He wants me to run and see how far I can go.
Damn that sadistic twat.
If I keep going like this, I’ll be no different from a mouse that’s being played with by a suburban cat.
I search my surroundings and, in a snap decision, I hide on the side of the dirt road behind a large rock.
My harsh breathing resembles that of a trapped animal, but I force myself to remain still.
The thud, thud, thud against my rib cage increases in volume, in desperation and regret for what I’ve done.
Did I lose him?
My eyes stay glued to the path I escaped down to make sure Orange Mask has left.
I wait and wait, sweating in my T-shirt and jeans, but there’s no trace of him.
It doesn’t make sense.
Since he was hot on my trail, he should’ve caught up to me by now.
Unless…
My swallow gets stuck in my throat as I slowly look behind me. Sure enough, he’s standing there, casually leaning against a tree, arms and legs crossed and the club hanging from his left hand like a threat.
“Is there a reason why you’re always hiding?”
The ripple of his deep voice carries in the air and vibrates against my skin. It’s less robotic now, as if he’s deemed me worthy enough to be acquainted with the less apathetic version of him.
That’s by no means good news, considering his real image could be the personification of a devil.
His voice makes me pause, though.
I’m sure I’ve heard that commanding American accent before. So he has to be either Gareth or Killian Carson, the siblings the girls and I often see at the fight club.
Or Jeremy Volkov.
Please don’t let it be Jeremy.
A sane person would wish for anyone aside from the psycho Killian Carson or the crazy Nikolai Sokolov, but in my eyes, Jeremy has always been the worst of the Heathens.
Just because he doesn’t announce his actions as publicly as the others do doesn’t make him harmless, just much better at hiding his monstrosity.
After all, he didn’t become the leader of the Heathens by acting nice.
“Being accepted into the club can only be achieved through running, not hiding,” he continues in that less-robotic yet freezing-cold tone.
I open my mouth, then slam it back shut.
Blimey.
I almost spoke and completely gave my nationality and my unorthodox appearance at this initiation away.
Orange Mask pushes off the tree and I take a step back, then slightly jump when my shoes hit the rock.
“You’re still not running.” His voice lowers with a dark edge, overcrowding with promises of a worse fate than the other participants he sent flying.
I inhale as deeply as physically possible and then run.
I’m not even two steps in when my legs give out from underneath me. I shriek as I fall headfirst into the dirt and the air is knocked straight out of my lungs.
“Number twenty-three eliminated,” the speaker echoes around me.
The finality bubbles beneath my flesh and hurts.
But not more than the burning in my knee or the bruise that I already feel forming on my hipbone.
I’m lying on my stomach on the ground, my mouth kissing the dirt and my nails sinking into it.
Slowly, I raise my head to find Orange Mask inspecting his blood-red golf club.
Please don’t tell me that’s my blood.
No, it can’t be, he didn’t hit me with it. In fact, I suspect he tripped me with it, which is why I’m currently in this position.
A dejected breath spills out of my lungs and I sit up, dusting the dirt off my shirt and jeans. There’s a bleeding hole in the knee and I wince at the sight.
I’m all dirty and for what?
Well, at least I now know a bit about the structure of the Heathens’ mansion and I didn’t lose consciousness like the other participants who went against this bastard.
“Let’s see the face behind the mask.” He reaches his gloved hand in my direction, black and dark and straight out of my worst nightmares. “How did someone as incompetent as you get invited to the initiation—”
I slap his hand away, cutting him off mid-sentence. The sound echoes in the air, stabbing the silence and accentuated by the pause in his entire demeanor.
My other hand clenches in the dirt and it takes everything in me not to blurt out something just so I can fill up the stillness in the air.
He already eliminated me, why would he need to see my face? There was no rule about that.
Also, why does he get to see me when I don’t get to see him? That’s not fair.
The world isn’t fair, Cecily. That’s just the way it is.