“Oh, those cafeteria ladies for sure,” Luka chimes in, and I laugh at his resolute answer. “They are definitely the most heinous of the choices.”
“I know right?” Serene giggles. “They would probably lock me away for the rest of my life if I hit them, but man, would the look on their faces be worth it.” The thought drags another chuckle out of me, and she looks at me with a sense of triumph.
“When we get out, we will each pick one and punch them together,” I say.
“Pinky swear?” Serene holds up a pinky to each of us. Both Luka and I wrap our little fingers around hers, and she clenches them tight. It’s childish, but this swear feels monumental and binding. We swore an oath. We are bound by a teenage covenant.
My hopes are dashed as we round the next corner. The smiles and infinitesimal joy evaporates as a faint click vibrates the ground beneath our feet, the maze barely giving us time to react to its savagery. To think we were free from harm was foolishness. The maze will make us pay for that.
“Jump!” I scream, voice hoarse from exertion. I snatch the rest of Serene’s fingers and launch myself through the air, dragging her behind me. Just as the soles of my boots leave the concrete, it opens its ravenous mouth, attempting to devour us whole. Our bodies sail over the gaping wound in the ground, and before I can stop myself, my gaze pitches down. Beneath the maze floor is a deep-shadowed drop filled with gruesome metal spikes jutting up from the depths. Teeth ready to cut and gnash, and whether that is blood or rust staining their tips, I cannot tell.
My feet strike the opposite side, and we both stumble in a nosedive for the concrete. I regain my balance before we hit the ground, though, and yank on Serene to halt her fall, but we are both suddenly shoved forward by the impact of Luka’s landing mass. We tumble in a heap of limbs and tangled hair, but I keep rolling until my body is free of hers. My boots connect with the floor, and I surge to a stand, Luka’s chest at my back corralling me onward.
“Get up!” He lunges for Serene, grabbing her by the jacket collar. She scrambles up and races after me, but she has barely regained her footing when the ground groans and yawns wide.
I almost topple into the mouth of razor stakes, but by some miracle, my toes catch the edge at exactly the right angle, sending me soaring over the trap. I land heavily on the opposite side, and my ankle rolls dangerously beneath me. I keep going, biting my lip to help ignore the shooting needles in my bones. My eyes stay trained on the ground as I run, but I see no seams, no sign of where the next ambush will unfurl. The concrete offers no warning, and suddenly a slab pulls back with breakneck speed, revealing a third pit just as we are upon it.
We bound over it together as if controlled by one mind, but Luka’s weight lands first. His boots make contact with ease, but my toes barely land on safety. With a strangled cry, I pitch forward and hurl myself away from harm’s boney fingers, and when I stagger a few paces, my eyes flick back to the trap. I realize with sudden panic that the gaps are growing wider. The jumps are getting harder, longer. I open my mouth to warn the others, but true to form, a gate of death expands beneath us, and the warning dies on my lip as a leap.
My realization spurs me forward, and landing on the opposite end confirms I’m right. My feet barely make it despite my preparation. Any further apart, and not even Luka’s long legs will bear him to safety. He lands gracefully beside my fleeing form and barrels ahead with a speed I could never hope to match, even though I try. We are going to need all the velocity we can muster to defy the next leap, although our efforts might be futile. There is only so far human legs can stretch.
I brace for Serene’s impact seconds after I land, but only her voice collides with me. She screams a blood curdling sound filled with every dark nightmare. My heels grind to a halt, and my head whips around to see the girl, our teammate, dangling from the edge of the mouth.
“My leg!” she shrieks, and the blood pounding through my ears almost drowns out her cries. One of the spikes must have pierced her as she fell, and the urge to vomit crashes into me like a wave whipped mad by a storm.
“We have to help her!” I scream at Luka and dive for the dangling girl. This maze is cruel. It will not give her time to free herself. I scramble over the ground on my hands and knees, palms grating the roughness. The concrete vibrates beneath me, and I bellow with a voice loud enough to pierce the heavens.
