There Are Only Four (The Competition Archives Book 1) Page 5

  A groan escapes my clenched lips as I pull, and slowly Luka regains his foothold. His cheeks flush scarlet as my arm cuts off his breath, but I refuse to loosen my body’s noose on his neck. He is gasping, or perhaps that is me, but eventually he comes to a solid halt and retracts his head from my iron grip.

  “I’m okay.” His voice rattles as he breathes. “Thank you.” My throat is so dry I can barely swallow, let alone croak out a terrified response, so I just nod. I don’t trust my voice, anyway. I’m afraid if I speak, I’ll collapse in panic, and panic is dangerous at these heights. I will not allow them to turn my broken body into entertainment for the sick bastards of this world.

  “Jude? Serene?” Luka bellows their names.

  “Alive!” comes Serene’s muffled response from around the corner. “We are next to the barrier, but if we go up a little higher, we can climb over it. The rest of the maze seems to be on the other side.”

  “Come on.” Luka nudges me. “Let’s move before this thing does.” I nod and reach a hand toward a generous ledge to my right, but Luka grabs the back of my shirt and pulls me to his side. He nods heavenward before I can ask why he stopped me from joining the others.

  “The less time we spend up here, the better. Get off this, then regroup,” he says as he begins his ascent. “Serene?” His octave increases as he screams around the corner.

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry about finding us. Just climb. Get off this.”

  “Already doing that!” The sarcasm in her voice brings a smile to my lips.

  We resume our silent climb, but the pain wracking my body is a violent thunderstorm that cannot be muffled. The cramping spasms lock my muscles within the prison of my skin. How much longer before they are confined, the freedom to use them denied at the most perilous of times?

  “You know, those greasy eggs they served us sound really good right about now,” I blurt, my feeble conversation a desperate attempt to bury thoughts of my inflamed muscles in the depths of my mind. Luka casts a quick look at me before reaching to his next handhold, and I see understanding in his features. He knows what my words are meant for.

  “Or the bland concoction they claim is milk,” he says through heavy breaths. “I always thought milk was too fresh and flavorful, anyway. Tap water definitely makes it better if you ask me.”

  I can’t help the laugh that escapes me.

  “I’m sure they will have plenty of greasy eg…”

  “Luka!” I silence him as my fingers vibrate against the stone. “It’s going to move,” and the maze groans its agreement.

  “The barrier!” Luka angles to the left where a sheer and immense wall protrudes from the cylindrical vertebrae of this climb. “Its top is flat. We can use it to cross over for our descent.”

  I follow his path, but we make it only a few handholds before the section below clicks. My body tenses with frigid panic, preparing to be cast to the distant ground or flung aside like an unwanted cigarette butt, but as if by some good fortune, the cement begins to rotate left. Our destination closes in, and with rushed movements, Luka and I position ourselves to jump to the barrier before the centrifugal force smashes us to a bloody pulp against the divider this spinning block is disappearing into.

  “Ready?” Luka’s words are barely audible above the machinery so I pat his back in affirmation. “One,” he screams, his dry throat producing raw speech. “Two… three!”

  We launch ourselves in perfect unison. My arms scrape against the edge as I seize hold of the top, and my ribs slam into the corner with breathtaking force. I want to cry, the sharp pain in my chest is so intense, but with everything left within me, I pull. My shaking limbs haul me to safety, and when I can finally sit and rest, tears flood my eyes in uncontrollable waves. I can barely feel my muscles. I don’t know how I’ll climb down this infernal contraption. I wonder if falling to my death would really be all that horrific a way to exit this life.

  A yelp of panic pulls me from my macabre rabbit hole, and I am on my feet quicker than I thought was possible. Jude and Serene have twisted into view, but the maze is rotating faster. When Luka and I jumped to this ledge, the speed was of little consequence, but now? This velocity will liquefy them on impact.

  “Jump!” I scream with outstretched arms. “You have to jump. We’ll catch you.”

  “It’s moving too fast,” Luka whispers in my ear as he mimics my stance.

  “We’ll catch them!” We have come too far. We are not dying on this monstrosity of shifting building blocks.

