Wicked Challenge (Darkwater Reformatory Book 2)

by Marty Mayberry

  Kai leaned into my leg, lending me his strength and urging me on. I could do this!

  The mist flowed into me, seamless and soothing, like I’d draped a favorite blanket around my shoulders. It didn’t always respond to my call, but if there was a time for it to cooperate, it was now. I nipped it off before it overwhelmed me, and sent it out at the tunnel with a command.

  Collapse.

  The ground shook, and the walls of the passage compressed and wobbled. As it gave way, rocks tumbled down the wall from above me.

  Coughing and clinging to the wall, I waved at the dust and dirt clouding around me. When the air cleared, I released a huff. A mound of rubble had sealed off the entrance. Deep inside, beyond the blockage, Titan released a furious bellow.

  A satisfied smile on my face, I turned to take on the first challenge. Mini islands awaited me.

  “Watch out,” Brodin shouted over his shoulder, his gaze trained at my feet.

  The last of the ledge jerked out from underneath me.

  Two

  Tria

  As the world dropped out from beneath me, I was sucked toward the abyss. I flung myself forward and landed on my chest on a mini island with my legs dangling in the air. While I gasped and struggled to breathe, I tried to drag my body up onto the one-foot-round surface.

  Kai landed in front of me and meowed before disappearing. Probably best he’d winked out of the picture; he couldn’t pull me up.

  A gust of wind hit me, and I was hauled backward. I yelped as my fingernails broke as I slid across the rough surface.

  “Tria,” Jacey cried.

  Crap, in seconds I was going to be airborne. So much for thinking I’d make it through the Challenge.

  Hell, no. Not happening.

  Groaning, I reached forward and latched onto the opposite edge.

  Akimi’s branches snapped toward me, but both she and Jacey were too far ahead to help.

  Brodin leaped from one disc to another, rushing my way, but the moment he landed on the one next to mine, it flipped. He was flung sideways, but Akimi snagged the back of his shirt and hauled him onto a safer mass of land, where he rose to his feet and stared toward me.

  “Hold on,” he shouted, looking around for a better approach. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

  “Stay where you are,” I ground out. “Keep going. I’ll catch up.”

  He frowned and, stupid guy, jumped to a different circle, one closer to mine.

  Damn island. It tipped up as if eager to dump me off, but a scrap of rock wasn’t going to beat me that easily.

  With a growl, I pulled myself forward until I lay on my belly, and rose to my shaky knees. Arms outstretched, I scowled because the demon rock below me kept shifting.

  When I looked up, Brodin’s grin met mine. He stood on a tiny, etched space about five feet away.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I scoffed, brushing grit off my hands and rising. “Nothin’ to it. You…”

  “What?”

  “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?”

  “Maybe this is who I was meant to be all along.” He shook his head but didn’t turn away. “Get closer to me so I can keep an eye on you.”

  What a novel thought. After we’d first met, he’d watched me because he was waiting for the right time to kill me. No, he’d planned to play with me, like a cat with a bird clutched in its claws. Now that he knew I hadn’t murdered his mother, things between us had changed in a way I couldn’t define. We had plans to talk, but who knew when the opportunity would come? We couldn’t have a meaningful discussion while crossing this big divide.

  I peered around, trying to decide which space to leap onto next while avoiding the one that had flipped Brodin.

  Jacey and Akimi were fifteen, twenty islands ahead, though we all had a horrifying amount of area left to cross; we’d barely made a dent.

  Get to it.

  I jumped forward, onto a grassy lump ahead of mine and then to the right, left, and another, moving alongside Brodin, who did the same.

  Our paths converged. Meeting up on two discs near each other, we didn’t pause for a breather. We surged forward across a series of rocky lumps laid out near each other. It became a game between us, each rushing to see who would first reach the end of this long series of islands.

  If I wasn’t scared out of my mind, I’d find this fun. It reminded me of when he and I had completed a series of trials to reach the prison.

