As we continue on foot through this endless forest of mangroves, Mom peers up at me through her lashes but doesn’t speak. A dull ache forms in my ribs, along with the ghost of a pounding headache. If I don’t find a way out of this stadium soon, the drugs will wear off and render me as helpless as Prunella Broadleaf.
Dappled light streams down through the thick canopy of green leaves, and the cameras embedded in the trunk blink on and off. My throat spasms. Nothing has attacked us for several moments, which means they’re either going to leave us here to starve or drown, or they’re working up to something big.
When I spot Mom glancing at me for what feels like the tenth time, I ask, “What’s wrong?”
“Are you sure the prince loves you?” she murmurs.
“Why do you ask?”
“How could he let something like this happen?” Her brow wrinkles into a frown. “First, the guards and then the abductions, and now this. What kind of leader can’t protect the woman he supposedly loves?”
“It’s complicated,” I say with a sigh.
“Your father—”
“It was different for you when you were marrying Dad. Grandma didn’t wield one percent of Queen Damascena’s power, and she was actually sane.”
Mom purses her lips, but I ignore the disapproval. Some habits are hard to break, but even she can’t deny that this is the most deranged method of rejecting a daughter-in-law.
The lights turn off, encasing us in the dark. My senses become alert. I knew they would do something
“Zea.” Mom grabs my arm. “Stay behind me.”
A tight fist clenches at my chest. She can’t protect me from what’s coming.
“We’ve got to get in the water,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“If Scorpio has heat-seeking goggles, we can escape him by lowering our body temperatures.” Mom inhales a sharp breath, presumably to ask how I would know this, but I speak first. “We don’t have time.”
She grabs my hand, and I grope my way down through the trees and to the water’s edge. It’s cold, but this could be our only means of escape. We link arms and cling onto the roots. I keep the board tucked under one shoulder, and Mom accidentally grazes the shocker’s trigger and sets off a tiny spark. It’s not enough to attract anyone’s attention… I hope.
Leaves rustle overhead, along with the whirr of drone propellers. I slow my breathing and focus. Focus on the sounds beyond the drone and the trees and the stream. Focus on the cold seeping into my heart. Focus on the approaching snap, snap, snap of distant roots.
“He’s coming,” Mom whispers.
I gulp. Scorpio sounds less than twenty feet away.
His growl rolls through my ears, making my heart rate spike, but an idea shoots into my brain. I remove the board from under my arm and hold it inches above the water.
“Put the electroshocker in your mouth and grab my wrist,” I whisper to Mom.
“What?”
“My glider can float.” I inject my voice with confidence. If I’m wrong, we’ll drift for a few feet and get tangled in the roots.
“Zea,” Mom says from between chattering teeth.
Scorpio growls again, only this time, he sounds like an arm’s-length away. I raise my head and meet the flashing lights of his collar.
Mom grabs my wrist, just as Scorpio’s arm smashes the roots. I wrap my fingers around Mom’s arm and launch myself away from the roots and into the current.
Scorpio roars and enters the water with a huge splash. I move our joined hands to the board, Mom releases me, grasps the board, and we both float forward. Our frantic breaths drown out everything except the pulse hammering in my eardrums.
Cold water pummels us from both sides, jerks us up and down, but nothing can stop us.
“I can’t hear him.” Mom’s voice mingles with her gasps.
“His armor is made of some kind of metal,” I say between gasping breaths. “He must have sunk.”
Several minutes pass. We continue through the cold water, around the streams bends and twists until I’ve worked through the painkillers, the strength enhancers, and the mind-altering drugs. Now, I’m just as wretched and wracked with pain as I felt when I awoke. Worse, because Mom’s silent sobs tear through the fibers of my soul.
I’ve never seen or heard her cry, and I want to lash out at everyone, starting with myself. What on earth was I thinking when I agreed to this mission? What on earth possessed me to believe that there would be no repercussions on my family?
Dim lights shine from the distance, making it look like the first rays of sunlight peeking out from the horizon. We drift through a narrow stretch of water flanked by spindly trees with trunks that grow straight out of the water and create no walkways of roots. They’re so densely packed and form an impenetrable canopy over the water that we have no choice but to drift through them.
Whoever is viewing us is probably bored by now, and something else is about to happen.
“Has the challenge finished?” Mom whispers.
My brows furrow, and words dwindle in my throat. They probably didn’t show her Prunella’s execution. My legs drift uselessly in the water as I focus on a less alarming way of presenting the truth.
“I think they’re escalating.”
“Oh.” The resignation in her voice is like a blunt knife to the heart.
As we travel around another bend, a dark figure stands at the edge of the water, backlit by the dim light. A dark figure with a scorpion tail.
“Is that him?” Mom’s voice shakes.
The current pushes us to the left, giving me an inkling of hope. “If we stay in the middle of the water, the stream will bend again, and he won’t reach us.”
“But we’re headed straight for him,” she replies.
Before I can explain, a motor roars into life, and Scorpio rushes toward us.
Mom
