It’s easier for me to frame it this way—confronting a future, not a marriage.
Pierce’s eyes widen and he looks out the window, his lower lip jutting just the slightest bit. “I’m not bothered.”
“You clearly are,” I snort. “So, is the issue her or your father?”
Pierce huffs dramatically. “I’ve never wanted to be part of that couple coming out of high school. The couple that goes to college together, that never grows outside of their partner.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“I told her that they’re holding a spot at Harvard and it’s not meant for her but for the winner. I broke up with her so the competition would be fair, and she responded quite reactively to that.” With each word, his voice sounds different, more distorted by a frustration that seems far too large for a petty argument between a former couple. All my pretend amusement drains from me. And then Pierce seems to realize how he sounds. He takes a deep breath, and suddenly, he looks kind again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t get into this with you.”
“Why?” I say quietly.
“I told you. I want it to be you,” he says with a small smile. “You’re not fake like the other girls. You like me. And you’re not… overwhelming like Pen is. I feel like she’s always smothering me. Keeping me small.”
His cockiness, assuming he knows what I like, is rich, but for the first time, I have the odd thought that maybe we aren’t so different. I know what it is to feel small. But then I look at this house. This place, and I can’t imagine feeling small in a place where you can stretch out and be enormous. Still, true or not, it’s a victory.
He broke up with her. Whatever Third may want, this is my game to lose. Not Pen’s. It was never Pen’s.
And then like he can hear my thoughts, he says: “You’ll beat the Raid.”
The statement forces me upright again, brings me back to the dual layers of my plan. To get to the endgame there are still two more tasks, and I need as much information as possible.
“We start lessons today. But I don’t know anything about it,” I say, stirring my a?ai bowl but not eating it. I gnaw at my own tongue, worriedly, but try not to show it.
Pierce leans forward, a smile playing on his lips, like he’s keeping a secret. “I’m not supposed to say. But… I want you to know. I’d like to be good to you, Adina,” Pierce explains. “And I was going to tell Saint, you know. Truly.”
I don’t believe him.
“You won’t get in trouble?” I pretend to demur, eyes wide. Imploring. This moment has to be calculated, more so than all the rest. It has to be his idea.
Pierce clears his throat. “It’s… it’s a hunt. The Raid is about making choices in the maze of life. Good choices lead to something real, fulfilling your desires. Bad ones lead to trouble, dead ends, the death of your dreams. You go through the hedge maze; make the right choices and you find the object of the Raid.”
He makes it sound uncomplicated, but I know there’s a trick. There’s going to be something that makes the game that much deadlier.
“What about the girls who don’t find it?” I ask dryly.
“Well, just like in life, someone always wants to take what you have away. So, then you have to get out without giving it up. You fight them off to keep possession of the object. With… whatever’s on hand,” Pierce says slowly.
“Could you be clear, Pierce?” I say, words dripping with sugared honey.
Pierce sighs, drawn like a fly. “Well… in some years past, hopefully not this year, mind you, some of the girls get… enthusiastic about being the ones to get the object or keep it away from others. It used to be that only the top three were armed as an advantage, but I’ve decided that perhaps arming you all keeps it fairer so you can defend yourselves.”
I stare at him. “Do you see why that doesn’t make sense?”
Pierce’s brow furrows. “I…”
“If you arm us, then we’ll be better equipped to hurt one another. And you said you didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” I say slowly.
Pierce is silent for a long moment, and I watch as he forces that charming smile onto his face. He’s going to say something meant to placate me, and I know no matter how much he believes in me, those words will be empty. Still, when he looks up at me again smiling, he seems paler.
“I don’t think you will,” he says, finally. He doesn’t say it, but I know he has more “help” planned; it’s in the veiled turn of his words, the way he leans forward, conspiratorial, like it’s nothing but a joke.
“But… it’s not just about me,” I say quietly. “It’s about Saint and Hawthorne and Pen and the others. If you don’t stop it, you’re endorsing it.”
“But I told Aunt Leighton and everyone I didn’t want violence. I can’t help it if they don’t listen. At least I’m leveling the playing field,” Pierce says steadily, refusing to look away. “That’s what we talked about. Right?”
I can’t bear to look at him so I look out at the maze instead. It’s vast, probably full of dead ends and traps, and around every turn of hedge, there might be a girl, waiting there to end it all for me. All of us searching for something that we don’t know or understand. Life indeed.
“I… I’m not hungry anymore,” I whisper, all the fight from this morning draining from me, my bones drooping in my skin.
Pierce’s golden eyebrows arch, his mouth parting. “You’ve only had a few bites of your a?ai bowl,” he insists.
“I don’t think a?ai agrees with me,” I mutter as I stand, shoving back from my seat. Pierce jumps to his feet, reaching for me, and I clear my throat, stepping back. Immediately I regret it and reach for him, brushing my fingers over his knuckles. “Thank you for trying to help me. I want to win as much as you want me to. I better start preparing.”
“Are you mad…？” Pierce trails off, shaking his head. “Of course. I’ll keep helping you.”
I turn on my heel and leave the room without another look back, my heart rattling in my chest.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later as I walk the halls, Pierce’s charming smile still flits across my mind, something slightly unsettling about it. I never found him unsettling before the Finish, not at Edgewater and not in the forest. It doesn’t take much work for me to convince myself that it’s this—the Finish—that sets me on edge, that makes me want to grind my own teeth to powder.
I’m so lost in thought trying to figure it out that I don’t realize I’ve wandered so far, I now also can’t place where I am in the estate.
“Miss, are you all right?”
I startle. “I’m sorry?”
It’s the security guard from the first night, with the red hair and doughy face. He’s dressed differently, though, no tactical gear in sight, just a cheap navy polyester jumpsuit that makes him look more like a janitor than an armed guard. It would almost work if it wasn’t for the wire coiled around the shell of his ear.
“Are you all right? You seem lost,” he says.