"Why?" Paradise asked, looking over at Craeg as their de facto leader. "Why would they do that?"
Thanks to her eyes having adjusted to the darkness, she could make out his strong features as he frowned and glanced around. When he shook his head, her stomach became a pit.
"What?" she said.
That only other female spoke up. "They're going to wear us out. That's why--"
The popping sounds of gunfire came from the left, another round of chaos lighting up along with those flashing muzzles as the group banged into itself, bodies colliding and causing bolts of pain to flare in Paradise's shoulder and lower leg.
"Walk!" Craeg yelled. "Just walk and it'll stop!"
And he was right. The instant they began moving in the direction they'd been going, everything went still and silent again.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that if they halted, they were going to be hit with more of those rubber bullets.
Paradise drew in a steadying breath. This was not so bad, she told herself. Their pace was slow and even, and she liked walking.
Better than being shot at, for sure.
This was going to be just fine.
Better than the pool. Better than being dragged over the floor while bound and head-bagged. Better than the explosions in the gym.
All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other.
To pass the time, she focused on what she could see of Craeg up in front, tracing the movements of his big body, from his broad shoulders to the way his hips shifted with each step he made. When the wind changed direction from time to time, she caught his scent and thought it was better than any cologne she'd ever smelled.
Who were his people? she wondered. Where was he from?
Did he have a mate?
Funny how that last one made her feel a pang in her chest. Then again, after everything she had been through tonight, no wonder her mind and her emotions were all over the place . . .
Around and around they went, until she began to pick out familiar trees and specific branches, until their footfalls carved a track in the earth, until the dull monotony began to get to her: No one aggressed upon them, fired anything at them, jumped over the fence to terrorize them.
It didn't mean that couldn't happen . . . but the longer none of that went down, the more her brain started to cannibalize itself, flipping from random thoughts about Craeg, to baseless panic, to images of her father, to . . . worry over whatever was coming next.
Glancing up at the sky, she wished she knew what the positions of the stars meant. She had no idea how much time had passed since they'd arrived in the gymnasium or even come out here for that matter. It felt like a lifetime since she had checked in and gotten her photograph taken. Even longer since she and Peyton had argued on the bus. But that was most certainly not true.
Three hours? No, too short. Five or six, she estimated.
The good news was that this had to stop at dawn. Sun was a non-negotiable even for the Brothers--and clearly no one was going to be killed. Yes, that gun stuff had been terrifying, but the people who had had real bullets shot at them were up on their feet, their wounds clearly superficial--and it was the same for anyone who had eaten or had anything to drink that had been tampered with.
So many weeded out. They had started with sixty. They were down to seven.
And she was astonished to find she was still hanging in. In fact, if she'd known that a stroll through the woods was the end to it all? Everything would have been so much easier.
Considering how bad it could have been, this was a piece of cake.
Chapter Eleven
One by one, they all went down.
The first to drop out was that male she knew from the glymera's festival parties, her very distant cousin, Anslam: After a while, he began slowing, his gait falling off with a limp that gradually grew so pronounced, his entire body became affected by it. And then he just stopped.
There was some encouragement offered by the group, but he just shook his head and sat down to loosen the laces on his left Nike.
"I'm done. Let 'em shoot me. I'm fucking done."
Even in the darkness, she could see the blood on his white sock.
"Come on, Paradise," Peyton said, nudging her. "We gotta keep going."
Looking into the dense forest, she wondered where the Brothers were. What was going to happen to him.
When the group started off again, she followed because she didn't want to quit, and also--even though she was ashamed to admit it--because she'd never really liked the guy. He had a bad reputation with females.
It wasn't long before the next fell by the wayside. And then, one after the other, they all crumpled. The feet were the thing. Or a thigh. Or shoulder. One by one . . . everybody took to the ground, to the well-worn dirt track they had created with their countless footfalls. And Paradise had the urge to help everybody, especially when Peyton began to sway next to her . . . and then weave as if he wasn't sure what was in front of him anymore.
For him, it was the aftereffects of the vomiting. The water he'd taken in had refused to stay put, and dehydration had made him delirious.
She couldn't not try with him, and she pulled at his arm, attempting to get him up from his knees when he finally collapsed.
". . . home now," he babbled. "I'm going to go home now. Bed, I need . . . food. . . . I'm right by my house, look."
It was terrifying to watch as he pointed ahead to the forest, his eyes rapt, as if he were actually seeing the mansion he lived in.
And it was then that she knew she shouldn't push him.
"Come on," the other female said to her. "If you're still on your feet, you need to keep going."
Paradise looked into a set of teal-blue eyes. "I hate this."
"Nothing will happen to him. No gunshots, remember--for any of the others who gave up."
"Go," Peyton said with sudden focus. "I'll be fine."
In the end, she couldn't really say why she put another foot in front of herself again. Maybe the lack of introspection was a symptom of her own exhaustion. Maybe she was delirious in her own way and she followed what was left of the group because her brain mistook them as a "home" of sorts.
Maybe her body was simply on autopilot.
