Wanting a distraction, I turned in another circle and looked for Cooper’s shirt. I looked under water again until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.
“Where are you?” I pleaded, unsure if I was asking the powers or Cooper or both.
I swallowed more of the metallic water, choking on it. I was having trouble keeping my head afloat, and I tipped my head back, hoping the air in my chest might help keep me above water.
I stared up at the grey sky. Snow twirled in slow, fat flakes.
I didn’t want to go back to the edge, but if I didn’t, I might as well have let Cooper drag me down. Maybe I should’ve let him pull me with him.
Fuck Damien and his rules. He said he’d stop my power before. Did that mean it didn’t work? I still felt what was left, like an eel wriggling through my stomach.
Reality began to set in, and I took that first stroke toward the others.
It felt like a betrayal. I left Cooper behind. Dead or not, I abandoned him, and that somehow made me feel like I’d choked a puppy to death.
Guilt raged with each tired stroke.
I hoped in vain to see one of them point or shout that they saw him. I could see them watching the surface with the same hopeful anticipation.
Everything felt strained by the time my hand slapped onto the melting icy edge.
Phoebe and Joel helped me onto the ice, and we scooted away from the edge before it could drop us in the water.
“What happened?” Phoebe demanded.
The question angered me. I wondered if she thought I’d killed him on purpose.
I looked to her, the cold curling into my flesh. No use saving a drowning man. Phoebe’s echoed words sounded bitter, even to me. Shivering hard, I didn’t think I could have answered her even if I wanted to.
Sobering, Phoebe’s lips pinched, and she looked away.
Joel started to pace in the snow.
“Look,” Phoebe said.
In the distance near the snow bank, a black door solidified in mid-air.
After a long moment of fidgeting, Phoebe cracked every last one of her knuckles and drew herself to her feet.
“What’s that mean?” Joel asked, looking to the door.
Damien said, “It is the end of the Challenge.”
As if noticing him for the first time, Phoebe gave a jerk and whispered unconvinced, “We won?” Her eyebrows furrowed. “What about the others?”
Shaking his head, Damien’s obsidian eyes had latched onto Phoebe. “Just your group.”
“You mean Cooper isn’t dead?” Phoebe asked. “He’ll come back once we’re through that door?”
Joel stopped pacing.
“No,” Damien said. “He’s dead.”
Shivering riotously on the ground, I tried to speak but lost my voice.
“The two that were in the House of Mirrors can be free. They’ve won part of the Challenge on their own.”
“What?!” Joel and Phoebe shouted together.
Joel stepped forward, stumbling as he did. “You said a sacrifice.”
Phoebe turned to Joel. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Damien’s creeping smile jerked at the corners of his mouth. “Joel made me a deal. A sacrifice in return for his safe passage out of the Demon’s Grave.”
“Cooper would have paid that price,” Joel shouted, pointing to the water without looking.
“But you had already chosen,” Damien said in the same annoyingly calm tone.
I felt my shoulders hunch. “He chose me. He chose to sacrifice me,” I hissed in a shudder, mostly to myself. Of course, Joel would take the opportunity.
Phoebe’s eyes grew round as she glanced between Joel and me, her stiff hair shaking like twisted icicles. “What the fuck, Joel!”
“But Cooper died.” Joel ignored her, speaking to Damien. “He can be the sacrifice.”
“You already chose. Cooper died on his own. You didn’t help him,” Damien said steadily.
Phoebe joined in. “You didn’t help at all, actually.”
“What about Claire?” Joel demanded, glowering at the demon, who shook his head in the negative.
I glanced at Phoebe then to Damien, wondering how it would work. Did he bring her back to life? Could he do that? Was he letting Phoebe go too?
“If Fuller doesn’t go, then I don’t go,” Phoebe spoke up.
I felt my chest tighten. I hadn’t really pondered the implications of being trapped in the Demon’s Grave. What would I do as Neophyte? My eyes rolled up to the demon as I fell silent, then I glanced at Phoebe. Would she be part of the world too? It would be a comfort but a small one if Damien’s promises were true. But if I ruled the place…it meant I could do a lot more to save her.