  But at any second, a lump could flip or move before my foot landed squarely, and dump me into the pit below me.

  Jacey and Akimi had reached the middle of the cavern, but they stopped to watch our progress.

  “You two,” Jacey said with a spurt of laughter. “Didn’t I name it right? Rom-com material right there.”

  Were he and I headed in that direction? Hard to say. The attraction had been there almost from the start for me—despite him tackling me to the floor and trying to gnaw through my neck. And, from what he’d just said, maybe it had been there for him, too.

  How did someone transition from wanting to kill a girl to liking her? Assuming he—

  The circle of grass Brodin stood on disappeared, and he tumbled down into the darkness.

  I plunged to my knees and latched onto his wrist. “Gotcha.”

  My heart raced double time, and my lungs wheezed as if I’d sprinted three miles.

  He stared up at me, stark fear in his eyes.

  Gripping the far side of the mini mound of rock I knelt on, I leaned back and pulled him up until he could grab onto the same edge.

  “I can move ahead.” I nudged my chin to a lump of what looked like clay to my left. “You can have this one. It seems safer than the one you…lost.”

  “You think?” he said as he levered himself up beside me.

  I stood, but before I could leap onto the circle of clay, he braced his hands on my arms.

  “Thanks,” he said, breathing heavily.

  “You smell good.” The words burst out of me. My ears burned. “So, um… See ’ya.” I jumped forward, onto a patch made up of dirt, straggly grass, and a foot-tall tree reaching upward along one side.

  “What do I smell like?” he asked as he moved forward, onto a shiny metal sphere beside me. “You said it’s good,” he prompted when I bit my lips together.

  “Cotton?” Due to an extra-long distance between spots, I flung myself forward to reach another mound of craggy rock that resembled pock-marked lava.

  He glanced down at his chest. “You’re talking about my shirt, not me. Come on. Be specific.”

  Sighing, I stepped to the right and forward, landing on a mini island that shifted like an uneven rock perched in a stream. “Is this the right time for a conversation like this?”

  “You brought it up.”

  “My comment was spontaneous.” And probably stupid.

  “Honest.” He grinned like a cat with a bowl of fresh tuna. “Fill me in some more, Tria. Tell me all about how nice I smell.”

  Ugh. “I’m not saying anything else.”

  With a mischievous grin, he leaped over a heap of straw that spun like a top and landed on an island shaped like a cardboard box. It gave slightly under his feet. “Cotton, huh? I’d expected…I don’t know. Sweetness and flowers?”

  The joke took me back to when we’d met and he’d said sweetness and flowers were the last things I could expect from him.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s it. You smell like sweetness and flowers.”

  His lips curled down but humor shone in his eyes. “I made it easy for you.”

  I scowled. “You did not.”

  “Did too. But, you know what? I’ll give you a pass this time.”

  “What about next time?”

  His smile fell, and he frowned at something behind me.

  A sound sent me spinning in that direction.

  Titan, Lars, and Micah, in wizard form, stood on the ledge that had reappeared, watching us cross the cavern. If w
e were in luck, the ledge would dump them before they’d jumped onto their first bit of land.

  “Awesome,” I growled. “I’d hoped they were buried.”

  “We won’t escape them that easy,” Brodin said, pausing. He jumped back to a circle near the one I stood on. Mine rocked but didn’t seem ready to dump me. Yet.

  Lars hunched forward and shifted into his larbeera form. He tipped his head back and his bird-like caw echoed around us. Diving off the ledge, his wings extended, and he soared in our direction.

  “Just what we need, another big, attacking bird,” I said in a full-blown panic. I leaped forward and while my foot slid on the shiny surface, I didn’t glide off the other side.

  “A bird with claws and scales.” Brodin nudged my hip as he passed me, fleeing to a grassy mound that pivoted in a circle. Keeping pace with the spin, he jumped forward, onto a short wooden post. “We’ve got to get out of here, get ahead of them.”