“Hurry!” I launch my entire body at Serene. She grasps me with desperation, and the moment our sweaty fingers collide, I pull. Her frame budges slightly and then falls back into place, dangled over the lip of the trap.
“My leg,” she repeats, and the fear in her eyes almost kills me. I scramble forward, afraid to look, but I have to. I have to help her. I could not save Jude, but Serene has to live. I peer over the edge, and just because I was expecting it, doesn’t mean it is any easier to see. One of the spikes is embedded in her calf, effectively trapping her.
“You have too…” I start, but I hear the tick of machinery and know I am too late. I watch in horror as the mouth of the trap snaps shut around her waist, resealing the maze floor. Serene spits blood into my face as her torso is severed. I’m clutching her hands, still trying to pull her up, and her body twitches toward me as it relieves her of her bottom half. Sickness rises in my throat as her blood drips down my nose and lips. Her eyes are wide and aware. She is still alive, and I can’t stare at her, but I can’t look away. The color drains from her cheeks as she drools blood onto the concrete. It coats my fingers and arms, and her grip slowly loosens, but mine only tightens. My fist becomes iron, as if my sheer force of willpower can stop the terror.
Serene’s eyes go from wide, to horrified, to dull, and it is only then that I realize Luka has me by my pants, trying to haul me back. He has been there the whole time, helping me pull our friend from harm’s way, but the maze will never let us win. It will extract its tax of blood, regardless the cost, no matter our efforts.
For a moment, both Luka and I are motionless, and then he resumes pulling me away from Serene. I fight him with sudden rage and grief. I hold tight to her hands and wrap both my pinkies around hers. It was a promise, our promise, and they broke our sacred vow. My voice pours out of me in uncontrollable waves of anguish, and if anyone is listening, I’m sure my cries inject terror into their hearts. Serene was supposed to make it to the end. I swore to myself that no one else was going to die, but she is utterly still and lifeless, her body severed in two.
I begin to convulse, and Luka pulls harder at my legs. I let him tear me away, my hands wet with both the blood and sweat of my dead friend. Our fingers slip apart, our pinkies the last to part, and a sob wracks my ribs at the knowledge that this is the final time I will ever touch Serene. We were not friends long, but somehow I feel I knew her well. I saw Jude die, and maybe I have seen others pass also, but I know in my heart this is the first time I have watched the lights in someone’s eyes fade out. This is the first time I’ve witnessed the soul leave a body in excruciating detail.
Luka hauls me to his chest and drags me to my feet. His skin is so warm while I am ice. He helps me flee from the trap, terrified I’m sure of another mouth yawning wide to claim us, but as we move away in a dazed fog, no other ambush opens. They have claimed their sacrifice. They are saving us for later.
We round a bend, and I turn to glance back one last time at Serene. All I can see is her crimson blood and her curly hair. Goodbye, my friend. I hope that you are somewhere absent of pain and fear. I pray you are in a better place than this barbaric maze.
As Luka and I flee, I hardly remember any of what passes by us. I think we are running. I vaguely register my feet slapping the concrete. I barely register Luka clinging to me, but whether it’s because he needs it or I do, I’m not sure. From this moment on, I am no longer human. I am a shell.
Chapter Thirteen
I don’t realize how tired I am until my legs give out, and I topple to the ground. My knees smash into the concrete seconds before my hands, and the pai
n that grates over my flesh ripples through my body.
“We have to stop!” Luka is behind me, panting from the grueling pace I’ve set. My rage and terror have forced us to flee with energy we don’t possess, and I can tell by his voice that he too is on the brink of collapse.
“We have to stop,” he repeats as he grabs my jacket and tries to pick me up.
“I can’t!” I crawl forward even as he pulls me, mucus and tears pouring off my face. “We have to keep going.”
“No!” Luka bellows, fighting my struggling body. He drags me back forcefully, and my arms give way. I collapse in a heap on the floor with a writhing convulsion.
“Let me go!”
“Stop, please stop.”
“Let me go, Luka!”