  “Get ready, guys!” Luka barely finishes his sentence before Jude and Serene are hurtling through the air. Serene slams into the ledge first, and I hear the breath exit her lungs at the harsh impact. Luka’s broad hands are on her in an instant, stabilizing her, but Jude’s angle is all wrong. He careens toward me with alarm scarring his features. His chest smashes into the barrier, fingertips hardly gripping the edge. His pale knuckles slip from their hold as if in slow motion, and I dive for him even slower. I will never reach him in time.

  And then my hand is around his wrist, my fist grinding him to a jarring halt. I cry out as my shoulder threatens to give way under the strain, my bones nearly wrenching from their sockets, but despite my grip, Jude continues to slip lower. With horrifying nausea, I realize that I cannot save him, and that there are only two choices. I hold him, and we both plummet to an agonizing death. Or I let go. If my fingers stay locked, two lives are sacrificed to this televised altar. If I unhinge my grasp, we only lose one.

  “Help me!” I’m sobbing, fear rushing out of my mouth like a violent sickness. “Luka!” I should let go. I can’t let go. I don’t want to die. Mother, I am sorry you have to watch this.

  I slip. I wait for the fall, but there is none. Instead, hands are digging into my abdomen. Luka’s strong fingers burrow into my soft flesh as if he is trying to tear me open, but I welcome the pain as he pulls me higher up. Better his bruising hands than shattering pavement.

  “Jude!” Serene is on her stomach, reaching out to our companion. “Give me your hand.”

  Jude tentatively takes her offering, and when he is solidly in her grasp, he releases his iron grip on me. I feel suddenly weightless as Luka drags me to safety. He plants me in a firm seat beside him, and even though I am no longer in danger of falling, his hands do not leave my stomach.

  “Thank you,” Jude cries as he flings his arms around my neck. “You didn’t let go.”

  We cry together for a long moment, Luka’s and Serene’s arms ensnaring us until it is impossible to see where one body begins and another ends. We made it to the top. We endured the climb. Now we have to survive the way down.

  Chapter Seven

  To our surprise, the descent is uneventful. The giant three-dimensional blocks hold their rigid stance. The lights do not flicker. We do not fall.

  The way down proves easier than the grueling climb, but it still presents a challenge. We are exhausted and starving. Dehydration circles us like wounded prey, but except for Serene’s grip slipping once and Luka’s foot missing its target, we all land back on earth’s sacred ground, worse for wear but alive.

  “Is everyone all right?” I ask, surveying our soaked shirts and damp hair. Our fingers are raw from use, and my knuckles are cracked and bleeding from where my hands got caught in the crevasses. No one answers me, and I look to Luka. He is doubled over against the wall though, ignoring my question as he heaves in air. As the largest of our group, he spent too much of his energy to help the rest of us down the harder sections, and I’m worried by his reaction that he sacrificed more of himself for our sakes than was safe.

  Collapsing movement catches my eyes, and I turn in time to see Jude fall to the floor and sprawl on his back. “Jude?” Alarm digs in its fingernails as it climbs up my throat.

  “Hmmm,” is his only answer, but he dismisses me with a limp wave, and the needles in my throat relinquish their hold.

  “We need water,” Serene says through cracking lip
s as she surveys the passage ahead, and my curiosity follows her line of sight. Just as the other side of the climb, the maze presents no twists or turns to navigate. Only a single path guarded carefully by immense walls. They are giving us no opportunities to get disoriented among the chaos. No option to explore escape routes. No possibility to discover hidden supply caches. These game masters want the teams to traverse a preordained journey, and that is perhaps more terrifying than getting forever lost in a labyrinth of turns that lead everywhere yet nowhere.

  “We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” Luka says, pushing off the wall. His cheeks are flushed, but I can’t tell if it is from the heat or from gravity as he hunched over his knees seconds ago. “But I think they want us desperate. Desperate people make better television.”

  “I don’t know how much longer I can go without a drink, though.” Serene looks on the verge of tears.

  “I know.” I step forward and envelop her hand in my fist. “There has to be water in here somewhere. What, are they just going to watch us wither away from dehydration? Where is the sport in that?” Luka shoots me a reprimanding look for my bitter words, but it’s the truth. They are banking on our deaths to be exciting to improve their viewer rankings. Why else create a shifting climb and force teens to defeat it in the dark? But I realize Luka is only trying to uphold the group moral, so I open my mouth to apologize. Yet the second my lips part, the maze cracks with the power of an angered god.

