up to Joel, who followed with a sneer. At least that was better than arguing.
Sliding down the snow bank, he stood up with some difficulty. “I can’t run.”
“Do your best,” Phoebe said curtly and limped ahead of us.
She wouldn’t look at him as she said it. I knew she was probably thinking the same thing I was. Joel might not make it. It seemed such a perverse idea that we might not try to save him if he fell behind. My eyes shifted from him to the tiger, which had stayed on the roof but was standing, as if she expected to run.
I looked away, and we started around the lake. We could run for hours. Where would we hide?
I looked to the bubbling water and hoped not. I’d have enough water for the day. Or Damien was testing you. The voice came uninvited. Maybe Bess was a warning.
Before we stumbled too far, the Freeze Tag Monster made its grand appearance.
Beside the House of Mirrors, it was stark white against the grey sky and endless blowing snow.
The animal’s eyes narrowed as they spotted the three of us in the middle of the snow with no cover to hide.
Joel cursed loudly, trying to move faster, though instead he stumbled.
Phoebe grabbed for my arm as the beast lumbered in our direction.
It didn’t run; in fact, I’d never see
n it move faster than an idle walk.
Rotating my vision, I tried to find something to help us.
Joel caught up, snagging the back of Phoebe’s shorts with his ice-cold fingers.
Shrieking, she stopped in her tracks, dragging me to a halt with her.
Frozen like deer, the three of us huddled close together.
“What do we do now?” Joel asked. I think he meant it to be angry, but he sounded anxious and scared instead.
“Let me go,” Phoebe demanded. “We have to run.”
“Where?” Joel countered. “It’ll catch up to us in—”
Before he could finish, the Freeze Tag Monster stopped several feet away. Two or three more steps and it would be on us. Leering with hungry triumph, the creature bared pointed teeth in a crude smile.
Phoebe whispered, “I’d rather run than just stand here for it to pick us off.” She jerked herself free of Joel’s grip, then looked dizzy.
The abominable snowman towered over us like the angry giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
With slow, crippling movements, he reached down to touch one of us, inching forward. His hand, which was large for his body, could wrap around me from shoulders to knees. I thought of the bowman who’d been killed in the first Challenge.
As if we all had the same thought, we scattered in all directions. Phoebe bolted back toward the House of Mirrors. Joel veered for a series of snowdrifts to the left.
I knew that I should have followed one of them, but instead I ran for the agitated waters. The icebergs were sweating as the bubbling lake spread outward, thinning the ice.
Like I was escaping a sanitarium, I ran.
I didn’t dare look back as the ground shook. It followed one of us.
At first I had a hard time staying on my feet. The cold ground mutated my water-logged socks into blocks of ice. I couldn’t feel my toes anymore.
Numbed skin made each step forced and uncoordinated, and my blood was sludge in my veins.
Curling my toes, I urged myself to keep going and hobbled on my heels to protect my toes.
Behind me, I heard the cat’s yowl. The barbaric shriek made me want to run faster.
Daring a glance over my shoulder, I saw the tiger leaping past Joel and me.
Spinning, Joel landed in a snowdrift as the monster towered over him.
Midnight Ruling Page 24
