“Don’t be smart. I’m here to prepare you for the Game, but I’ve been told not to touch your pretty face.” Shark leaned down to examine Levi’s black eye. “You’re already fairly roughed up. Where’ve you been hurt?”
“My right leg,” Levi said. “And a broken rib.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to find some new spots, then.”
Levi braced himself as Shark grabbed beneath his arms and lifted him like a bag of straw.
“It’s a lot easier if you stand up,” he said, then threw a staggering punch at Levi’s shoulder. It dislocated with apop.
Levi shouted and fell forward, caught by the ropes tying him to the pillar. Every breath he took ached. The man raised his enormous boot and kicked Levi’s hip bone—not hard enough to fracture, but definitely enough to bruise.
Shark kicked him once in each shin as Levi sputtered.
“Nothing personal, you know. I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s...Levi,” he breathed.
Shark punched his chest, forcing the air out of him and hurting his ribs enough to make Levi scream. The force of it sent his body colliding with the pole behind him.
“I didn’t say Iwantedyour name.”
His fist slammed into Levi’s left thigh.
Levi had reached the point where he felt himself retreating. It was an old, familiar feeling, of curling into that cold place in his mind where the aches of his body and heart couldn’t follow. Though the place was meant for comfort and self-preservation, it had its costs: each time he returned there, he left pieces of himself behind, pieces he sometimes never found again.
When he’d left home, he thought he’d left this place behind him, as well.
He leaned unsteadily against the pillar and concentrated on reality. On the pain all over. On the dim overhead light. On the smell of mold and the taste of blood.
The final blow got him in the side of the neck. Levi’s head knocked against the pillar. He slumped over and puked—for the second time that night. Even as he vomited whatever remained in his stomach, he was both in the basement and that somewhere else. Here and not here.
When Levi finished retching, Shark cut the rope binding him. “Don’t bother running. You know you won’t get far.”
Levi didn’t think he could run at all if he tried. His hands fell limply to his side, and Shark handed him his suit jacket and hat. Levi took it with dread, knowing it meant the night’s festivities were about to begin.
“Now let me get a look at you.” Shark’s eyes ran up and own Levi’s body. “Oh—my mistake.” Before Levi could brace himself, Shark put two hands on his shoulder and shoved it back into its socket. Levi screamed and staggered back.
“I’ll be keeping this gun of yours.” Shark pocketed the pistol. “But here’s your invitation.” He slipped the Shadow Card into Levi’s breast pocket and patted it with a malicious grin. “Look sharp. Now we go upstairs. That’s where the fun is.”
Fun for him, maybe. The only thing waiting for Levi was death.
Shark pushed him up the stairs, and Levi’s bones ached with each step, so painful he needed to bite his tongue to keep from crying out. A fog of cigar smoke greeted them at the landing, and they entered a dark room with all black furniture that matched Levi’s original vision for the House of Shadows. Two men lay on couches in the corner, too transfixed by the women in front of them to notice Levi and his captor. The women giggled teasingly and played with their transparent slips, their legs miles long in silver shoes with heels like razors.
“You know,” Levi wheezed, “this isn’t as bad as I thought.”
Shark grunted and shoved him up another flight of stairs.
“Is Sedric Torren here?” Levi asked, though he doubted that Shark had news about whatever had happened to Sedric and Enne.
“Never knew him to miss a party,” he replied.
Each time Levi heaved one leg painfully in front of the other, he thought,this is one of my last steps. He knew he should feel terrified—earlier, he had. But now that he was here, the House of Shadows felt too surreal to warrant anything but numbness. Maybe the effects of the sedative hadn’t fully worn off. Maybe he was still in that someplace else, trying to protect himself from reality.
They entered his execution room.
Ten people sat around a long felt-topped table, and others spectated from chaises in the room’s corners. Their skin had a gray cast to it, like the skin of a peach gone shriveled and moldy, and it was impossible to guess their ages. They looked neither young nor old, neither alive nor dead. They stared at Levi with empty eyes, their expressions still. All that moved was the shadows across their faces, flickering in the light of the metal candelabra.
The black-and-silver-striped walls made Levi feel as though he were entering a cage.
