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My stomach sank, and I whipped my head around. Abel wasn’t there. Had he been left with the monsters? I didn’t remember seeing him in my rush to escape. As though they sensed me thinking about them, the sound of stampeding feet raced towards us. I turned in time to see both monstrosities rushing us. Wild and hungry eyes locked on us all.
I shoved Kira behind me and stepped forward, screaming at them to come on. If I was going to die, then by the gods, I would do it fighting.
When they were only twenty feet away, the sky erupted in the fluttering and flapping of wings. Despite what was coming, I looked up. Hundreds of bats swooped from overhead, coalescing before me in the naked form of a woman.
The Shadowkeeper.
The small shadows of the forest surged forward to cloak her and cover her body in a robe of darkness. The beasts, seeing new prey appear from seemingly out of nowhere, altered their course and rushed her.
The Shadowkeeper looked at the two monsters with unfiltered disgust. She clapped her hands, and more shadows emerged from the jungle, forming two heavy blocks of darkness. They slammed into the creatures, one on either side, crushing the beasts in a spray of blood, bone, and gore.
The remains of the beasts splattered to the ground, and I gaped as the Shadowkeeper brushed her hands together, sending the huge blocks of shadow melting back into the jungle.
“Hello again, Wyatt,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me.
I swallowed hard. “Uh… hey. Good to see you again.”
Chapter23
Kira
The woman before us had a strange and powerful presence, almost like gravity pulling at us. There was also a faint and somehow familiar scent in the air. It tickled at the back of my memory. She smelled like… something I’d scented before. Not exactly the same, but similar, though I couldn’t place it.
The Shadowkeeper. Everyone had heard legends about her. She had a cult following even outside the show. I didn’t know what I’d expected her to look like, but it wasn’t this. She strolled forward, confident as the shadows rippled around her body like a living dress. As she looked at us each in turn, I couldn’t help but feel like she was weighing and measuring each member of our party.
“Thank you,” Chelsey blurted. “For saving us, I mean.”
The Shadowkeeper smiled at Chelsey, though it looked more like she was smiling to herself. She glanced over her shoulder at the bloody remains of the twisted creatures. “Perhaps it is time I get involved in my sister’s spectacle, after all,” she said, though she sounded like she was only talking to herself. “Meddling may indeed be necessary.”
“What does that mean?” Wyatt asked.
She raised her arms and the shadows vanished from her body. She was perfect, like a form carved from pale marble. An instant later, she exploded into a cloud of bats that surged straight toward us. Was she about to kill us? My heart hammered in my chest, fear overtaking all other thoughts. The tiny creatures swarmed us, surrounded us. A flash of light blinded me, and I knew I was dead.
Then, I opened my eyes to find we were nowhere near where we’d been. The jungle was gone, and we stood in an area nestled right against the mountains. A heavy wall of trees ran around the perimeter of a small clearing. This had to be close to Haven. Why else would the Shadowkeeper teleport us here?
“Ugh.” J.D. was wiping at his arms and shivering in disgust. “Man, I freakinghatebats.” He actually gagged, then wrapped himself in a hug. “Gross. Yuck. Blech. I have a thing about bats,” he added when he saw our expressions.
“I thought we were dead,” Gavin said.
“Same,” J.D. said. “I justknewthat was it. All done. Now I still have a chance to look for Leif.”
“Leif?” Chelsey turned to look at him, forehead creased with lines. “What are you talking about? Leif’s dead.”
Gavin turned to look at me. “Looks like there’s a lot we aren’t aware of. Kira? Want to fill us in on what exactly the fuck is going on?”
I couldn’t answer him. Now that we were momentarily safe, I couldn’t stop thinking about Abel. He was back in the forest. At best, he was on his own and injured. At worst, he was already dead. The weight of that thought almost brought me to my knees. After watching Tate die, I didn’t think I could handle losing Abel, too. Unlike Tate, Abel had been kind and good. His death would hurt even worse.
Wyatt pulled me close. I sagged into his embrace.
“This is not your fault,” he whispered.
“Well, it kind of is,” Gavin muttered. “Both of yours. If you’d told us what was going on sooner, we might have been better prepared.”
“Gods, Gavin, shut up,” Chelsey snapped.
There was no reason to let Gavin’s words get to me. They weren’t a dig at me or Wyatt, but the truth. But there was no way we could have told them sooner. If I’d revealed my plan to fake the eliminations too early to too many people, it never would have worked. Someone would have let something slip. So, yes, it was partially my fault, but that didn’t change the fact that we’d made the right decision.
“Come on,” I said, glancing around. “We need to find Zoe if she’s here.”