“You can’t make that decision.” Joel’s snapping voice pulled me back to reality.
Damien shrugged, the long button-up shirt he wore made his shoulders look bigger. “Then you will all stay here.”
“No, I’m leaving!” Joel finally looked at Phoebe.
“The answer must be unanimous. If one stays, you all stay.” Damien’s dark eyes were bright with amusement.
“We’re staying, Joel,” Phoebe growled.
“No, we’re not.” He ducked down before Phoebe could react. Grabbing her behind the knees, he lifted. The loss of blood and extreme cold must have taken its toll on him, because he stumbled and fell to one knee at the first try.
His eyes unfocused, he stood up again and regained his equilibrium. He started trudging toward the black door with Phoebe flopped over his shoulder.
Phoebe shrieked, “What are you doing? Put me down.” She started stabbing her elbows into his spine.
From Joel’s erratic jerks, I could tell it must have hurt.
When this wasn’t working, Phoebe lifted the back of his shirt and scratched at his lower back. She cursed him with every step he took against her will.
I stood up, unsure of what to do. I couldn’t stay here with him. Every fear I could conjure lay just at the edge of my imagination, with Damien. What would I do with a demon? What would a demon do with me?
The thought of the kiss was still fresh in my mind, and I shook my head to get rid of it.
Not looking at Damien, I said, “Bring him back. Give Cooper a chance the way you did Phoebe. What would happen to her anyway?”
“She’ll arrive in her world.” I could barely hear Damien over Phoebe’s abusive verbiage.
“Dead or alive?” I shouted.
Phoebe stopped screaming, looking back at me.
She’d heard…
“What do you think?” Damien asked.
Dead, I thought, my heart twisting and my eyes threatening to water.
I swallowed hard and kept my gaze averted from Phoebe’s.
“Then you can give Cooper the same chance to live,” I begged.
Damien lowered his chin with a smirk. “You were his chance, Nora. You think I don’t know what you tried to do?”
Curling my cold hands into fists, I tried to stop shaking.
“What about the others? Aidan, Claire, and Read? Don’t they get a chance to win?”
“You didn’t follow every path.” Damien sounded smug. “You skipped ahead.”
“We didn’t know!” I protested.
“Of course you didn’t,” Damien said, unconvinced. “Ammut had been so eager to meet you.”
“What happens if Phoebe and Joel stay?” I asked, easing to my unsteady, frozen feet.
“Then the Challenge continues.” He seemed less thrilled to reveal that detail, maybe because it was exactly what I wanted to hear.
It was a chance. A chance to free everyone. Damien’s words of how I’d rather have my friends dead than alive in the grave tickled the back of my memory.
“Wait here.” I thrust a hand up to signal him to stay.
Racing, or rather hobbling, after Joel and Phoebe, I waved my arms.
“Joel!” I shouted. “We can get Claire back! If we keep going, we can continue t
he Challenge and find the others.”
He looked disgusted. “Already trying to save your own skin.”
“No! Well, yes in a way. But also for Read, Aidan, and Claire. They don’t deserve to be left behind, do they?”
Joel pinched his lips with his teeth, staring straight ahead, but he’d stopped walking.
Phoebe shouted, “You’re just going to leave them, Joel? First you make deals with that thing back there, you let Cooper die, and now you just leave your girlfriend here? You’re a real piece of work.”
“I didn’t let him die! Nora had him throw things at the monster.”
“Then I’d be dead and it would go after you!” I shouted, my voice hitting a high pitch that pained my throat. “We have a chance to save the others. It was the whole reason Aidan and I came back.”
Phoebe looked to me but asked Joel, “Why’d you come back with them, Joel?”
Joel started walking again, but slower, and kept his gaze from meeting mine. “Cooper had to find out what was going on. Everyone was suspicious. We all knew that there was something up. We didn’t know it was…Who the fuck would know it was this?!”