And then there were two.
That other female, the one with the bright blue eyes, soon followed what Paradise now recognized as a pattern. First, she slowed and began to trip; then she outright stopped. When she didn't fall to the ground, Paradise doubled back, thinking there was a chance.
"No," the female said, cutting off conversation. "I'm staying here. You keep going."
Paradise glanced at the single male who was still trudging forward: Craeg was still in the lead. Had been the whole time.
He hadn't stopped for anyone.
He hadn't offered any encouragement.
He just kept his pace without deviation or distraction.
"Don't waste time or energy on me," the female said. "I've made my decision. I can't feel my legs anymore, and I think my shoulder is broken. If you can keep moving, you need to do it. You're too tired to carry me, but even if you could, I will be no one else's burden."
Paradise's eyes stung with tears. "Well . . . shit."
The female smiled a little. "You're going to win this."
"What?"
"Just go. You got this, girl."
Okaaaaaay, and someone else had gone delirious, clearly.
The female gave her a shove and a nod. "Prove to the boys we're not just equal, we're better than them. Don't let me down."
Paradise shook her head. If anyone was going to win a war of the sexes, the better bet was on the female in front of her.
"Go. You can do this."
Paradise was cursing to herself as she turned away and resumed walking. Craziness. Just insanity.
As her feet skimmed over the now-packed dirt, she checked the sky again. The stars shone as bright as ever, which told her that dawn remained a ways off.
br /> How long had they been walking? she wondered. And how much longer . . . ?
By now, Craeg was well off in the distance. From time to time, she caught his scent on the breeze, but it was just a faint hint. Talk about winners? He was the one who was going to "first place" this: He was stronger and tougher--and she had to believe, even if it went against every core principle she personally had, that his single-minded, unwavering commitment to himself was going to see him through this better than her compassionate interest in others.
Weight carried, whether it was physically, mentally, or emotionally, slowed you down.
And as she kept going, through the cold wind that no longer registered, she felt the loss of each member of their little group--and all the others who had suffered before, whether it was in the gym, the pool. . . .
No, that male up ahead of her was going to be the last candidate standing.
As she rounded a bend in the track, a barrier in her path registered. It was some ways away, but it was definitely an obstacle on the ground in the center of the trail.
Not just an obstacle.
It was . . . Craeg.
Her brain flipped into a faster gear, ordering her to rush to him--her body, however, could not respond to the flush of adrenaline. Even as her brain hit all kinds of alarm buttons, her pace didn't change, that shuffling of her feet and lurching of her upper torso unaltered by the panic.
Coming up to him, she discovered that he had collapsed facedown in the path, his arms flopped at his sides as if he had lacked the strength or consciousness to brace himself for the impact. His legs were lax, his Nikes turned inward.
"Craeg?"
When she went to crouch down, she fell herself, because her knees refused to bend--and then, as she tried to roll him over, her hands kept slipping free of the grip of his clothes, his shoulder, his arm.
Although maybe that was because he weighed twice as much as Peyton did.
She could get him only half on his side, and God, he was so pale that his face glowed like a ghost's. At least he was breathing, though, and after a moment, his eyes opened in a series of messy blinks.
It was bizarre, but her first thought was to offer him her vein--which was something that hadn't occurred to her up until now, even when Peyton had hit the ground.
The impulse was so strong, she brought her wrist up to her mouth--
He stopped her, slapping her arm down. "No . . ." he rasped.
"You're bleeding." She nodded down at the big red stain on his jeans. "You need strength."
As his eyes locked on hers, a strange kind of tunnel vision reduced the entire world to just the two of them: The forest around them, the construct under which they had been laboring, the toil they were both enduring . . . it all disappeared along with the aches and pains in her body and her head.
His gaze wiped her clean. Refreshed her. Energized her.
"Leave me here," he mumbled, his head shaking back and forth on the ground. "Go ahead. You're the last one. . . ."
"You can get up. You can keep going--"
"Stop wasting time. Go . . ."
"You have to get up."
He closed his eyes and turned his head away from her, as if he were done with the conversation. But then he said, "This is about your survival. Survival means you continue no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. So stop wasting breath, get back on your feet, and move."
"I don't want to leave you here." Also didn't want to look too closely into why she had walked away from Peyton, but couldn't seem to bear leaving this total stranger behind. "I'm not going to leave you."
His eyes swung around and they were pissed. "How about this. I don't want help from the likes of you--I don't want to be rescued by some dumb female . . . some dumb, weak, fumbling female who should never have been allowed into this program in the first place."
Paradise fell back onto the forest floor, a blazing pain ripping through her chest. Except then she shook her head. "That's not what you really believe. That's not what you told me the first night we met. You told me to come here even when my father didn't."
"I lied."
"You're lying now."
He closed his eyes again. "You don't know me."
When he stayed silent, she felt a tidal wave of exhaustion hit her. "No, I don't."
