Page 12 of The October Trials

They held a gun to his head and made him eat the whole thing anyway. I’m starting to think they know things about us. Our weaknesses. The pressure points they can exploit to push us until we break.

And now it’s my turn.

I flip the card.

A black cat stares up at me, elegantly drawn with glowing green eyes. Beneath it, two words are scrawled in bold: Pussy Cat.

It’s a good illustration, actually. I wouldn’t mind this on a sticker.

I let out a shaky laugh, trying to play it cool even as dread coils in my gut at the realization of what I’ve just flipped. “What, don’t tell me I’m going to have to eat a fucking cat?” It comes out half-joke, half-disbelief, because up until now, the rules have been disgustingly clear. Whatever is on the card gets consumed.

I wait for the laugh from Archon. For the correction. For anything that tells me this is still within the bounds of sanity. It never comes. Instead, the corner of his mouth lifts.

Which is worse than anything else he could’ve freaking done.

“Wait,” I say, voice rising, because my brain finally catches up to my mouth. “I’m not eating a cat, right? That’s… that’s fucked up, even for—”

The rest of the sentence never makes it out. Two guards are behind me before I even register movement. Their hands clamp around my arms, dragging me out of my chair.

“What the fuck! Get off me!”

Fear tightens its grip around my gut, stripping the air of ease until every inhale feels uneven.

I twist. It accomplishes nothing. My heels drag across the stained hardwood, and I look back at the table. Sloane is half out of her chair, Christian’s hand on her arm, pulling her back.

A beat-up leather recliner chair is sitting off to the side like it’s been waiting there for me the entire time.

“I’m not sitting in that—”

I’m sitting in it.

The chair takes my weight with a soft sigh as they force me down. I surge forward immediately, making it halfway to my feet before one of them plants a single hand on my shoulder and forces me back again.

“This is insane,” I blurt to the room, to no one, to whoever is listening. “This is genuinely insane, you know that, right? I haven’t consented to being manhandled.”

“Actually, you did,” Archon says.

My head snaps to him.

“You don’t remember signing the invitation, granting the Legion permission to do anything needed to conduct all six rounds? Perhaps you didn’t read the fine print.”

Signing the invitation? Parker handed me a single card with the address and my contestant number. Did he sign for me? And what was in the God-forsaken fine print?

Suddenly… the room changes.

He’s here. Standing just beyond the edge of the candlelight.

How?

I have been in this room for the last forty minutes, and I know where all three doors are. I counted them, catalogued them. Not a single one of them opened to allow his presence.

He tilts his head slightly, as if studying me.

My pulse kicks harder against my throat. To make it worse, I can’t even see his expression behind the mask. What is he thinking, planning?

He crosses the room without looking at anyone else in it, only me. My fingers curl against the leather armrest until the tips ache.

Don’t.