Need a ride?
Those words couldn’t be from the trial, but the voice is the same: the same cadence, the same helpful tone masking something rotten underneath.
“I’m sorry,” DJ says. “She’s not feeling well.”
“You need to leave.”
Someone takes my arm, but DJ steps between us, her voice hardening in a way I’ve never heard before. “Get your handoffher.”
The brass cone slips from my fingers and hits the floor with a ping that echoes through the room. The second it leaves my hand, the pain eases.
“What’s that?” the guy who escorted us here demands, gesturing at the cone.
“My lucky charm,” DJ says. “Clearly, it’s broken.”
DJ scoops it off the floor and wraps her other hand around mine, already pulling me toward the door. My legs wobble as DJ drags me along. The ceiling panels of light blur together as I stumble after her through endless doorways until we burst into the parking lot. The air is sharp and clean and feels so good I could cry.
I spot the van through the blur of tears I’m fighting back, but I only make it a couple of steps before my legs give out. Asphalt shreds through the first layer of skin on my knees, but the feeling is dull compared to the pain still throbbing in my mouth. I shove the pain down as far as I can get it. Pain is information.
“Jesus Christ.” Griffin appears out of nowhere, sliding an arm under mine, and guides me to the open back door of the van.
I try to pull away, determined to handle this myself, but my body stages a rebellion and I end up leaning into him harder than before. I practically collapse into the van, my scraped knees stinging.
I rip the mask off my face and remove the hair net. My hair tumbles down around my shoulders. So much for all that hairspray.
Griffin crouches in front of me. “What the hell happened in there?”
“I heard him.”
“Who?”
“Game Master.” I can barely keep my drooping eyelids open. “I felt Greg’s pain.”
DJ stares at me like I’ve announced I can speak fluent dolphin. “The Whisper Aid only amplifies sounds. You shouldn’t feel any pain.”
I want to ask questions, but my brain feels like it’s been put through a blender, and every word I try to form dissolves before it reaches my mouth. I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth, willing the taste of copper to disappear. I lock my elbows against the van door, refusing to let myself slump even though there’s an alarm in my head screaming at me tolie down.
“I talked to a ghost yesterday,” I say. “Maybe that’s why?”
“You cantalkto them?” DJ’s voice pitches up. “Like, have actual conversations?”
I nod, gripping the lip of the van door as the world tilts sideways.
DJ’s mouth opens and closes. “Okay, but—Eden, that’s not possible. Only Nico can do that—and even he’s never experienced anything like what just happened to you.”
Why can’t Nico do this? What’s he going to say when he finds out I can?
I close my eyes, trying to sort through the borrowed memories. The teeth… the… pliers. I touch my pinky finger, remembering the sensation of metal finding bone.
Wait.
My eyes snap open, and I sit up so fast that black spots dance across my vision. “Greg had his finger cut off.”
DJ nods. “I don’t think the teeth pulling was the only trial.”
He’s escalating. Didn’t Nico say the ghosts only have the bad parts left? It would make sense that the Game Master has gotten worse after death. What will that mean for the next couple he grabs?
But there’s something else. Something tickling the edge of my memory.
