The memory made my brows lower. “Yep,” I grumbled. As if the trek through the marshlands hadn’t been bad enough, the candidates had afterwards been required to partake in some unnerving activities. The kind that made your pulse race, your stomach sink, and your bravado shrink to nothing.
Grimacing, the blonde puffed out a breath. “I remember having to lie in a tub with them for an hour when I went through Xalbia. Which tub did they put you in? The smaller one, or the larger one?”
“Neither,” I muttered. “It was a coffin.”
Her plush lips parted in what seemed to be a mixture of surprise and horror. “Fair play to you for not crying foul.”
I’d thought about it. Confined spaces didn’t bother me too much, but there was really nothing fun about being stuck in a coffin, let alone when it was filled with green ants. Ants that tried slipping up your nose, crawling into your ears, scurrying over your lips, and attempting to edge their way up … other orifices.
A little shudder worked its way down my back at the sensory memories. I inhaled deeply, dragging the scents of woodsmoke, fermented drinks, and melted wax into my lungs. “It was an experience that I hope to never repeat.”
“How long did you have to stay in the coffin?” she asked, placing the tankards on the bar.
“Two hours.” It had felt more like six.
Shaking her head, she said, “I swear, the conditions of Xalbia get meaner every time. Did you get bitten a lot?”
“No. Green ants are not a fan of my blood, for some reason.”
“Well at least there’s that.”
“At least,” I agreed.
A laugh came from the people at the corner table nearest the door. Talon’s table. I fought the urge to look his way—something I now did consistently.
I’d stuck to my plan to work on somehow killing this visceral attraction between us. I figured that the key to crushing it would lie in not feeding it, which meant only giving him my time and attention when necessary. It seemed the most logical solution.
As such, though I greeted him politely and I talked to him normally, I spoke to him less nowadays. I didn’t look at him unless it was warranted. I kept things professional—no jokey or teasing comments. And I was sure to keep a physical distance between us where possible.
Basically, I’d taken a metaphorical step back from our dynamic, becoming friendly-but-distant.
In the beginning, it had earned me a few narrow-eyed looks from him, but he hadn’t otherwise reacted. Not even the second night when we slept in the same room down in that bunker. I had worried that I would again wake overflowing with restless energy, leaving us no choice but to spar again, but thankfully no such thing had occurred.
Before proceeding to put my plan in action, I’d suspected that following through with it wouldn’t be easy. I’d been correct to think so. After all, how could one find it simple to resist letting their eyes settle on someone so pretty to look at? And how could you force yourself to let someone ‘fade’ into the background of your attention when you had such a finely-tuned awareness of them?
With extreme difficulty, as it turned out.
At this point, his narrow-eyed looks had progressed to full-onQuit this shitglares. He was no doubt of the opinion that I was being childish, or he might even mistakenly assume that I was being passive-aggressive. On the contrary, I didn’t believe in making others pay for things they had no control over. It wasn’t his fault that he seemed to resent this relentlessthingthat had sparked between us.
“Here you go,” said Glory, yanking me from my ruminations.
“Thanks,” I said, curling my fingers around each tankard. It was at that very moment that Bevan appeared at the bar.
“What are you having?” the barmaid asked him, perching a hand on her hip.
“A pitcher of beer.” His weary gaze cut to me. “You look like shit.”
Of course I did. I hadn’t slept in two days. Neither had he. “You look worse.”
He sighed. “I know.”
It had hit every candidate hard—particularly since we’dreallyneeded sleep last night. The earlier part of that day had been beyond tiring. We’d been split into several groups and taken to different spots within the Pines where no beasts roamed. Talon and the Marshalls had then ordered us to make our way back to the city … which would not have been so bad if they hadn’t also hunted us down during the journey.
They had inevitably caught us all eventually. As a ‘punishment’ for not making it back home, we’d been then left in an ice-cave for the entire night, where it had been literally impossible to get any sleep.
Talon and Ajax had stuck close so that anyone who couldn’t handle the confinement or cold temperature could be released. Only two candidates had quit, just as only two had quit after their stay at the bunker. And so the number of candidates was now down to forty-three.
“How’s Seneca?” I enquired, remembering how shaken she’d been after being immersed in a tub of cockroaches earlier. She might be a complete tool, but I’d still felt bad for her.
