“A ring,” she says flatly. “They are so—”
She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence before they descend.
Hannah G comes up from the left lane while Jacqueline barrels down the center, both of them beelining toward us. Hannah G’s nose is a mess of cakey blood, drying dark and crooked in her otherwise perfect California face. I can already see the dark smudges of bruises beginning to develop under her eyes. Blood streams down Jacqueline’s chin and she turns to spit frothy pink. I can just see the hollow darkness of missing teeth.
And then Esme comes in from the right, still pristine.
I take a step back, my shoulder colliding with a bird-bone chest and I look back at Hawthorne blocking my exit from the way we came. Damn.
“Adina Walker, welcome to my party,” Esme crows.
I glower at Hawthorne. “You’re so full of shit.”
Esme’s lips curl into a Cheshire smile, and she lifts her hunting knife, but then she falters. “Hawthorne. Standing a little far from me, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m right where I need to be,” Hawthorne says, her voice tight. She lifts her crossbow and aims it at Jacqueline, just to Esme’s left. I rear back. “Esme, we don’t have to do this. The prize is right there. Let’s just grab it and get out.”
“It’s called the Raid for a reason, Hawthorne,” Esme says stubbornly.
“It was a meta—” I start, just to be a little shit.
“It wasn’t a fucking metaphor, Walker,” Esme interrupts, and she takes a step forward. “Between Walker and me, one of us is not getting out of here alive. And, Thorny, my love, I’m not dying.”
“What if it was me?” Hawthorne demands. “You’d kill me?”
“Never,” Esme swears. “But that’s because you get it. You understand that I need to win. That I deserve this more than anyone. You’re not standing in my way.”
I can see now the flaw in Esme’s plan. There’s a chink in the armor of her faction. My hand tightens around the black box, and I look at Hannah G and Jacqueline, both of them staring at Esme now with unblinking contempt.
“You deserve this?” I repeat, loud and mocking, dragging their attention to me as I hold up the ring I’ve pulled from the box. I smile at Esme, wide. “Your way? Then what about these two? Do they ‘get it’？ Only one can survive at the end. None of us is making it out alive except one, because he can only have one of us, Esme. If I remember correctly, polygamy is illegal in Massachusetts.”
My manipulation is too direct, but I can feel the crawl of time, the moment of escape slipping further and further away. The fractures in the alliance need to turn to a chasm, now.
“What about us?” Hannah G finally speaks up, sounding frantic, turning to look at Esme suspiciously. Esme raises a dark eyebrow. “I deserve to win just as much as you do. I want to be a Remington. I’d be practically a princess. Maybe you’re both getting in my way.”
Jacqueline opens her mouth, as if to agree, and then she closes it again, remembering that she has two missing front teeth. It doesn’t stop her from shooting a nasty look at Esme, which Esme rolls her eyes at.
“Calm down. Pierce is no prince. I promise,” Esme drawls.
“You sure seem to think he’s worth killing for, though. You gonna kill me next, Esme?” Hannah G challenges.
Saint takes a step back, grabbing me by my wrist, as chaos begins to brew and unfold, deflecting the attention off of us.
“Don’t listen to her. I told you. You can have anything you want after I win,” Esme warns. “Stay focused, Hannah G.”
“Don’t!” Hannah G shrieks, and then her voice softens dangerously. “Call. Me. Hannah G. I’m the only Hannah now.”
She shifts into a more combative stance now, holding her staff at Esme.
“Don’t you dare—” Esme warns.
“I’m the only Hannah. I made sure of it!” Hannah G screams, animalistic, and just when she’s about to lunge, there’s a click and whistle.
Hannah G stumbles back, blinking her surprise, and I gasp when I see the bolt buried in her chest, black and solid. I turn to look at Hawthorne, who slowly loads another bolt, shoving past me, turning her gaze onto Jacqueline. But Jacqueline doesn’t back down; she bares her open maw and then she lunges, lifting the heavy battle-ax over her head.
I jerk the gun out of my holster and shatter the silence with three gunshots that force everyone to clap their hands to their ears, eradicating all remnants of my exhaustion that haven’t been cleared away by adrenaline. My ears ring and my vision doubles for a moment, but everything stops as intended. They all look at me, and for a split second I doubt my instincts as they turn their fury to me, but I have to commit. “Esme. Catch.”
I lift the ring box and launch it at Esme. She fumbles for it as the alarm sounds incredibly loud.
I can hear Jacqueline lisp, “Wait, stop,” her eyes darting between me and Esme, who is now holding the black box, and Hawthorne turns her attention back to Jacqueline while Esme bares her teeth at me.
“Run,” Saint hisses in my ear.
We take off up through the middle, deeper into the maze again. Esme shouts behind us, and I don’t need to look back to know she’s chasing us. Even with the prize in hand, she would always chase me. There’s an excuse here. Here, her bloodlust is more than allowed. It’s encouraged. I pump my arms harder, running as fast as I can, taking another turn without even thinking which way it’s headed.
“Left!” Saint barks at the next, and I can hear Esme, screaming my name as Saint and I run down the next long corridor.
When we reach the next wall, I feel Saint twist, but I register the direction too late. She goes left and for some reason—maybe because I’m scared of being stabbed or maybe because I slept on the floor the night before—I run right.
CHAPTER 25
MY ONLY SAVING GRACE IS that Esme doesn’t see which way either of us has gone.
“WALKER! Walker, where are you?” she roars from the fork in the hedge, and just beneath the sound, I can hear Hawthorne pleading, probably reaching for her and trying to talk sense into her friend. But we’re long past sense. Sense doesn’t belong here; that’s a thing of Suburbia.
My heart rate skyrockets as I creep forward, looking back and forth. I whisper, “Saint,” hoping she’s found a path that will double back this way, but there’s no answer.
I scurry along, keeping tight against the walls, hoping maybe Esme will just storm past me, blinded by her rage. And yet, inevitably, her voice and steps grow louder. I can even start to make out Hawthorne’s words.
“…mean anything. Margaret was the only… no more.”
There’s a brief moment of silence, where I think they’re gone, and then I hear Esme’s voice as if she’s right next to me, booming in my ear with its rage: “I have to get this right, Hawthorne. This needs to go right or it’ll all go to shit. I’ll be a failure just like my father—”
“You’re not a failure, Esme. I won’t fail,” Hawthorne promises. “You just need to trust that I know what I’m doing. We can do this.”