“No!” He hauls me to him as if to embrace me, but my flailing arms resist with their every move.
“Get your hands off me!”
“Just stop!” He shakes my shoulders and then plants me hard in front of him. His eyes are bloodshot, and he looks older, as if his life is draining by the second. “She is gone. There is nothing you can do, and we’ve had no food or water. You will kill yourself at this pace.”
“I don’t care,” I spit.
“Don’t say that.” And by the expression plastered on his face, I see how much those words terrify him. “Never say that,” he repeats as he struggles to fight back tears. “I need you. You can’t leave me too.”
“Luka…” My lips tremble at his name, and my hands lift to his cheeks. They are red with exertion and damp with sweat, but they are soft under my fingertips. He stares at me for a long moment, his beautiful face pleading with me, and then in a torrent of tears, I fling myself at him. My arms snake around his neck, and I cling to him as if my body is trying to absorb his. If my grip hurts, he does not let on. He only envelops me in his embrace and squeezes until I can barely breathe. We hold on to each other for endless moments, our chests pressed together, our faces buried in each other’s necks, and we sob, my fist grasping at the small wisps of hair at the base of his skull. They brush against his thick scar, and I trace the mottled pattern. Its outline is familiar to me, my fingers knowing its every curve and crevice. What gave him this? Why is its shape burned into my muscle’s memory?
We kneel, clutched together for so long that my knees go numb from the unforgiving ground. I shift my weight off one knee to alleviate the pain, but a sharpness runs through my legs causing me to flinch.
“Are you hurt?” Luka pulls from my arms and examines me with wild urgency.
“No,” I answer and collapse, removing the pressure from my kneecaps. “My knees are numb.” My explanation seems to spark realization in Luka, and he follows my lead, dropping to his hips.
“We need to rest. I need to rest,” he says, looking at me with defeat in his eyes. “I’m starving.”
My stomach feels like it’s devouring itself, so I can only imagine how he is suffering. Luka is taller and stronger than I, his well-defined muscles requiring more calories than my lean ones. Adrenaline has kept us moving this long, but with dehydration setting back in from the speed I foolishly drove us to, not even adrenaline will keep our bodies mobile.
I nod in agreement, and he starts to crawl to the wall. The tower is only a short distance away. I can see it; the end is almost tangible, but there is no way we can climb that now. My eyelids grow heavier with every second, and my gut tells me the worst of this maze is hiding in the recesses of this finale. I follow Luka to a small indent in the concrete and settle beside his leaning figure. He opens his arm to me, and I curl within his embrace, folding my body into his warmth. My head leans against his chest as my back lands against the hard surface, but I force myself to concentrate on his strong heartbeat, proof that he has not been pried from my life.
“I don’t think we have parents,” he murmurs after a long time, voice soft in my ear.
“Of course we have parents,” I say, but my words trail off as my conviction falters.
“I mean, yeah, we had families once,” Luka says, “but what mother would willingly watch this? What father would allow their children to compete in a televised show that kills them? Maybe they are being lied to. Maybe this is a dark web game that no one but psychos knows exists, but how do they explain losing all the kids? An occasional accident might work, but this race has clearly happened before. It is too efficient, too expensive. This is not their first run.”
My thoughts turn back to the rust-colored stain that caught my attention before Jude was crushed and to the sections of walls that were newer than the rest. Luka is right. This game has been played before. Multiple times, if I had to guess.
“People would get suspicious if children kept dying after being accepted into this competition, even if no one but those viewing it illegally sees it. Wouldn’t parents eventually involve law enforcement?” he continues. “It just doesn’t make sense to take kids from families. I have a feeling we are orphans. Plus, I can’t really recall a family before this race. I know that can be a side effect of dehydration, lack of food, and extreme fear, but you would assume I could remember my mother.”
“You might be right,” I say, but I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone concentrate on anything besides Serene spitting blood and Luka’s warm skin. “But I think I have a mom. I don’t know why, and I can’t think straight at the moment, but she is out there. She is waiting for me.”
