here and pray the walls don’t move on me because, dammit, I need some luck for once!
The second I start to crawl down the other side of the rock, I come face-to-face with the pond bitch and I wish so badly that I could scrub my mind of her because holy fucking nightmare is she disgusting.
She was once human, I think. Her skin is grey and sliding away from the bone of her skull, her hair is mostly gone, only little tufts of it sticking up in small patches. Her teeth are broken and sharply pointed as she gapes up at me with milky white eyes, her jaw flapping like she’s gasping for air, and I’m officially never sleeping again because this bitch is definitely going to haunt me.
Her hand wraps around my ankle, the dirty pond water dripping from her nightmare body onto the bare skin of my foot, and all I can think is that I’m going to get some flesh-eating parasite from her.
I turn the part of my brain that is freaking the fuck out off and switch my survival mode back on, gripping the edges of the rock and then swinging my free leg up until I can get a good kick in, striking her shoulder first. When that doesn’t get her off me, I bite the bullet and kick her in the face, her teeth cutting the heel of my foot, but with a gurgling scream, her hand loosens enough for me to wrench my foot away.
I slide down the rock, skinning the backs of my thighs and shredding my hands, but desperate times and all that. When I land at the bottom, breaking my ass and knocking the wind out of myself, I scurry away as fast as my broken body will let me. Even when I get past the threshold of the room and back out into the hallway I keep crawling, the gurgling sounds of the pond bitch bouncing on the brick walls.
I’m quitting this goddamn class.
I turn two corners on my hands and knees before I finally relocate my pride and struggle to my feet. My nose is running, my eyes are stinging, and my chest rattles with every breath, but I’m alive.
I’m going to need a healer the moment I get out of here and I will break North in half with my bare hands if he tries to stop me from accessing one.
Luckily, blessedly, the walls stay put and I make it to the center of the fucking maze. My body collapses onto the ground in a heaving, shaking mess.
The motherfucking center of this stupid, murderous, dickheaded maze.
I don’t even get the chance to feel proud of myself, to feel happy that I made it through by myself and without using my gift once, because I find Zoey and Brenton jogging through the doorway at the other end of the room, their eyes on the flag for a second before they notice me slumped over here.
Zoey grins as she stalks over to me, the crop top she’s wearing is tight across her chest and soaked through from whatever she’s been up against in the maze so far, but overall she looks a million times better than I do. Whatever she’s been up against, Brenton has taken the brunt of it. He’s torn up like me but he’s still standing.
My eyes flick over to the flag only a few feet away, but with my ‘walking-chloroform’ here, there’s no chance I’m getting it.
I hate this bitch.
I feel her gift take me over, the poison of it touching my skin and floating through my veins. My body is so fucking used to it now, a regular Friday occurrence, that I’m not surprised when my nose starts dripping blood and my mouth fills up with it in response.
It’s fucking infuriating.
I spit at her, my blood bright red on her cheek, and her squeal is fucking music to my ears. “You’re an absolute cunt and someday you’re going to regret this bullshit. I’m patient, I can wait you out.”
She smirks at me. “Like I’d be scared of some gift-less reject. Nighty-night, bitch.”
And then she knocks me the fuck out.
Chapter Fourteen
“I cannot believe Zoey would rather knock you out than win a pass in TT. It’s the hardest class at Draven, everyone knows that you don’t throw that away!”
I scoff and press the ice against my temple a little harder but there’s no use, nothing is going to stop the pounding there.
The moment I’d woken