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After a quick trip back to my room to change and ensure no one is following me, I head to the gym. I’m too wound up to study, even though I have assignments due soon. I need to work out, or better yet, spar with Hector to work the frustration out of my body. Maybe once I’ve done that I’ll be able to concentrate on something other than how crazy The Holy Trinity are making me. They’re absolutely messing with my head and my heart, whether they mean to or not.
Shouldering my gym bag, I shake thoughts of the three of them away. I mentally catalogue my to-do list and deadlines as I take a short cut across campus. I’m determined to have some me time to gain some clarity and sanity, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use the journey to make a plan of action with my schoolwork.
I’m so distracted, I slam into someone and stagger back several paces. Resisting the urge to rub my chest where it feels like I ran into a wall, I murmur, “Shit, sorry!”
I can feel my cheeks turning pink with embarrassment because I wasn’t watching where I was going.
“No worries, Doe,” an eerily familiar voice says, sending shivers down my spine. I step to the side but they do the same and an awkward side-stepping dance ensues.
Frustrated, I look up into the bright blue eyes of…one of The Gods. Honestly, I haven’t really paid them much attention before now. I think this was the one who stopped my treadmill that time, maybe, but I don’t recall.
I give whatever-his-name-is a tight smile. “Excuse me.”
“What’s the rush?” he asks, blocking my way again and flicking back his blond locks. It’s a well practised move, one which is probably supposed to be charming, or disarming at the least. But it doesn’t work on me.
I huff. What is he playing at? Just move out of the way already.
“Yeah, what’s the rush, deer?” Another of The Gods joins the first, this one with hair so dark it looks like an oil slick. He sniggers at his own pathetic joke. I take a step back and bump into a hard chest. Without spinning to look, I know there’s a third God behind me. How many of them are there? I try to remember but it doesn’t really matter. I’m outnumbered and in this narrow alleyway, unlikely to be rescued by some random passer-by.
“Do you need something, boys?” I snap.
“Need?” The black haired boy with fathomless dark eyes taunts with a cruel lopsided tilt of his double pierced lips.
“Or want?” The guy behind me teases, grabbing my hips and grinding into me. My stomach lurches as old wounds resurface and threaten to reopen, spilling my pain onto the concrete slabs.
“Whichever. I have an appointment I can’t be late for, so if we can speed this along…”
Despite my exasperated tone, fear trickles up my spine and makes my skin clammy. There’s just something so…dangerous and deadly about The Gods. From what little interaction I’ve had with them, I can’t help but heed the warning in my gut that I should stay away from them.
Maybe Axel was right. Maybe there is danger at Trinity that I’m not aware of. Nothing so sinister that I feel the urge to take him up on the offer of becoming roomies, but enough that maybe I need to keep my guard up a little more. And avoid dark alleyways, even in the daytime.
“Absolutely. Let’s cut to the chase. You see, we entered the Hunting Grounds for the business advantages that a win would afford us,” the blond haired one I bumped into, who appears to be in charge, says. What was his name again? I remember Axel grinding his name out in a false display of civility, but what was it? Something Roman or Greek maybe? “We had no interest in The Doe. Personally speaking, we still don’t. But we did do our research, once it became painfully obvious that The Trinity knew you.”
I swallow nervously. It was clear at the fight night that there’s no love lost between The Gods and The Holy Trinity but I have a sinking feeling that I’m about to be dragged into the middle of something a lot more serious than a pissing contest or friendly competition.
“We know all about you, Odile Kemp. We know where you came from…”
“Where you disappeared to last year…”
“Why you vanished…”
“And what you mean to Axel and his cronies.”
“What do you want?” I ask, resigned to the fact that this conversation – no, this deliberate ambush – must be to serve an ulterior motive. I just want to find out what it is and get as far away from The Gods as I possibly can. Sweat is beading at my temples, running down my back, and making my palms slick. When one of them – oh crap, another one has appeared on my right – reaches out and stokes down the side of my face, my airways tighten and my breathing starts to come in short, panicked little bursts.
“We want to win The Hunting Grounds, but more than that, we want to destroy The Holy Trinity, once and for all. And to do that, we’re going to need you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You won’t, not yet. But you will.”
A phone ringing distracts everyone, but the guy standing behind me has grabbed the tops of my arms to keep me from running away. It takes a second for me to realise it’s my phone that’s ringing, but I know I won’t be able to get to it in the bottom of my gym bag. My smartwatch on my wrist vibrates while the others shout at one another to shut the phone up, and although I can’t read the display, I have just enough movement to be able to hit what I hope is the answer button on the screen.
Not waiting to hear who’s on the other end of the line, I take a deep breath and scream at the top of my lungs.
“HELP ME!!!”
A firm hand clamps over my mouth before I can say anything else, but I struggle and fight to be heard, to be free. It’s no use. A firm hand grabs my wrist and twists it painfully to end the call. I just hope it was enough, that whoever was calling me doesn’t think I was pranking them. It could only be Hector, The Holy Trinity or one of the girls calling me. If it was one of the girls, I hope they know to go to the guys for help.
