Jason allowed her to cry until her grief was spent, and then he offered her a tissue and said abruptly, “Let’s get out of here. I’m buying you a drink.”
Chapter 18 – Allyra
The road was dark and isolated, a scene taken directly from a horror movie. Massive oak trees towered over it on both edges, thick foliage blocking out the pale moonlight. But the road was a little too well maintained, and the patches of lawn between the trees were too perfectly mowed—manicured carpets of green—for it to be a true horror movie. There was nothing run-down about this place, and every little detail screamed money.
The night was still with only a feeble wind brushing through the trees, the sound of it lost to the distant rush and ebb of waves crashing into the shoreline.
“This is where you wanted to get a drink?” Allyra asked incredulously, keeping her voice to a whisper, unable to shake the feeling that they weren’t supposed to be here.
“Just trust me,” Jason replied shortly, striding briskly down the road.
It didn’t build confidence that he too kept his voice to a whisper. As a precaution, Allyra reached out with her Gift but found nothing to suggest they were anything but totally alone—on a deserted road, in the middle of nowhere. Maybe she had stumbled into her own personal version of a horror movie.
“Explain again why we couldn’t have driven down here?”
After an hour of driving from the Elemental College up toward the sparsely populated West Coast, Jason had chosen to stash the car in some bushes a couple of kilometers back.
Jason turned to her with a wicked grin. “Well, we’re not strictly meant to be here.”
Allyra ground to an abrupt halt, and Jason rolled his eyes at her.
“Come on,” he said, “live a little.”
“You said a drink, not trespassing,” she replied scornfully. “And I prefer not to end up in a jail cell.”
The dim light did nothing to hide his exasperated look. “Don’t you ever get tired of following the rules? Don’t you ever just want to throw caution to the wind and taste a little danger?”
“Danger?” The word burst from her lips, her voice lifting in disbelief. “I’m a Competitor in a competition with even odds that I might lose a limb or even die. I just lost a friend in the most horrific manner. Trust me, I’ve tasted more than enough danger to last me a lifetime. I’d prefer to live a boring little life.”
Jason took a deliberate step closer to her, pushing himself into her space. He seemed to come alive in the night—his normally dark eyes glittered, like fire reflected in ebony glass. “You’re lying,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper, a caress in the night. “If that were true, you would’ve run after the Elemental Trials—disappeared into obscurity and normalcy. Gone to have your two point four kids with Jamie in a house with a white picket fence. But instead, you chose to stay.”
“I have my own reasons for staying, and they have nothing to do with being an adrenaline junkie,” Allyra retorted.
Jason shrugged. “Maybe, but I think it’s more than that. I saw it in your eyes today, as you beat Jeong. I saw soaring satisfaction, pleasure in your own power. I think you’ve started to realize that you’ve been asleep for a long time. And you’re finally waking up to a world that’s bigger and more exciting than you ever imagined.”
She lowered her eyes, afraid that he might be right. That beneath the empty grief and horrified anger there was an undertone of pleasure and delight in her newfound power. Which, if true, might be the greatest evil of all. She might argue that she had no real choice but to compete in The Five Finals and given different circumstances she would’ve never chosen to be here. Never chosen The Five Finals. Never chosen to watch her friends die and certainly never chosen to be on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere with Jason. But life, in all its unpredictable and ruthless glory, had changed her. The game had taken a pliant pawn and changed her into something altogether more dangerous. The Allyra from before would’ve been back at the car already. In fact, one look at the dark road, and she would’ve never gotten out of the car. The fact that she was still standing here, considering Jason’s words, meant that he was right—there was a small part of her that had woken to the thrill of danger.
As if he could see her wavering, Jason took hold of her shoulders, determined to win her over. “Give me tonight,” he said, “and I’ll show you what it feels like to truly wake up.”
She was silent for a long time, torn between habitual caution and the sudden exhilarating impulse to leap into the unknown. The choice between socks for Christmas or a mystery box. Even with the knowledge that the mystery box might just contain a mass of slithering snakes ready to leap out, the mystery box won. For one night, she wanted to forget it all, the death, the brutality, the overwhelming guilt. Tonight, she wanted to be free of the responsibility weighing heavily on her. “Fine,” she said, “but if we get caught, I’m blaming it on you.”
“We’re Gifted—if we get caught, it’ll be because we chose to get caught,” Jason replied with characteristic insolence.
A few minutes later, a large, wrought iron gate materialized out of the gloom. Through its rounded designs stood a guardhouse, but like everything else, it appeared deserted.
Jason knelt by the gate and she felt a sudden surge of power from him as he reached for his Gift. With practiced ease, he sent a jolt of electricity down to the motor, and the gate slid open noiselessly.
