Lexa
The forest comes alive. My wolf’s body glides unsteadily over roots and rocks, the moss cool under my soft, recently unused paws. My heartbeat drives adrenaline through my veins as I barrel, often losing my balance and sliding over the unfamiliar terrain. The smells are all wrong. The creeks that run through the forest like veins drift in different directions every time I pass, making it impossible to gauge where I am and what direction I’m traveling, but I keep running. I don’t know what else to do against this beast of mist still pursuing me deeper into the woods other than lie down and stay as quiet as possible, like on the beach, but I made that mistake before.
I didn’t fight. I watched everyone get killed instead. It’s a regret I’ll carry for the rest of my life.
The beast shrieks as it gains ground, coming up behind me with its talons clinking together like dried, hollow bones. I try to ignore it, to focus on my breathing, the way my body feels as the wolf I was forced to let slumber for so long.
A freezing cold presence breathes down my back, and I know without looking over my shoulder that the beast is now above me, closing in. A bone-numbing cold talon reaches down, piercing a long gash down my back, but I dart away, yipping in pain, before it can cut through the halter. My blood scents the air, disorienting my other senses.
I feel the beast approach again, picking up speed as I coast through the forest with no sense of direction. My eyesight blurs as blood pours down my sides.
I can’t fight it. Weapons don’t work against them. This is all I can do.
In the hazy silver shadows, a wall of stone appears. Large boulders rest at the bottom of what I believe is a cliff, where the forest continues to stretch above me, blocking out most of the moonlight. But there’s a shadow between the large stones–a break in their formation. It’s either a cave, or I’m about to enter a trap.
I have no other options.
I break into a full sprint. The beast wails, its high-pitched scream echoing, bouncing from tree to tree. I race into the shadow, praying I don’t hit the face of the cliff buried beneath at full speed, but that would be a quick death, all things considered.
My body splits the pure darkness and keeps… going.
I can hear my shallow breaths as I run through the darkness, the cave squeezing my body as it narrows. The beast’s cries fade behind me with every step, but the narrowness of the cave quickly slows my progress. I’m forced onto my belly in the total darkness, the air growing impossibly thin, and then I shift back to human form, my wolf unable to handle the sudden lack of room and oxygen. The act of shifting widens the wound on my pain to the point my vision goes white with astonishing pain for several seconds before the world shifts back into focus.
I crawl on my belly. Sulfur hangs heavy, making my mouth numb and head hazy, but I keep moving, crawling, dragging myself as the space grows narrower and shallower until I’m nearly pressed flat.
I’m going to pass out. I don’t think I can make it. I can’t back up. I’m going to die here–
A blast of white light rushes toward me from the front, illuminating the snug space. I freeze.
Darkness swallows me whole again before a second blast illuminates every sharp curve and divot in the narrow cave. My body jerks, moving toward it. The blasts keep coming until the cave suddenly gives way to a more open section and the pressure on my body lightens, the air heavier and richer with much needed oxygen.
But my body just… fails. I can’t get off the ground. I push up on my arms, trembling so violently my teeth clack together, threatening to chip. I think about shifting back to my wolf form, but I’ve scraped myself raw crawling through the tunnel that I’ll shred if I do. I already know it.
How stupid could I have been?
I lower onto my elbows, slowly arching onto my knees, and rise. My head swims. I fall to my knees with a crunch, gulping air. Another blast of white light forces my eyes shut. It funnels toward me, expanding to highlight the cave where I’m resting, and I squint against it, following the light as it retreats back to its source.
There’s an opening.
I can get out.
I crawl, feeling my spear still resting along my spine, strapped to my now fraying halter. It must have shredded when I crawled through the cave. I still can’t shift. Not only will I spread my injuries, but I’ll be forced to carry the spear in my teeth, and I can’t… I need my teeth free to fight if it comes to it.
The light ebbs again, starting small, like a star is buzzing just beyond the narrow mouth of the cave as I approach the outside world.
But the light goes out before flaring, like someone closed their hands around the star.
It’s a person. A woman. Thick, nearly white blonde hair falls down her naked body as she stands only a few yards away from the mouth of the cave. I carefully exit, gripping the mouth of the cave for support, and stare at her.
She stares back, gray eyes wide. She’s young. My age or younger, possibly an older teenager. She’s not part of the games, though. I’ve never seen her before. She’s–she’s…
My lips part to take a much needed breath of fresh air, and she shifts in a flash of light so bright I shield my eyes and grimace. I peek through my fingers then widen them as a white wolf appears and races away from me into the woods, which seem to go on and on with no end in sight.
Another shifter?
She shouldn’t be here on the game grounds, right?
Surely I’m not meant to… hunt her?
My throat tightens as a flash of deep red barrels out of the darkness on the white wolf’s tail.
Meg in her wolf form.
Meg leaps but misses the other wolf by a hairsbreadth, and I move, my sulfur filled mind driven by impulse, by pure, undying rage. My spear rips across my back before I send it flying in Meg’s direction, barely giving myself a second to line up the shot, but it doesn’t matter.
This wasn’t meant to be a killing blow.
The spear artfully slides across her back and hooks horizontally beneath her halter as she jets between two trees. It snags between the trees, and Meg barks with confusion, trapped, unable to free herself as the white wolf disappears into the darkness, light flooding behind her in wisps of pure, white mist.
I’ll remember the girl’s face because at first, I was sure it was… Great-Grandma Isla or Misty. But her eyes were wrong. She’s from the same power group, however. That’s clear.
There’re more people like them in the world.
