I lingered. “Will there be any more challenges like that one?”
“No. You’ll find that the challenges are all quite distinct,” Brother Sage replied.
“I know that counselling services didn’t form part of the program,” I said, “but everyone’s feeling a bit raw. Maybe everyone needs a bit of . . . debriefing or something.”
“Thank you for letting us know, Evie,” said Brother Sage. “We’ll offer something in the morning. But for now—”
An echoing scream from inside the monastery broke through the conversation.
A man’s scream.
Stunned looks passed among the four mentors.
“Stay in the garden!” Brother Sage instructed me before whirling around and running towards the cloister.
Within seconds, I was completely alone in the dark garden.
With the walls looming high all around and the sound of the scream still in my ears, the garden seemed like a dangerous trap.
I’m not staying here.
I rushed to the cloister, too.
As I entered the interior, a second scream travelled through the hall.
Ruth and Harrington and Duncan and Hop all seemed to come running from different directions.
“Wait.” Hop panted a couple of sharp breaths. “Hear that? In the dining hall.”
A bottle—or something—rolled along the floor on the other side of the wall.
Without another word, the five of us ran along the hall to the refectory door.
A gasp fled my lips. On the stone floor inside the doorway, a dark trail led to the kitchen, illuminated by the lamps in the hallway—blood? A waxy darkness shrouded the kitchen and the rest of the refectory.
“Who’s there?” Ruth demanded.
A man burst from the kitchen, his eyes wild, his monk’s robes rippling as he crashed past us.
My mind spun. Whose scream had we heard? This monk or another man?
Instinctively, I knew the answer.
Ruth ran into the kitchen first.
Tentatively, I stepped after her.
A narrow sliver of light exposed a man slumped over a chair, two knives wedged deep into his back. Foamy blood trickled from his mouth onto the floor.
Saul.
The man was Saul.
We inched closer, like children who’d just discovered a terrible yet incomprehensible thing.
Harrington pressed his fingers against the side of Saul’s neck. “No pulse.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to survive that.” Hop gestured towards the knives, his voice stained with fear.
The sound of gunfire rang out, the first bullet pinging from the stonework but the second bringing forth only a dull sound.
I froze. Who—？
Then, Brother Sage yelled out, “Vito!”
The sound of feet running. Lots of feet.
My heart slammed against my ribs. What was happening out there? Who had the gun?
Everything turned quiet.
A woman’s cry ended the silence—Poppy’s. Suddenly there were lots of voices at once.
We headed out of the refectory and into the hall.
The mentors and challenge participants were gathered in a semi-circle around a fallen man—the monk that we’d seen. The monk was lying face down, blood oozing from a dark bullet hole in his temple, the back of his robes bearing a strange symbol—a ladder inside a hexagon.
Brother Sage had a gun in his fist.
“Saul’s dead.” Harrington indicated back towards the refectory. “Stabbed.”
“Saul? Oh, fuck . . .” Poppy held a hand to her mouth, shaking her head in horror. Her team would have been in the library when Saul screamed. The last team would have just been released from the dormitories, ready for the challenge. Poppy and I exchanged terror-stricken glances.
“No . . . Oh no . . .” Brother Sage inhaled sharply, his eyes shocked as he gazed at the figure on the floor. “I hoped this man hadn’t gone so far as to hurt anyone. He came at us with a knife. He had blood on his hands, and we knew he’d done something terrible. I had no choice but to shoot him.”
Brother Vito and Sister Dawn rushed away into the refectory.
Richard pushed his way to the front of the group to get a better look at the dead monk. “Does anyone want to explain why Saul was even still here?”
Sister Rose shot a look of confusion at Brother Sage before turning to Richard. “I can’t answer that. Saul was meant to have left the island hours ago.”
“We need to find out why he didn’t,” replied Brother Sage grimly.
“More to the point,” said Ruth. “Can you explain why one of your monks turned into a killer?”