They were drawing nearer to the door. If they went through, there would be no hope for the rest of us.
Joel was so selfish that it sent a fierce rage through me that burst the warmth in my stomach like a bubble.
It flowed down my arms and into my palms, warming the burnt circles it’d left behind. I had to curl my frozen fingers into fists to prevent it from escaping. Strangely, it warmed my numbing fingers.
“Fine, leave us all. When you get back there and people start talking behind your back and you can’t explain where your friends are, I wish you luck.” My insides were quivering, and I forced myself to take several deep breaths, hoping that if my emotions calmed, I’d have control again. Not that I thought it could do anything with Damien around. Yet.
Joel’s footsteps began to falter. “Cooper is dead because of you.”
I suppressed the flinch that came with the words. “Cooper is dead because he came into this Challenge. It’s not anyone’s fault, not even his own. He saved all of us!” I tried to step in front of him. “Is that how you repay him? By just letting everyone else rot?”
He stopped walking, and I felt a string of hope.
Phoebe raised herself as much as her back would allow to look at me. “If it wasn’t for him, I’d be snapped in two by that monster.”
“And if it wasn’t for Phoebe, it would have got to you first, Joel,” I pointed out. “She distracted it.”
Grumbling, Joel stared at his feet for several minutes. “I don’t want to be here.”
“None of us do,” I said, trying to sound gentle. Approach with caution signs went off in my head.
“But we have a chance of winning this. If you walk out that door, it won’t be just Cooper.”
I tried to block out the wide-eyed fear I’d seen in Cooper’s face when he turned me around under water. It haunted me. The hope and the fear all collided into something animalistic.
Joel’s dark eyes narrowed at me before he asked skeptically, “And we can find Claire?”
“Yes,” Phoebe called from his back.
I nodded. “Everyone. Please, it’s our only hope. I didn’t come back here to lose more people.”
Lowering Phoebe to the ground, he dizzily stood up again. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
Phoebe smiled weakly as she hobbled several feet away, a safe distance out of his reach.
We all glanced back to Damien, who stood motionless with the proud tiger.
Phoebe frowned. “Do we have to talk to him?”
Deflated, I whispered, “Yeah, we do.” Just seeing him, standing there as still as stone, made me nervous. I wanted to bolt for the black door, knowing full well that I couldn’t. I couldn’t blame Joel for being so stubborn. What if they had their opportunity to live a normal life and this second round of Challenges killed someone else? The gamble seemed so steep, but at the cost of Aidan, Read, and even Claire, maybe it was worth it.
As we made our way back, it was Phoebe who loftily announced, “We’re not leaving. We’re taking everyone with us.”
“Not everyone.” Damien smirked.
Phoebe glanced at me, questions ringing in her dark, green eyes.
“We want a second chance,” I said.
Damien frowned so deep that creases marred his perfection. “More will die,” he promised.
Joel shifted on his feet and glanced at me.
“If you leave, it won’t be you who dies, Joel,” Damien tempted. “Just take Phoebe with you and you are free. Back in your safe bed with your family and friends. This will be nothing but a bad dream.”
“His safe bed,” Phoebe said, sounding flat. “Not mine?”
I glanced at her and saw the wheels turning.
“What does that mean?” Joel asked.
“That you should get out while you can,” Damien replied. To Phoebe, he said, “You’ll be given a new opportunity when you return.”
“Like what? A proper burial?” she snapped. “You knew,” she accused me.
The cold hurt my lungs as I started breathing harder. “I just…it’s not like I had anything…”
Interrupting us, Joel said, “We’ll leave when we find Claire.” He eyed Phoebe, even took a step back.
“There are other pretty girls to replace her,” Damien insisted.
This made Joel’s jaw twitch, and I started to wonder if he had thought the same thing or if he was still picturing a warm bed. Joel finally shook his head jerkily.
Damien’s nostrils flared as he searched our faces. “Another try, then.”