I can’t think about it now, but Blake will want to know about this when I return, because I will return.
I stalk forward. Meg turns her wide, wolfish head, her eyes bugging when she sees me stalking up behind her. She shifts into her human form as I reach for the spear, grabbing the rough end before she sinks out of her wolf and rises on human legs in front of me , pulling the loops of her dress closed.
I have two seconds to react. A single, shattering breath. My fingers dance up the spear, and she strikes, two blades poised and lethally sharpened. I block her blades with the spear, pushing her deeper into the woods. Metal meets wood over and over. Her blades take chunks out of the spear’s handle, but I move my hands like Kaleb taught me during that week when this was all we did–defense. I use the spear like a shield, and I have the upper hand. She’s not facing the woods. I’m pushing her back, watching the woods fan out around us, the trees growing spindly and narrow as we reach what I know marks the end of the forest. Silver plains glisten in the moonlight beyond, a sea of rolling hills.
She hasn’t noticed. She can’t, because she’ll shift again and run, and I’ll lose her.
Her face is twisted in righteous fury as I continue to block her advances, my shoulders and spine screaming with each impact. One, two. One, two. I block each blade, halting my progress out of the woods, which she takes as her move to advance on me, and I let her.
Her right arm quivers with fatigue, and she takes a second longer to jut her blades at me, aiming for my sides, so I take my chance.
I leap back several feet, swinging the spear, knocking against the side of the face with the blunt end. Her eyes flash with confusion, and she stumbles, her exhausted arms twitching, and it’s the second I need to bring her to the ground.
I hit her again on the other side of the face, knocking her sideways onto the ground. She gasps in pain as she falls, one of the blades flying in my direction in a last ditch effort to strike, but she misses, and the blade’s hilt bounces off my hip bone and falls into the thick bunches of heather, forever lost.
I kick out, taking her fully to the ground, and whip the spear, pointing the tip against the hollow of her throat. She raises her second blade, but I pin her wrist to the ground with my foot until I feel bones crunch. She grits her teeth but doesn’t cry out.
“I trained you better than this,” I sneer.
She smiles. It’s bloody.
“Looks like it’s just us two now,” she croaks, her teeth coated with red. I notice her hands then–bloody, torn open, like she was in a recent fight. I see the faint glimmer of almost microscope scales on her hands and arms, like glitter. The remnants of wings. My expression must give my thoughts away because she smiles again. “I took care of the last one for us.”
“There is no us. Not after what you did to Chessie.”
“Chessie was never going to make it. It was an act of mercy–” She gasps as I press the tip of the spear into her throat. Beads of blood trickle. Not enough to kill her. I’m not ready to let her go just yet. “You always favored her for no reason. The other girls noticed. Some thought you were lovers, did you know that? I knew better. I knew you just saw her as the weak link she was and felt doomed to protect her.”
“I loved her like a sister. Like my own blood. When you killed her, you killed a part of me. You killed a part of our pack, and that’s not a victimless crime.”
“I did what I had to do to survive. Isn’t that what you taught me?”
“Killing one of your own was never part of that.”
“Do you want to know what I was offered?” she says through gritted teeth. Her smile is sickly but not forced, like she’s actually enjoying this. “Immortality, Lexa. They can do that. The king offered me a life that never ends if I win and be his champion.”
“You would have been a trophy he passed around,” I correct. “Entertainment, Meg. That’s all we are.”
“But imagine,” she rasps, “how powerful I could have become. I want that. You’ve always had everything. The popularity. The power. Austin.”
Something flares deep inside my mind. I see red for a moment before my vision clears. “Austin?”
“I spent the entire winter pursuing him, but he only wanted you. You took him from me, and you didn’t even want him. He was just something fun, wasn’t he? Now look at you, parading around with your Alpha King. You fucking whore. Austin might never have laid down his life for yours if he knew–” I press the tip deeper, and she quiets for a moment, pushing past the pain. “You took what I wanted, so I took something you loved and killed it. I don’t regret killing Chessie. She was stupid and useless. She was going to die anyway.”
“Are those your last words, or would you like to say a prayer for your soul?”
I notice the blood leaking beneath her then. No wonder she isn’t fighting as hard as I know she’s capable of. A puncture wound that wasn’t visible in her wolf form radiates blood from her side, her liver, a lethal blow. She’s dying.
“Those white wolves have healing powers,” she whispers, like she’s reading my mind. “I was going to trap her and force her to heal me.” I pull the spear from her neck, watching the blood trickle over her throat. She exhales deep, a rattling breath, and I realize as I look down at her, that she’s beyond standing up.
I should leave her here. I should let her death be slow and painful. Leave her to the mercy of the beasts of mist hunting in the woods as well tonight.
There’s a slice of humanity left in my heart, which is why I angle the spear over hers and say, “Our pack will believe you died a hero’s death. I’ll bring back a lock of your hair for your parents to do with what they will, but you will not be burned. There will not be a pyre in your honor. Your bones will settle here, far from home, your soul trapped. You do not deserve the realm of the Goddess for what you did to Chessie. You’re a coward, Meg. But you already know that.” I slam the spear into her heart, shattering her ribs. The light behind her eyes fades instantly, but her mouth is still stuck in that cat-like grin.
I feel her soul drifting around me with no place to land before it’s carried away by the wind. The air settles. A horn blasts somewhere in the distance, and then whatever wolf senses are left within me are yanked into unseen manacles, trapping them again.
I throw down my spear and close my eyes as a brutal wind rips through the forest, letting everything go black.