  The ground heaves and bucks like a nauseous sea, and thunder erupts in the air above. But the sound is no storm. It is the climb we just defeated breaking apart.

  “Run!” I pull Serene by our clutched hands and bolt forward, but the shattering of stone muffles my cry.

  “Go, go, go!” Luka yells as if it’s his sacred mantra as dust and small particles rain down from the artificial heavens. Jude is off his back in seconds and scrambles to his knees. Luka hauls him the rest of the way to his feet by his jacket’s collar, the poor boy’s boots dragging beneath him like an anchor until his pace matches Luka’s. The spine-like section we just scaled is slowly exploding piece by massive fragment, starting with the topmost peak. Its cracking and plummeting weight hurtles toward the ground in one last attempt to defeat us. We survived its treacherous climb, and its bloodlust has been cheated. It is as if it recognizes our survival and is willing to sacrifice itself if it means it can claim victory over our lives.

  An electric bolt of adrenaline careens through the fibers of my muscles, and a new energy vaults through me. My feet pound the ground as I race despite the intense suffering of my lungs begging to give out. I suck in one painful breath after another, and the wall to my right explodes in a cacophony of disintegrating concrete. My head ducks involuntarily as the bolder ricochets through the air and catapults toward Serene and I. Serene is screaming. I might be screaming, and I yank her forward with savage brutality.

  The debris narrowly misses our bodies, yet the crumbling structure has only begun its collapse. The sound is deafening, and with each explosion, I fear the agony of monstrous boulders ripping through my flesh and grinding me into the ground.

  Luka bellows behind us, his voice followed by a colossal crash of rock hitting cement. I want to turn around. I need to see if he is alive or if his innards are painted in an abstract artwork across the path, but our speed is breathless, and the wreckage is crashing faster. One wrong step, and Serene and I could trip, never to stand again.

  “Please say something!” I scream with all the terror my lungs can force out of their inferno. “Luka!”

  “Just keep running!”

  I almost stumble at his voice. Relief floods my soul like an engorged river after the rain, but a crashing section of cement steals any solace his words possessed, leaving me a hollow vessel for fear to fill. The massive hunk collides with the wall and careens straight for our path. Before I can even register what has happened, it falls; mass aimed for my body. Serene roars at the oncoming destruction and heaves sideways. Her shoulder plows into mine and knocks us both off course, my chest narrowly missing the debris’ deadly aim. Together, we fly through the air, and for a weightless moment, we are safe, but as I crash to the ground, pain claws its ripping fingers at my flesh.

  The impact goads a scream from my throat, my side grating over jagged rubble. As my skin gives way against the wreckage, Serene twists from the force of knocking us from harm’s way and lands on top of me with a harsh jarring. The collision forces me further into the sharpened ground, and warm blood oozes over my bicep. My skeleton screams within me at the brutality of the fall, and my ribs are undoubtedly blooming with the purple flowers of injury. My arm is slick, and my lungs are collapsing. Can I not just stay here? Can I lie on this hardened earth and let the falling maze bury me from sight?

  “Get up!” Luka pulls on my elbow, and I cry out as his fingers slide against my raw flesh. He ignores my protests of agony. “Grab her,” he orders. Serene’s smaller hands grasp my ribs, and together, my teammates haul me to my feet.

  “Oh my god,” Serene gasps, and my gaze wanders to her face. She is not looking at the synthetic attack at our backs, but instead, her eyes are glued to my arm. Against my better judgment, I angle my sight to follow hers, sick at what I might find.

  “You’re fine.” Luka pulls me against his side as he runs, dragging my aching body before I get the chance to survey the damage. He grunts as a baseball-sized rock pelts his shoulder, and he turns to Serene with gritted teeth. “She’s fine. Keep running.”

  Serene wastes no time arguing. She is a bullet from a gun as she tears through the minefield of falling maze. It is then I realize that Jude is nowhere to be found, and my heart hurdles into my throat. Was he buried in the collapse? If he was, we have to go back. We can’t leave him trapped.