“What about Joel and Phoebe?” I asked. “They’re weak and not full strength for a Challenge. Shouldn’t they be given something?”
Damien tilted his head to the side questioningly. “No. This is their choice. They can leave and he can be treated by their own kind.”
The way he said kind made my cheeks flush despite the cold. Hoping that neither Joel or Phoebe picked up on it, I pointed out, “Yes, but it’s a new Challenge.”
“We were able to sleep before this one.” Phoebe followed suit, “I think.”
Joel nodded to confirm.
Damien muttered something under his breath then pointed to the water behind us. “Go through there.”
The warm bubbles already tempted me as I shifted my feet in the snow.
“Once you’re completely submerged, the new Challenge will begin.”
“How do we know that’s the truth?” Joel demanded.
Damien’s eyes narrowed at him.
“And the poison?” Phoebe questioned, receiving the same black stare.
I touched Phoebe’s arm lightly, and she jerked away, looking disgusted.
“Let’s go,” I said and motioned for Joel to follow. I didn’t bother giving Damien the satisfaction of watching us squirm. He wasn’t at all happy that we were going into a Challenge. That would be a good thing, right? Meant maybe we had an advantage somewhere. I couldn’t fathom where, at least not yet.
Phoebe and I moved past the tiger and demon in the direction of the water. The white and blue glaciers dripped as the heat began to expand further and further.
Phoebe crossed her arms over her chest, shivering. To her, I whispered, “We’ll win this and get everyone back, okay?”
She nodded, not looking at me. She didn’t appear convinced, more resigned. No doubt she’d think about what had just happened. Neither of us had said it, but she figured it out. Did she remember dying?
Joel stepped up beside Phoebe and glanced down at the water from our snowy edge.
Phoebe took a deep breath. “On the count of three.”
I could practically feel the heat of Damien’s gaze burning into my back and refused to turn around. I just had to find our advantage, somewhere.
“One…two…three.”
I closed my eyes after the jump, just in case I
saw Cooper under there.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I heard crackling and opened my eyes.
Sleep clung to me in a haze as I struggled to focus.
Across from me, flames perched in an iron holder against a stone wall. Turning my head, I could see they lit the little, stone room I was propped up in.
I wasn’t in the water. I wasn’t even wet anymore.
Leaning against the wall, I sat on a pillow with a heavy wool blanket covering my shoulders and keeping me cozy.
I noticed the tiger sitting across from me just then. Behind her was a crumbling cement stairway—the only exit.
Two large cement coffins were on either side of me, a chute that led straight to the enormous feline.
We stared at each other, and when I was certain she seemed relaxed, I dared to move. It was my toes at first, wiggling them to feel dry socks, and the fact that I could feel my toes was euphoric. After all the cold, I had suspected I might not be able to keep them.
A small smile creased as I struggled to stay awake. It felt like I’d taken a sleeping pill; my resistance to sleep was irritating, but I didn’t dare, not with a tiger in arms’ reach.
Besides, I didn’t want to stand up or move. It was so comfortable where I was. For the first time, in what seemed days, I was warm and moderately safe—moderately.
Where was everyone?
“Phoebe?” I called softly. The gentle edge of my voice echoed louder than I’d expected, and I flinched, hugging the blanket tighter.
Peering at the crackling torch, I knew I couldn’t stay here forever. Rolling onto my hip, I teetered unwillingly to my feet. Maybe the others were sleeping.
The tiger stood up on all fours at the same time but didn’t draw closer.
Holding the blanket as if it could shield me, I spoke again. “Joel?”
My eyes shifted to the coffins. “Please tell me they’re not in there.”
“They’re not.”
Jumping with a start, I stumbled over the pillow behind me.
Standing in the doorway where the tiger had disappeared was the comely, young girl who had warned me in the library. She wore a curious, shiny black cloak that was spiked with tiny hairs. I noticed the cloak changed color with the shifting flames on either side of her.
Midnight Ruling Page 26
