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SUMMER
“It looks like a flat wooden surface,” I said, studying the smooth, hundred foot or so stretch we had to cross. “Where’s the trick?”
“It hides,” Burmoot whispered from above.
The monitors shot closer, whirling around us to catch our expressions from all angles.
“I will step out onto it,” Adone said firmly. “Wait here.”
“There’s nothing to hold onto if it’s unsteady.”
He flashed me a smile. “Then I will have to move very fast.”
So would I.
“Across and we’re done, right?” I sucked in a breath and pushed it out. Every muscle in my body ached, but with the end in sight, I’d caught a burst of energy. It wouldn’t last long, but it should be enough to see me through this.
The flat surface had been suspended from steel cables. A bridge? If so, I couldn’t see beneath it. It covered the entire area between here and our destination.
He sat and eased himself down onto it. When it held his weight, he stepped out, away from the platform.
The surface came alive, a mouth with jagged teeth opening beneath his feet. Before his leg plunged into an opening, he leaped forward, rolling and coming up in a crouch. He didn’t stop there, because more mouths opened, each more horrifying than the last. He raced across the surface, his long strides taking him to the opposite platform. A jump, and he landed beside Tumbles.
This wasn’t going to be as easy for me. For one thing, I was almost half his size. And I wasn’t limber or in the right condition for something like this. I’d spent too much of my life hiding in a library reading books, not preparing myself for an agility competition.
He waved. “Fast, mate. Very fast.” As if he thought nothing of it, he hopped back onto the bridge and started toward me.
“No,” Burmoot shouted. “You must not return.”
“You said we could help each other,” I said, watching in terror as mouth after mouth opened beneath Adone’s feet. He kept leaping away to avoid the teeth and spiked tongues shoot up to impale him.
“He has already finished,” Burmoot said.
I grunted, preparing myself to rush across the stretch. “We’re a team.”
“Yet you need to complete your part.”
Lovely.
“Go back,” I called out to Adone.
He stopped for only a second, as another mouth opened, this one bigger than all the others. The beast beneath the bridge roared. Gnashing its teeth, it chomped, trying to swallow Adone with one bite.
A flip forward, and he’d evaded the creature.
“Go back,” I said again. “Burmoot says I have to do this by myself.”
Adone frowned but nodded. His lips thinning, he whirled around and raced back, jumping up onto the platform.
Tumbles rolled back and forth near Adone, yipping encouragement and warning. I couldn’t wait to hold him. To be with Adone. To finish this damn game.
This was my test. Like when I’d fled the commune, I had a course to run before I’d be safe. At least Adone’s welcoming arms awaited me on the other side.
I jumped onto the bridge and ran in a zigzag pattern, not pausing long enough to see what waited beneath my feet.
With my heart on fire, I kept running. I was going to do it. I’d escape and reach sanctuary.
I was nearly across when a series of mouths opened in a long stretch between me and the final platform. They snarled and snapped their teeth, their tongues shooting up and whirling around to snag me.
Three feet across, they’d created a barrier I’d be hard-pressed to span.
And only a slice of the sun remained above the horizon.
