I screamed inside.I can’t. I can’t. Let me out. LET ME OUT.
“Dig a hole,” Anna said. And I did. My fingers tore at the earth, nails splitting, flesh scraping against roots and stone, blood streaking down my arms. I dug because there wasnothing else. Anna wanted obedience, and the pain demanded it.
When I finally stopped, my hands were wrecked, shaking uncontrollably. “I’m done,” I sobbed, voice hollow. “Please—get me out.”
“Good. Now strip. Use your clothes for a rope.”
My mind rebelled, but my body moved, numb and mechanical. I peeled off my layers, baring myself to the mud and the cold. The shame barely registered, only a dull awareness that my skin was cut, bruised, raw. My trembling hands knotted my shirt to my pants, to everything I had left.
“Throw it over the root. Climb.”
It took three tries. Each time, Anna’s voice drilled at me—“Faster, Tani. Or you’ll be stuck here forever.”
I finally caught the root, hauling myself out, the rope biting into my palms and scraping skin off my knees and chest as I dragged myself from the grave.
“Get dressed. Hurry.”
I fumbled for my clothes, barely registering the distant, ragged cries of other trainees somewhere in the woods. But another jolt of pain knifed through me and I staggered, almost falling again.
“We got over the first hurdle,” Anna purred. “Now move. Left.”
Branches slapped me. I could feel the welts rising, the blood warm and sticky down my arms. I didn’t even know where I was anymore. Anna’s commands were all that filled my head.
“Move faster!”
I stumbled, vision tunneling, half-blind, each breath shallow and frantic. The forest wasn’t a forest anymore—it was a cage, alive and hating me.
“Faster!” Anna barked.
Something snapped. I stumbled, crashed to my knees, hands sinking into muck. My body wouldn’t obey. My mind frayed at the edges. This wasn’t a drill. This wasn’t training. It was punishment—ritual—some dark initiation, and I had no idea if I would make it out.
Just as I thought I’d break?—
A man’s voice boomed overhead, sudden and inhuman:
“CEASE ACTIVITY. TRAINING IS SUSPENDED.”
The command cut through everything—Anna’s voice, the pain, even the buzzing in my ears. For a moment I didn’t believe it. I waited for Anna to contradict him, to order me onward, but the world was silent except for my own ragged breathing.
I crouched there, shaking, still waiting for Anna’s next command, too terrified to move until she finally spoke, voice flat and cold: “There’s been a… technical issue. We’ll have to resume at a later time.”
I forced myself upright and pushed through the trees, every step a blur of pain, nausea, and dread. Anna’s voice was gone, but the ache in my head lingered, a phantom scream under my skin.
I broke into sunlight and collapsed, shivering on the edge of the woods. A hand gripped my right ear, ripping out the device. I gasped at the white-hot flare of pain. Blood smeared my palm.
Anna didn’t even look at me, just turned away, her silhouette already fading.
Jessie crashed through the brush, arms bloodied and wild, and folded me into a shaking hug. Her voice was just a breath, terrified:“What was that?”
I pressed my face to her shoulder, unable to speak. Anna’s voice rang out, but I barely heard it. I was still trying to understand how this was only the beginning.
THIRTY-FIVE
I sleptlike the dead when I got back to Fraser Isle. Didn’t move, didn’t dream—just a blankness that swallowed me whole until evening. When I finally clawed my way up from the dark, it was with a sick dread twisting in my gut. For a second, I hoped it had been a nightmare. But the truth was still there, waiting.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling, my heart hammering. The ache in my hands was the first thing I felt. I sat up, half-expecting mud under my nails, blood on my skin. Instead there were bandages: stiff, white, clinical. I remembered washing them, scrubbing so hard the skin went raw, like I could erase the memory of digging through the earth. But the wounds lingered, ugly proof that this morning had happened. And that it wasn’t over.
Whatwasthat?