  A glance behind showed Titan soaring off the ledge and landing on a rectangular mini-island with Micah right behind. They didn’t waste time selecting the best spot to travel to next, but instead flew across the discs like stones tossed across a pond.

  Gulping, I did the same, jumping from one to the next. Two flipped as I left them but my foot had barely warmed the surface.

  As Lars dove down toward us, his screech jarred through my bones. I pulled in sketar mist and shot it out at a nearby mound of dirt with tiny, spiky trees, infusing the magic with a command.

  Hit him.

  Smoother than silk, my magic made the mound shoot up into the sky, impaling Lars with the trees and cutting his shriek off mid-caw.

  Brodin’s eyes widened. “You… You used influence.”

  “I, um… I guess I did?”

  Lars screamed and dove down on a collision course with us, making us skitter forward, fleeing across a group of small blobs coated with slime, until we were in the clear. Lars passed us, spiraling like an airplane on fire.

  “Did you kill him?” Jacey asked from ahead, with shock in her voice. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or horrified by my action.

  I shrugged because even I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d done. “I think I need more practice, but this Influencer skill is cool.”

  A rumbling was followed by an angry shriek from below. And while I might be glad I hadn’t committed my first murder, I didn’t want to face Lars when he came barreling up at us.

  “Run,” I shouted to my friends.

  Behind us, Titan and Micah roared. I didn’t stop to look. They’d be on us ASAP.

  At least the gorelon wasn’t tagging along. Scratch that. Movement up and to my left drew my eye to where it oozed along the wall, keeping pace with us. Keeping pace with me, actually, since it had marked me for its next kill.

  We caught up with Akimi, who’d stretched herself from her upper branches to her roots across a wide gap between two islands.

  “Use me to cross,” she said, her blue eyes wide with fear. “Hurry. Titan and Micah are closing the gap fast!”

  Jacey scampered ahead of us, beyond Akimi.

  Something wet and cold hit the top of my head. More frigid rain smacked into my face when I tipped my head back. The temperature plummeted and shivers grabbed onto my spine and shook it.

  With my arms outstretched, I skimmed along Akimi’s back, my feet sliding and shooting in all directions, until I reached the next mound. From there, I continued onto another to give Brodin room. The second he’d crossed and jumped to another lump made up of lashed-together sticks, like a small raft, Akimi released her roots that had been clinging to a box-shaped cluster of rocks. Her body swung down and continued up. A flip and she landed on a mass that gleamed with wetness, ahead of mine.

  “Quickly,” she said, peering toward Titan and Micah, who were only about fifteen lumps behind us. Lars had yet to make another appearance, but like all horrible things in life, he’d show up the second we let down our guard.

  Freezing rain fell heavily around us, making it a challenge to jump to the next island. It soaked through my clothing, and quakes took over my limbs. My teeth rattled in my head.

  I’d moved to another mound and paused, gnawing on my lower lip when I saw how much farther we still had to travel to reach the tunnel on the opposite side when…

  “Where did it go?” I pointed to where it had been before we started traveling. Only a smooth, wet wall waited in that direction.

  “We can’t go that way,” Brodin said, frowning.

  Akimi jerked her head back in the direction we’d come from. “Death lies that way. Forward, friends. All is not as it seems.”

  Instead of being motivated to reach the tunnel, we were now being driven forward by shifter hunters. Worry about what we’d do when we reached the end of the cavern and they caught up filled me to the point I feared I’d explode.

  Ahead, Jacey sprung up and landed on a water-coated island at waist height. Her feet went out from underneath her, and she smacked on her butt.

  “You okay?” I called out, marking the location in my mind. One wrong fall, and it would be over.

  It was a toss-up whether I’d die from Titan’s hands, the gorelon’s death grip, or from a fall into the black abyss below me. Unlike Lars, I couldn’t sprout wings to slow my descent.