“I hope she is,” he whispers into my hair, the words moving his lips like small kisses. “But you, I remember.”
“Hmmm?” I ask, but the world is dimming, and my brain is foggy. I can barely understand him, for sleep has almost claimed me.
“I remember you.”
“We just met.”
“I know,” he mumbles, making no sense. “But somehow, deep down, my body remembers you.”
But I don’t hear his words because I’ve fallen victim to my exhaustion.
The wall behind me suddenly gives way, and I am leaning on nothing but air. I crash backward with a harsh jolt, and my head cracks with brutal force on the ground. I cry out as the pain jerks me out of my slumber, and before I can register what is happening, Luka crashes beside me with a thud. The air is dimmer than it was earlier. The light is bright enough for the cameras to see us without the aid of night vision, but dark enough that the edges of my sight blurs, the shadows encroaching to hide the maze’s demons. Luka and I share an anxious glance, all sleep instantly evaporated from our eyes, and we scramble forward as the machinery deep within this modern coliseum groans a savage growl.
Luka tries to stand, but the maze chooses that moment to begin restructuring. Concrete collides with his skull, and he plummets backward. I skid for him, knees scraping across the ground, and catch him as he falls. He looks at me with a dazed expression, but thankfully no blood pours from the impact site.
“Crawl!” I order and push his body before me. He moves slowly at first but picks up speed as the structure continues to shift. The walls shrink together, and portions of hidden concrete jut out above in an attempt to trap us in their stony tomb. As our palms clamor over the ground, dragging us forward inch by inch, sections close in behind our bodies. It is corralling us toward the finish line, but if we don’t move fast, we will be barricaded within its ever-changing terrain.
“Look out!” Luka yells over the droning gears, and a slab of concrete slams down before our faces. Luka’s fingers constrict around my wrist, and he hauls me to his side. We veer left to avoid the obstacle and clamor down the new path the maze is forcing us along. My knees scream at the constant pounding, but our shifting surroundings barely give any warning to their changes as we crawl like hunted animals.
The section to Luka’s left suddenly slams down, almost crushing his shoulder. Luka flings himself into me, sending us both rolling out of the way in a tangle of torsos and limbs. His heavy body comes to an abrupt halt on top of mine. The impact drives the air from my lungs, but he gives me no time to recover as his hands haul me u
p.
“You okay?” he asks as he shoves me. I cough, my breath returning to my chest like a vacuum sucking up dirt, and nod my head.
“Okay,” I wheeze, barely able to push out the single word.
A whoosh of air barrels from behind me, tossing my hair into my eyes, and instinct tells me to move. I heave forward, pulling my legs to my ribs as a section of the wall snaps down into place where my feet had just lingered. I curse unintelligible words. I fling a roar of obscenities at the shifting maze, but it ignores my insults and continues its systematic reorganization.
The segment to my right plunges down, smacking my hip with bruising force, and my body plows into Luka. His balance teeters for a moment, but my hand shoots out to steady him. Just as I grab his shirt and pull, the section to his left snaps down, and Luka roars. Fear injects my veins with poison. My eyes snap to his grimaced lips, but he shoves me onward. I obey his urging and bolt as fast as my hands and knees can carry me. I see a motionless pathway ahead. If we crawl a few feet more, we’ll be free.
“Only a little further,” I scream with renewed vigor, but Luka doesn’t answer. I feel him at my back though, and so I continue with as much speed as my destroyed body will allow.
Another section slams down behind us, followed by a rapid-fire succession of a barrier to my right. A click sounds above, and Luka’s hand snaps out with perfect reflexes and forces me away from him. My shoulder slaps concrete, and my head bounces off this newly created wall with a painful crack from the power of his shove. For a moment, confusion at his violence is my only thought, but before I can even regain my balance, a slab plummets down between us… exactly where my spine had been.
“Get out!” Luka’s weak voice comes from the opposite side. I pray to anyone listening as I scramble forward that he is not trapped. He can’t be trapped. Luka will be fine. He has to be.
There Are Only Four (The Competition Archives Book 1) Page 9
