She lowered her voice. “Tina is on her period. Avoid her. She’ll destroy you. I’d go with Gary—he’s lactose intolerant, and he’s already had two whey protein smoothies this morning.”
Cecil trotted beside me. “Should I go and get the others, Chosen? We’ve been gone for too long already. The prince will be worried by now.”
“No.” I didn’t want any of them to see me get humiliated. There was no chance of me winning, but I had to try, even just to show the berserkers that I was on their side.
What Candice had told me had unsettled me. How could anyone think that I might be as bad as Connor? “Let’s just get this over quickly.”
“I’m way ahead of you.” A mini tornado engulfed me for a second, then I looked down. My baggy tan trousers and ugly custard polo had disappeared. Instead, my butt was wrapped in star-spangled booty shorts. My boobs were propped up and out in a reinforced blue-and-red sports bra. I sighed. Cecil had put me in a sexy updated version of a Wonder Woman outfit.
Candice eyed me critically. “You don’t look so bad now. And you do have some good muscle tone. You work out?”
“Yeah.” I knew the importance of lifting weights more and more as you got older—it was crucial to maintain bone density. I used to see a personal trainer three times a week. Now, I just threw around some kettlebells I thrifted from a charity store. “I try to keep fit.”
Candice chewed on her nails nervously. “Well, do your best, Susan. You might only have a touch of berserker blood, but see if you can poke it to the surface, okay?” Her worried face turned bright purple; each muscle in her cheek swelled as her anxiety spiked. “We need this. For the survival of our whole species.”
“No pressure or anything,” Cecil muttered.
“Here,” she said, pointing towards one of the exhibition rooms. “This is where they held the junior open yesterday. The equipment is all laid out. We need an impartial person to pick out a run, but we can keep it simple. Three challenges, max.”
“I have no idea what any of that means,” I said nervously. We filed inside, and the berserkers barred the door behind us.
“The challenge has to be unknown,” Candice explained. “This is like an obstacle course. Maybe you do a rope climb, an object carry, a hand walk—”
“I can’t even do a handstand,” I said faintly.
“Please, Susan.” Her neck thickened. “Just try.”
I stared into her bright purple, bulging face, and sighed. “Okay. I’ll try.”
She turned and beckoned to Cecil. “You’re the only non-berserker here, you’ll have to choose the challenges and the order they are done in.” She placed a dozen cards face-down on the mat in front of her. Cecil dutifully trotted over and slapped his paw on three of them. Candice flipped the cards. “Okay. Hand walk, sled push, object carry. Whoever finishes first, wins.”
I looked at the cards. Each one had a little picture on them—a pair of hands, a sled with rings stacked on top, and what looked like a big log. The other berserkers were already moving, pushing equipment into position on the padded floor that ran the length of the room. “So, I walk on my hands to the sled, then push the sled to the log, and carry the log to the end?”
She nodded. “That’s it.”
I grimaced. “Okay.”
“Who do you choose as your challenger?”
I shrugged. “Let’s go with Todd.”
“Woo!” He punched the air. “Let’s go!”
“This isn’t a good thing, Todd,” another male snorted. “You’re going to destroy her. And we want her to win.”
“Oh.” Todd frowned and looked at Candice. “Well, this is a stupid idea, anyway. But I guess at least I will be able to warm up for the games.” He bounced into position at the start line and whipped off his Hawaiian shirt.
“Just to clarify,” I said, moving next to him. “I’m allowed to use magic?”
“You better,” Candice said, chewing her nails. She lifted her hand. “On one! Ready? Three, two, one!”
A bang made me jump out of my skin—fucking Cecil held a starter pistol in his paw. I looked over at him, glaring—he waved his arm frantically. “Go, Chosen! Go!”
Todd jumped, flipping upside down in mid-air, came down onto his hands and bolted forward like he was born to walk upside-down.
I held out my hands and let the heat in my belly pour through me. “Stop.”
Todd froze.
I licked my lips and put my hands on the ground. Carefully, I stepped onto them and waddled forward like a duck, right, left, right, left. It wasn’t quick or graceful, but it worked. Within ten seconds, I’d passed Todd, still frozen upside-down.
The berserkers roared. “That’s cheating!”
“It’s not,” Candice said. “She’s allowed to use her magic, and the rules, as explained to her, were just ‘walk on your hands.’ And that’s exactly what she’s doing.”
Todd was going to unfreeze at any minute, though, and I was already drained. I reached the sled and looked at it—a simple metal thing with a pole in the middle. Huge circular weights were stacked on top. I gave it an experimental push. It didn’t even budge.
Thinking furiously, I bent down and pulled one of the weights off. It weighed a ton, but I managed to get it off, and I carefully slid it onto Todd’s sled next to me.
“She can’t do that!”
“Of course she can. We didn’t tell her she couldn’t.” Candice’s voice held a touch of hope. “Come on, Susan!”
The weights now gone, I got behind the sled, put my arms on the handles, and pushed. It was still heavy. My legs shook, and my quads burned. Inch by inch, I slid the huge hunk of metal down the floor.
Behind me, I heard Todd let out a furious roar. Damn, he was already unfrozen. The patpatpat of his hands on the rubber mat told me he was coming up on me fast. I put my head down and strained my legs, pushing the sled over to the massive log waiting for me.
Todd let out another outraged shout. I glanced behind me and watched him as he began to push his sled, piled high with all my weights. I’d accidentally given him something to be angry about, and he was channeling so much fury he was twice the size he was before we started. Every single muscle on his body stood out, his veins bulging.
