Already on my knees, I clutch my leg and rock back and forth as I try to breathe through agony. “Fuck,” I mutter. “They weren’t kidding around when they named those things.”
The bug is dead in seconds, but I am dying more slowly over here. I expect to see blood leaking out of me, but I don’t. Because it wasn’t a real bullet, just a stinger the size of my thumb.
The panther prowls over and noses at me, as if to say she’s sorry she didn’t get to it sooner, but a second, still-oozing corpse to my left tells me why—a hornet, its stinger like a knife protruding from its yellow-and-black abdomen. I hadn’t even heard it coming.
“Thank you,” I force out through gritted teeth.
The pain isn’t subsiding. It’s still pounding with every heartbeat, throbbing. I can’t just sit here, though.
“Lyra?”
I jerk my head up to stare through a blur of tears at Dae standing at the other end of the tunnel. Nothing separating us.
Oh gods. This is it.
He’s going to kill me while I lie here in so much pain that I can’t run or fight. I grab my axe, which I dropped on the ground earlier, and hold it above my head, ready to throw. I’ll aim at his shoulder, try not to kill him.
Dae’s wary gaze is on my panther, though, who has curled back her lips to bare her predator’s teeth at him.
“If you tell your animals to let me by,” he says slowly, “I’ll give you the petal I took from Amir during Artemis’ Labor.”
Petal? Is that what Amir was eating in that junkyard? What does it do? Heal? Wait…if he had that, why didn’t Amir offer it to Meike during Dionysus’ Labor? Or maybe he did while I was gone helping the others.
Not a question I need to be answering right now. I stare at Dae. Does he mean it?
His gaze flicks to me, then back to the panther. “For Boone,” he says. “Because I wish I could help him.”
I stare at him another long second, but it’s a deal worth taking. “Don’t hurt him,” I tell my animals. “Let him by.”
Dae is still cautious as he scoots past us, but he drops a white petal in my lap as he passes. “Eat the whole thing,” he says.
I nod, stuffing it into my mouth. “Take a right at the T,” I tell him. “We already checked it out. I’ll count to sixty before following.”
I meet his stark, assessing gaze, and he nods. An acknowledgment, I think, that this is how these games should be played. At least by the champions.
The petal’s effects are immediate, but not healing like I’d thought. More like a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart with an added kick of invincibility. Not sure I needed that part. Overconfidence tends to get people killed, in my experience. After waiting the time I promised, I take off down the maze yet again, leg as good as new—or at least I’m not feeling the pain anymore.
Thank you, Dae.
I don’t know how long we’ve been down here by this point or how many times I’ve gone up and down levels, the number of twists and turns, but I trust my animals. With more and more frequency, I run by bug carcasses instead of live insects.
It’s not until I burst into the topmost level and the roar of the crowd rattles the glass like thunder that I know I’m close. I’m so close I can damn well taste it.
Just one win closer. Please the Fates.
I take precious time first to look at Athena’s clock—fifteen minutes left. It took me forty-five to get this far? I look around, trying to get my bearings. It’s easier to see the various tunnels up here, but the glass still makes it difficult to figure out which way to go.
“Move your ass, Lyra,” I say to myself.
And we run again. Two more Ts, and I’m waiting at the second one, which I think must be in the dead middle of this level, when I hear the slap of feet coming at me, pounding the glass floor of my maze cage. I spin, axe ready, only to find nothing there. But the pounding of those steps is still coming.
Horror crawls all over me like the bugs in this Labor.
This could only possibly be two people. Diego, with the Ring of Gyges he won in the first Labor, but I’m pretty sure he’d identify himself and, like Dae, simply ask to pass. Which leaves only one person.
Dex.
Fuck.
94
Murderers & Monsters
Instead of searching for Dex when I know I won’t see him, I stare downward at the glass floor that shows me the bowels of the maze underfoot, and I focus on the sound of his steps. Closer. Closer. He’s breathing hard.
Now.
I duck and roll, and the cadence of his steps trips up as he has to jump. I come up, axe held in front of me, because now I know roughly where he is. The panther and fox are snarling and yipping, as they can sense him—smell him, hear him—but not see him.
“Don’t make me do something we both regret,” I warn him.
“You’re going to lose.” He still sounds funny. Then he giggles—like a child—and takes off the way he was already going, the slap of his feet growing quieter.
I swallow hard, allowing the fear I was holding back to wash through me, then recede. Gods, that was close. I doubt I could’ve killed him before he killed me, but the bluff worked, so who gives a shit. I straighten, glaring in the direction he ran.
My animals paw at me to keep going, and we’re off again. Hopefully, Dex isn’t lying in wait up ahead. Three more turns, and the air becomes even sweeter.