Looking past him to the trail ahead, she tried to imagine herself getting to her feet and walking again . . . and couldn't get there. Sometime between when she'd last been on the vertical and this current, on-her-ass moment, she had gained seven thousand pounds of body weight--and that wasn't all. Somebody had come along and beaten both her feet with hammers. Her head, too. And one of her shoulders.
Paradise glanced back at where they had come from. Had she really thought a little walk wasn't that bad?
"You don't belong here," she heard him say.
Paradise rolled her eyes. "I'm bored with that line of reasoning. If you really believed it yourself, you wouldn't have given me that advice at the beginning of tonight."
"I felt sorry for you. I pitied you."
"So you do have a heart."
"No."
"Then how can you feel sorry for me or anybody else?" When he just grunted, she was very aware they were two pushed-to-extremes individuals, neither of whom was making much sense. "Fine, take me out of this. You have no heart, why did you bother testing the bottled water out for everyone. The energy bars. That wasn't just for me."
"Yes, it was."
Paradise stilled. His head was angled away from her, but she had the oddest sense that he had spoken the truth there.
"And yet I'm just a stranger to you," she said.
"Told you. Felt sorry. The others could take care of themselves and there is safety in numbers."
"So wait, which one is it--misogynist with a conscience or teammate-even-though-I'm-a-girl? You're flipping back and forth like a politician."
He groaned and brought up an arm. "You make my head pound."
"I think that's the endurance test at work. Not me."
"Will you just leave? Much more of this conversation and I'm going to get as sick as your boyfriend was."
"My b-- Peyton? You're talking about Peyton?"
Okay, were they really sitting here talking like nothing much was going on?
Well . . . arguing like there was nothing going on?
"Do me a favor," the male said. "You see that rock over there?"
She glanced to the left. "That one? That's the size of an ice cooler?"
"Yeah. Could you pick it up and drop it on my head? That'd be great. Thanks."
Paradise rubbed her eyes, and then put both hands down when keeping her arms up on her knees became too much like work. "What's your full name? If I'm going to kill you at your own request, I need to know what to inscribe on your grave marker."
Those eyes came back to hers. Sky blue. They were a shockingly bright blue.
"How about we compromise," he muttered. "You just leave me here to die on my own and then you won't have to worry about getting blood on your shoes--or what my name is."
Paradise looked away. "Three times is not a charm."
"What?"
She waited for him to tell her his lineage. When he didn't, she chalked it up to exhaustion . . . and his commoner's background.
"Will you please go now?" he whispered. "As much as I've 'enjoyed' this little talk, I'm about to pass out--and I'd just as soon get on with that. I need the sleep."
"You can do this--you can keep going."
He made no comment to that or acknowledgment of it--and stupidly, she felt as though he'd rejected a gift she'd tried to give him. And how arrogant was that?
"So this is it, huh," she said--mostly to herself.
Again he said nothing, but she didn't think he'd actually passed out.
And then, just as he had before, he spoke up when she didn't expect it. "It's time for you to decide who you are. It happens in moments like this. Are you someone who quits--or who keeps going?"
>
But I'd always stop to help you, she thought to herself. And helping another person isn't quitting.
"Don't you want to find out who else you are--other than a receptionist?"
She frowned. "There is honor in all work."
"And maybe there is greatness waiting for you--if you only get back up on your feet and keep going."
God, she didn't know . . . pretty much anything at this point.
With the heat of her anger dissipating, she was left with a weariness that threatened to collapse her bones in her skin.
Who am I, she wondered.
Good question.
And she had no idea what the answer was. What she was clear on? Paradise, blooded daughter of Abalone, First Adviser to Wrath, the Blind King, was not the kind of person who was going to sit next to some stranger who didn't want her around and wasn't asking to be saved while there was even a possibility she could go one more foot, one more yard, one more mile in this challenge.
She glanced down at Craeg. Like her, his clothes were ruined by blood, sweat, and dirt, his hair stiff from having dried without being brushed, his body a limp rag of bad angles.
"Take care," she said as she struggled to get up.
He didn't reply. Maybe he had finally passed out? Or perhaps he was simply relieved she was going. Either way . . . not her concern.
When she went to move her right leg forward, she found that everything about her corporeal form--from her neck to her spine to her calves and all the joints and straightaways in between--was one hot mess of pain. But she got her foot in front of herself. And she did it again. And again. And . . .
She had no idea what made her keep going. She didn't care about winning. She wasn't doing it to prove anyone was wrong or that females mattered. She wasn't even aware of having any conscious thoughts.
Paradise just kept on walking . . . because that was what she did.
*
Burning.
Sometime later, all she could feel was burning: in her legs and her feet . . . in her gut and her lungs . . . down her throat--God, her throat was on fire . . . in her skull . . . on her face.
Fire all around her, in her, through her, as if her veins had lit gasoline in them and her muscles were charring from the inside out.
Brilliant light in her eyes, too.
Light so bright.
Too bright.
Except it wasn't dawn. The sky was still dark--at least . . . she thought it was . . .
Dimly, a thought sprouted above all the agony. Was this the Fade? she wondered. This illumination, this pain? The heat?