  Like I’d jinxed it by thinking of him, Lars soared up from the darkness, his jagged-toothed mouth open like a great white shark ready to snap down on prey.

  Us, being the prey.

  I sprang forward, onto a pointy mound, where I teetered before sighting and leaping to a smoother surface ahead and to my right. I kept pace with Jacey, with Akimi and Brodin right behind, all of us flinging ourselves forward in an attempt to put distance between us and the shifters.

  The flap of Lars’ wings signaled his approach, and I ducked as he swept over me, his claws extended.

  “You can’t fly,” I shouted, infusing the words with Influence magic.

  His wings stalled, and his horrified screech bit into my ears. With a wet smack, he hit the far wall above the gorelon and slithered down the surface like melted snow.

  The gorelon paused, its suction cup-like feelers clinging to the wall. Its mouth opened and, as Lars slid by, it stretched out its loose, flowing limbs and grabbed the shifter. While he struggled and shrieked, the gorelon tugged him closer. With a gulp, it gobbled up the enormous larbeera. A snake after consuming a mouse, the gorelon’s belly stretched and wiggled.

  Brodin and I exchanged wide-eyed looks that held more than a healthy amount of horror. Bile rushed up into my throat, but I swallowed it down. No place to puke here except over the side of the island, and I refused to take time to do it.

  “Damn,” he said. “We need to stay away from that thing.”

  We leaped forward, onto another mound, then kept going, avoiding the ones that spun and the others that flipped over and over like someone tossing a coin into the air.

  Jacey paused on a triangular space and peered back at us, over her shoulder. With a hissing groan, the triangle shot upward, taking her along with it. She gulped and her arms flung out at her sides, but she didn’t utter a sound.

  “Jacey,” I yelled, jumping up and stretching out my hand. As if that would save her.

  The triangular island halted, and she teetered about twenty feet above us, close to the right wall. Crouching, she peered down at us while clinging to the edge.

  Brodin joined me on my island, stabilizing us with his hands on my arms.

  “What do I do?” Jacey called to us. “It’s, umm…

  Titan’s barking laughter grated down my spine. “Jump!”

  Jacey scowled at him then leaped off the triangle island.

  She landed on a ledge jutting out from the right wall about halfway between the mini island that had driven her up near the ceiling and where we stood below her, gaping.

  Behind us, Titan leaped closer, snarling. He’d remained in wizard form, but it hardly mattered. Once he caught us, he’d change an
d chomp off our heads.

  We needed to keep going—though it was unclear where we’d go now that the exit had disappeared—but we wouldn’t leave Jacey, who had disappeared into a depression in the wall. She reappeared a few seconds later and waved.

  The elevator mini island plunged back down to our level.

  “It’s a way out,” Jacey called.

  I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “At least we can get away from them.”

  “Until they follow us up,” Brodin said.

  Titan was about five jumps away and gaining on us fast. Murder blazed in his eyes but really, if he was pissed off, he should take it up with the gorelon, not me. We hadn’t consumed his friend.

  “Go for it,” I said to Brodin.

  “Together,” he said. “Akimi, cling to the bottom. Tria, you and I will take the top.”

  No time to wait since Titan had leaped onto a rocky islands that would put him within arm’s reach.

  I jumped onto the elevator island and before it could shoot up, Brodin joined me on the tiny space.

  Close. His skin radiated heat, and he still smelled good, but I held back the words.

  The island jolted into the air, taking us and dangling Akimi along with it. She bailed before we reached the ceiling and landed delicately on the ledge beside Jacey.

  Once the smooth, round disc came to a stop, Brodin and I jumped like Jacey had.

  We stood together, grinning, sharing our momentary success, before noting Titan waiting for the mini island to return to the lower level.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Brodin said, and we scurried into the cave.

  We’d barely taken three steps before the ground tipped forward.

  We fell, sliding downward, into a black hole beneath us.

  Three

  Tria

  Our arms and legs jumbling together, we slid away from the cave.