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A hand closes around my arm, yanking me back from the gate as I twist hard against the grip, digging my heels into the sand.

“Please! My brother is sick.”

The Adjudicator is already turning back towards Maren.

“I need to get home to him.”

The second guard catches me, dragging me back.

“I need this.”

Maren looks at me once before the Adjudicator takes her wrist, leading her towards the scanner as the guards drag me backwards. Her hand hits the plate and the twelfth light flashes green.

The same warm voice rolls across the checkpoint.

The Hunt thanks Candidate Seven for his participation.

No.

I wrench against the guards, digging my heels into the sand as they pull me towards the trees. The green light stays on.

I’m eliminated.

Onyx.

Twisting hard enough to hurt, I keep staring at that twelfth light until the trees finally take it from me.

9

ASH

My ribs scream first, strapped tight across my chest. My head joins in a second later. Every breath catches on them. Fuck. A sound escapes before the word does.

For a second, I have no idea where I am. White ceiling. White walls. Too much light. Then something flickers through me. A mountain dropping out from under my feet. A tree. My prey.

I jerk upright, pain tearing across my ribs and throwing me back against the mattress, but I’m already looking around the room, my pulse kicking hard. The cave.

“How...” My voice comes out wrecked, the room arriving half a second behind my eyes.

Movement at the edge of my vision. Ryven looks up so fast he nearly drops the ration bar he’s holding, relief flashing across his face before the grin arrives. “Well, look who’s finally decided to rejoin the living. Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“How the fuck did I get here?” I grunt. Light, everything fucking hurts.

He snorts, settling back into the chair. “Funny. That’s exactly what we wanted to ask you. I call you, tell you to get your ass back because a sandstorm’s rolling in, and instead you vanish off the grid. Your tracker goes dead. Search teams spend half the damn night looking for you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember. The ground disappearing. My arm refusing to move. His hands under my shoulders, dragging me through sand and rock. I remember that much.

I remember him.

Then the cave. Fire. Rain. Those damn green eyes. His mouth on mine, swallowing my spit.

Fuck me, that felt good. It felt simple. Command, obey. It felt out of place in a world where everything has a price.

Ryven tears off another bite of the ration bar. “Your dad was losing his mind.” He studies me for a second, the grin fading at the edges. “Mostly because vanishing into a sandstorm right before your engagement is apparently bad form. So... care to explain what the fuck you were doing in a cave?”

“Where’s the Calder candidate? The one who was in the cave. Onyx Mercer.” My tongue’s still thick. “My—fucking fuck it—candidate.”

Ryven’s chewing slows. “See, that’s fascinating because your first coherent sentence after one night of the medics shining lights in your eyes isn’t water, or where’s my visor, or Ryven, thanks for digging me out from under a tree. It’s the blond.” He glances over his shoulder. “Seren. He said it. You owe me lunch.”