The Game Master must enjoy putting people in situations that make them seem stupid when they’re not, so that he can look like a genius in comparison. He must be really insecure. I blow out a long sigh.
I walk slowly along the perimeter of the room, running my hands over the bricks. Most of them sit flush, but eventually Ifind one that juts out enough to catch my fingertip. I work it loose, and the brick comes away easily. Behind it sits a small hollow holding a key.
My hand pauses halfway to the opening. Could this be part of the trials? If I reach in there, will some mechanism trigger, and I’ll lose my hand? The old Morrow wouldn’t booby-trap this. He was always trying to prove a point, not cruel for cruelty’s sake, and a random trap wouldn’t prove anything. But there’s no telling what this escalating version of Morrow would do.
I use the tip of the water bottle to scrape the key out. It tumbles to the floor with a ping.
“Glad to see you’re taking precautions,” Nico grumbles.
I flip him off without turning around.
I crouch in front of Nico with the key. I unlock his left cuff, and he cradles his wrist close to his body as I undo the other. His hands look alien now, all puffy and discolored. His fingers have swollen enough that his tattoos are warped, and when his right hand is free, his shoulders curl.
“Can you move your fingers at all?” I ask.
He tries to make a fist. He manages to partially close his trembling fingers, but they won’t hold, like his body forgot how to grip.
Shit.
I can’t help him with his hands, but I can do one thing to help him.
“Will you please drink some water?” I ask, unscrewing the top from the water bottle before holding it out.
He watches me for a long second, then reaches for the bottle I’m holding out. Crow’s feet form around his eyes as he braces the bottle in both hands, mostly using his palms, and his arms tremble as he brings it to his lips. He takes a couple of sips before holding it back out to me.
I cap the bottle. He pushes himself up to standing. I force my hands to stay where they are instead of reaching out to steady him because I don’t think he’d like that very much. He closes his eyes like he’s fighting off waves of dizziness through stubborn determination. Hours suspended from his wrists, and now he’s supposed to compete against me in whatever hell the Game Master has planned for us next?
A mechanical crunching sound echoes through the room. Metal grinding against metal with the weight of something big moving, and a door cracks open on the far end of the room. Red light spills through the thin gap, and my stomach drops to somewhere around my ankles.
Looks like it’s time for trial two.
Nico and I head toward the door. He takes a break at each column, bracing against it for stability.
He pauses at the door. I try to ready myself, rolling my shoulders back and flexing my hands to get blood flowing, but I don’t even know how to prepare myself for something like this.
He raises his eyebrows at me like he’s asking if I’m ready, not unlike how he did before we entered the old factory when looking for Donny. I get a pang of pain in my chest at the memory, but I nod, and he pushes the door open to reveal a narrow hallway. Emergency lighting strips line the walls, casting everything in an eerie red glow exactly like the one in the building where we found Donny, but it’s what’s on the floor that makes my blood run cold.
A carpet of broken glass.
CHAPTER 40
People forget there are major arteries in feet: the dorsalis pedis and posterior tibial. If you see rhythmic spurting from a foot wound, apply direct pressure immediately. A person can bleed out from a severed foot artery in minutes.
—Everything You Need to Know About Emergency Medicine (When You Can’t Go to the ER)by Benjamin Ashford
So much glass has been poured onto the floor that the cracked tiles are completely buried. Some pieces are small. Others are large shards that look like they were once part of beer bottles.
“Your task is to cross the room,” the Game Master says, through a speaker at the other end of the hallway. “The first person to reach the other side is the winner.”
I raise my eyes to the runway of glass, and all the way to where it ends. It has to be… what? Twenty-five, thirty feet away?
“Your shoes and socks must be removed from your feet before the trial begins. You have one minute to remove them.”
The speaker cuts out. I drop my eyes to my steel-toed boots. On the other side of the hall, a timer counts down in glowing red digits.
0:59
0:58
