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Walker shouted something I couldn’t hear. But then I saw his excited expression and him waving a pointed forefinger in the air. Maybe a number one? Did that mean he’d gotten one of the locks undone?
I moved so my face was pressed to the glass again and oh God, thank God. He’d gotten one lock undone. One down. Two to go.
And the water to my waist now.
Okay. Okay, we’d be fine. It had only taken him… Half a tank to get one lock undone. And there were three. That math… wasn’t a problem at all…
I tried and failed to bite back the tears that slid out of my eyes.
In the worst of the stories about this place, girls came out here… and never came back again. But every town had ghost stories. I thought it was just gossip like folks were always gossiping. It was a secret society, so folks got to making things up to fill in for what they didn’t know. But what if some of those stories were true?
I’d been so stupid to come out here like a spoiled little girl looking for thrills.
The water was lapping the underside of my breasts now. And I absolutely lost my shit. I banged on the glass again with everything I had in me. Till my fists were sore. Till I lost traction on the floor and plunged under again.
When I came up sputtering, my feet were touching, but only my head was out of the water.
“Walker!” I screamed. “Walker, hurry! Hurry!”
I think he yelled back that he was trying. But the water was rising too quickly. He hadn’t even gotten the second lock undone yet. Oh God…
I was going to die.
This was how they kept their secrets.
They killed anyone who broke the rules. Oh my God, I didn’t want to die. How could they all just— I looked out at the room and still no one seemed like they were about to lift a finger to help me. They were watching. Some with avid excitement as I struggled and the water rose. I was the entertainment. That was all. What in all the twisted hells was this place?
I had to start treading water when it got to my nose. All I could do was cry now. Kicking against the glass wouldn’t do anything other than break my toes. I was soon lifted off my feet, my body rising with the water level. I was wet everywhere, hair drenched, tears clogging my eyes.
“Please. Please.” I didn’t know who I was begging. Maybe God, because certainly no one in this room was going to have mercy on me.
My head bobbed against the top glass when Walker shouted something and held up a second finger. I could only cry harder and gasp for my last few breaths before the water was full to the brim. Cutting off my last chance at air. At life.
One inch left. My neck bent awkwardly, face smooshed against the holes of the roof, I sucked in one last big breath of air. And then water was rushing into my mouth. The container was all the way filled up.
My fingers stuck through the air holes at the top and I pushed, but it didn’t give. It was stuck just as tight.
The air in my lungs already seemed too short. Had I just breathed? Panic beat like bird’s wings at my ears. Oh God. Oh God, oh God!
I sank down in the tank, my hand pressed to the glass, watching Walker work frantically. And realizing with one last moment of prescient calm that it wouldn’t be fast enough.
Had this Trial been designed to fail all along, or was it just bad luck?
I tried to hang on a little longer. I really did.
But in the end, instinct took over. And I breathed in.
Except, of course, it was water instead of air.
And that was how I died.
12
WALKER
The Grim Reaper watched over my shoulder. He taunted me. He laughed with a deep bellow as I worked the keys into the lock. And as Jasmine’s body struggled for her last breath, and she eventually succumbed to death… he celebrated his victory. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening. How was this happening? I jammed another key in the lock, panic choking my chest.
“Keep going,” I heard Montgomery call out behind me. “Don’t stop.”
My fingers bled as the metal from the keys and the rough edges of the locks cut me, but Montgomery was right. I wasn’t going to give up on her. I couldn’t allow Jasmine to just die in a tank of water—naked, helpless—all while sick bastards watched.
I held my breath as I shoved a key into the final lock, and nearly collapsed when I heard the click of it opening. Flinging open the door, water poured out in a rush into the trough, along with Jasmine’s limp body. I caught her and lifted her over the side, dragging her drenched body down to the floor.
