No sooner have I set foot onto the stable area than Zan scoops me up again, holding me close.
“You picked correctly,” he says.
“You picked correctly,” I say, holding him tight, burying my face in his shoulder.
I don’t know when Zan started to feel like home, but now that he is, I don’t want to let him go.
“I knew you didn’t come here for a mate,” I say playfully.
“I got one anyway,” he says with a grin.
“Come on,” I tell him. “I don’t know where Poppy and her partner are, but we have to hurry if we want to make it out.”
I feel selfish at the thought, because surely Poppy deserves to get out of here just as much as we do, and I hate the idea of leaving her behind.
But at this point, Zan is brutally injured, and I want us out of here, into the safety of Sueva as fast as we can get.
Pop, you’ll have to figure it out. She’s the one who got us into this mess anyway.
Not that she deserves this either. Not that this was exactly what she had planned.
“I’m a bitch,” I tell Zan, feeling horrible about it.
“Oh, if you’re a bitch, then I’m a bitch,” he says.
“You don’t know what that word means, do you?”
“No,” he tells me, shaking his head.
“That’s just perfect,” I tell him. “If I’m a bitch, you’re a bitch. Team motto.”
He nods in agreement. “Come on, bitch,” he says, nodding to the red-light strips glowing in front of us.
A laugh tears out of me, and I know the minute he figures out what bitch means he’s going to be furious he called me that. For some reason, just imagining that version of the future puts some pep in my step.
We jog over to the wall, Zan limping slightly, but I don’t say anything.
As dumb as it is, I’m worried that if I point it out it’ll make whatever pain he’s in worse, so I just note it and move as fast as I can to match his still impressive pace.
A slick jet-black wall rises in front of us, a narrow opening lit with red, clearly lighting the path Ken clearly wants us to take for the next obstacle.
Zan and I share a long look before he takes my hand, giving it a light squeeze. For the first time, the look in his eyes isn’t cocky or smug— it’s uneasy, like he’s recalculating something—but the thought flies out of my head as the ground beneath us begins to fall away.
Zan pulls me forward with a huge tug, and we step into the narrow opening together.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
ZAN
The glossy blackrock wall behind us slams closed. Another wall directly rising in front of us.
There are two paths, one to the left and one to the right.
And as we both consider the direction, a strange light flickers over the walls in front and behind us, transforming the blank black rock into something completely different.
“I fear we’re inside of a labyrinth,” I say, watching the mirage of images splash across the rock walls.
