He reaches out then, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me into a hug that is as painful as it is comforting. I bury my face in the spot where his shoulder meets his neck, and I breathe him in. Whatever happens with this Trial, however it may go, I want to remember this smell—and this moment—for an eternity.
Too soon, horns sound from inside—the seven-minute warning I remember from the tournament. “I have to go,” I tell Jaxon. My Jaxon.
“I know.” He lets me go slowly, painfully. “Be careful, Grace. Please, please be careful.”
“I’ll try,” I tell him with a grin, because all this sadness is tearing me apart again. “But sometimes careful doesn’t get the job done.” I deliberately mimic the words he and Flint said during a study session not that long ago.
I push to my feet, swaying a little as I do. Jaxon tries to steady me, but I just give him a smile as I step out of reach. There’s no part of this he can do for me. Now I have to do it on my own.
“I’ll see you soon,” I tell him.
“You better,” he answers, fear plain on his face.
There’s more to say—there’s always more to say with Jaxon—but I really am out of time. So I just give him one last smile, and then I turn away.
110
Heeeeeeeeere’s
Hudson
I’m not that far from the arena door, but once I’m inside, there’s a long walkway I have to go down to get to the field. Hudson hassles me about hurrying the entire time, even though I’m doing my best. It’s not exactly easy when everything hurts when I run.
Or worse, everything hurts when I breathe.
Maybe that’s why I don’t remember until I’m halfway down the ramp. “Hold on a minute,” I tell Hudson as I careen to a stop.
“There’s no time to wait, Grace!” He shoots me an impatient look. “You’ve got to get on the field.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think I can afford to get on the field without doing this, so they’re all just going to have to wait a little bit longer, whether they want to or not.”
I unzip the front pocket of my backpack and take out the small pouch I have hidden in the secret compartment at the back of it. I know it was a risk to bring these things with me to the cave of the Unkillable Beast, but I was afraid I might get injured while I was there—or worse. And if that happened, I wanted the others to have a way to get Hudson out of my head.
I didn’t want him to have to die with me.
Turns out, I wasn’t the one who died in that cave. And I will remember Xavier and regret his loss for the rest of my life—however long or short that might be. But I’m not about to go into another dangerous situation, one that can turn deadly at any moment, and not take care of everything—everyone—I can. Which means there is no other time. I have to do this now.
I open the pouch and slowly, carefully take out each of the four items inside it, one by one.
Hudson’s eyes go huge as he realizes what I’m doing. “You can’t do this right now,” he tells me, backing away from me in such a hurry that he nearly trips over his own feet—and probably would have if he was actually in his own body. “There are other, more important things for you to—”
“I might die.” Three little words, but they shut him right up, his mouth slamming closed fast and tight, even as his eyes implore me to stop talking. To not say what we both know I’m going to say.
But I can’t give him that, not now when there’s so very much on the line.
“Jokes about shoving the ball down Cole’s snout notwithstanding,” I continue, “we both know things could go really wrong in there today. Which means there might not be another time to do this. Ever. I know what I’m supposed to do—the Bloodletter told me—but can you help me? Make sure I don’t mess it up?”
“This isn’t what you need to be worrying about right now, Grace. You need to focus. Plus, if I’m still in your head, maybe I can help you. Maybe I can—”
“Die with me,” I finish the sentence with a firm shake of my head. “I know you like to do things your way, but you don’t get a vote on this. One way or the other, I’m getting you out of my head, so you can either help me or you can risk ending up haunting the hallways as Katmere Academy’s very first ghost.”
I throw my hands up in the air in a “what you going to do?” kind of shrug. “It’s your choice.”
“One, I wouldn’t be the first ghost at Katmere Academy. And second, the ghost thing doesn’t really work like that anyway.”