  We burst from the cloud of assaulting dust, and slowly the sound of hell raining down quiets. A blur of movement ahead pulls at my attention, and I see Jude racing through the corridor at full speed. I release an anxious breath. He is alive, just fleeing in panic.

  “Jude!” Serene calls. “Slow down. Wait for us!” But it’s as if he cannot hear her. He continues his flight, ears deaf to her plea.

  “We need to stick together,” Luka says, and both he and Serene share a concerned look.

  “Jude!” Serene repeats with more urgency. “Wait up.”

  We hobble forward as fast as I’m able to go in an attempt to overtake Jude. The pain of the impact is slowly lessening, and I will be fine in a few minutes, but Luka is pulling me faster than my weakened body can manage on its own.

  “Jude, please!” I shout at the boy’s back, but it is no use. His panic has made him oblivious.

  “I’ll catch him,” Serene says to Luka. “You help her.” And she is off, barreling down the path.

  “Please,” I whisper to my blond competitor and grind my feet to a halt as she leaves us in her proverbial dust. “That fall really hurt. Please, give me a minute.” I gasp for air and stumble, almost toppling to the ground, but Luka’s locked grip halts gravity’s conquest over my body. He guides me to the wall and gently sets me against it for support. We lean there in silence as my breathing evens out, and after a few moments, I peer down at my bloody arm. Crimson is smeared down it in bold streaks, and I lift a sleeve from the jacket tied at my waist. I use the fabric to wipe away the blood, and an immense relief permeates my chest when I see only flesh wounds.

  “Okay,” I whisper after the spasms in my muscles have quieted. “We can go.” I peel my spine from the wall and jog after my teammates. Luka follows close behind, palm brushing lightly against my back to urge me forward. Thankfully Jude’s bolt of energy has waned, and it only takes a few minutes to catch up. His faltering strength has done nothing to ease his panic, though. Instead of listening to Serene’s begging voice of reason, he is determined to fling himself recklessly down the path, taking each turn with wild abandon.

  When our coaxing fails to rein him in, we opt to try our best to keep pace with our manic
teammate. His response to fear settles a rock of concern in my belly. We know what is at our backs but not what lies at our front, and a whisper of warning seeps through my mind like smoke in the night. It snakes intangible; hovers just out of reach, but with every bend in our path, it crowds more oppressive. If we slowed for a moment, perhaps I could understand its illusive foreboding, but my body is too tired to concentrate on anything but placing one boot clad foot before the other.

  We round yet another corner when the maze moves without the slightest hint of warning. The pathway ahead closes off with a sudden whir of machinery, and a concrete panel slides out with a loud grating from a hidden compartment in the wall. As if it was laying in wait, it charges out with incredible speed, causing us all to skid to an alarmed halt. Jude’s shoulder bounces off the moving barrier, his momentum thrusting him too fast to avoid a collision. The impact sends him careening into an opening that hadn’t existed a moment ago, this new barricade requiring a change in course.

  “Jude, slow down!” Luka’s voice is no longer kind. There is a demanding harshness to his command as we follow Jude down the suddenly altered direction, and I cannot help the thought that leaps into the forefront of my mind. This moving panel was not to protect us from the dangers of these bleak walls, but to sacrifice us to them.

  Jude continues wild with fear, driving us at a reckless pace as if something within him snapped. Instead of having to be dragged through the course, he is leading the charge into the unknown fray. He shouldn’t be our guide though, not if the maze is altering. He needs to slow down.

  “Jude!” I call, but he has already rounded the next bend.

  An icy fear sends shards of alertness through my veins as I follow his steps, and I am instantly alert. The hairs on the back of my neck raise, and gooseflesh tickles my skin when I see it. The dried, rust-colored stain on the wall. It is old and washed, but whatever happened here was too thick and determined to be worn away. The maze rumbles beneath our feet, and I know what that blemish is. I feel it deep within my soul that somehow I have seen this colossal barbarism before. I skid to a stop, heels digging harshly into the concrete below, and I fling my arms in as wide a net as they can cast. My wrists catch Luka and Serene in their guts, and both of them expel air in grunts of pain as my limbs bar their advancement.